In the past election, politicians often painted the economy in 2 different ways – one was reasonably good, the other was not good. It seems both were correct, it dependent on where you were in the income spectrum.

In an article by Christopher Rugaber of the Associated Press, why? despite higher prices, have Americans kept spending at retail stores and restaurants at a robust pace?

One of the key reasons is wealthier consumers boosted by strong gains in income, home equity and the stock market have been spending more of their money.

The Federal Reserve suggests if that consumer spending, the primary driver of the American economy, could help sustain healthy growth this year and next.

Lower-income families have been disproportionately squeezed by higher rent, groceries and other necessities leaving them with less disposable income than before the pandemic.

The Federal Reserve noted inflation-adjusted-spending rose 3% in 2022 and 2.5% in 2023. For the quarter between April and June, spending was up 2.8%.

The Federal Reserve reported the value of housing increased 70% from the first quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2024 to $17.6 trillion. Stock market and mutual funds increased 86% to $37 trillion.

One sign of struggles for the lower-income consumers is the proportion of borrowers who are behind on credit cards or auto loans have risen in the past 2 years to the highest level in a decade.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, anyone who owns some will have more disposable income that is very good position to be in. In the economy, it is always very good to have choices and for monetary choices they often come over the long term. Investing allows compound interest to take care of the gains and as your wealth increased, hopefully you had managed your spending expectations. Many financial planners will tell clients at some point you can spend if you want to, rather than not spend, there are many ways to spend, but it is harder to earn. In all economies there are conflicting stories and with dividends you can decided to reinvest, buy something else or take the money out of the market to spend elsewhere and those are good choices to have.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In general terms, you will read or hear, stay away from investments in the publishing world because of the continuing changes from physical to digital assets. However, in every industry it seems someone is figuring it out better than others. That is the good and your homework involves determining which company is figuring it out.

In an article by Benjamin Mullin and Lareen Hirsch of the New York Times News Service, Axel Springer, the owner of Politico, Business Insider and a portfolio of German newspapers with split into 2 companies. Mathias Dopfner and Friede Springer will assume control of the media properties. Axel Springer biggest outside investors KKR and CPP Investments will take control of the company’s classified advertising business.

The deal values all of Axel Springer at $15 billion and the company’s publishing assets worth $4 billion.

Mr. Dopfner has ambition to turn Axel Springer from an influential German newspaper publisher to a global media conglomerate. With the split, he can move towards more acquisitions.

The advertising properties include Stepstone, an online jobs board and Aviv, a digital real estate company.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in investing people often treat industries with the same brush stroke, but that is not necessarily true. It makes good sound bites, but by doing your homework you can find out what companies actually are profit generators that can pay dividends. They are doing something others are not and finding them will help generate wealth for you.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In the real estate market, the tag line of location, location and location is often seen because it is true. Where you are matters. In many communities some areas tend to be more stable than others, it the city, because of government buildings, there tends to be more stability than in areas with few government buildings. The same thing it is for work. Most of us believe that education is a path towards higher incomes and often times higher incomes are paid in larger cities, which means moving to larger cities to try to access those larger incomes. Then COVID happened and companies changed procedures to allow people to work from home. But where is home? could it be anywhere that stable internet is found? in some cases yes.

In an article by Emma Goldberg of the New York Times News Service, business leaders and local officials in Tulsa, Oklahoma puzzled for years how to fill the openings as people left Tulsa to go to either coastal cities? What would keep professionals in Tulsa?

The short answer is money. A local foundation the George Kaiser Family Foundation offered $10,000 to remote workers willing to move to Tulsa for at least a year. It has been paid to 3,300 people. This has led to other cities such as Topeka, Kansas; Savannah, Georgia; and West Virginia and northwest Arkansas to duplicate the efforts.

A study was done to find out if it was a good investment for Tulsa? A survey of 1,248 people found that the average person saved $25,000 on annual housing costs (cheaper rent or can buy a bigger house for rent in the big cities); the state brought in more annual income tax revenue and more sales tax revenue.

Why is this a good thing. In Tulsa, there are a number of colleges and universities including University of Tusla; Oklahoma State University (OSU) Tulsa; Oral Roberts University. but over 1,000 people that were college-educated were leaving the area than staying.

Remote workers has jumped from 4% of the country’s workers to 43% in the spring of 2020. The good news for Tulsa is that nearly 3/4’s of the people have stayed longer than one year. Some of them have been thinking Tulsa will be home for a long time. (The foundation has said it will continue to fund Tulsa Remote for the foreseeable future)

Linking to dividend paying stocks, initially many decisions are tied to money. Can you keep more of it and make more? then other factors will influence other decisions and all things equal, money while important is not the sole reason. You can think it is great to invest in a company to make money, but if you could make the same money and be within your values what is the better investment? only you will know the answer.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

For every industry, there are benchmarks because they give you a reasonable snapshot of what is going on. The benchmarks allow you to formulate a theory and other data allows you to determine if the theory is good. If the theory is good, you can make decisions to do something or nothing and sometimes doing nothing is a good thing. A benchmark in the countries which consumers led the economy is how are luxury sales doing?

In an article by Mimosa Spencer and Dominique Patton of Reuters, French luxury giant LVMH reported a 3% fall in 3rd quarter sales.

The world’s largest luxury group generated $28.6 billion in revenue for the 3 months ending in September, a 3% fall on organic growth. The consensus was 2% growth cited by Barclays.

Fashion and leather goods comprise about half of LVMH revenue and 3/4’s of its recurring profit. The group is home to brands such as Louis Vuitton and Dior reported a sales decline of 5%.

In Asia, excluding Japan, of which China is the main market, the sales decline was a 16% slide from a 14% drop in the prior quarter. In Japan, growth slowed to 20% from a 57% jump the previous quarter.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, those that tend to shop for luxury goods tend to have the highest disposable income, if they are shopping less, then either the economy is not doing as well or they are preserving the income for something else because they expect the economy not to do as well in the future. This is why benchmarks are wonderful snippets, but they need further information to determine if the theory is correct, doing your homework is required.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

We are undergoing a shift in how the world buys a vehicle. When the horseless carriage was invented there were a number of ways it could have gone. People tried steam, they tried battery or electric, but the technology at the time was the internal combustion engine. The horseless carriage replaced the horse and carriage for a number of reasons including thousands of horses walking around cities meant the streets were full of manure. A car meant cleaner streets and the choices that were made influenced how the normal family lived and worked. Years later, the public discovered a downside of a car meant pollution from automobiles and there has been efforts to change that. One effort is electric cars, but the profit per vehicle is less than the internal combustion engine or until costs to produce electric fall to the internal combustion model, automakers are hesitant to change. China which did not have many vehicles until recently, the government went all investments in electric vehicles. At present, because many of the investments in the infrastructure to build electric was done by the government, the producers who put the cars together have relatively low costs. In America, the government prefers the industry to put in the investments. The fact of the low costs means both European Countries or the European Union and the US want to impose tariffs on Chinese made electric cars to push the price.

In an article by Eric Reguly of the Globe and Mail, in the recent election in the US many politicians talked about manufacturing jobs. It is the same in Europe and the country of Hungary welcome Chinese investments. The second largest city in Hungary is Debrecen and a new $7.3 billion CATL battery plant is being built. CATL stands for Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd and the plant of 9,000 workers will supply batteries for more than 1 million electric vehicles.

Hungary is led by Prime Minister Victor Orban and his government courts both Chinese and Russian investments as well as being active in NATO which is helping Ukraine fight Russia.

The US imposed a 100% tariff on imported Chinese EVs, effectively eliminating the low-cost models from the market. (in China it is possible to buy an EV for $10,000 as a commuter vehicle).

In Hungary, the government welcomes investments from EV manufacturing including CATL, Eve Energy, Sunwoda, Samsung SDI, and SK Innovation.

Originally, VW, BMW and Mercedes welcomed the Hungarian battery plants and Mercedes will be the largest customer of the CATL batteries.

BYD, which overtook Tesla to be the largest maker of EVs, measured by unit sales, announced it will build a plant in Szeged located in southern Hungary. It will be the European Union’s (EU) first Chinese=owned EV assembly plant and its products will be sold tariff-free across the EU’s 27 member countries.

For Hungary, foreign investment was over $15 billion. For the auto industry in Europe, question marks are high. Prime Minister Orban wishes to be in the world’s top 5 battery makers.

For Chinese EV companies, the land in Hungary is relatively cheap, as is labor and energy. In addition, Hungary offered subsidies of $2.5 billion.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, sometimes countries use tariffs to protect the companies within its borders and that can be a good thing, in the past and likely in the future using tariffs have been election issues. However, when the foreign company builds a factory in the country to get around the tariffs, is that good politically? economically? will the local politicians now try to protect the foreign company and its domestic workers. Often times, profitable companies have and can have longer term horizons, politicians tend to have short term horizons and longer term tends to win out in the end.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

Most people look at the weather forecast whether it is their app on the phone, watching the Weather Network, listening to the weather forecast when they wake up on the radio or TV, knowing the weather forecast is important. For the insurance industry, when the forecaster says it will nice that is music to the ears of the insurance company. Ideally in the insurance world you want few claims and many people paying their insurance. If the law or the bank requires you buy insurance, the insurance company feels that much better.

In an article by Emily Flitter of the New York Times News Service, the cost of hurricane season weighs heavily on the insurance industry. Things were going well, hurricane season was manageable, then Hurricanes Helene and Milton came calling.

Sridhar Manyem, an analyst for insurance ratings agency AM Best, noted while it is early, estimates of Hurricane damage costs will be in the $200 billion range. In the early stage of a storm, analysts look to past hurricanes and add onto what is seen and expected costs to get a number.

If the storm is too expensive for insurers, it will have a knock-on for customers. It will give the insurance companies a reason to either raise rates or stop selling policies in the certain areas. If a house has damage, the insurance companies are very picky on what caused the damage. If it was wind, then likely to be covered. If it was water, then likely not to be covered.

If the damage is flooding, then the number one insurer is a creature of the government called National Flood Insurance Program, which provides 2/3’s of all flood insurance coverage in the US.

The program is plagued with problems and owes $20 billion to the US Treasury. In normal circumstances this means insurance rates need to be increased. However, that would make insurance unaffordable to the people who need to buy flood insurance in order to keep their mortgages.

Similar to every industry in the marketplace, small insurers that are poorly managed or have concentrated business too narrowly, they could collapse under the weight of claims from storms. It was noted, since 2021, nine property and casualty insurers have gone bankrupt in Florida.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while the overall economy is dominated by small and medium sized business, there are many large businesses that are profitable and can pay dividends on a yearly basis. Sometimes being large means a diversification of cash flows which helps the company through all the crisis which occur. Companies till have to well managed and execute on their business plan, but size can help. In private business, the rule of thumb is the company can have the customer it wants or does not want, in government, the organization is expected to appeal to everyone, not participating in an area is good for the company. If you were a consumer, you might have a different opinion, but the health of the company is why you invest and you like nice days.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

There is a term called hiding in plain site and it refers to people have a desire both to private and public, social media has made it much easier to be public. But many people while they do not wish to share all their lives on social media, often show highlights particularly if they travel. This is a good thing, but depending on their positions can lead investors to try to determine what is the next step.

In an article by Debra Kamin, Steve Eder and Ben Protess of the News York Times News Service, the Trump organization has been actively seeking to license hotel properties in Israel with the Trump name.

The organization through Eric Trump examined two sites that are high profile and excellent location. The first property is not far from the Israeli Supreme Court and Prime Minister’s office being a former site of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Trump Organization was looking at a luxury hotel. The other site was near the headquarters of the Israeli military and will have the most rooms in the country when construction is completed.

The sites are owned by the Nitsba Group and the Trump organization would join a partnership with the Group to lease the hotel. The Nitsba’s hotel includes the Haleom Hotel in Jerusalem with 400 guest rooms and in Tel Aviv, the Sarona Hotel with 880 rooms.

While the hotel in Washington was sold, the Trump organization has put its name on a new tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and was hoping to establish a hotel in Dubai, UAE.

Eric Trump’s visit to Israel has reported in Israeli publications. As well he was interviewed for a New York based magazine aimed at the Jewish community.

In addition, there are posts on social media. Eric Trump stayed at the Dan Tel Aviv Hotel. He met executives from the Nitsba Group and toured at least 4 hotel properties owned by the firm. Then he went to Eliat, a Red Sea beach town and toured the Princess hotel and posed for pictures with the Mayor and the owners of Lockwood real estate. Ultimately Eric passed on the Princess deal.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in all deals there is a connection of the dots. Sometimes social media makes it easier, although if you were negotiating you would likely think about being more private. However, people are social and they like to get out and tell the world they are still here which means you can see hints in social media which are sitting in the open. Likely in the months to come, AI will make it easier to do research, but being able to connect the dots will still involve doing your homework.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In cities across America, it is not unusual for a building to come down as a higher and better use takes its place. Often times the building is a few stories, but sometimes larger and many cities like to keep part of the old as a facade to allow for those on the street level to adapt to the new building. However in some cities, particularly in Las Vegas, they turn an implosion into a spectacle.

In an article by Rio Yamat of the Associated Press, the hotel known as the Tropicana Las Vegas was demolished complete with a fireworks display.

The last hotel to be imploded was the Riveira was levelled for a convention center expansion. This time, the Tropicana was imploded for space for the new Oakland A’s major league baseball team to build a stadium as it relocates to Las Vegas. The baseball stadium is expected to cost $1.5 billion.

If you have ever watched movies starring Frank Sinatra who was the one of the most popular singers in America, he was friends with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop and the group was known as the Rat Pack. They often performed in Las Vegas including the Tropicana. Part of the history of Las Vegas is after Fidel Castro took over Cuba, the mob needed a place to wash its money, and the laws of Nevada allowed gambling. The mob and Teamsters poured money into the strip including the Flamingo and Tropicana. The Tropicana was once known as the Tiffany of the Strip including having a million-dollar green-and-amber stained-glass ceiling.

Times have changed and now most of the large hotels are owned by companies you can buy shares in. Las Vegas is a tourist town, and if you watch sports, people travel to various cities to watch their team perform. Watching the highlights of a NFL game between the Steelers and Raiders game in Vegas, there were lots of yellow towels in the audience or likely Steelers fans who made the easy trip to Vegas.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, things change, sometimes slowly but things do change. While it is important to remember the past, learn from it, and move forward. While the basic interaction of people does not change, how they do and where they do it can. People use different tools and when the tools change, how money is made, changes. Companies which adapt to change are ones you want to hold for a long time.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

Every government in the world loves to encourage value added enterprises to enhance the economy. All countries have something that allows for people to maintain a livelihood, the next step is some sort of manufacturing process and people in general can move from subsistence to middle income living. That is a good thing and governments around the world encourage it with incentives. Often a company says we agree with the government and launches an ability to match the government incentive.

In an article from Reuters, governments around the world have recognized the weather is changing and something needs to be done to change the forecasts. Many governments have encouraged electric vehicles which use less fossil fuels, one of the governments which agreed was Sweden.

In Sweden there is a company called Northvolt Group which is in the battery business and they agreed with the government. The production of batteries was a natural extension for the company and they set up the Northvolt Expansion AB unit to build batteries at its gigafactory in northern Sweden. The company raised money from VW, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock and all was good until it was not.

The company said the Northvolt Expansion AB has filed for bankruptcy owing between $264 to $396 million dollars or between 2 and 3 billion Swedish krona.

Europe was disappointed as Northvolt Expansion AB was Europe’s best shot at a homegrown electric-vehicle battery champion. The company cited production problems, sluggish demand and competition from China.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, sometimes the most profitable companies because they are profitable have a connection to governments and the government suggests they should expand and do what the government would like. Government subsidies and encouragement are offered and accepted to lower the risk to the company, but the wonderful supply and demand charts of introduction to economics still apply. No demand, company loses money. Just because they are homegrown, does anyone want to pay more? Moving into markets with government assistance can be worthwhile it can also be expensive to shareholders.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.