Friday

People like concrete explanations for phenomena.  For instance, virtually daily financial headlines are filled with reasons various markets behaved the way they did that day, up or down.  These explanations are more compelling to readers than something along the lines of  “buyers were more urgent than sellers today, so markets increased after the opposite was true yesterday

America's K-shaped economy continues to be a defining feature of our economic landscape in 2025, highlighting the stark contrast between the resilient upper echelons and the increasingly fragile lower segments of society.

Welcome to Pi Day 2025.  Atlas likes to think of it as a day to reflect on cycles, acknowledging the good and bad times implicit in them.  Pie comes to mind.  At the peak of the pie cycle is the first bite.  The wholesome sweetness has hit your tastebuds, yet most of the pie is still intact.  Then there’s the bottom of the cycle, that point when you realize you at

From time to time, Atlas will look at consumer attitude data.  Recently, the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment release caught our attention.  In particular, inflation expectations made a dramatic move higher.  Those surveyed in February 2025 believe inflation will climb 3.5 percent per year over the next five years.  This is up from 3.2 percent in January and

American households are navigating a complex credit landscape in early 2025 according to releases from the New York Federal Reserve.  Total household debt hit a record $18.04 trillion at the end of 2024, driven largely by credit card balances, which surged to $1.21 trillion.

Tariffs are essentially taxes imposed by a country on goods imported from abroad.  They serve multiple purposes: generating revenue for the government, protecting domestic industries from foreign competition, and sometimes as a tool in trade negotiations.  When a tariff is applied, it increases the cost of imported goods, making them less competitive against domestic products.

Tour guides are useful when exploring unfamiliar territories.  They can help make sure a trip accomplishes desired outcomes while making sure travelers avoid places where calamitous outcomes are more likely.  While they cannot directly prevent spoiled vacations, they help improve the odds that one will be enjoyed.

Growing positivity seems like a good idea most of the time for most people.  While the definition of what is and isn’t positive remains subjective, most would likely agree that there ought to be more of it.  According to this survey from Gallup, there was an uptick of positivity for the first

Greenland has been subjected to an intrusion.  About a billion years ago a tectonic plate was ripped away from a second which allowed magma to flow toward the surface but be sealed by what is now the south-west portion of the autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.  As the magma cooled, a giant rock developed containing 30 of the modern economy’s most desired raw materia

Humans have been competing against machines for a long time.  Take John Henry for instance; he was an African American freedman known for his ability to quickly drive steel into rock, making holes for explosives, blasting the rock to construct railroad tunnels.  As the legend goes, Mr.