OZY: Our Real Inflation Problem

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Despite these shaky stock markets, some of us are still angling for a shiny new ride — complete with that leather-laden new-car smell. But while you may hear news on the way to the dealership that inflation is still under control, you won’t believe it once a sales rep tells you their full-size American cars will cost you the better part of $40,000.

How can this be, when inflation is supposed to be muted? 

Read more here.

Forbes: Leadership Lessons From The Queen

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Earlier this week Her Majesty the Queen became Britain’s longest reigning monarch. Whether or not you support a monarchy there are things to learn from her, especially if you are in a leadership position.

Since becoming Queen in 1952 at the tender age of 25 she has dedicated her life to serving the people of Britain and the commonwealth. It’s not about her, it’s about what she can do for her people. Read more here.

National Archives and Records Administration , 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: New York $15 Minimum Wage Plan Is Cuomo-omics

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Bad news for everyone who supports free market economics in New York State.

On Thursday New York Governor Andrew Cuomo approved plans for a $15 an hour minimum wage for all the state’s fast food workers. Specifically, it’s for those at large chains, at least for now. But he also says that $15 rate should be the minimum for all workers, state-wide. Unfortunately, he’s wrong.

Here’s why Cuomo-omics makes no sense.

TheStreet: The 1.9 Million Reasons To Eat Out

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Saving a few extra bucks a month might make sense individually, but when everyone penny-pinches together, the consequences can be catastrophic.

How bad?  As many as one in three of the jobs lost in the Great Recession and its aftermath could have been caused by such collective consumer frugality. That's up to 1.85 million more job losses than there would have been otherwise. 

The statistics are examined in a new working paper titled Trading Down and the Business Cycle, published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper states that between 22% and 36% of the jobs lost were because of consumers "trading down," or buying lower quality products and services.

Read more here.

OZY: A Worst-Case Scenario for Stocks — It's Ugly

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Oh, how it hurts to see, U.S. stocks slowly (and sometimes not so slowly) sinking in recent weeks like so many Titanics. And yet, it could be worse. A lot worse. The 2008 financial crisis is the kind of thing you want to just shut out from your mind, a time when the only option seemed to be gallows humor. (The best joke: How your 401(k) retirement, now worth half its value, was only a “201(k)” plan.) Nobody, at least nobody who really understood money, wanted to look at their monthly financial statements. Doing so left a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach.

Thank goodness we’re not living through that again! Or could we be? Fair warning, what some smart observers think may not exactly make your day.

Read more here.

TheStreet: Dumping Energy Stocks Might Cost Harvard $100 Million a Year

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Harvard's $32.7 billion endowment would generate significantly lower returns if climate-change activists convince the university to abandon fossil fuel investments, according to a new study.

Such a strategy might cost more than $100 million a year, according to the report, which was commissioned and financed by the Independent Petroleum Association of America. It examines the effects of divestment on five universities with large endowments and indicates cutting out those stocks would have "material impacts" on the ability of the portfolios to meet schools' funding goals. Read more here.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

WSJ: What Is Tail Risk?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Bank research reports frequently refer to “tail risk” for investors, but it isn’t always clear what it means and what to do about it.

Broadly speaking, a tail risk is an event with a small probability of happening, says Bob Conroy, professor of finance at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. “In every event there are tails; there are really, really good things that can happen and really, really bad things.”

The term comes from looking at the bell curve, or so-called normal distribution of results. The tails of the bell curve extend out to plus or minus infinity with ever-decreasing probabilities. Read more here.