Stuart Loren
@StuLoren
Markets, policy, parenting & other fun stuff. Background in history, law, finance & dogs. Outdoors & Alaska. 🇺🇸
Investors are always searching for the next structural theme. But I think the concept of social disruption is overlooked. Put together a deck going over my framework, which I've been focused on for a few years. I think this has predictive value. Presentation in post below. 1/2
One class of special interests is the progressive social justice lobby who have outsized political influence in Illinois and Chicago and prevent police officers, prosecutors and judges from actually doing their job in trying to enforce gun laws and incarcerate gun offenders.
It keeps me up at night that so many of these gun violence tragedies have been preventable. How many people have died due to the cowardice of politicians who kowtow to special interests that don’t give a damn about our children's safety? Illinois is doing something about it.
A telling slide from my Social Disruption deck. A more fractured society with growing economic pressures means the constituency for reducing deficits is shrinking while the government's need to respond to popular demands (to maintain support) is increasing. A lot more below...
Investors are always searching for the next structural theme. But I think the concept of social disruption is overlooked. Put together a deck going over my framework, which I've been focused on for a few years. I think this has predictive value. Presentation in post below. 1/2
Another 3-4 month delay in property tax bills? It's bad enough that many property owners will get hit with hard to digest reassessments. But to add on an additional layer of unpredictabiliity with the timing of tax payments is inexcusable.
Delayed property tax bills could shake up budget season — and elections ebx.sh/RuLIVi
From NYT on whether Mamdani’s messaging can play outside NYC. While I don’t ascribe at all to his politics, I suspect we will see more voters opt for both socialist-leaning and populist policies given growing socioeconomic disaffection. Covered this in my below presentation.
Investors are always searching for the next structural theme. But I think the concept of social disruption is overlooked. Put together a deck going over my framework, which I've been focused on for a few years. I think this has predictive value. Presentation in post below. 1/2
The governor is so full of hot gas that he could probably power the grid on his own… When you simultaneously incentivize demand (by courting industry) and disincentivize supply (by decommissioning gas and restricting large scale nuclear), you end up with higher prices. Energy…
Pritzker blames power grid, Trump admin for expected price increase thecentersquare.com/illinois/artic…
At some point you need to face financial reality with more than empty platitudes that everyone realizes are BS by this point.
Too many Chicago budgets have been balanced off the backs of working people. The ultra-rich and larger corporations need to put more skin in the game so we can continue our investments that are making Chicago safer and more affordable. youtube.com/watch?v=q2k-0o…
My wife just sent me this from the dog beach and I couldn’t tell which was ours at first!
Nearly everyone has given up on urban K-12 reform. Politicians no longer talk about it. There's but one city, Houston, attempting wholesale reform and early results are incredibly promising. Cities from across the US are starting to pay attention. In 2023, after years of falling…
By the way, know how you get around this problem?… You raise property tax assessments. An unfortunate inevitability to look forward to.
Good to see everyone is on the same page… Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a property tax increase either! But unless the mayor is open to making major spending cuts, we’ll have a huge deficit still. “Progressive revenue” can’t happen without changes to state law. Good luck…
The president says that if the Fed lowered short term rates, interest expenses for the U.S. would fall by $1 trillion per year. The U.S. spent $1.1 trillion on interest expenses in 2024, and so there's almost no way this claim is remotely true.
Incentivizing demand while restricting supply always leads to higher prices. A few states in the PJM territory get this (eg, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Illinois is not one of them.
PJM just completed its 2026/27 power capacity auction (for my Chicago friends, we're in PJM's Comed zone). The auction hit this year's price cap of $329.17/MWh - total payouts to generators rose to $16.1b. AI demand growth > power supply growth. Need to build more: nuclear + gas.
These people are insane. The entire city can’t be run for the benefit of a relatively small union. At this point there’s an inverse correlation between school spending and student results.
Brandon Johnson and CTUs school board want Springfield to lift the cap so they can RAISE PROPERTY TAXES even more
PJM just completed its 2026/27 power capacity auction (for my Chicago friends, we're in PJM's Comed zone). The auction hit this year's price cap of $329.17/MWh - total payouts to generators rose to $16.1b. AI demand growth > power supply growth. Need to build more: nuclear + gas.
