Economic & Business News

[El_Machinae]

The majority of real property (or the claim on real property) is owned by the truly rich in the US, so the climate benefit will mostly go into their pocket. Though this is also probably one of those areas where there is 'trickle down'. Larger harvests mean more food, after all.

And the vast majority of benefit from emissions comes from the creation thereof. What's the ratio, 10:1? 20:1? The economic benefit of burning the next barrel will dwarf the externalities for quite some time. The risk is the lack of a pivot, the shuttling of the burning wealth upwards, and the lack of compensation for negative externalities. Well, and the massive geopolitical risk of the ultra-rich (and their well-off underlyings) grinding the desperately poor into deeper poverty.

One really easy way to reduce the economic damage is to move poor people into the affected areas. Just think, a large community of poor people could have their individual $20k homes destroyed instead of a much smaller community of rich people with $20 million homes ... it's a fraction of the GDP damage!

 

[Birdjaguar]

Consumers Can Say ‘No’ to Gas Prices

One of the things that makes high gasoline prices so difficult for families is that, unlike something like a TV that has shot up in price, they have no option but to pay. But with the increased ability to work from home the pandemic has brought on, that isn’t as true as it was in the past. Although the evidence is preliminary, it looks as if many Americans might have responded to the jump in gasoline prices by reducing trips to work. It is a development that could have far-reaching repercussions that softens price volatility, pushing people’s gasoline bills lower than they otherwise would have been while putting a cap on oil producers’ and refiners’ sky-high margins.

Most Americans drive to work, and the expense adds up: Commuting- fuel use accounts for around 30% of gasoline consumption, according to a report from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas economist Garrett Golding. Moreover, while people have always had some flexibility when it comes to their commutes— they can start carpooling or learn the local bus route—in the short run the options are limited. That is a big reason gasoline prices are considered relatively inelastic versus many other items: When prices go up, demand goes down only so much.

But many workers’ newfound ability to work from home at least some of the time changes the equation. When pump prices seem onerous, somebody who has been driving to work three days a week could decide to go in for just two days, for example. That might be happening. A census survey conducted over the 13 days ended April 11, when regular gasoline averaged about $4.13 a gallon, showed an estimated 67.3 million people worked from home at least once a week. In a survey conducted over the 13 days ended June 13, when a gallon averaged $4.94, the estimated number of people working from home at least once rose to 69.7 million.
Over the four weeks ended July 8, implied motor-gasoline demand averaged 8.7 million barrels a day, down 8% from the same period last year, according to data from the U. S. Energy Information Administration. Three months earlier, implied gasoline demand had been just 2.3% below year-earlier levels.

Finally, it looks as if people are driving less. Data from the California Department of Transportation show the total number of miles traveled on California highways on weekday mornings in June, excluding truck traffic, was down 0.5% from a year earlier. That decline is particularly notable considering that, as of May, employment in California was 5.4% higher than in June of last year. Of course it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much of the commuting decline is due to more people getting sick from Covid-19 versus those

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who are experiencing sticker shock from fuel prices. The latest variant— BA.5—is highly contagious, and more than 100,000 new Covid-19 cases are being reported each day. The actual number could be much higher since many people test at home. Data from Kastle Systems shows that office occupancy has recovered in fits and starts since the nadir seen in April 2020, with large dips corresponding to waves of Covid-19. Nevertheless, Christopher Knittel, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who has conducted research on consumer responses to gasoline-price changes, thinks the option to work from home has probably led to more price elasticity. That should reduce price volatility and, all else being equal, lowers prices as well.

“It’s not much consolation for people paying $5 now, but what it tells us is the price spike would have been even higher,” he says. At the same time, consumers generally seem to have become more sensitive to gasoline prices, says energy economist Philip Verleger. He calculates that before 2000, spending on motor fuels as a share of total consumer spending almost doubled when gasoline prices doubled. In recent years, that effect has been halved such that a doubling of gasoline prices would yield just a 50% increase in motor-fuels spending. For oil producers and refiners, more price-sensitive consumers could affect their investment plans. Many are already baking in a lot of caution. The oil market historically had both inelastic supply and demand. In much the way fracking was the technological revolution that made it possible for oil supply to be more elastic, the adoption of hybrid work today could radically change the equation for demand.
—Justin Lahart and Jinjoo Lee

 

[EnglishEdward]

In Norwich where I live, there is a vast growth in the number of electric scooters.

I wonder if the Californian Department of Transportation includes their usage in its figures.

 

[Samson]

Consumers Can Say ‘No’ to Gas Prices

One of the things that makes high gasoline prices so difficult for families is that, unlike something like a TV that has shot up in price, they have no option but to pay. But with the increased ability to work from home the pandemic has brought on, that isn’t as true as it was in the past. Although the evidence is preliminary, it looks as if many Americans might have responded to the jump in gasoline prices by reducing trips to work. It is a development that could have far-reaching repercussions that softens price volatility, pushing people’s gasoline bills lower than they otherwise would have been while putting a cap on oil producers’ and refiners’ sky-high margins.

Most Americans drive to work, and the expense adds up: Commuting- fuel use accounts for around 30% of gasoline consumption, according to a report from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas economist Garrett Golding. Moreover, while people have always had some flexibility when it comes to their commutes— they can start carpooling or learn the local bus route—in the short run the options are limited. That is a big reason gasoline prices are considered relatively inelastic versus many other items: When prices go up, demand goes down only so much.

But many workers’ newfound ability to work from home at least some of the time changes the equation. When pump prices seem onerous, somebody who has been driving to work three days a week could decide to go in for just two days, for example. That might be happening. A census survey conducted over the 13 days ended April 11, when regular gasoline averaged about $4.13 a gallon, showed an estimated 67.3 million people worked from home at least once a week. In a survey conducted over the 13 days ended June 13, when a gallon averaged $4.94, the estimated number of people working from home at least once rose to 69.7 million.
Over the four weeks ended July 8, implied motor-gasoline demand averaged 8.7 million barrels a day, down 8% from the same period last year, according to data from the U. S. Energy Information Administration. Three months earlier, implied gasoline demand had been just 2.3% below year-earlier levels.

Finally, it looks as if people are driving less. Data from the California Department of Transportation show the total number of miles traveled on California highways on weekday mornings in June, excluding truck traffic, was down 0.5% from a year earlier. That decline is particularly notable considering that, as of May, employment in California was 5.4% higher than in June of last year. Of course it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much of the commuting decline is due to more people getting sick from Covid-19 versus those

']http://ereader.wsj.net/eebrowser/ipad/html5.check.22033014/ajax-request.php?action=loadImage&pSetup=wallstreetjournal&type=printImage&issue=20220719&filename=eVlERldUNmxMdXphblRqb29ON0h3Wmxtb05hT0JkZ2c1S0FvVU9YOXRmVjVxNWV0SHkranZjZXJvYTY5OThCTWNGRjVTUExwU1FodTRXeXQzWHJ6M3pUS2xWMk94TVEvN25zeDNPa1NCYWc9&images=pag_4_0,204,139,181,1160-0 &medDpi=199&pageW=497&pageH=338[/IMG][/URL]

who are experiencing sticker shock from fuel prices. The latest variant— BA.5—is highly contagious, and more than 100,000 new Covid-19 cases are being reported each day. The actual number could be much higher since many people test at home. Data from Kastle Systems shows that office occupancy has recovered in fits and starts since the nadir seen in April 2020, with large dips corresponding to waves of Covid-19. Nevertheless, Christopher Knittel, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who has conducted research on consumer responses to gasoline-price changes, thinks the option to work from home has probably led to more price elasticity. That should reduce price volatility and, all else being equal, lowers prices as well.

“It’s not much consolation for people paying $5 now, but what it tells us is the price spike would have been even higher,” he says. At the same time, consumers generally seem to have become more sensitive to gasoline prices, says energy economist Philip Verleger. He calculates that before 2000, spending on motor fuels as a share of total consumer spending almost doubled when gasoline prices doubled. In recent years, that effect has been halved such that a doubling of gasoline prices would yield just a 50% increase in motor-fuels spending. For oil producers and refiners, more price-sensitive consumers could affect their investment plans. Many are already baking in a lot of caution. The oil market historically had both inelastic supply and demand. In much the way fracking was the technological revolution that made it possible for oil supply to be more elastic, the adoption of hybrid work today could radically change the equation for demand.
—Justin Lahart and Jinjoo Lee

Also yesterday I saw this article, talking about how ford is introducing their new vehicle, the “fastest, most powerful, most extreme high-performance off-road desert Raptor yet.” Sure, the solution to high fuel prices is working from home and buying a 2 tonne pickup for when you do need to commute, rather than buying a 80 MPG small car like the rest of the world.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Sick of subscriptions? Heated seats in cars the latest cost to test consumers' limits​

BMW won't charge a monthly fee for the feature in Canada, though businesses love subscriptions​

A nicely warmed leather seat in a luxury automobile is how many BMW owners imagine their driving experience on a cold winter road.

But if those drivers live in the United Kingdom or South Korea, they may have to pay monthly for the experience of heated buttocks — among other features.

The luxury car manufacturer has introduced monthly charges in those markets to activate heated seats in their vehicles, along with features such as traffic camera alerts or driving assistance.

While BMW is not bringing the practice to Canada or the United States for heated seats yet, it's sparked questions about whether the business model is changing for how consumers pay for goods that were traditionally one-time purchases.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/subscription-services-heated-seats-bmw-1.6527939

 

[Grendeldef]

The luxury car manufacturer has introduced monthly charges in those markets to activate heated seats in their vehicles, along with features such as traffic camera alerts or driving assistance.​

This is flying mammal excrement crazy path to start with but I assume in the future I can only buy the first & the last pages of a book to see if the butler did it before committing to the whole whodoneit business.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Consumers Keep Cannabis on Shrinking Shopping Lists

Early signs are that cannabis is still on consumers’ shopping lists, even as inflation hurts their wallets. But pot growers will struggle to match the impressive pricing power of other sin stocks like tobacco.
The U.S. cannabis market has been through downturns before, just never as a legal industry. Colorado, the first state to allow adult-use cannabis sales, launched only in 2014. If marijuana companies can show that demand for their products is as steady and reliable as for tobacco or alcohol in a recession, share prices could get a much-needed boost. The AdvisorShares Pure Cannabis ETF that tracks a basket of U.S. pot stocks is down 53% this year compared with the flat performance of the S& P consumer-staples index.

Three big U.S. cannabis growers that have operations in several states all reported better second-quarter sales than analysts were expecting. Curaleaf , Green Thumb Industries and Trulieve grew sales 8%, 15% and 49%, respectively, in the three months through June compared with the same period of last year. Overall demand looks healthy, although inflation is starting to influence buying patterns at cannabis stores. The companies said shoppers are purchasing more often but in smaller quantities. Curaleaf thinks this shows buying is becoming tied to the paycheck cycle—arguably a sign that pot is a priority purchase for some consumers. But GTI said shoppers are trading down to cheaper cannabis brands as incomes are squeezed. Big cigarette companies—including Marlboro’s maker, Altria—face the same trend, although liquor companies like Casamigos tequila owner Diageo have yet to see any trading down in the U.S. market.

Cannabis sales should get a boost into next year as more states lift restrictions. New Jersey sold $24 million of cannabis in the first 30 days after it legalized adult-use sales in late April. In New York, legal sales
are expected to begin in 2023. Even without an end to federal prohibition, analysts at Cowen expect the cannabis industry to grow 11.6% annually over the next five years. However, pot stocks don’t have good pricing power at the moment. In states where cannabis has been legal for a long time such as California and Oregon, prices are falling. This makes pot one of the few consumer categories that is in deflation. In Colorado, a gram of cannabis flower was 36% cheaper in July compared with the same month of 2021, according to data provider Headset.

This is mainly due to oversupply that is forcing wholesalers to cut their prices. Regulations make the problem worse. As cannabis remains federally outlawed, everything that is sold in a legal state must be grown and consumed within its borders. When there is a bumper harvest, excess inventory can’t be shifted over state lines to other parts of the country to smooth out supply. While lower prices will make cannabis affordable relative to other consumer goods, it will be hard for marijuana growers to protect their profit margins from inflation in their own cost base. Demand for cannabis might prove surprisingly healthy even as the economy weakens, but the ability to raise prices as much as tobacco or alcohol companies do is a pipe dream for now.
—Carol Ryan

 

[Birdjaguar]

Founder Gives Away Patagonia

“It’s been nearly 50 years since we began our experiment in responsible business, and we are just getting started,” said Mr. Chouinard, a world-class mountain climber who started importing rugby shirts and other apparel in the 1970s for his friends to wear.

“If we have any hope of a thriving planet—much less a thriving business—50 years from now, it is going to take all of us doing what we can with the resources we have. This is another way we’ve found to do our part.” Patagonia, based in Ventura, Calif., didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The company made a name for itself selling fleece jackets, board shorts and plaid shirts. The fleece vests in particular have developed a cult following from people who work in finance, while the company’s environmental- and social-conscious practices have earned dedicated buyers in other consumer spheres.

Patagonia will remain a for-profit business under the new arrangement and will continue to be run by Chief Executive Ryan Gellert, Mr. Chouinard said. The company made a name for itself selling fleece jackets, board shorts and plaid shirts. The fleece vests in particular have developed a cult following from people who work in finance, while the company’s environmental- and social-conscious practices have earned dedicated buyers in other consumer spheres.

The trust, called the Patagonia Purpose Trust, owns 2% of the company and all of the voting stock. It will be tasked with protecting Patagonia’s existing values and independence, Mr. Chouinard said.

Yvon Chouinard is a world-class mountain climber. PETER BOHLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

[Birdjaguar]

A Different Way to Think About Stock Diversification
Everybody knows to spread money across many investments. Fewer think about diversifying over time.
BY IAN AYRES AND BARRY NALEBUFF

INVESTORS often think of diversification as a free lunch—it allows them to maintain returns while reducing risk. But most people only get part of diversification right, and that can hurt them later in life. With traditional diversification, people spread money around different kinds of investments to mitigate risk. That approach misses a key opportunity: “diversifying” how you invest over time. Most people start investing with a small amount of money, because that is all they can afford, and ramp it up as their earnings grow. But investing so much later in life unnecessarily puts people at greater risk when they are close to retirement. They end up with far greater exposure to stock-market risk in their 50s and 60s than in their 20s and 30s, even if buying diversified mutual funds. We propose a different method: People ought to borrow money to make their initial investments larger, so that they can invest closer to the same amount every year over their lifetime. Think of investing $2 a decade steadily for three decades, instead of $1 for the first, $2 for the next and $3 for the third. The overall amount they invest stays the same—$2 of average market exposure—but when it is a steady amount, instead of an increasing one, the market exposure is larger than otherwise earlier on ($2 versus $1) and then smaller than otherwise in later life ($2 versus $3).

Steady dollars
Both choices—investing $2 each decade instead of $1, $2 and $3— provide the same expected return, since they both have $6 accumulated market exposure over time. But risks associated with the two strategies are different: Our time-diversified path brings lower variance in returns than one with increasing investments. When investment exposure varies over time, the market’s ups and downs don’t balance out as well. With 2/2/2, an up in the first decade balances out with a down in the third, and vice versa. But with 1/2/3, an up in the first decade is dominated by a down in the third, and a down in the first decade is also dominated by an up in the third. Consequently, the 1/2/3 investment pattern leads to larger swings in lifetime accumulations. The 1/2/3 strategy has too little dependence on the first decade’s stock return and too much on the third. By comparison, the 2/2/2 approach is evenly spread out and thus better diversified.

People might think they can’t follow a 2/2/2 type of strategy because they haven’t saved enough when young: They can’t invest $2 because they only have $1. But that’s not true. Using leverage— that is, borrowing money to buy stocks—people can use $1 of capital to borrow another $1 and thereby get $2 of market exposure in their first decade. Sound risky? Consider that young people do the same thing with housing when they borrow money to buy a house they live in for decades—and there the leverage often involves borrowing $9 for every $1 of equity. We propose borrowing only $1 for each $1 invested. Limiting to 2:1 leverage means we don’t hit a perfectly even market exposure over time, but gets us closer to it.

The lessons of history
Using an initial 200% allocation— and gradually reducing the stock allocation, down to 83% at retirement age—is a winning strategy. In a 2010 book, we found that this “leveraged life cycle” approach produced superior retirement accumulation for each and every cohort retiring from 1914 to 2009. We now have more than a dozen years of post-publication returns where we can evaluate the strategy in practice. Lever-aged life-cycle returns have continued to provide superior retirement accumulation for each and every cohort through mid-2022. Average investors using our method—assuming they invested 4% of their annual income, which rose during their careers to $100,000 in their final year of work—accumulated $1,255,000, while a traditional target-date fund investment, starting at 90% stocks and going down to 50%, produced only $675,000, and a constant 75% strategy $774,000. Of course, these higher returns are partly due to more stock exposure and not to the diversifying benefits of the leveraged life-cycle strategy.

To focus solely on the diversification benefits, we compared the retirement accumulations of a less-aggressive life-cycle strategy, one that again starts with 200% in stock but ramps down to 50% at retirement. We compared this to a constant 75% of savings in stocks and 25% in bonds. We chose this particular 75% allocation because it produces the same average accumulation ($774,000) across the retiring cohorts. Therefore, any difference in the strategies won’t be because one has more lifetime exposure to the stocks, which on average outperform bonds. Comparing these two strategies shows that the leveraged life-cycle strategy decreases the standard deviation of retirement accumulation across retiring cohorts by an impressive 19%. Our more time-diversified, leveraged strategy produces higher returns for cohorts that had the worst stock returns (the 10th-percentile accumulation increases by 10.9% relative to the constant 75% strategy) and lower returns for cohorts that lived through the best stock returns (the 90thpercentile accumulation also decreases by 10.9% relative to the constant 75% strategy). Producing the same average return with less risk is compelling evidence of how a leveraged life-cycle strategy can diversify market risk. Of course, ramping down to 50% instead of 83% in stocks at retirement has less market exposure and therefore lower average returns. The investor can choose: the same returns as a constant 75% exposure strategy with less risk, or the same risk but with higher expected return. Time diversification makes either possible.

Avoiding trouble
Our strategy works in theory and in practice. But there are possible objections that might hold people back. For one, people might say that it is expensive to invest on margin. But competitive margin loans are cheaper than home mortgages.
A second objection is that leverage is risky. But when you are more evenly exposed to market risk across time, you have less risk. Using leverage to go from 1/2/3 to 2/4/6 would be adding risk and market exposure. But a 2/2/2 strategy doesn’t.
When markets drop, those investors near retirement who have followed 1/2/3 are in trouble. If stocks fall by 25% in their last decade of investing, they would lose 25% of their $3 investment— while a 2/2/2 investor would lose just 25% of $2.
One objection that does have some merit is that our approach requires discipline. Some people can’t bring themselves to borrow money to buy stock or would bail out at the first downturn. We would like to see target-date funds make things easier for investors by automating the process, borrowing at low cost and automatically adjusting. Meantime, young investors can move to 100% equities. That isn’t 200%, but it is a step in the right direction and doesn’t require the psychological or logistical burdens of borrowing to buy. And even if this advice is coming a bit late for readers in their 50s and 60s, this is advice to pass along to the next generation. They don’t have to repeat our mistakes. Dr. Ayres at Yale Law School and Dr. Nalebuff at the Yale School of Management are the authors of “Lifecycle Investing.” They can be reached at reports@wsj.com

Graphics included at link, if you can get there.

Wall Street Journal

This full replica of our printed product provides you the newspaper as you know and love it from the convenience of the web.

ereader.wsj.net

 

[Samson]

A Different Way to Think About Stock Diversification
Everybody knows to spread money across many investments. Fewer think about diversifying over time.
BY IAN AYRES AND BARRY NALEBUFF

INVESTORS often think of diversification as a free lunch—it allows them to maintain returns while reducing risk. But most people only get part of diversification right, and that can hurt them later in life. With traditional diversification, people spread money around different kinds of investments to mitigate risk. That approach misses a key opportunity: “diversifying” how you invest over time. Most people start investing with a small amount of money, because that is all they can afford, and ramp it up as their earnings grow. But investing so much later in life unnecessarily puts people at greater risk when they are close to retirement. They end up with far greater exposure to stock-market risk in their 50s and 60s than in their 20s and 30s, even if buying diversified mutual funds. We propose a different method: People ought to borrow money to make their initial investments larger, so that they can invest closer to the same amount every year over their lifetime. Think of investing $2 a decade steadily for three decades, instead of $1 for the first, $2 for the next and $3 for the third. The overall amount they invest stays the same—$2 of average market exposure—but when it is a steady amount, instead of an increasing one, the market exposure is larger than otherwise earlier on ($2 versus $1) and then smaller than otherwise in later life ($2 versus $3).


Graphics included at link, if you can get there.

Wall Street Journal

This full replica of our printed product provides you the newspaper as you know and love it from the convenience of the web.

ereader.wsj.net

Advising people to borrow money to buy speculative instruments sounds really dangerous to me. You do not need a very high probability of a bubble for people to get in real trouble, and that is not discussed at all. I guess there is a strategy in leveraging the potential to used bankruptcy at an early age if the investments do not do so well, but is that really sensible for most people who own a house?

People doing this would however be in the interests of those who currently hold those investments, I wonder if the authors do?

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Reminds me, really need to establish a regular payment into an investment again.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's a reasonable idea, to borrow to smooth out your savings. That's not the same as borrowing up front. I'd limit how much I say it's 'reasonable'. The advantage of savings is that you can titrate them to your income, which means that you can choose to lose saving power instead of spending power. The disadvantage of borrowing to invest is that you can't opt out of the payments when times are tougher, which aggravates the disruption.
For people with mortgages, you can do the 'borrow to invest'. Instead of maximizing your mortgage payment before you put into financial assets, you try to keep your paying into financial assets 'equal' over time and then fluctuate the amount extra you're putting against your mortgage. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Society is riskier if households don't crush their debts and instead borrow to purchase financial assets

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

It's a reasonable idea, to borrow to smooth out your savings. That's not the same as borrowing up front. I'd limit how much I say it's 'reasonable'. The advantage of savings is that you can titrate them to your income, which means that you can choose to lose saving power instead of spending power. The disadvantage of borrowing to invest is that you can't opt out of the payments when times are tougher, which aggravates the disruption.
For people with mortgages, you can do the 'borrow to invest'. Instead of maximizing your mortgage payment before you put into financial assets, you try to keep your paying into financial assets 'equal' over time and then fluctuate the amount extra you're putting against your mortgage. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Society is riskier if households don't crush their debts and instead borrow to purchase financial assets

I am not excessively leveraged, and hope my investment would have better growth than the cost of my mortgages. Its hard to wrap my head around in a mathematical way, rather than emotional way.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Advising people to borrow money to buy speculative instruments sounds really dangerous to me. You do not need a very high probability of a bubble for people to get in real trouble, and that is not discussed at all. I guess there is a strategy in leveraging the potential to used bankruptcy at an early age if the investments do not do so well, but is that really sensible for most people who own a house?

People doing this would however be in the interests of those who currently hold those investments, I wonder if the authors do?

I agree. I am not a fan of always trying to maximize long term benefits at the cost short term risks. Risk tolerance is a pretty personal thing. I liked the article because it did look at a different approach and took a statistical approach measuring results. Thankfully I am past that stage and can dwell on preservation.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I agree. I am not a fan of always trying to maximize long term benefits at the cost short term risks. Risk tolerance is a pretty personal thing. I liked the article because it did look at a different approach and took a statistical approach measuring results. Thankfully I am past that stage and can dwell on preservation.

With your experience in the bank, what risks were worth it, what ones didn't come off, and where did you wish you'd stretched further? With all the bias your own view point will have

 

[Birdjaguar]

With your experience in the bank, what risks were worth it, what ones didn't come off, and where did you wish you'd stretched further? With all the bias your own view point will have

I started investing in the early 1990s and did so haphazardly until ~2004. I always added and never took any money out. My wife and I have both had IRA accounts that we fed regularly since 2004. I retired in 2016. I have never been big on individual stocks and mostly invested Vanguard Total Market or S&P500 indexes with some international funds. 5 or 6 years ago I began moving into bond funds and am now about 50/50. We are quite happy with the results. I am not a risk taker. When we were younger we did not have the money to invest at all. I was about 40 when I bought my first investment. The investment world was pretty different back then. I did buy Apple shares in 2021 when it split and was $111 per share. It is $140 today and has been as high as $160. So that has been a win. Our goal was to have enough of a portfolio to make retirement comfortable and fun and be able to cover any health issues. Whatever is left goes to the kids.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It may take longer than expected for this to happen.

Blockchain Fizzles in Shipping
Maersk-IBM effort is latest to run aground as firms pull plug on asset-tracking bid
BY ISABELLE BOUSQUETTE

Blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, for years has been viewed by some companies as a way to drive industry-transforming projects, among them the tracking of assets through complex supply chains. So far, that hasn’t happened. The latest effort to run aground was that of A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S and Inter-national Business Machines Corp., which hoped to follow shipments via the blockchain. Last month, Maersk said the project would be discontinued. Another big effort, Walmart Inc.’s attempt to track groceries on the blockchain, continues, but slowly. “There’s not one company that has really shown, let’s say, a material change,” Francesco Bozzano, vice president of the corporate finance group at Moody’s Investors Service, said of blockchain efforts in supply chains.

It has been slow going or worse for big bets on block-chain for a number of reasons: the complexity of the technology, the time required to get a blockchain into operation and the difficulties in enlisting participants.
TradeLens, the Maersk-IBM blockchain platform, was launched in late 2018 to help digitize container shipping on a secure global tracking platform. Had it worked, it would have been a game-changer, analysts said, cutting down on paperwork to clear customs and offering cargo owners more visibility of their boxes during transit. But TradeLens could only work with the collaboration of a host of companies and nations— which never fell into place. Maersk said the platform would be offline by the first quarter of 2023.

Blockchain makes it possible to create a digital ledger of transactions with information on their ownership. It can provide a level of trust that other shared databases don’t, but the technology is complex, requires more computing power and is more expensive to run than existing databases, experts say.

Some companies say they haven’t found a compelling enough reason to use it. During the pandemic, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. considered blockchain for vaccine distribution, but ultimately decided to go with other options that were faster to get up and running, former Chief Information Officer Francesco Tinto told CIO Journal earlier this year. (He has since left the company.) Others have tried with mixed results. In 2018, Walmart joined with IBM to start tracking its produce items through blockchain. The effort began with leafy greens, and in the four years since has added just one item: green bell peppers.

Walmart said it took time to get buy-in from suppliers who found the onboarding process daunting. Many didn’t have digital record-keeping systems and had to make large upfront investments before they could start using blockchain, Walmart said.
Analysts say they rarely hear about Walmart’s greens-tracking work anymore.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I don't know if we are ever going to actually see real world use of Bitcoin.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Bitcoin (et al) aside, there has been hope that blockchain would be useful as a tracking/accounting/ledger system. It still might be if both transitions to it and trust in it are made easier. Maybe blockchain 2.0 will show up in a few years and revive interest.

 

[El_Machinae]

As an aside, I own IBM. But I've noticed over the years that a collaboration with IBM is usually a horrid idea. There's just something about whatever it is they offer that people think can be scaled, but it so often fails.