Political Economist & Founder, OpenAxis
The world is becoming more authoritarian as non-democratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a "new normal" of Covid-19 restrictions.
For the fifth consecutive year, the number of countries moving in an authoritarian direction exceeds the number of countries moving in a democratic direction.
In fact, the number moving in the direction of authoritarianism is three times the number moving towards democracy.
Source: International IDEA, The Global State of Democracy Indices, 1975-2020 (2021)
According to the Federal Reserve, the level of outstanding student debt in the United States reached $1.75 trillion by the end of 2021.
As the chart shows, the student debt burden has more than tripled over the past 15 years, which is one of the reasons for the calls for student debt relief to grow louder and more frequent.
Student loans are the second largest category of household debt in the U.S., trailing housing debt by a wide margin.
Auto loans are the third largest category, currently standing at $1.3 trillion.
Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US)
Over the past 10 years, the Times has pivoted its strategy to focus on attracting more consumer revenue via subscriptions.
The Times' annual subscription revenues finally surpassed its advertising revenues 10 years ago in 2012.
Since then, the delta between its two businesses has gotten bigger as its digital subscription business has taken off and its print advertising business has shrunk.
Now that it's reached a critical mass of subscribers outside of news, it sees an opportunity to build more ad products that cater to those users.
Source: New York Times, SEC 10-K annual reports
Scholars of civil resistance generally define “success” as the overthrow of a government or territorial independence achieved because of a campaign within a year of its peak.
Among the 565 campaigns that have both begun and ended over the past 120 years, about 51 percent of the nonviolent campaigns have succeeded outright, while only about 26 percent of the violent ones have.
Nonviolent resistance thus outperforms violence by a 2-to-1 margin. (Sixteen percent of the nonviolent campaigns and 12 percent of violent ones ended in limited success, while 33 percent of nonviolent campaigns and 61 percent of violent ones ultimately failed.)
Moreover, in countries where civil-resistance campaigns took place, chances of democratic consolidation, periods of relative post-conflict stability, and various quality-of-life indicators were higher after the conflict than in the countries that experienced civil war.
Source: Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know by Erica Chenoweth
Tenants priced out of their homes likely accounted for more than one-third of NYC rental inventory available in Q2, as landlords looked to make back what they offered in pandemic discounts.
As we look to the second half of 2022, renters should expect further increases in rents at least through this summer. NYC is rapidly adjusting to a new normal after the pandemic, but the rental market remains hampered by historically low inventory. Unusually tight rental market conditions suggest rents will continue to rise, at least until a seasonal slowdown in demand occurs for rentals after the summer.
Despite gradually improving inventory, asking rents are rising steeply as landlords seek to reverse pandemic-era discounts. Rental demand has remained strong as more people gradually return to the city after a jump in outbound migration during the pandemic. Disappearing rental concessions also suggest landlords remain confident about demand. Meanwhile, priced out of Manhattan, many renters are shifting their search to more affordable areas in Brooklyn and Queens.
Source: StreetEasy
Over the past 10 years, the Times has pivoted its strategy to focus on attracting more consumer revenue via subscriptions.
The Times' annual subscription revenues finally surpassed its advertising revenues 10 years ago in 2012.
Since then, the delta between its two businesses has gotten bigger as its digital subscription business has taken off and its print advertising business has shrunk.
Now that it's reached a critical mass of subscribers outside of news, it sees an opportunity to build more ad products that cater to those users.
Details of SEC 10-K filings here
Over the past fifty years, nonviolent civil resistance has overtaken armed struggle as the most common form of mobilization used by revolutionary movements.
Yet even as civil resistance reached a new peak of popularity during the 2010s, its effectiveness had begun to decline—even before the covid-19 pandemic brought mass demonstrations to a temporary halt in early 2020.
In her book, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know, Erica Chenoweth argues that the decreased success of nonviolent civil resistance was due not only to savvier state responses, but also to changes in the structure and capabilities of civil-resistance movements themselves.
Perhaps counterintuitively, the coronavirus pandemic may have helped to address some of these underlying problems by driving movements to turn their focus back to relationship-building, grassroots organizing, strategy, and planning.
Essay adaptation from her book details at Journal of Democracy
Here is a table of all the medals won by countries participating at the Winter Olympics (including 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic results), sorted by most golds.
The country which has won the most gold medals and most medals overall is Norway. Norway has also topped the leaderboard the most times.
Out of the 200+ Countries/NOCs, 119 have participated at the Winter Olympics at least once, 47 of these have won at least one medal, and 42 have won at least one gold medal. Romania have attended the most Winter Games (22) without winning gold. Greece and Argentina have attended the most games without winning a medal of any kind (20 Winter Olympic Games).
#sports
Details here
Rent affordability is deteriorating in NYC and it's five boroughs. The city is probably one of the most difficult places in the world to rent in, with minimum credit scores of 700 and incomes of 40x rent.
Comparing soaring asking rents to median incomes indicates tenants won't have much disposable income left over after covering rent.
Details at StreetEasy & US Census Bureau
Tenants priced out of their homes likely accounted for more than one-third of NYC rental inventory available in Q2, as landlords looked to make back what they offered in pandemic discounts.
As we look to the second half of 2022, renters should expect further increases in rents at least through this summer. NYC is rapidly adjusting to a new normal after the pandemic, but the rental market remains hampered by historically low inventory. Unusually tight rental market conditions suggest rents will continue to rise, at least until a seasonal slowdown in demand occurs for rentals after the summer.
Despite gradually improving inventory, asking rents are rising steeply as landlords seek to reverse pandemic-era discounts. Rental demand has remained strong as more people gradually return to the city after a jump in outbound migration during the pandemic. Disappearing rental concessions also suggest landlords remain confident about demand. Meanwhile, priced out of Manhattan, many renters are shifting their search to more affordable areas in Brooklyn and Queens.
Details at StreetEasy Q2 2022 Market Report
Gross domestic product (GDP), the featured measure of U.S. output, is the market value of the goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States.
For more information, see the Guide to the National Income and Product Accounts of the United States (NIPA) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
#economy #recession