General

Arizona’s economic performance has been strong and as stated previously the outlook is very promising. In November, Arizona became just the third state to recover all jobs lost during the early months of the pandemic. The latest monthly employment report shows Arizona’s unemployment rate at 3.3%, and lower than the national rate of 3.6%.… Read More »State Performance

Counterfeit goods are big business. Shoes, clothing, handbags, electronics: While trading items infringing on international intellectual property laws is illegal, the corresponding market has been bustling over the last couple of years. According to data from the Global Trade in Fakes report by the OECD and EUIPO, trading with counterfeit goods amounted to roughly… Read More »Fake Goods

With Musk’s purchase of Twitter he used a leveraged buyout. The chart below from Statista is a good explanation of how this works. What Is a Leveraged Buyout? A leveraged buyout (LBO) is the acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (bonds or loans) to meet… Read More »Leveraged Buyout

Despite the dramatic deflation of SPAC-mania in recent months — and a downturn in the broader market — some SPACs are still announcing new mergers, Axios’ Kia Kokalitcheva writes. Why it matters: The SPAC category’s demise has been heavily predicted by skeptics of the model, but it hasn’t quite happened… Read More »Merger Activity

We are slowing moving back to pre pandemic employment percentage. The labor force participation rate — the share of the adult population either working or looking for work — has not quite recovered from pre-pandemic levels. A new paper sheds light on one factor behind the shortfall: substance abuse, Emily… Read More »Not Everyone Is Working

The music industry has always been a giant only the medium has changed over the years, from the street corner to the streaming services. Money is to be made in creating content, however real money is created in marketing and distributing someone one else’s content. Deezer is going public via… Read More »Music Streaming Market Share

The number of unsolicited texts and calls are, now is a good time to stay vigilant. You’re not going crazy: You are getting slammed with more annoying spam calls — and now annoying texts on your cell phone — than at any point in the history of these devices. Why it matters:… Read More »Scam Surge

With so many people locked into a very favorable mortgage rate, it may not make financial sense for them to sell. My first house loan had a rate of 6%. Nine out of ten American mortgages carry an interest rate of less than 5%, the official level at which most… Read More »Mortgages and Mortgage Rates