Sand production has become uneconomical as the costs of its inputs have risen faster than its saleable value. Kenza Bryan reports in Financial Times: The rising cost of a grain of sand is inflating the price of materials such as glass and cement even as energy bills flatten out, highlighting its importance for everything from jam jars to global infrastructure projects. Sand is the world’s most used natural material, mainly in construction and in fracking for oil and gas, as well as some industrial processes such as memory chips owing to its high quartz content. Sand is the primary raw … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2023
Your Survival Guy is Hopelessly Devoted to You
Your Survival Guy’s been prepping like any other crazed parent of college-aged children: for the day when school’s out for summer. This, unlike any other summer when the kids were little and lived upstairs full time, is different. A lot different. They’ve been away, living on their own, for eight months or so. During that time, Your Survival Guy and Your Survival Gal did the light lifting of dishes for two, enjoyed quiet evenings streaming what our little hearts desired, walked our dog like the spoiled child he’s become. And it was all rather nice. And then, two cars full of stuff arrived … [Read more...]
PRICE OVER VOLUME: The Strategy Frustrating the Fed
The Federal Reserve is working to rein in inflation, but its efforts are being frustrated by companies also looking to achieve their own goals by prioritizing the price they charge for their products over the volumes they sell. Bloomberg reports: Companies from automakers to hoteliers keep on sacrificing sales volume – sometimes by design, sometimes by necessity – in favor of higher prices, a dynamic that will test the Federal Reserve’s efforts to rein in inflation. The latest set of earnings showed that businesses aren’t likely to walk away from a strategy Corbu LLC’s Samuel Rines calls … [Read more...]
Emergency Food Prep You Might Actually Enjoy Eating
One of the problems with emergency food prep is the thought that someday you might have to eat it. Your Survival Guy keeps an MRE package on his bookshelf as a daily reminder. You just don’t know what’s going to happen. Period. But enough of that dire end of the world zombie apocalypse talk. In a conversation with a client last week, he told me they’re building FIFO shelves. Your Survival Guy remembers FIFO, first in first out, from his accounting days at Babson. Who knew it would come in handy for a real-life situation? A couple of weeks ago, I was studying a can of tuna (a … [Read more...]
The First Victim of the AI Revolution?
Chegg, an online education company run by former Yahoo! executive Dan Rosensweig announced that its performance has been hampered by students using Chat GPT instead of Chegg's services. Richard Waters reports in the Financial Times: Dan Rosensweig has been around the tech industry long enough to recognise an important platform shift when he sees one. As chief operating officer of Yahoo, he held one of the top posts in the consumer internet when the iPhone launched the mobile computing revolution. This week, Rosensweig found himself in the middle of another tech upheaval. Online education … [Read more...]
Flocks of Mopeds, Living Well, Houston We Have Starlink
You speak. Your Survival Guy listens. Because there are plenty of you out there—the fairly wealthy and highly successful—who’ve won the war. You’ve saved ‘til it hurt. Now you have something to show for it. And it’s time to have some fun. In my meetings with you and in our regular talks, I hear about the wonderful careers you had or are wrapping up (note to self: work for as long as you can). You know the names of customers, patients, clients, and co-workers, many of whom you helped along the way. You helped educate them, for example, about the road less traveled. The path of living well … [Read more...]
Goldman Sachs Being Probed Over Silicon Valley Bank Collapse
The SEC and US prosecutors are investigating the role of Goldman Sachs in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Joshua Franklin reports in the Financial Times: Goldman Sachs’ work for Silicon Valley Bank is being reviewed as part of government investigations into the tech-focused bank’s collapse in March, the Wall Street bank disclosed on Thursday. Goldman has been criticised for its dual role with SVB, both as a buyer of $21bn in securities sold by the California-based lender and as an adviser on a failed equity raise for the bank days before SVB failed. The bank said it was … [Read more...]
Your Survival Guy and Warren Buffett Love Dividends
Your Survival Guy loves dividends, as does Mr. Buffett. The key divergence from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway stock is that Your Survival Guy likes getting paid on a regular basis with a tax-favored dividend payout. Berkshire, though, doesn’t pay out a dividend to shareholders. Akane Otani writes in The Wall Street Journal: What has made Warren Buffett’s stock portfolio so successful over time? One answer is an uncanny knack for picking good businesses. Another, according to Mr. Buffett, is something more understated: an appreciation of dividend-paying stocks. Dividend stocks … [Read more...]
Wall Street Regretting Bet on Online Retail Aggregators
Wall Street firms bet big on online retail aggregators during the pandemic, but now some firms are regretting their entrance into the market. Spencer Soper reports: During the pandemic, Wall Street banks and private equity firms invested billions of dollars in startups rolling up popular brands sold on Amazon.com Inc. The bet was that these upstarts, fueled by an online sales boom, would become the next consumer product conglomerates — like Procter & Gamble or Unilever. Then the pandemic ended, consumers returned to the stores, and Amazon’s sales growth cratered — erasing almost half … [Read more...]
Estate, Wealth Planning: Everything I Know About Horses
Your Survival Guy was speaking with a long-time client the other day. He’s an expert on all things animals. One day, a friend of his said he should meet her dad. Dad was in his early 90s and made a fortune as a racehorse breeder. She thought they’d hit it off because of my client’s interests, and they did. When they were all in the father’s den having coffee, he asked my client, “Has she told you about my book?” “No, she hasn’t,” my client said. “Honey,” he said. “Would you mind grabbing it for me?” Handing the leather-bound book to her dad, he blew off the dust and handed it to my … [Read more...]