Butting heads

Worse than a car alarm going off at 4 a.m.: dozens of robotaxis honking at one another at 4 a.m. Neighbors of a Waymo parking lot in San Francisco have complained of an autonomous-car cacophony waking them in the wee hours. It’s self-driving them crazy.

The market had a happy Monday. The S&P 500 sealed its longest winning streak of the year with an eighth day in the green. Tomorrow we’ll get minutes from the Fed’s July meeting, and all eyes are on Jackson Hole ahead of Chair J. Powell’s speech on Friday.

Talks off track… Canada’s freight railroad could hit the brakes. Over the weekend, labor negotiations deadlocked between the Teamsters union and Canada’s two largest railroads, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City. The groups have been negotiating over wages, scheduling, and rail safety since November. Now the union said its 3K+ Canadian rail workers would strike on Thursday barring a last-minute agreement. The freight companies said they’d lock out union workers.

Stuck at a crossroads… The rail halt could disrupt business in the US, Canada’s largest trade buddy. One example: Morgan Stanley estimated the disruption could cost US mining heavyweight Glencore at least $100M/week (Canada’s a big coal exporter). Canadian freight companies are already pumping the brakes: last week Canadian National reportedly blocked container imports from US partner railroads. Canadian Pacific said that starting today it would halt all shipments leaving Canada and ones entering from the US. The rail giant said that while it’s trying to prevent a stoppage, it’s preparing itself to interrupt service next week.

One halt can derail an economy… That’s why in 2022 President Biden made it illegal for rail workers to strike (and blocked a rail strike that could’ve cost the US economy $2B/year). A shutdown of Canada's freight-rail system could cripple shipments including food, energy supplies, and chemicals to treat drinking water. But unions hope the movement will lead to real change for rail workers, who’ve long fought for better and safer working conditions.

Baby bump… POTUS candidate Kamala Harris proposed that American families with kids be given up to $6K in tax breaks, up from the current $2K. Families with newborns would receive the max amount of $6K in their child’s first year. After that, Harris’ plan would restore a pandemic-era policy that allotted families up to $3.6K in breaks per child (with the amount depending on the family’s income ). Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, floated a $5K child tax credit that isn’t income-adjusted, saying “President Trump has been on the record for a long time supporting a bigger child tax credit.”

Pandemic baby boost… we hardly knew ya. Last year, the US birth rate dropped to its lowest level since the CDC started tracking it in 1979, and nearly a fifth of childless adults under age 50 told Pew Research they didn’t plan on having kids for financial reasons. Each child costs middle-income families an average of $310K to raise to adulthood, a Brookings analysis based on kids born in 2015 found. A tax credit could lighten the load: while the pandemic’s boosted tax break was in place, the child-poverty rate fell by half to a historic low.

Agreement ≠ action… On the election trail, both parties’ candidates seem to support boosting the child tax credit. But Congress recently knocked down a proposal to expand the credit. The federal budget deficit is already massive, and it’s estimated a $3K to $3.6K tax break would cost $1.1T over the next decade (and a $6K newborn bonus would tack on $100B). Still, a dropping birth rate could hit harder, slowing the US’s economic growth and hamstringing public programs like Social Security.

Uncharted: Which two fast food chains — one that’s nailed sales per restaurant, and one that’s mastered expansion — have we taken off this chart? (Answer here). 

(Answer here).

Diaper brands are being challenged not by a baby boom but by the graying of the globe. Read more.

The average American young adult spends 3% of their waking time gaming

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Apple, Disney, GM, and Warner Bros. Discovery

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