Unemployment, the stock market, plumbing conglomerates, Kmart, SpaceX, and who was Patricia Taylor?
The Numbers
Economic news is taking a back seat to the election, but let’s see what we can dig up.
Weekly Unemployment claims came in below expectations – 241,000 vs. 260,000 expected and 260,000 the week before.
This has stayed with the higher trend lately. At the very beginning of the year, the 4-week average figures were at around 200,000.
The trend continues to increase ever so slightly.
The stock market finished the week at new highs. Again.
Great news for your 401k or 403b. The S&P 500 – Standard & Poor's top 500 stocks listed on stock exchanges in the United States – has increased 23.6% in 2024.
Just for reference, the Dow Jones Industrials – DJI – peaked at 43,275.
The S&P was at 5864 on Friday.
Oh, and gold is up to $2648 per ounce. It was $2063/ounce on January 1. That’s up 28% YTD.
That is due to one of two things. Or both.
Inflation – check.
Drop in the value of the dollar, or investors hedging against a future drop in the value of the dollar.
And what goes up…
Bits & Pieces
The Wall Street Journal polled 66 economists:
They expect lower rates to have the intended effect: faster growth for the rest of the year.
Inflation will continue to cool in the months ahead. They expect the PCE to continue to fall. We’ll find out in about 10 days.
Interest rates will continue to come down with two 0.25% cuts by year-end.
I’m not sure I’d be that optimistic…
Unemployment will remain around 4.2%, with the economy adding 130,000 jobs/month on average.
Your neighborhood plumber may soon be driving a Dodge Ram 1500 TRX. Why?
Private equity firms are buying up HVAC and plumbing businesses and combining them into one company, leveraging efficiencies that the sole prop doesn’t.
As an example, Redwood Services, a private equity-backed company, has acquired 35 companies in the last four years, with purchase prices ranging from $1,000,000 to $20,000,000.
Interestingly, owners usually stay on to be department managers and stay connected to the community without the hassles of running a business.
And we are down to one. Kmart, that is.
Amazingly enough, the last full-size Kmart was in, of all places, the Hamptons in New York.
That one closed yesterday, October 20.
There is still a smaller store in Miami, but the flagship store is now in Guam.
That’s almost the end of an era. The phrase “Attention Kmart shoppers, there is a blue light special in automotive…” will only remain preserved in Wikipedia and movies filmed in Kmart over the years.
Catching a Falling Star
That’s basically what SpaceX did last week.
After launching a test of its Starship, it returned the Super Heavy booster back to earth in a controlled landing.
Not only was it a controlled landing, but it was caught by the same tower from which it was launched earlier.
Folks, it is easier for you to catch a fly with chopsticks than it is to launch a 40-story rocket, separate it, and land the 20-story booster from a supersonic flight to a controlled landing back to the launchpad and be caught by two mechanical arms.
It is an amazing feat of engineering. If you haven’t seen it, go down the YouTube rabbit hole.
Who was Patricia Taylor?
She was born Patricia Elsi Le Hang Gong in 1929 in Australia, one of 11 children from a Chinese family.
She took an early interest in ballet and the violin.
At 18, she hitchhiked across Europe as it was rebuilding from WWII.
She played violin in the University of Queensland orchestras, danced with a local ballet company, and earned a Ph.D. in microbiology at UC Berkeley in the early 1960s.
Oh, and she played in that orchestra too.
It’s also where she met her future husband, Ken Taylor.
He was Canada’s ambassador to Iran in 1979.
Both she and her husband hid two Americans in their home in Tehran for almost three months following the November 4, 1979 takeover of the American Embassy.
Until January 27, 1980, when the Americans made it out of the country, both Taylors went about their normal activities, with Patricia working every day at the Pasteur Institute in Iran, just like it was another day.
On Sundays, all staff would be dismissed so she could cook dinner for the two American refugees in a relaxed atmosphere.
A movie was made about this: Argo. It’s worth watching.
The danger and risk that both of these people took on was extraordinary. Had the Iranians discovered the situation, all involved would have been executed.
Ms. Taylor died in September at the age of 94. A friend called her “A woman of consequence.”
That’s an understatement, at least to two Americans.
I’m not sure many people understand the risks of defying a totalitarian regime like Iran in 1980. Or Iran today. If you did, you were killed. There are many definitions of courage to choose from, but the one I choose today is:
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Last week, I asked you to plant your tree. This week, I’m asking you to have courage over your fears because no matter what they are, the odds are pretty good they pale compared to what the Taylors faced in 1979. Piece of cake, right?
Have a good week!
