Tag Archives: CNBC

Analysis, Government, Reviews, Videos, Water Resources

Analysis: The Best Ways To Fix America’s Water Crisis

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CNBC (May 30, 2023) – From floods to droughts, CNBC Marathon explores the water crisis in the U.S. Today, one out of three people don’t have access to safe drinking water. And that’s the result of many things, but one of them is that 96.5% of that water is found in our oceans. It’s saturated with salt, and undrinkable.

Chapters: 00:00 — Introduction 00:30 — Can Sea Water Desalination Save The World? (Published October 2019) 14:00 — U.S. Farms Waste A Lot Of Water — But This Tech Could Help (Published September 2022) 29:56 — How The West Coast Drought Could Cause More ‘Water Wars’ (Published July 2021) 40:07 — Why Flood Insurance Is Failing The U.S. (Published November 2020)

Most of the freshwater is locked away in glaciers or deep underground. Less than one percent of it is available to us. So why can’t we just take all that seawater, filter out the salt, and have a nearly unlimited supply of clean, drinkable water? The western U.S. is experience a megadrought so severe, it is the driest two decades in at least 1,200 years. And no sector has felt the impact more than agriculture, which takes up about 70% of the world’s freshwater.

With water resources becoming more scarce, several companies are working to improve irrigation efficiency and help sustain food production in a future where extreme climate may be more common. Water is a cornerstone of economic activity, and when it runs low, communities face tough choices. The extreme drought conditions in the U.S. West are straining water resources and providing a fertile ground for wildfires. How will the West Coast face this climate challenge? And 2020 was the busiest hurricane season on record. Flooding is one of a storm’s most devastating consequences.

FEMA estimates one inch of flood water can cause up to $25,000 in damage. The U.S. began offering national flood insurance in 1968 but the program, called the NFIP, is now over $20 billion in debt. Private companies are starting to offer flood insurance as well. However, flood insurance is more complicated than it may appear. Watch the video to better understand how flood insurance works, and doesn’t work, in the U.S.

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Analysis, Reviews, Transportation, Travel, Videos

Reviews: Can California Finish Its High-Speed Rail?

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CNBC (May 16, 2023) – In 2008, California voted yes on a $9 billion bond authorization to build the nation’s first high-speed railway. The plan is to build an electric train that will connect Los Angeles with the Central Valley and then San Francisco in two hours and forty minutes.

Chapters: 1:35 Intro 1:41 The Vision 4:48 Progress 8:17 Setbacks and challenges

At the time, it was estimated the project would be complete by 2020 and cost $33 billion. But 15 years later, there is not a single mile of track laid, and there isn’t enough money to finish the project. The latest estimates show it will cost $88 billion to $128 billion to complete the entire system from LA to San Francisco. Inflation and higher construction costs have contributed to the high price tag. Despite the funding challenges, progress has been made on the project.

119 miles are under construction in California’s Central Valley. The project recently celebrated its 10,000th worker on the job. The infrastructure design work is complete, and 422 out of 500 miles have been environmentally cleared. CNBC visited California’s Central Valley, where construction is underway, to find out what it will take to complete what would be the nation’s largest infrastructure project.

Analysis, Luxury, Retail, Reviews, Videos

Business: Inside LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton

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CNBC (May 15, 2023) – The luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton controls 75 Maisons, or brands, including Tiffany & Co., Sephora, Dior, Givenchy and TAG Heuer. At the helm of the luxury empire is the richest person in the world,

Chapters: 0:00 – Introduction 2:20 The Rise Of Louis Vuitton 8:45 A Culture Company, Not Just Luxury 16:46 The Future Of Luxury

Bernard Arnault, whose five children all hold senior executive roles within the company. With a keen eye for luxury, ruthless negotiation skills and an effective business acumen, Arnault has acquired some of the biggest names in the world. Most recently, in 2021, the company bought Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion after a bitter dispute about price due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and to salvage the luxury sector’s biggest-ever deal.

Though most companies struggled during the pandemic, LVMH’s stock steadily rose while it continued to report record revenue year after year as wealthy consumers participated in what McKinsey & Co. called “revenge spending.” For the first quarter of 2023, LVMH reported a 17% increase in revenue from the same period a year earlier. The Asia market, which had seen the most significant drop due to Covid-19 closures, had a 14% rise in revenue after an 8% decrease in the fourth quarter of 2022. In April 2023, LVMH became the first European company to surpass $500 billion in market value.

Analysis, Government, Reviews, Technology, Transportation, Videos

Public Transit: NYC’s $16 Billion Subway Line Costs

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CNBC (May 13, 2023) – Public transit can be extremely valuable for a city’s economy – in New York City 85% of the people who travel into the business district below 61st Street take some form of public transportation.

Chapters: 00:00 — Introduction 01:39 — Second Avenue Subway 06:45 — A national problem 08:37 — Subway costs 15:31 — Solutions

In several major cities – New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco – the subway and other rapid rail systems are key contributors to the prosperity of the city. In NYC for example, more than $37 billion of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $54 billion budget goes to subways. But building subways in the U.S. is very expensive.

In fact, it’s the sixth most expensive country to build rail transit in the world. And even that is likely an understatement. High labor costs, overbuilt tracks and stations, and onerous regulations all jack up costs. NYC’s sheer population density makes it rather worth it – so many people ride the subway that the cost per rider is comparable to many European cities where total expenditures are substantially lower.

However, the high costs hurt the case for public transit in less dense areas of the country. Lowering those costs could go a long way toward building affordable and accessible public transit for smaller cities around the country and reducing traffic congestion, pollution and traffic accidents.

Analysis, Banks, Business, Hospitality, Retail, Reviews, Technology, Videos

Business: How ‘Junk Fees’ Invaded The U.S. Economy

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CNBC (April 25, 2023) – Americans are collectively spending nearly $65 billion on sneaky fees, according to the White House. “It really seems like companies have become addicted to junk fees,” Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, told CNBC.

Junk fees are making companies billions of dollars richer. Watch the video above to learn more about where junk fees hide, details of proposed changes, where policy may fall short and whether increased regulatory oversight may be enough to squash junk fees once and for all. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 1:26 Defining ‘junk’ fees 5:34 Squashing fees 7:52 Policy problems 10:02 The future of fees

Analysis, Business, Retail, Reviews, Technology, Videos

Business: Robots Helping Retailers Save Billions

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CNBC (April 22, 2023) – Outfitted with cameras and sensors, autonomous inventory robots can verify price signs and look for out-of-stock items. Inventory is one of the biggest challenges retailers face.

Chapters: 0:00–2:07 Introduction 2:08–5:11 Chapter 1 Empty Shelves 5:12–9:26 Chapter 2 Inventory robots 9:27–12:31 Chapter 3 The future

Missed sales from empty shelves and out-of-stock items cost U.S. retailers $82 billion in 2021, according to NielsenIQ. But an army of inventory robots is being deployed that could help retailers appease angry customers, boost sales and respond to the ongoing worker shortage.

Analysis, Business, Food & Drink, Retail, Videos

Analysis: Budweiser And The Death Of Cheap Beer

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CNBC – Anheuser-Busch InBev is the world’s largest brewer with 500 brands in more than 100 countries. In 2016, Flemish Interbrew and Brazilian Ambev, together known as InBev, merged with the American legacy company Anheuser-Busch, which ultimately brought AB under the leadership of 3G Capital.

Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 2:08 – Ch. 1: Becoming Anheuser-Busch 4:51 – Ch. 2: A consolidation game 9:20 – Ch. 3 – Going beyond beer

3G Capital is a Brazilian-American global investment firm whose tactics include an aggressive, and at times controversial, cost-cutting strategy. AB InBev’s longtime priority of aggressive acquisitions has been coupled with a focus on profit and price per barrel rather than volume share. Premiumization and expanding beyond beer continue to be winning strategies. In 2021, the company amassed $54.3 billion in revenue with 169,000 employees worldwide. As overall beer consumption has declined, AB InBev has transformed from merely a beer company to the largest beverage company in the world.

Cities, Economics, Housing, Living, Urban Planning, Videos, Views

Economic Analysis: Are Cities Or Suburbs Better?

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CNBC Marathon reviews why a cost-of-living crisis is unfolding across America’s housing infrastructure. CNBC explores what that means for apartments in the cities and houses in the suburbs. Inflation data shows that costs for items such as rent and groceries are increasing quickly across the Sun Belt and coastal cities.

Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 00:39 How to make the suburbs more affordable (Published April. 2022) 13:22 How suburban sprawl shapes the U.S. economy (Published Feb. 2022) 26:34 Are major cities still worth it? (Published May 2022)

Now years removed from the darkest days of the pandemic, people are asking: Is a return to the city worth it? Metropolitan regions have sprawled in recent years, raising budget concerns and quality-of-life issues for the people who remain downtown. Meanwhile the absence of commuters is slowing the recovery in leisure and hospitality. About 46% of renters in the U.S. are struggling to make ends meet, according to Harvard University researchers.

Builders say conditions for renters will get worse before they get better. A snarled supply chain, a labor shortage, and rising interest rates are worsening what some call a “throwaway” development pattern. Several real estate industry experts have ideas about how to make housing more attainable. Some of the most popular ideas include mixed-use districts and master-planned communities.

America’s suburbs are sprawling again. Over the 20th century, real estate developers built large tracts of single-family homes outside of major cities. The builders were following mortgage underwriting standards first introduced by the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s. Over the century, those guidelines created housing market conditions that explicitly shut out many minorities. Experts say it is possible to update these old building codes to create equity while fixing some, but not all of the problems of American suburbia. CNBC Marathon brings together the best of CNBC’s coverage on the U.S. housing crisis and how life in the suburbs impacts city living.

Analysis, Business, Green Energy, Technology, Videos

Green Tech: New Ocean Wave Energy Companies

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The ocean’s waves are immensely powerful. Harnessing that energy for grid-scale electricity production would be a major boon to the clean energy industry, but building durable, powerful, and cost-effective wave energy converters has proven difficult.

Chapters: 1:46 The challenges 4:05 Wave energy in the U.S. 4:49 (Subchapter) CalWave 6:05 (Subchapter) Oscilla Power 7:34 (Subchapter) C-Power 9:00 Wave energy in Europe 11:51 The future

Now though, an influx of federal funding is helping many U.S. companies gear up to test their latest wave energy technologies, giving many in the industry hope that wave power will see massive growth over the next few decades.

Analysis, Business, Politics, Society, Videos, Weapons

Firearms: Why AR-15-Style Rifles & Guns Are Surging

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Known as a symbol of freedom to its admirers and an assault weapon to its detractors, the AR-15 is one of the most controversial weapons in America. Lightweight and easily customizable AR-15-style weapons have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years taking center stage at gun ranges and shooting competitions across the country.

Chapters: Intro: 0:00–2:17 Chapter 1 America’s rifle: 2:18–5:30 Chapter 2 Gun ownership in America: 5:31–7:35 Chapter 3 Gun-makers: 7:36–9:51 Chapter 4 Gun ads: 9:52–11:55 Chapter 5 Mass shootings: 11:56–16:29

According to the most recent national figures, there are an estimated 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the U.S. And there are about 20 million AR-15-style weapons in the country. Firearm manufacturers have seen revenue surge taking in about $1 billion from the sale of AR-15-style weapons in the past decade.

But the weapons have also been involved in a number of mass shootings. AR-15-style weapons were used at shootings in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, a Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago and a grocery store in upstate New York. Critics argue the weapons are also aggressively marketed by gun companies targeting at-risk young males.

So what is behind the popularity of the AR-15 and what responsibility do gun makers have when their products are used in mass shootings? Watch the video to learn more.