🇺🇸 Strike Surge Surges On

Good morning, and happy Wednesday. A couple of beautiful puppies have found a new home after a difficult start to life.

Plus, a new Rembrandt has been discovered — disguised as another artist’s work, potentially making the owners millionaires as it goes up for auction at Sotheby’s. Just how flush could they become?

Also, this exec helped bring a company’s market value from under $1 million to over $55 billion. Can he do it again?

TRENDING

Right: D.C. Establishment Can't Identify Chaos, Only Creates It Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist

Right: A Storm Is Brewing in the Senate, Too Teresa Mull, The Spectator

Right: Bowman becomes second 'Squad' member to condemn antisemitic NYC rally Jack Birle, Washington Examiner

Left: Israel-Gaza War Will Cause Deep Political Shockwaves Stephen Collinson, CNN

Left: This Gaza war didn’t come out of nowhere Jonathan Guyer, Vox

Left: Moms for Liberty meets its match: Parents in this swing suburban district are fighting back Amanda Marcotte, Salon

QUICK CLICKS

Biden’s Makes Statement, AOC’s Condemnation, New Cali VC Standards

US: 'We stand with Israel,' Biden says as U.S. condemns Hamas attack as 'evil' (NPR)

US: AOC knocks ‘bigotry and callousness’ of Times Square rally for Palestinians (POLITICO)

US: Harvard head says students don’t speak for school after widely condemned Hamas-Israel statement (The Hill)

Business: California will require VC firms to report founder diversity statistics (Axios)

World: Turkey's Erdogan says US move of aircraft carrier closer to Israel will lead to Gaza massacre (Reuters)

POWERED BY JIM WOODS

Energy Drinks and Plant-Based Sectors Combine in a $3T Trend

Crazy Stat: Monster Beverage’s share price surged from $0.02 when it began trading as Hansen’s Naturals in 1990 to almost $58, lifting its market value from less than $1 million to more than $55 billion.

The company made early investors who held onto the stock wealthy. Now, one of the execs who helped launch the Monster brand is gearing up to do it again with Yerbaé Brands Corp. (OTC: YERBF).

Yerbaé Brands (OTC: YERBF) has already racked up $25.5 million in sales since its inception in 2017, and it’s just getting started.

If you’re looking for a company that can not only weather recessions and bear markets but deliver outsized returns through it all, Yerbaé Brands (OTC: YERBF) deserves your immediate attention. They are making a mark in this $3T trend.

To help you with your due diligence, here is a special report titled — Monster Profit Potential: The Undiscovered Beverage Company Set to Explode.

LABOR

Strike Surge Surges On

In 2023, at least 453,000 workers have participated in 312 strikes in the US, according to Johnnie Kallas, a Ph.D. candidate and the project director of Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker.

Reporting from the Right: Unions enjoy growing spotlight in Biden era (Washington Examiner)

Reporting from the Left: America is on strike. Here’s the progress unions have made (CNN)

From The Flag: It’s been a big year for labor organizing in the US. From auto production lines to Hollywood, all eyes are on strikes taking the world of work by storm. Here’s how both sides are covering the phenomenon.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Unions Should Rethink Alliance With the Left

• President Biden may claim he’s “pro-union,” but his economic policies have led to workers being underpaid relative to inflation.

• Some tactics exhibited by unions are troubling, as they indicate a lack of respect for the First Amendment rights of those criticizing unions.

• It’s ironic that while unions often ally themselves with the left, many environmental policies from Democrats have placed autoworkers’s jobs in a precarious position.

Is It Any Surprise That Historic Labor Strikes Are Occurring under Biden? Jim Geraghty, National Review: “President Biden likes to boast he’s the most pro-union president in American history. Whether Biden wanted this or not, this means he’s also becoming the most pro-strike president in American history. … The result is that the country is not only experiencing a Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strike, it is experiencing the biggest strike by the United Auto Workers in years, and smaller strikes by various unions of hotel workers and nurses. There are rumbles of regional strikes by the Service Employees International Union and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. … And while workers believe they are underpaid and underappreciated for a variety of reasons, one big factor is that their wages aren’t keeping up with the inflation rate. …. Unions are striking, knowing the president has their back, in response to economic conditions shaped by the early policy decisions of ‘the most pro-union president in American history.’”

UAW Workers: Be Careful What You Wish For Mark W. Hendrickson, The American Spectator: “UAW President Shawn Fain filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against U.S. Sen. and presidential aspirant Tim Scott (R-S.C.). Fain objected to Scott publicly saying that he would fire striking workers. Whether you agree with Scott or not (millions do, millions don’t), Fain’s official complaint is clearly another direct assault on the First Amendment. Similar to how the Left has censored, canceled, vilified, defunded, etc., many intelligent, learned Americans for bucking the official government line about issues like COVID or climate change, we see here yet another manifestation of the totalitarian spirit of the left. To them, it’s OK for a president to publicly side with the union, but it’s unacceptable for another elected official to oppose UAW. This is dismaying, but, at this stage, who can be surprised? To the UAW workers, I would caution: Be careful what you wish for; you might get it — short-term gain, long-term pain.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: The Latest Union Strike Might Turn Workers Red Aubrey Gulick, The American Spectator

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Mixed: “Unions and Strikes Are Good” vs. “Bidenomics Being Questioned”

• “[Large companies] appear to have been taken aback by the tactics and tougher style adopted by new union leaders.”

• Labor unions don’t merely represent the special interests of their members, they serve to benefit us all and the economy at large.

• Biden’s varied objectives are in conflict with each other, namely, being pro-union while also being in support of sweeping “green” economic initiatives.

Amid Strikes, One Question: Are Employers Miscalculating? Noam Scheiber, The New York Times: “While unions unchecked sometimes behave badly, consider what corporations do unchecked. Millions of Americans are addicted to opioids in this country because pharmaceutical companies found it profitable to get people hooked. We need checks and balances to rein in overreach by both sides — and unions are part of that system of watchdogs. Yet in recent decades, laws have impeded unions, and a lame National Labor Relations Board essentially allowed union busting because penalties were so pathetic. (That appears to be changing under President Biden.)Unions have also been powerful advocates of policies like early childhood education, child care, a higher minimum wage, and a refundable child tax credit to take on the scandal of American child poverty.”

Strikes aren’t bad for the US economy. They’re the best thing that could happen, Robert Reich, The Guardian: “In a very real sense, these workers are representing all American workers. If they win, they’ll energize other workers, even those who are not unionized. They’ll mobilize some to form or join unions. They’ll push non-union employers to raise wages and benefits out of a fear of becoming unionized if they don’t. They’ll galvanize other workers to stage wildcat strikes for better pay and working conditions. For far too long, America’s top executives, Wall Street traders and biggest investors have siphoned off almost all the economic gains. This is unsustainable, economically and politically. It’s not economically sustainable because the only way businesses can sell the goods and services American workers produce is if workers have enough money to buy them. If most gains continue to go to the top, the economy will become ever more susceptible to downdrafts and crashes.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Bidenomics has contradictions. And the UAW strike is heightening them. Charles Lane, The Washington Post

FLAG THIS

Majority of Americans Supportive

A recent poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that 58% of Americans support the strike UAW against Ford, GM, and Stellantis. 60% of Americans also support the dual strikes from Hollywood’s screenwriters and actors.

Along party lines, support was much stronger among Democrats who’ve traditionally allied themselves with labor unions. 72% and 79% of Democrats supported the auto workers and Hollywood respectively. Comparatively, 48% of Republicans backed auto workers and 46% supported Hollywood (Reuters).

FLAG FINDS

Billion-Dollar Monster, On the Ground Floor, Off the Sidelines

The Nasdaq’s biggest gainer since 1990 isn’t Apple or Amazon — it’s Monster Energy. And now the billion-dollar monster may be back. Todd Gibson, the executive who helped launch Monster into its incredible success, founded Yerbaé Brands in 2017 with the goal of winning in the plant-based, natural energy drink space. Why not make it a win-win?

New startups pop up every day, providing solutions to the problems that matter to you. Why not get in on the ground floor? Diversify your holdings and seize the opportunity to secure a stake in emerging startups before they make their mark on the market. Not sure where to look? Start here.

Are index options too expensive? Get off the sidelines with XSP. Cboe’s XSP offers everything you love about SPX contract options, but in a smaller size, providing traders greater flexibility. Discover the benefits of XSP.

WATERCOOLER

Apollo 7 Launches, Can I Bring It?, Mona Lisa’s Got Mail

On This Day in 1968: Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched with astronauts Walter M. Schirra, Jr.; Donn F. Eisele; and Walter Cunningham aboard. Under the command of Schirra, the crew of Apollo 7 conducted an 11-day orbit of Earth, during which the crew transmitted the first live television broadcasts from orbit.

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Fast Company: It is possible to retract your resignation after you quit. Here’s how

Today I learned the Mona Lisa has its own mailbox in which the painting receives fan mail and flowers addressed to it.