Government and KPIs – Closing Bull Sept. 17th, 2021

Quick Summary:

Government and Key performance indicators

Key News This Week:

House Democrats proposed a plan to raise up to $2.9T in tax dollars over the next 10 years

What is hyperinflation?  Consumer prices rose at a slower pace in August

Elon Musk’s space company made history after its all-civilian mission launched from Cape Canaveral

Speaking of Elon, a carmaker is beating him to the punch

The U.S. Census Bureau reported poverty fell to 9.1 percent in 2020

Back from Extinction

Speaking of Climate change

Read the Transcript

Welcome to my financial markets re-cap for the week.

I’m John Bannan, from Comhlatech.com.  

Before we get to the news, a quick update on the system. We closed a trade earlier in the week and it was a bit of a mixed trade, we made money on the S&P 500, but had a tiny nick on the Nasdaq. Bit of a wash really, overall we actually made some money.

If you have been watching the markets this week, there has been quite a pullback going on, I have been discussing the expectation for this for a few weeks now. 

I believe there will be more downsides coming next week before we see a relief rally later in the week. That’s my 2 cents, but I am very happy for the Comhla members for not being in this mess, we will be in a new trade soon, and hopefully, it will be even lower for us!

I am very excited about October to December this year, we have some big trades coming in the forecast, so watch this space.

So that was the system update, what was the news this week?

This week House Democrats proposed a plan to raise up to $2.9T in tax dollars over the next 10 years, the biggest tax hike in decades.

The goal of course is to help pay for Biden’s ambitious $3.5T plan to expand America’s social safety net and combat climate change. Lawmakers plan to vote very soon on the proposals.

SpaceX. Elon Musk’s space company made history after its all-civilian mission launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

This year, the space race among billionaires has taken off with Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos going head to head.

Now, this mission (dubbed Inspiration4) sent four ‘regular’ people into orbit. Including a physician assistant (and cancer survivor), a geoscientist, and a US Air Force veteran. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who purchased the flight to help raise money for childhood cancer, is leading the crew.

They will be flying higher than the International Space Station – the farthest any human has gone from Earth since 2009. 

Pretty cool stuff.  I’ll love to go to space, hopefully, the cost will come down a lot over the next decade so we can all have a go!

So Elon has made another first in the space tourism race, but another car maker is beating him to the punch on electric trucks. Earlier this week, Rivian produced the first electric truck that will actually end up in customers’ driveways — competitors like Tesla, Ford, and GM merely unveiled prototypes. 

Tesla and Ford are lagging a little behind and won’t start production until next year.

In other news, the U.S. Census Bureau reported poverty fell to 9.1 percent in 2020 after accounting for all the government aid — the lowest rate on record and a significant decline from 11.8 percent in 2019.

Nearly 8.5 million people were lifted out of poverty last year, an unprecedented change in a single year that was largely attributed to the stimulus payments.

Poverty in the United States is defined as a family of four living on less than about $26,250 a year.  The question is what happens after the stimulus ends?

In climate change news, a new report has found that since the 2015 signing of the Paris agreement, more than 75% of the world’s planned coal plant projects have been scrapped, and 44 countries have no future coal plans whatsoever, so that’s a major win for the environment.

And speaking of the environment and sustainable investing, Harvard announced its officially ending investment ties to fossil fuels after years of pressure from students, staff, and climate activists.

Harvard’s $42B endowment fund is the largest of any school in the US — and is bigger than roughly half of the world’s economies. Crazy!  Why do they even charge students fees good grief!

This is a fun piece of news, you’ve never seen a woolly mammoth because they went extinct about 10,000 years ago. But what if we could “de-extinct” them?

Well, a startup called Colossal, co-founded by Harvard Medical School genetics professor Dr. George Church, aims to bring a version of the animal back to the Arctic within a decade.

Large herbivores in the artic actually helped slow climate change apparently, through slowing permafrost thaw in the tundra by removing trees and trampling moss, so this is one of the reasons for the project. 

And speaking of climate change, a recent research result showed that more than 45% of young people surveyed across 10 countries said climate change caused them anxiety and affected their daily lives. 56% said they thought humanity was doomed. So bring on the woolly mammoths I say, just stop there though…no carnivores ok, we have all seen the movie.

That’s it from me, it’s the weekend, time to down tools, have a great weekend and thanks for watching, take care and bye for now.