What we’re reading (9/7)
“Health-Insurance Costs Are Taking Biggest Jumps In Years” (Wall Street Journal). “Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and Willis Towers Watson , which provided their survey results exclusively to The Wall Street Journal.”
“Huawei Phone Is Latest Shot Fired In The U.S.-China Tech War” (New York Times). “In the midst of the U.S. commerce secretary’s good will tour to China last week, Huawei, the telecom giant that faces stiff U.S. trade restrictions, unveiled a smartphone that illustrated just how hard it has been for the United States to clamp down on China’s tech prowess. The new phone is powered by a chip that appears to be the most advanced version of China’s homegrown technology to date — a kind of achievement that the United States has been trying to prevent China from reaching.”
“Labor’s Message To Corporate America: Time To Pay Up” (The Hill). “The return to 1928 inequality levels did not happen by accident, and its correlation with the unionization rate is no coincidence. There has been a war on workers and their unions since the 1970s. Along the way, greed spun out of control and our country’s riches, which might have gone to workers, increasingly went to corporate America and Wall Street.”
“In-N-Out, Weirdly, Is A Climate Change Indicator” (Slate). “Aesthetically, In-N-Out Burger is all-in. Iris Apfel has her bug glasses; In-N-Out has its palms. ‘It’s kind of their thing,’ Vonderheide agreed when I spoke with him. Tiny red palms dot the restaurants’ wallpaper. Palms adorn wrappers, awnings, paper hats—and, usually, parking lots. Scan California’s freeways and you’ll see them everywhere: a pair of palms swaying in the breeze, standing sentry over your beloved animal-style fries.”
“Small Cap Value: Waiting For The Jumpstart” (Validea). “Things are even more compelling in the small-cap value universe. Using Validea’s Market Valuation tool, I’ve looked at the absolute valuation of small and mid-cap value stocks through various valuation ratios. As you can see, small/mid-cap value has rarely been so cheap (our data goes back to 2006). The other periods of this level of cheapness came mostly during the Great Financial Crisis (2008/2009) and during the COVID crash (2020).”
