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☆ Private Equity Is Pouring Billions of Dollars Into Restaurants. Yikes.
▼ + stars: | 2024-12-12 | by ( Corey Mintz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

Between 2009 and 2018, the number of fast-casual restaurants in America doubled, while sales have nearly tripled. When the gravy train stops, fast-casual restaurants are going to be in trouble. To understand why private equity is pouring money into restaurants, we have to start with the appeal of the fast-casual model. The limited menu enables both fast-food and fast-casual restaurants to be efficient, keep costs down, and avoid losses from food waste and labor. Because a lot of the weaker players have been weeded out," Susskind says about fast-casual restaurants.

Persons: Charles Grodin, Robert DeNiro, I've, Blackstone, Cava, Alex M, Susskind, that's, Chris Macksey, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones —, Tracy Goh, Damaran Sara, Goh, Talia Berman, Levy, Berman, Moshe Batalion, Thomas Crosby, Crosby, they've, It's Organizations: Sycamore Partners, Bowls, Lobster, Taco Bell, Cornell University, Prix Fixe, Nabisco, Darden, Investment, RioCan, Independent, Pal's, Harvard, University of Chicago's Booth School, Business, Cornell, Rubio's, Mill, Capital Locations: Jersey, America, Manhattan, Taco, Olive, Cava, San Francisco, New York's, Tennessee, Florida, United States, California

☆ Elon Musk's promise of an 'epic' leaderboard of 'dumb' government spending reveals his marketing savvy
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-13 | by ( Geoff Weiss | Grace Eliza Goodwin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Elon Musk says a leaderboard of "dumb" government spending will expose waste — and he wants your two cents. The Tesla CEO said this week that he planned to post a public "leaderboard for the most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars." While the effectiveness of Musk's leaderboard remains to be seen, experts told Business Insider it showed his marketing savvy — even if it could also encourage "gotcha" moments that need more context. Especially in a dry realm such as government spending, Musk's plans are bound to grab eyeballs — and perhaps make people feel more invested in the outcome. She said there was some precedent for Musk's leaderboard, noting that former Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, issued the "Golden Fleece Award" for wasteful spending throughout the 1970s and '80s via monthly press releases.

Persons: Elon Musk, —, Musk, Donald Trump's, DOGE —, he's, Vivek Ramaswamy, Natalie Andreas, Austin who's, Ayelet, didn't, Musk's, Andreas, Karen North, Clinton, Sen, William Proxmire, It's, screwworms —, Amy Jo Kim, Kim Organizations: Service, Department of Government, University of Texas, Austin, University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, Journalism, Stanford Locations: Wisconsin

☆ The Cost of a Psychic Is a Window Into Americans' Spending Habits
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-30 | by ( Emily Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

For $25, which wound up being $30 because she didn't have change, Jessica told me my fortune. That psychic is also a pet psychic, which is not Katy's jam. Once, after an accident on her block in Chicago, Katy used a psychic to ensure the person had crossed over. Another time, she bought a bunch of bath oils in New York after a psychic told her she was cursed. In a consumerist society, of course some people are willing to pay to commune with the afterlife.

Persons: I'm, Jessica, IBISWorld, upselling, It's, that's, spellwork, Lisa Stardust, who's, Neil Dagnall, Ken Drinkwater, Dagnall, Drinkwater, —, Jane Risen, Risen, it's, what's, they're, Cleo, Peter Popoff, they'd, Ralph Lewis, There's, we're, Lewis, I've, Katy who's, Katy, Taylor Swift, Emily Stewart Organizations: Pew Research Center, what's, Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, Federal Trade Commission, intel, University of Toronto, Business Locations: Manhattan, New York, Chicago

☆ Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election shortfall leaves Wall Street scrambling
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-05 | by ( Seema Mody | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures, at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in New Delhi, India, June 4, 2024. Over the past several years, chief executives from some of the biggest companies in the United States have invested time and money into relationships with Modi, as they set their sights on the Indian market. Modi's economic agendaModi's failure to secure a supermajority for his party also raises new questions about the Modi government's broader economic agenda. Now, one of the labor laws that Modi's government had intended to reform may not get implemented, because Modi's party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, no longer holds an outright majority in Parliament. Supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) holding cut-outs of India's Prime Minister a Narendra Modi during an election campaign rally in Amritsar on May 30, 2024.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Adnan Abidi, Garre, Modi, Pramit Chaudhuri, Rahul Sharma, Shafer Cullen, Sharma, Chaudhuri, Raghuram Rajan, Rajan, Narinder Nanu Organizations: Indian, Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Reuters, Bernstein, GE Aerospace, Apple, Nvidia, CNBC, Modi, Coalition, Asia Society's, Reserve Bank of India, University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, Bharatiya Janta Party, India's, Afp, Getty Locations: New Delhi, India, United States, China, Asia, Asia Society's India, Eurasia, Amritsar

☆ Sales, spins and splits — what are the differences and why do they matter for investors like us?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +20 min

Investors may get one share in the spun-out entity for every share of the parent company they owned. What's left of J & J will be focused on pharmaceuticals and medical technologies, which were responsible for over 84% of the company's total 2022 revenue of $94.94 billion. It underscores that once free of the parent company tethers a divested company can chart its own destiny. Those priorities may not have necessarily been wrong when considering J & J as the overall enterprise. We believe J & J and Danaher are poised to deliver two more examples.

Her comments were echoed by others who feel the narrative shared by three top central banks of relatively cost-free disinflation rests on shaky ground. Among the Fed, ECB and BoE, only the British central bank projects a recession will be needed to slow inflation - only a mild one at that. U.S. central bank officials have split the difference, projecting a modest one-percentage-point rise in the unemployment rate this year from its near-historic low of 3.5%, and slow, but continued, economic growth. Martins Kazaks, Latvia's central bank chief, said the risk of a recession was still "non-trivial," with a host of factors still putting pressure on prices. For the Fed, different policymakers offer different ideas about the forces that will lower inflation as high interest rates slowly cool demand.

WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is set to again slow the pace of its interest rate increases at a Jan. 31-Feb. 1 policy meeting while also signaling that its battle against inflation is far from over. Throughout last year, the Fed's rapid series of rate hikes were announced in a statement that also promised "ongoing increases" until rates were "sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2%." Fed officials were surprised in 2021 by the persistence of inflation that at one point was more than triple their 2% target. The unemployment rate is currently 3.5%, a level seen only rarely since World War Two. "Thus, I anticipate the need for further rate increases."

[1/3] Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard speaks at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., January 19, 2023. In addition, she said the full impact of last year's aggressive Fed interest rate increases has yet to be felt. "It remains possible that a continued moderation in aggregate demand could facilitate continued easing in the labor market and reduction in inflation without a significant loss of employment," Brainard said. Even as the Fed parses the progress it has made on inflation, she said it would "stay the course." "Even with the recent moderation, inflation remains high, and policy will need to be sufficiently restrictive for some time to make sure inflation returns to 2 percent on a sustained basis," Brainard said.

The Fed raised its benchmark overnight interest rate rapidly last year, from near-zero in March to the current 4.25%-4.50% range, to restrain inflation that climbed to 40-year highs. In December, Fed policymakers as a group signaled the policy rate will need to rise to at least 5.1%; financial markets, meanwhile, are pricing for the Fed to stop just short of 5%. But she did appear to ratify market expectations for the Fed's upcoming rate hike to be a quarter-of-a-percentage-point, a downshift from December's half-point rate hike and from the four 75-basis-point rate hikes that preceded. "Recent data suggests slightly better prospects that we could see continued disinflation in the context of moderate growth," Brainard said. Even as the Fed parses the progress it has made on inflation, she said it would "stay the course."

☆ Need motivation for 2023? Here are three ideas from scientists and coaches on how to make it your best work year yet.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Rebecca Knight | Shana Lebowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Use the fresh slate of a new year as an excuse to rev your motivation. We scoured Insider's trove of content for the best tips, tricks, and strategies to rev up your motivation at work in 2023. Gabriele Oettingen, a psychology professor at New York University and the University of Hamburg, calls it "WOOPing." Fishbach, the author of "Get It Done: Surprising Lessons From the Science of Motivation," told Insider. Knapp and Zeratsky helped set up the design-sprint process at Google, so they know a thing or two about time management.

☆ Economist Austan Goolsbee named next Chicago Fed president
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Economist Austan Goolsbee will take over as president of the Chicago Federal Reserve early next year as the central bank weighs critical policy moves ahead, according to an announcement Thursday. "Austan is an exceptional choice to be the next president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Goolsbee comes to the Chicago Fed at a sensitive time for the central bank. A Chicago Fed release announcing the appointment said the new district president is "a leading empirical economist" whose research spans a wide variety of topics. Goolsbee called the Chicago Fed "one of the crown jewels" of the central bank system.

☆ The newest Nobel-winning economist lays out 2 reasons the US is 'really exposed' to a financial crisis
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-16 | by ( Ben Winck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Two trends risk slamming the US financial system, Douglas Diamond, one of the latest Nobel-winning economists, told Insider. Years of near-zero interest rates leave firms "really exposed" to surging borrowing costs, he added. Yet the coronavirus crisis and the following inflation spell have thrown the financial system into a sea of uncertainty. "With that circumstance, when you actually raise interest rates in a hurry, you're going to be really exposed. Interest rate increases also make companies' debt much pricier to service, which in turn raises the risk of bankruptcy.

☆ Holiday bargains will dent retail profits. How investors can avoid taking a beating
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Stifel's research found that consumers plan to spend 9% more this holiday season over 2021. Roughly three-quarters of respondents to a PwC holiday poll indicated they plan to spend the same or more this holiday season. Rather than marking down inventory, companies should hold on to it for the next year if their balance sheets can withstand it, said Siegel. Across the board, many flagship retail stores heavily focused on apparel and footwear like Kohl's and Macy's may struggle to lure customers intent on saving money on discretionary purchases. He points to names heavily focused on electronics and home goods purchased by consumers during the pandemic as one of the weaker areas this holiday season.

When the enslaved population was first freed, the Freedman's Bank was established to provide a savings and wealth-building tool. Black bank customers lost millions in deposits. When Freedman's Bank closedA short nine years after opening, the Freedman's Bank closed in 1874. The Freedman's Bank collapse destroyed Black people's trust in financial systemsMy grandmother had a bank account. In short, in the African American community, the Freedman's Bank collapse is to finance what the Tuskegee experiments are to healthcare.

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