Perspective

BBC – ‘Monster’ fatberg found blocking east London sewer 9/12

• “A 250-metre long fatberg weighing 130 tons has been found blocking a sewer.”
• “The solid mass of congealed fat, wet wipes, nappies, oil and condoms formed in the Victorian-era tunnel in Whitechapel, London.”
• “Thames Water described it as one of the largest it had seen and said it would take three weeks to remove.”
• “The company says fatbergs form when people put things they shouldn’t down sinks and toilets.”

VC – Which Cities are Fueling America’s Craft Beer Boom? – Nick Routley 9/23

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

WSJ – Americans Are Richer; Why Are They Still Cautious? – Justin Lahart 9/21

• “Getting richer doesn’t make people spend like it used to. That should give the Federal Reserve less to worry about when it comes to consumers, but more to worry about when it comes to asset prices.”
• “Lifted by rising home prices and a buoyant stock market, U.S. household net worth reached a record $96.2 trillion in the second quarter, the Fed reported Thursday, up $1.7 trillion from the first quarter. That compared with $68.2 trillion a decade earlier, just before the recession hit. The wealth-to-income ratio hit a new high of 670%.”
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• “But if households are feeling flush they aren’t acting like it. Consumer spending has been tepid, and people have been far less willing to tap wealth to fuel spending than they used to be. Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates that for each dollar gain in housing wealth, people increase their spending by just two cents, versus five cents in the mid-1990s. For stock gains, the figure has slipped to one cent from four cents.”
• “There are few likely reasons for the change in behavior. First, people don’t put as much trust in the staying power of wealth gains. The big stock market drops following the dot-com bust and the financial crisis are hard to forget, and the housing bubble ended the old notion that home values are safe. Second, a greater share of U.S. stock market and housing wealth is concentrated in the hands of the rich, who don’t boost their spending in response to wealth gains as much as other people do. Finally, tighter lending standards have made it more difficult to tap into housing wealth than it was before the financial crisis.”

Finance

WSJ – Daily Shot: Goldman Sachs – BOJ Slowing Purchase of JGBs 9/22

China

WSJ – Daily Shot: Natixis – Relative Scale of China Investment in the Middle East 9/22

WSJ – Daily Shot: Natixis – China Capital Projects in the Middle East 9/22