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In a major victory for common sense, a group of cosmetologists defeated an insanely stupid regulation passed down by the state of Louisiana. Louisiana, just like the other 49 states in the Land of the Free, governs licensing requirements for dozens… hundreds of professions… ranging from athletic trainers to tour guides to barbers
Like a lot of major cities in the United States, Philadelphia is in pretty rough financial condition. One of the city’s biggest problems is its woefully underfunded public pension, which has a multi-billion dollar funding gap. In 2001, Philadelphia’s pension fund was still in decent shape with a funding level of 77%, meaning
As you you’ve no doubt seen by now, shares of Facebook plunged around 19% this morning. In fact it was down as much as 25% in after-hours trading, wiping out $120 billion of wealth in a matter of minutes. To be clear, that is the largest single-day loss of value ever seen in
Yesterday the Office of Management and Budget released a new report called the “Mid-Session Review” of the US federal budget. It’s something they’re required by law to do– periodically review and update the government’s budget and track the changes. The last government budget update was released in February. And according to the February
Over the weekend I came across a recent speech given by hedge fund billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller that really lays out the pitiful state of free markets around the world. Druckenmiller gave the speech a few months ago upon receiving the 2018 Alexander Hamilton award– which is given to a figure that best carries
It was only a few day ago that Netflix was riding high. The streaming company had been nominated for a whopping 112 Emmy awards, more than any other network. And they’d further managed to unseat HBO’s 17-year reign as the undisputed king of Emmy nominations. That’s all fine and good. Netflix certainly has
About two and a half years ago, I told you about a particularly nasty piece of legislation that President Obama quietly signed into law towards the end of his administration. They called it the “FAST Act”, which stood for Fixing America’s Surface Transportation. Yet despite $300 billion earmarked for infrastructure repairs, they didn’t
We’ve spent a lot of time in our regular conversations talking about the looming retirement crisis around the world. The data is horrific. Pension and Social Security programs in nearly every developed nation are woefully underfunded. In the United States, senior government officials including the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor,
Exactly ten years ago, in the middle of the summer of 2008, the world was only two months away from the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. At the time, the size of the US economy as measured by Gross Domestic product was around $14.8 trillion– by far the largest in
Today I just wanted to send you a quick note to highlight a great example of a company that’s using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to solve a real-world problem. I thought this would be important given that most of the noise in the crypto space these days is still almost invariably focused on
On March 29, 1879, a widely circulated newspaper called the American Register published a scathing editorial stating that “it is doubtful if electricity will ever be [widely] used” because it was too expensive to generate. Several months later, the Select Committee on Lighting and Electricity in the British House of Commons held hearings
What I’m about to tell you is a true story that highlights just how pathetic the banking system has become. A few months ago I was presented with a compelling opportunity to invest with a prominent, well-established private business based in the UK. And, after extensive due diligence, I decided to make the
It’s considered the worst merger in history. Back in January 2000, AOL bought Time Warner for $162 billion, which was considered an astonishing amount of money back then. Their goal was to create a tech/media giant. And they failed miserably. Time Warner was having a difficult time establishing an online presence, so they
In the year 6 AD, the Roman emperor Augustus set up a special trust fund known as the aerarium militare, or military treasury, to fund retirement pensions for Rome’s legionnaires. Now, these military pensions had already existed for several centuries in Rome. But the money to pay them had always been mixed together
By the time Louis XIV passed away in 1715, seven decades of his absurd extravagance had nearly bankrupted France. His reign was marked by constant warfare and the most excessive spending imaginable, from opulent palaces (including Versailles) to a costly welfare state– public hospitals, parks, monuments, museums. Louis XIV had turned France into
