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California Utilities

California’s Latest Hustle: Utility Bills Based on Ratepayers’ Income

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Utility bills—for electricity, natural gas, water, and garbage—have by long-standing tradition been based on customer usage, measured in kilowatt-hours of electricity, therms or Btu of natural gas, hundred cubic feet of water, or number of garbage cans. Every residence and business has electric, gas, and water meters that measure utility usage… But what if utilities based their fixed fee on customers’ income levels rather than a flat uniform fee for every customer?

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dollar-hegemony

Is the U.S. Dollar Hegemony Ending?

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The U.S. has been the currency of foreign exchange ever since the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. It did experience a crisis of confidence in the 1970s, but the Nixon / Kissinger deal with Saudi Arabia to create the PetroDollar whereby all oil sales had to be completed in U.S. Dollars (in exchange for military support) recemented the dollar’s prominence for another half-century. But now things are changing. In today’s article, Patrick Barron looks at the current state of Dollar hegemony.

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CPI

How Long Will This Recession Last?

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The most important question for asset prices right now, from stocks to houses to Bitcoin, is whether we’re due for a recession. Last week we got confirmation that according to the traditional definition of a recession – 2 quarters of negative growth – we are already in a recession.
The response from this administration has been denial and word games rather than actually trying to stop the slide. At which point the betting shifts to whether it’ll be a shallow 1991-style recession or a big, 2008-style one, perhaps with a financial crisis to spice things up.

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Ukraine-Russia Map

Will Russian Sanctions Open a Can of Worms?

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The current financial sanctions against Russia are totally unprecedented. Although sanctions have been used against terrorists they have never been used like this against a Sovereign state. The U.S. and its allies have unleashed all sorts of economic sanctions against Russia as we talked about in our article Economic Warfare Deployed Against Russia. But there is a downside to all these sanctions not only against the Russian nation but also against key players within the country. If the U.S. can sanction foreign individuals what could they do to Citizens if they wanted to? 

Although mostly symbolic, Russia has retaliated by placing sanctions against several Americans, including Joe and Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton,  Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. Russia’s foreign ministry also announced sanctions against 313 Canadians including Trudeau. Russia’s move prevents those named from entering Russia and freezes any assets the individuals have there, according to the BBC. 

In addition to putting a massive (but temporary) hurt on Russia, sanctions will also negatively affect many Western Countries, although it won’t be too long before Asian and Middle Eastern countries take up the slack in Russian trade. In today’s article Brendan Brown looks at some of the possible long-term ramifications of these sanctions.~ Tim McMahon, edito

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Global Trade

How Is Technology Affecting Global Trading Markets

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Being able to enter and execute stock trades on a smartphone application is something we can easily take for granted these days, which is amazing simply because this was not even remotely possible a couple of decades ago. Technology has always been at the forefront of innovation in the financial markets; we can’t forget that the stock market we know today as the Nasdaq made its debut in 1971 as the first electronic trading platform open to ordinary investors. Prior to that, all transactions had to be cleared with a personal broker by means of a telephone call. And individual transaction fees were much higher. Prior to May 1, 1975 brokerage commissions were regulated by the government and actually kept artificially high. In those days, buying 100 shares of a blue-chip company could cost $100 or more in commissions.

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Adidas 1967

Why Wearable Brand Merchandise is On Trend

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If you went to any thrift store in the country in the year 2000, and you would have found branded merch galore. In the 1980s, companies realized the benefit of getting customers to prominently promote their products, so they started distributing branded merchandise in huge numbers. 

But back in the 1960’s it would have seemed crude or crass to be a walking billboard unless you were a professional athlete or NASCAR driver. In 1967 Adidas didn’t even have their famous logo on their shoes and new tracksuit and their name certainly wasn’t prominently displayed. At the time they were simply promoting the “3-stripes” design. Adidas introduced its Trefoil logo at the 1972 Olympics. But it wasn’t until much later that flashing the brand name on your clothes became fashionable. 

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