Apple’s entry into entertainment is a major problem for Netflix

Apple (AAPL) may well be the next major company to enter the entertainment industry, as it has made deals with film studio A24 to produce movies and television programming. This also comes after Netflix (NFLX) recently cut Apple out of a setup in which Apple was receiving 15 to 30 percent of subscription revenue for […]

Tax season arrives, partial government shutdown may delay refunds

The partial shutdown of the federal government may delay refunds of income tax payments, but taxes are still due April 15th. In addition, the tax reform enacted in 2018 is now in effect which brings numerous changes for everyone filing. Important things to know as employers begin sending out W-2 and 1099 forms: The standard […]

Recessions and the Skyscraper Curse

One of the many odd incidents of history is, with seemingly only one exception, every time a record-breaking skyscraper is completed, the world economy falls into the depths of a recession. This could easily be dismissed as one of the manifold coincidences that inevitably arise out of dataset as large and with so many players […]

December jobs numbers well above expectations, other indicators send mixed signals

Despite a turbulent stock market and the continued prospect of a full-on trade war, the labor market remains remarkably strong. The job numbers for the final month of 2018 are indicative of this. The economy added 312,000 jobs in December of 2018, within striking distance of doubling the paltry 176,000 projected by economists surveyed by […]

A tribute to airline pioneer Herb Kelleher, dead at 87

Early in the new year, the aviation industry lost one of its brightest and most eccentric stars. Herb Kelleher, the ostentatious and larger-than-life former CEO of Southwest Airlines, died at the age of 87. Kelleher was perhaps more than any other man responsible for democratizing air travel and bringing a Texas-sized personality of fun and […]

Hey radicals, real tax rates were never as high as 70% and they should never get that high

The Democrats now control the House of Representatives, and their more radical members have wasted little time in putting forward a slew of the most progressive policy proposals. At present, the idea receiving the most coverage from talking heads on television and the Twitter accounts at Vox has been freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to […]

The walls around Venezuela’s socialist Maduro regime are crumbling

The White House slammed Venezuela with a new round of sanctions earlier this week, in a move that indicates the U.S. plans to continue its hardliner stance on corruption and human rights abuses committed by members the Maduro regime. These latest penalties are in retaliation for a “currency exchange network scheme,” in which several high […]

US employers created 312,000 jobs in December, nearly double the prediction

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its December 2018 jobs report Friday. It indicated an astronomically high job growth rate, with  312,000 new payrolls added. The number of new jobs is nearly double the prediction of 176,000. The jobs created, which exclude farming jobs, were mainly in “health care, food services and drinking […]

Exploding government debt is a national security issue

One hundred and five percent of GDP: This is the value of the total debt owed by the United States. Put differently, the value of the debt burden owed by the United States government is five percent larger than the total value of all production and consumption in the U.S. economy during the course of […]

CDC says flu cases are on the rise, but what are the costs?

Although the flu is not something most healthy Americans go around worrying about, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning that this year’s flu season could be a brutal one. According to a press release issued just days before Christmas of last year, the flu season was officially declared on December 15, […]