r/economy

NBC reports Annie Benjamin’s insurer, PHL, owned by private equity, collapsed in 2024 after risky investments and shady reinsurance deals.

Her account is now frozen, and 100,000 policyholders may only get back 34-57% of what they’re owed

State regulators missed, or approved,the red flags.

“The failure of PHL is the perfect example of what happens when an insurance company hides a black hole on its balance sheet,” said Thomas Gober, a former examiner for the Mississippi Insurance Department….

“Once you can finally see it, the hole has gotten so big that it’s too late.”…

“The regulators are not just a little bit wrong,” said Larry Rybka, founder of registered investment adviser Valmark Financial Group in Ohio. “They are so far off that it’s catastrophic.”….”

Original post: https://bsky.app/profile/jesseaaronzinn.bsky.social/post/3mmc42kbe2c2v

Substack with the math: https://jesseaaronzinn.substack.com/p/how-to-annualize-monthly-inflation

This chart illustrates a major driver behind the rising costs of U.S. public education. Between 1970 and 2018, public school enrollment increased by 11.3%, rising from 45.9 million to 51.1 million students. During the same period, the teaching workforce expanded at a much faster rate, growing from 2 million to 3.17 million. This change lowered the student-teacher ratio from 23:1 to 16:1.

The most significant shift occurred outside the classroom. Non-teaching personnel expanded rapidly and eventually outnumbered teachers. While this category includes essential roles like aides, counselors, and librarians, every additional position adds salaries, benefits, and administrative overhead to the payroll. Because staffing growth dramatically outpaced student enrollment, the resulting budget pressure remains a direct consequence of a vastly expanded school system.

This comes as ~33% of globally traded fertilizers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively closed.

This includes 23% of global ammonia, 34% of urea, the world's most widely used nitrogen fertilizer, and nearly 20% of global phosphate supply.

Furthermore, the Bloomberg Agriculture Subindex has increased ~9% since the Iran war.

The index tracks the futures prices of key agricultural commodities, including wheat, corn, soybeans, sugar, coffee, and cotton.

In the past, world fertilizer prices have acted as a leading indicator for agricultural output prices, as rising production costs eventually force farmers to reduce supply, pushing crop prices higher.

A new wave of global food inflation is imminent.

Is it time for revolution yet?!