What We’re Reading

Dementia:

The risk for a person to develop dementia over a lifetime is now 13 percent lower than it was in 2010. Incidence rates at every age have steadily declined over the past quarter-century. If the trend continues, the paper’s authors note, there will be 15 million fewer people in Europe and the United States with dementia than there are now.

Retail (pre-Covid):

The leading airport for concession and retail sales in the United States is Los Angeles International, with revenue of $3,036 a square foot, according to a 2018 report from Airport Experience News. Chicago O’Hare clocks in second with $2,718 in sales a square foot. By comparison, the average mall retailer is around $325 per square foot, according to 2017 data from CoStar.

Owning a restaurant:

Even before the pandemic, no one was talking about what a great time it was to operate an independent restaurant, especially in New York. As the cost of city living soared, the minimum wage doubled—an admirably progressive move, but one with predictable effects on the bottom lines of small businesses. We used to offer health care to our workers, but stopped when our monthly premiums tripled. When our 10-year lease ran out last year, the landlord jacked the rent by 80%. Our revenue increased every year, but our expenses always rose to meet it, and a little bit more.

Moods:

Almost 90% of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the state of the country, and their unhappiness is affecting their political decisions four months before the presidential election, a new study from Pew Research Center shows.

Only 17% of Americans of any party say they are “proud” of the U.S. while 71% say they feel angry and 66% fearful. Just 12% of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country, less than half of the 31% who said the same in a study in April; 87% now say they are dissatisfied.

Return assumptions:

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Crime:

We are terrible at estimating our risk of crime — much worse than we are at guessing the danger of other bad things. Across that decade, respondents put their chance of being robbed in the coming year at about 15 percent. Looking back, the actual rate of robbery was 1.2 percent. In contrast, when asked to rate their risk of upcoming job loss, people guessed it was about 14.5 percent — much closer to the actual job loss rate of 12.9 percent.

Have a good weekend, stay safe.