On August 21, 2026, President Donald Trump announced a temporary 90-day waiver of out-of-quota tariffs on imported ground beef, allowing up to 300,000 metric tons to enter the U.S. market tariff-free in an effort to reduce grocery prices. The president said he had secured a commitment that the imported meat would be sold at 25% […]
Category Archives: Finance
Where’s the Beef? Tariffs, Inflation, and the Climate Cost of Meat
Treasury Doubles Bond Buybacks as U.S. Bond Market Volatility Deepens
The U.S. Department of the Treasury intervened on August 19, 2026, announcing that it will at least double the size of its liquidity-support bond buyback operations in an effort to calm a highly volatile Treasury market. Under the direction of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the maximum repurchase limits for longer-dated nominal coupon securities will increase […]
U.S. Fiscal Deficit Surges as 30-Year Treasury Yields Hit 25-Year High
by Daniel Brouse The U.S. federal budget deficit reached a record $432 billion in July 2026, the largest deficit ever recorded for the month of July and the widest monthly shortfall since March 2021. The July surge pushed the cumulative deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2026 to approximately $1.8 trillion—already exceeding […]
Money Moves People: Why Demand Destruction May Be the Fastest Path Beyond Fossil Fuels
by Daniel Brouse 2026: The New Economic Reality Money moves people. The climate costs of fossil-fuel dependence are increasingly outweighing its benefits—not in some distant future, but here and now. We are moving beyond arguments about what climate change might cost decades from today. Across the Western world, climate impacts are already imposing costs of […]
4.9% PPI: That’s Essentially 5% Producer Inflation
by Daniel Brouse A 4.9% year-over-year Producer Price Index (PPI) increase means the average price level producers face is nearly 5% higher than it was one year ago. The math is straightforward: 5.0% − 4.9% = 0.1 percentage point That puts the headline PPI rate just one-tenth of a percentage point below 5%. For example, […]
Integrated Climate Stewardship: The Fossil Fuel Question and Answer
Question: I use phasing out in a way that means completely ending the use and production of fossil fuels down to zero. Phasing down means a gradual reduction or scaling back in FF use over time without specifying a complete stop. Would add or alter that in any way? How would you define differntiate ‘transition […]
The Future of Energy Is Not Static
By Daniel BrouseEconomist & ClimatologistMembrane Domain USAAugust 10, 2026 I’m not certain what the future holds. I don’t think anyone can be. But I’m also not convinced that the future of fossil fuels can be projected simply by looking at today’s production levels and assuming they will continue indefinitely. There is a very real possibility […]
Real Estate Climate Risk Models
by Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee Background Sidd said: “frightening article by Jeff Masters. We saw some of this coming, the flood risk aint justalong the coast, it extends 100 miles inland…the water cant get out …” https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/08/the-floods-of-the-future-wont-come-one-at-a-time/ In the 1990s, Sidd and I began developing real-estate-based climate risk models. From the beginning, one of […]
Global Real Estate Climate Risk: A Multiplicative Vulnerability Ranking
by Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee The Multiplicative Climate Risk Formula The Multiplicative Climate Risk Formula is a real-estate climate-risk model designed to capture how multiple hazards and vulnerabilities can interact and compound rather than occur independently. The framework incorporates interconnected risks including sea-level rise, storm surge, extreme precipitation, flooding, hydroclimatic whiplash, wildfires, drought, extreme […]
Coupled Climate Feedbacks and Cascading Real Estate Risk
by Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee How Compound Flooding Is Reshaping Property Values, Insurance Availability, and Coastal Habitability Climate change is creating a new class of real-estate risk in which the physical hazards of flooding increasingly interact with financial, insurance, infrastructure, and housing systems. Sea-level rise, heavier precipitation, and more intense or slower-moving hurricanes are […]