Quick Hits Archive 2022

                                                                        Quick Hits Archive 2021        

                                                                        Quick Hits Archive 2020

May 25, 2023

• “Researchers” claim the IRS disproportionately audits black taxpayers.  The IRS does not track filers by race.  The research uses names and addresses for race proxies.

• “Salon makeovers” for goldendoodles can cost up to $250 in Los Angeles.

• Bed Bath & Beyond’s stock is accounting for almost 10% of all volume in the over-the-counter market.  It is still bankrupt.

• One of the largest multifamily landlords with 7,000 units lost 3,000 to foreclosure in April.

• Ford is reversing course and will be installing AM radio in its EVs.

May 18, 2023

• New Jersey and Ohio did not ratify the 14th amendment to the US Constitution until 2003 (they had rescinded their initial ratifications).

• BCA Research thinks there is a 50% chance that AI will “wipe out humanity” by 2050.  He likened it to the spread of the Virus (Fear).

• Peloton is recalling 2mm bikes for faulty seats.

• Silicon Valley Bank paid employee bonuses the day the bank failed.

• Sam Zell, the billionaire real estate investor who just died, made money in high school by selling used Playboy magazines.

• In its report on Zell’s death, Bloomberg highlights his biggest business failure.  He sold his office real estate company for $39b.  He then bought The Tribune company for $8b.  He ultimately lost $300mm when it filed for bankruptcy.  And Bloomberg considers this a bad trade?

May 10, 2023

• 80% of the world’s gum arabic is produced in (the) Sudan.  This acacia tree byproduct is used in Coke, chocolate, and red wine among other consumer products.

• The University of Alabama head baseball coach has been fired for allegedly betting against his team.

• A little league in New Jersey is forcing any unruly parents to be an umpire for three games if they wish to continue attending games.

• Carthusian monks created and are still the only ones that can produce the liqueur chartreuse (the recipe is a secret).

• The color chartreuse is named after the drink.

• Sony’s first product was a rice cooker.

• Foot traffic in US downtowns was down about 25% in April vs 2019.

• A record $412mm was wagered on the Kentucky Derby (full program).

• The Wall Street Journal is the first public voice pointing out the absurdity of companies asking for tips at self-checkout machines.

• A Lehigh University professor who wrote a book on tipping says that tips collected by machines do not have to be 100% distributed to employees as otherwise would be the case in manually collected tips.

• Robert De Niro, 79 years old, has seven kids ranging in age from 51 to a new born. 

• A plate of nachos (served four) in a suite at the Miami F1 Grand Prix cost $275.

May 3, 2023

• Argentina hiked interest rates to 91%.

• New York state has a new law banning gas stoves in new buildings.

• Nordstrom is closing down its San Francisco stores after 35 years.

• During the Knicks-Heats broadcast, ABC showed footage of the NYC skyline.  It had the twin towers still present.  (This is not a conspiracy theory of any kind, we just are not sure why they would use such old, stock footage.)

• A catholic missionary who visited Houston in 1848 said, “Houston is a wretched little town…infested with Methodists and ants.”

• The DOJ won its first case of prosecuting insider trading on NFTs.  (Remember Non Fungible Tokens?  Another form of fake money.  We do, however, believe they could serve a real purpose especially in the art world.)

April 26, 2023

• No Canadian hockey team has won the Stanley Cup in 30 years.  Even the CBC cannot make up a stat to disguise 0-for-30.

• 16,000 Americans still live in (the) Sudan.

• On April 2, the NY Times said it would not pay Twitter for verified status.  The NYT is now the sheepishly proud owner of a verified check mark.

• The Global Times, the communist-run media in China, has changed its Twitter description from “China’s national…newspaper” to “The largest newspaper in China.”

• The percentage of new cars that sell for under $25k has dropped from 24% in 2018 to 4% today.

• California is proceeding with its plan to price utilities based on consumers’s income and not actual utility usage.

• Bed Bath & Beyond sold 622mm shares of common stock after warning the market that it might be bankrupt.  After the legion of meme-fools bought this stock to which the proceeds explicitly went to pay down debt, the company officially filed bankruptcy.  We will see if BBBY tries to sell stock now (Hertz tried and was shut down by the courts).

• Venezuelan oil auctions have been rigged for the last 15 years.  In other news, dog bites man.

• The first player ever selected in the NFL draft decided to be a foam rubber salesman instead.  (Not to be confused with being a latex salesman!)

April 19, 2023

• Budweiser had a perfect score on the “Corporate Equality Index” before this latest marketing campaign.

• The Texas Rangers are going to extend beer sales by an inning given the quick pace of games (after the 8th inning or after two and half hours of game time).

• A “tech executive” has been arrested for murdering the creator of Square’s Cash App in San Francisco.  Apparently the two had shared a taxicab just before the murder.

• NPR is “quitting Twitter” because it objects to the label “government-funded media.” 

• On the NPR website, it reads, “Federal funding is essential to public radio’s service to the American public.”

• The same man invented Cheetos and Fritos.

• McDonalds is changing their buns and grill tops.

• Netflix is still in the business of delivering DVDs by mail (until September of this year when it will cease).

• A US Appeals court has struck down Berkeley, California’s ban on new natural gas installations for houses.

• Germany shut down its last three nuclear reactors hours before Finland opened its latest nuclear power plant.

• EV car makers are going to stop putting AM radios in their cars.

April 12, 2023

• Chipotle successfully sued Sweetgreens to force it to change the name of its Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl.

• The BBC and NPR are protesting Twitter’s labeling these media outlets as “state-affliated” or “government funded.”

• 1.3mm Americans have top-secret security clearance.

• One of the secrets to Chick Fil A is it uses much smaller birds than the traditional chicken sandwich places (4lbs birds vs almost 8lbs.).

• The average number of parking spaces per 1,000 sq feet of new US office construction has fallen by almost 40% in the last 20 years.

• Atlanta’s airport is still the busiest in the world with a 28% lead in millions of passenger miles over #2 DFW.

• The Whole Foods in downtown San Francisco has been closed out of safety concerns for its workers.

• Walmart is closing four of its eight stores in Chicago because of “underperformance.”  None of the stores have ever turned a profit since they first opened 17 years ago.

• An insider trading scheme involving SPACs has bene uncovered.  The Alleged tipper was paid by the tippee with private jet flights and luxury vacations.  These guys must have never seen Goodfellas.

April 4, 2023

• Zimbabwe has run out of currency coins, so businesses are using handwritten notes and slices of cheese.

• Zimbabwe’s annual CPI has “collapsed” in 2023 compared to 2020:  from 850% to 230%.

• The average home renovation now takes 79 days up from 22 days in 2019.

• Stanford has 10,000 administrators for only 17,000 students (including 9,500 grad students).

• The head of Saudi National Bank has been shown the door after his bad investment in Credit Suisse went to zero (basically) thanks to his comments about not willing to put more money in the bank.

• The Ontario Mathematics Coordinators Association thinks the math truth “2+2=4” to be an act of “covert white supremacy.”

• March Madness Final Four ticket prices dropped 45% once Texas was eliminated.  Some tickets for the championship game are going for $75.

• Before Credit Suisse collapsed into UBS, it had plans to spin off its investment bank using the old name First Boston (we worked there for a short stint back in the day).  CS was going to pay one of its directors $175mm to combine his company with the CS investment company.  This director even got a $10mm advisory fee for coming up with the deal.  This is better than the owner of the ‘Skins getting paid $10mm to put the team’s logo on his personal jet.

• The Swiss government is going to investigate the UBS takeover of CS which was put together by the Swiss government.

• McDonald’s is forcing all its corporate employees to work from home this week so it can execute layoffs virtually.

March 23, 2023

• A report by the Philadelphia Inquirer alleges that six longtime members of the Phillies baseball team died from cancer caused by the turf in the old Veterans Stadium.

• (The) Ukraine exported 190k tons of sunflower seeds in January vs 4k tons last January.

• In this week’s What Would We Do Without Academics, researchers have determined that using robots is bad for the employment of low-skilled workers.

• Stripe, one of the last remaining “unicorns” in the private market, recently raised $3.5b to help pay off the tax burden incurred by its employees who have vested shares but are unable to sell them.

• The daughter of a sanctioned Syrian spy chief has been working in a UN office in Damascus.

• The WWE (wrestling) is in talks with state regulators (Colorado and Michigan) about allowing gambling on its fake/fixed matches.

• Crazy Cathie Wood, aka the Woodchipper, has collected more than $300mm in fees while taking the chipper to $10b in investor money.

• Here’s a WSJ headline:  “Thomas Lee, Private Equity Pioneer, Struggled to Reprise Early Successes.”  He died with a wealth estimated at over $2b.

• Fannie Mae, which underwrites about 40% of all US residential mortgages, has a chief climate officer.

• A radioactive capsule weighing 55 pounds went missing in Thailand.

• Some of the nickel that JP Morgan owned in a LME vault turned out to be bags of worthless rocks.

• Failed Credit Suisse was the leader in originating “debt for nature swaps.”  Third world countries can refinance some of their external sovereign debt in exchange for climate and nature pledges.  What could go wrong.

• There are roughly $17trillion worth of bank deposits in the US.  Over $10trillion of this is not insured.  The FDIC has about $130b in its coffers.

March 7, 2023

• Moderna explained that its Q4 revenues dropped 30% because of lower demand for its products.  (Sounds like something Musk who mutter.)

• A morning newsletter from Bloomberg is sponsored by the country of Georgia’s tourism board.

• FedEx has warned its drivers not to draw “obscene or offensive markings” on packages.

• Punxsutawney Phil has a 39% success rate in predicting the duration of winter.

• The price for sending a shipping container box from China to Los Angeles has dropped from $15,600 a year ago to $1,238 now.

• The Dallas Jackals are a professional sports team.

• The owner of the Washington Redskins charged the team $4.5mm to put the team logo on his private jet.  It was deemed an “advertising fee.”  The Skins have minority owners.

• There are two new ETFs that track Jim Cramer.  One is long his recommendations.  One is short his recommendations.

• Ford had a Model T in 1941 that was made of hemp and ran on biofuels.

• Cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA are now legal drugs in British Colombia, Canada.

• Four academics have published research telling us that long stretches of low interest rates can increase the odds of a financial crisis.  Generalissimo Franco is, indeed, still dead.

• The cost of a monkey used in science has jumped from $2,500 before the Virus Fear to over $30,000 today.

• The media now refers to monkeys as “nonhuman primates.”

Feb 22, 2023

• The NBA dunk contest, which still somehow exists, had a G-league player participating.

• The dunk contest has not had a player from the all-star game participate in six years.

• The oldest restaurant in Fort Worth is closing because a judge invalidated a perpetual lease signed with the landlord.

• Monday’s holiday is officially named Washington’s Birthday not President’s Day.

• AbbVie is being sued in the Netherlands for “breaching human rights” over drug pricing.

Feb 15, 2023

• Webber (the grill maker) blamed its 42% drop in sales on “higher customer inventory levels.”

• Lisa Marie Presley’s estate shows that the lone Elvis heir was highly indebted while spending $92k per month for living expenses.  Somehow her ownership of Graceland and 15% of the Elvis catalogue and NIL was not enough to support her lifestyle.

Feb 8, 2023

• Super Bowl ads will generate over $500mm for Fox.  The average for a 30 second spot is over $6mm.  Some spots have sold for over $7mm.  No crypto ads this year.  But we will be on the lookout for the dumbest use of money.

• The Council on Environmental Quality, a policy board serving the president, has instituted new guidance.  It includes a few vaguely worded provisions including:  “Agencies should incorporate environmental justice considerations into their analyses of climate related effects.”

• Why is the Save button still a floppy disk icon?

• Two bank robbers in Vegas went on a spree heisting nine banks in 20 days.  They got away with…$6100.

• The WSJ reports that the UK’s National Health Services, its socialist medical system, “is in crisis.”  As a friendly reminder, we have been saying this for years.  When Mrs. Chalk Creek gave birth to our son in London, we were given the good news that if she were to die, the cost of the delivery and hospital stay would be free.  Oh, what a relief.

Feb 1, 2023

• Microsoft’s 10% intraday swing last week was equivalent to the entire company’s market cap as recently as 2012.

• Morgan Stanley is fining some of its employees as much as $1mm for doing business on WhatsApp.

• MSG, the owner of Madison Square Garden, the Knicks, and the Rangers (of NY not Texas), has been using facial recognition technology to bar lawyers that are suing the company from entering the venue.

• The high school son of Lebron James, Bronny, makes $7.5mm a year in endorsements (NIL).

• A food delivery guy walked onto the court during a Loyola-Duquesne college basketball game.  He was delivering McDonald’s.  He literally walked on the court aimlessly during play.

• Ammonia prices in the US are benchmarked to the Tampa contract.

• While doing some regulatory upkeep on the FINRA website, we came across this, “FINRA has adopted important changes…to train registered persons…particularly women and underrepresented minorities…”

• Northwestern Christian has a college basketball player with one arm.

• There is a new study on ESG funds.  The more money the managers of the fund have in the ESG fund, the  worse the ESG score.  ESG fund managers, as a whole, do not believe in their own product.  The defense is that these ESG hucksters believe in a different definition of ESG and thus do not adhere to the benchmarked ESG portfolio.

• ESPN is going to start broadcasting pickleball.

• Consumers spend about $6b a year globally on dating apps.

• There are 50mm Catholics in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

• When the fancy, new artificial intelligence wizbot, ChatGPT, was asked to construct a portfolio to beat the market, it answered, “It is not possible for me to design an ETF that will beat the US stock market because the stock market is unpredictable and part performance does not guarantee future results.” 

• A member of the San Francisco city council (or its equivalent) is saying that the proposed $5mm reparations payment to black residents is “miniscule.”

• The long Island Railroad misspelled Georgia O’Keeffe’s name on the wall of luminary quotes.

Jan 25, 2023

• Dictators exaggerate their countries’s growth rates by about 35% a year.  The research is based on night-time light activity gathered from satellites.

• Estimates for the total cost of that San Francisco reparations package we recently detailed are around $100b.

• An NFL bettor wagered $1.4mm to win $11,200 when the Chargers were up 27-0 on the Jaguars. 

• An employee of a video game maker was fired for tweeting that she was looking forward to the next Harry Potter game.

• Half of food delivery customers make less than $49k per year.

• Hamburgers are the second most delivered food after pizza (14% vs 16%).

Jan 18, 2023

• 60% of US propane production is exported.

• Natural gas prices in California recently have been 5x the national price ($20 per mm/BTU vs $4).

• JP Morgan is suing a company it acquired for fraud.  The company, Frank, purported to have 4.5mm customers in its database.  Email records show that it had 400k emails, and it manufactured another 4mm fake email addresses.

• USC, UCSF, UTSA, and Johns Hopkins are all being investigated for racial discrimination at their medical schools.  Violations of civil rights laws include offering stipends and scholarships only to non-whites and excluding whites from certain classes.

• The report that stoked the not-dead-yet proposal to ban gas stoves was funded by an environmental group that has the goal to reduce “greenhouse-gas” emissions by 50% in seven years.  The report claimed gas stoves give children asthma.

• The Inflation Reduction Act subsidizes the purchase of electric stoves.

• 6,542 guns were confiscated at TSA checkpoints in 2022.  Almost 90% of them were loaded.  No word on Barry Switzer.

• The National Hockey League has changed its Pathway to Hockey summit in Florida by removing the minority-only qualifications.

• The city of San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee is proposing to pay black residents $5mm (each).  Recipients must meet two of eight criteria including having been incarcerated by the “failed War on Drugs.”

​Jan 11, 2023

• China and Afghanistan (Taliban govt) are close to signing an oil exploration deal.

• A Wells Fargo executive has been fired for urinating on a passenger on a flight to India.

• Gerard Finneran still holds the crown for the most outlandish plane behavior.

• The parent of a disgruntled men’s World Cup soccer player for the US decided to dig up dirt on the coach that benched the player.  The mom, who was friends with the coach 31 years ago, said she saw the coach kick his girlfriend in the leg.  That coach and girlfriend have been married for 25 years.

• ChatGPT is looking to raise money at a $29b valuation.

• The US government is considering banning gas stoves (this already appears to be fading).

• The city of Seattle is suing some social media companies for intentionally harming children.

• The president of Mexico, AMLO, took 28 minutes to answer a single question at a press conference alongside Biden and Trudeau.

Jan 5, 2023

• “it’s a Wonderful Life” is a Christmas television staple because the producers let the copyright lapse so it entered the public domain (it could be shown on continuous loops for free).

• The 2022 Armed Forces Bowl was the coldest bowl game ever with a wind chill of -7.

• The 1967 Icebowl between the Packers and the Cowboys had a windchill of -36.

• There is a crypto-themed restaurant in Manhattan.

• The average NFL viewership on Christmas day was 22.9mm.  The average for the NBA games was 4.3mm.

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Quick Hits Archive 2022

Quick Hits Archive 2021

Quick Hits Archive 2020

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