What's happening on the southern border right now is nothing less than a catastrophe. But I had no bad it truly was until I looked at the data myself.
I downloaded and analyzed 23 years of Border Patrol data today. Here are six charts showing just how bad the situation is 👇
How much worse has Biden been than other presidents when it comes to the border?
In the 34 months for which data is available, Biden has had a staggering 6.7M encounters at the southern border.
In comparison, at this stage, Bush had 2.8M, Obama had 1.2M, and Trump had 1.4M.
In other words, 34 months in, Biden has had more encounters than Bush, Obama, and Trump did COMBINED during their first 34 months (6.7M vs. 5.5M).
Biden's 6.7M encounters in 34 months are also more than Trump and Obama had in the combined 144 months of their ENTIRE presidencies.
On a monthly basis, here's how bad Biden's presidency looks compared to Bush, Obama, and Trump.
Bush and Trump's worst months were better than Biden's best months. And we can only dream about returning to Obama's levels.
Notice how encounters spike starting late 2020...
On a trailing 12 months basis, Bush briefly had 1M encounters, Obama was consistently below 500k, and Trump rarely exceeded 500k.
On the other hand, Biden has had 2M encounters during nearly every rolling 12-month period of his administration, and it's now more than 2.5M.
If you look at the number of months during which there were more than 100k encounters:
Trump had only one month.
Obama didn't have any.
Bush had 21 months across eight years (96 months).
And Biden has had ALL 34 MONTHS of his presidency with 100k+.
32 out of Biden's 34 months have exceeded 150k encounters.
The only other recent president who ever exceeded that level was Bush, for four out of his 96 months.
Looking at months with 200k encounters, Biden is the only president who's reached that level. And, at 18 out of 34 months, it's been the majority of his months in office.
If anyone tells you this is a minor issue that "ultra-MAGA right-wingers" are blowing out of proportion, they aren't just wrong. They're maliciously disingenuous.
All of these charts are based on CBP data. This is real.
It's a massive problem. And we need to address it NOW.
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Earlier this year, my business partner and I hired a controller and launched a bookkeeping company. Our vision was to build the world's friendliest accounting firm.
From clients to revenue to burn, here's the inside view on how it's going 👇
First of all, when I say "small business," that's literal—Friendly Bookkeeping is about as small as it gets:
- 11 clients
- $12k MRR
- $3,400 monthly burn
We launched Friendly to serve our portcos and fractional CFO clients, not to take over the world.
And our clients love it.
Why is the company burning cash right now?
To be candid, we built the company so we could be its clients. That meant...
1. Hiring a world-class operator (not cheap!)
2. Staffing up ahead of sales, to avoid the team getting stretched thin (which degrades the client experience)
Paul Singer has led activist campaigns against some of the largest companies on earth—AT&T, SoftBank, BP, Southwest.
He even commandeered a navy vessel after Argentina defaulted on its debt.
Last week, he set his sights on Pepsi.
Let's dive into his thesis and plan 🥤👇
PART 1: INVESTMENT THESIS
PepsiCo is currently undervalued, reflecting investors' lack of confidence in growth.
It's valued at 18x earnings, compared to a historical average of 22x.
PepsiCo now trades at a 4.1x P/E discount to peers, rather than its average 1.4x premium.
PepsiCo has grown revenue at a 9% CAGR over the last 60 years (nearly triple the annual growth in US GDP each year, or more than 25x US GDP growth in aggregate).
Today, PepsiCo's 200+ brands generate $92B in annual revenue.
An activist investor just released a turnaround plan for Cracker Barrel. It's incredible reading.
Sardar Biglari, who fixed Steak 'n Shake after 2008, has owned $CBRL shares for 14 years. And he's not happy with how his investment has gone.
Let's dive into the 120-page plan 👇
Cracker Barrel stock is down nearly 50% over the last year, compared to a 28% gain in the S&P 500.
Over the last five years, the stock is down 70%, compared to a gain of 108% in the index.
Even prior to Covid, guest traffic was decreasing 1-2% per year. Over the past two years, it's down 3.5% and 5.0% (these are *massive* declines for a restaurant chain).
🧵 “Why care about California? It’s more Mexican than American at this point.”
Respectfully, no. This is wrong. California isn’t just American; California is America itself, every bit as much as the colonies of New England or the plains states of the Heartland. We must cherish and protect every inch of it, no less than we would the forestland of Georgia or the prairie brush of Texas.
When tens of thousands of gold prospectors braved the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin Desert in search of the quintessential American promises—self-reliance, wealth, a new beginning—it was to California’s mines they trekked. California is where they built San Francisco from a remote backwater of just 200 souls into the 19th century's most important city in America and the most significant trading hub in the world.
In World War II, it was California’s 140 military installations that housed 1.6M American GIs, and it was largely through the ports of Los Angeles and San Francisco that many of them embarked to the Pacific theater. For tens of thousands of them, California’s coastline would be the last American soil they would ever see in life.
The tariff situation is causing massive ripple effects throughout the economy. Failing to resolve the situation quickly means risking the return of a disastrous condition from 50 years ago.
Let’s talk about stagflation 🧵👇
If you’re not familiar with it, stagflation is the combination of three painful economic phenomena:
1. High inflation 2. Slow or negative economic growth 3. High unemployment
Our parents experienced it in the 70s and 80s. The effects were devastating, and the remedy was costly.
Stagflation is worse than an economic recession.
Stagflation a self-reinforcing financial doom loop, devouring everything in its path. The economy slows down, jobs disappear, and yet—paradoxically—prices still rise.