The Sunday Best (11/16/2025) – Physician on FIRE

The biggest problem with the proposed 50-year mortgage plan is that you don't really build any equity outside of home price growth.If the idea is to fix the housing market and make it more affordable for young people to buy, this is not the answer.

Home insurance is getting more expensive in the United States, and insurers are pulling back from some regions as the cost of disasters grows. That trend is stretching the limits of what ordinary Americans can afford to protect their homes.

Speaking of homes, areas with the most hail risk are seeing some of the fastest growing home insurance prices in the U.S., according to two landmark federal reports released in the last year.

It's true that rich people own the majority of the stock market. But nearly two-thirds of all households now own stocks in some fashion. In the early-1980s less than 20% of Americans invested in the stock market. There are way more people benefiting from stocks going up now. 

Here's a fun reminder: markets move in cycles, valuations eventually matter, and history has a way of humbling even the most confident forecasts.

Soaring beef prices took a bite out of Tyson Foods in its most recent quarter, but penny-pinching consumers flocked to chicken, offsetting red ink from red meat.The meatpacking industry is taking heat from President Trump over the surging price of beef, which experts attribute to a record global shortage of cattle.

Trump admin to end plan requiring airlines to pay passengers for delays. The Transportation Department announced its plan in September after referring to the requirement as ‘unnecessary regulatory burdens.'

Speaking of the President, the public isn't taking too well to lies about the economy performing better than it actually is, reflected in latest polls. Especially not about grocery and gas prices. 

Fun food chart for you:

Average price ground coffee, $/lb. (brown, left log scale), and beef steak, $/lb. (red, right log scale). Source: BLS.

Coffee is up 30.2% from January; streak is up 12.4%

4 current shocks to the US economy — tariffs, medical insurance increases, SNAP payments, and AI related layoffs — now also include a 5th: the effect of the end of the student loan repayment moratorium…

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