The Afternoon Audit
Monday | 6.08.2020

U.S. Stocks Extend Gains

Catch Up Quick

• The Nasdaq index achieves a new record high

• The S&P 500 index officially erases its losses for the year

• A Senate proposal could give up to $10k per month to American families during the pandemic

• 80% of voters believe that things are out of control in the U.S. (NBC News)

• Airbnb sees a surge in summer demand

• The WHO says asymptomatic spread of coronavirus is "very rare"

• OPEC, Russia, and others agree to extend record oil production cuts until the end of July

• New Zealand says it has "eliminated" the coronavirus

My Monday Opinions

• During the pandemic, stakeholder capitalism (focusing on long-term governance, societal, and environmental goals instead of short-term profits) have greatly rewarded adherents, tying up loads of value in intangibles such as reputation— given this shifting focus, the trend of corporate sustainability is accelerating, providing interesting investment opportunities to watch such ESGU, USSG and other funds in the realm

• The jobs report this past Friday beat expectations by a long shot, adding nearly 2.5M jobs while economists predicted a loss of around 8M— however, it was full of unexplainable holes and figures that contradicted other government reports, such as the huge discrepancy between the number of people receiving unemployment benefits (30M) and the number of unemployed individuals (20M), which makes zero sense given these surveys had identical time periods

Thought of the Day

• Simply “defunding” the police is an objectively weak, narrow-sighted argument to address the copious issues around law enforcement

• It will lower the entry barrier to becoming a cop— we need the opposite to repel bad actors

• Less funding means even poorer training quality which would likely increase the amount of brutality incidents

• It will also increase moral hazard— poorly funded public sector entities have even less to lose

• This is like saying “we should remove airbags from cars because 1% of them fail”

• It is time to monitor and regulate spending towards police entities

• Increasing the efficiency of expenditures could indeed ultimately lead to reduced funding, but, to reiterate, simply defunding is not a good idea

• There are countless areas that funds could be shifted towards

• For instance, the U.S has over 18,000 police departments, but no federal standard on how their officers should be trained?

The Bottom Line

• The issues surrounding law enforcement are monumental, from racism and violence to poor accountability— these things require more attention, not less