Intellectual Capital

A recent Bank of America Institute survey  found that one in five Americans now considers sports gambling a form of investing — just another asset class, with DraftKings sitting somewhere among stocks, bonds, and cash. Among Gen Z, the figure is 40%. Anxious people have long confused investing with gambling. I shouldn’t be surprised the confusion runs the other way. If you stare at a slot machine long enough, you can talk yourself into calling it a portfolio. Stare at a day-trading screen or Jim Cramer long enough and you’ll call that investing, too. One difference between investing and gambling … Read More

I love the debate about which school is the real UT. Any Tennessee history student knows that without 30,000 Tennesseans heading off to the Mexican-American War, Arch Manning would likely be the quarterback for the University of Mexico at Austin. Tennessee’s contribution was large enough to lock in a nickname the state already carried: the Volunteer State. So when Texas wants to argue about which UT came first, it is worth remembering who showed up when Texas needed help. You’re welcome, Longhorns. Texas has a long history of trying to co-opt things from the Volunteer State. Country music. Davy Crockett. … Read More

Unless you’re jealous that your local airport didn’t think of it first, it’s almost impossible to object to renaming Nashville’s airport after Dolly Parton. That’s how naming a taxpayer-owned facility should work: the honoree is so obvious that the only controversy is why it wasn’t done sooner. Dolly Parton is the ideal of a person whose generosity and example deserve a permanent, visible reminder. She built, not destroyed. She gave, not took. Too often, the main qualification for getting your name on a public building is a lifetime spent on a public payroll. There are 13 airports named for U.S. … Read More

I ruffled a few old feathers last week by suggesting that housing unaffordability among young people today has more to do with supply and inflation than with any lack of work ethic among today’s young adults. Several people were kind enough to tell me how much harder things were 30 or 40 years ago, and that Millennials and Gen Z simply expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. It felt a bit like listening to Adam and Eve lecture Cain and Abel about walking to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways. Yes, things are … Read More

According to the National Association of Realtors, the median age of a first-time U.S. homebuyer is now 40, up from 32 only a decade ago. To anyone under 40, this feels like proof that the American Dream is out of reach and the system is rigged against them. To those over 40, this is proof that today’s young people care more about work/life balance and $12 lattes than being fiscally responsible. What does the data say? Over the past decade, the median price of a starter home has jumped 103%, from $182,500 to $369,700. Meanwhile, median income for 25-to-34-year-olds only … Read More

On Wednesday, we learned that inflation declined slightly in July, but at 3.4%, is still well above the Federal Reserve’s stated target of 2%. While the Fed spends a lot of time and money pretending to manage inflation, history suggests that the federal government (and its agent, the Federal Reserve) is much more effective at causing inflation than it is at reducing it. There are three main culprits for the almost 20% inflation from 2021 to 2025, all of them substantially self-inflicted by the federal government: COVID stimulus money, supply chain disruptions following extended COVID lockdowns, and oil prices following … Read More

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from someone purporting to be from the fraud prevention department at my bank. I played along with him for a few minutes, acting like I misunderstood his questions, until I finally pretended to speak to someone in the room with me. “This is the call I want to make sure the FBI is tracing.” Click. My would-be scammer hung up immediately. If scammers would channel their creativity and enthusiasm into worthwhile endeavors, there is no telling how many problems they could solve – and almost certainly be paid handsomely and legitimately … Read More

I’m not sure who sent up the bat signal declaring AI data centers the newest symbol of evil and oppression, but the message certainly went out – quickly and broadly. And, according to new research, incorrectly. A recent study by researchers at the Electric Power Research Institute found that states with greater growth in data center capacity not only experienced lower local utility prices, but that the data centers themselves were responsible for a meaningful share of those price declines. Nationwide, data center capacity grew 160% from 2019 to 2024, leaving electricity rates roughly 6% lower than they would have … Read More

CNBC recently released its annual ranking of states for “quality of life,” crowning Tennessee dead last in the country. Even worse than Alabama. Don’t panic and start planning a move from East Tennessee to somewhere truly idyllic, like Detroit or Baltimore. The CNBC piece says much more about CNBC than it does Tennessee. CNBC scored states across the following categories: crime, air quality, healthcare, childcare, worker protection, inclusiveness and reproductive rights. Perhaps I’m a tad cynical, but this survey seems it might be a conclusion in search of supporting data. My quality-of-life survey would have also included factors like nature … Read More