United States of America eSeries: Don't call it a bubble 🏡

Don't call it a bubble 🏡

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Tonight: Housing bubble fears are overblown; Jeff Bezos is being extremely petty; and it took almost a year but I finally got Wu-Tang Clan into this newsletter. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

🏡 THE B-WORD

Let's talk about bubbles. History is rife with cautionary tales about what happens when a stock or commodity gets all 'roided up on speculative behavior and greed before collapsing in spectacular fashion. You've got your Tulipmania of the 17th century, your dot-com debacle of the late 20th century, and, as most of us will recall, your subprime housing market crash of the early 21st.

For us elder millennials — '80s babies who were fed the rhetoric that housing is the surest way to build wealth and then became adults just as the housing market imploded — the current frenzy around homebuying could, understandably, be a bit triggering.

Home prices are climbing at the fastest pace in history, after all. Buying a house in 2021 is a veritable bloodsport, and only those with hundreds of thousands in cash can truly compete. It feels...eerily bubbly.

But, as CNN Business' Matt Egan reports, today's housing market is very different from the early-2000s bubble that wrecked the economy.

WHY 2021 IS UNLIKE 2006

Inventory: Today's shortage of available homes to buy is the opposite of the glut in building 15 years ago. Back then, the overbuilding led to excess supply which fueled the crash. Homebuilders simply can't catch up fast enough to meet demand, which means the shortage is likely to linger — and therefore prices are unlikely to crater in the same way they did before.
Banks and regulators: Borrowing hasn't gotten out of hand this time around, at least not yet. In the early 2000s, demand for housing was artificially driven up because people with little or no income were able to get mortgages. The federal government cracked down on so-called NINJA loans (no income, no job, no assets) after the subprime crisis.

Comforting takeaway quote: "In some ways this is an even hotter housing market than before the Great Recession," said Aneta Markowska, chief economist at Jefferies. "But the risk of this turning into a bubble is much lower."

🚀 NUMBER OF THE DAY

$2 billion

Jeffrey Bezos, noted uber-billionaire who tried to make cowboy hats a thing recently, is offering to give NASA up to $2 billion in a bid to … well, really just to stick it to his uber-billionaire rival.

Bezos is offering the money to NASA if it will consider giving Blue Origin a contract to take the next astronauts to the moon. Now, NASA already gave that contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX. But I guess Bezos, like, really really wants it. This is the eccentric billionaire version of stomping your feet and crying over not getting picked at kickball.

🥄 SOUPED UP

Here at Nightcap HQ, we like a good redesign story (almost as much as we love a bad redesign story). And this one's special because it's the first time in half a century Campbell's soup is getting a makeover.

The changes are subtle — it's still the classic red-and-white color-blocked label. But there are a few fun updates:

A "modernized logo scripture." Notice the font, which is based on founder Joseph Campbell's original signature, loses its drop-shadow.
The word "soup" also has a new font, though it's keeping that cute slanted "O" in a nod to the brand's original label from 1898.
The best part: The capital "C" in the new version is repeated in the fleur-de-lis at the bottom. That gets an A+, 10/10, we love that. (It reminds me of how the "Nightcap" logo's crescent moon echoes the curve of the serif on the letter t — have y'all noticed that?)

Lest we forget, there is a business angle here: Campbell's enjoyed an early pandemic-era sales boom when folks prepared to hunker down and make more meals at home. But this year hasn't been as profitable, and the company announced in June that it's increasing the prices it charges retailers and other customers by an average of roughly 5% later this year. A fresh look is a cheap but effective way of distracting shoppers who might be put off by the increase.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

🎓 Walmart will pay for full college tuition and book costs at some schools for US workers, the latest effort to sweeten its benefits as it seeks to attract and retain talent in a tight job market.

🎤 The United States has sold the only physical copy ever made of the Wu-Tang Clan album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" after federal authorities seized it from notorious "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli.

💰 Google's parent company Alphabet reported revenue of $61.9 billion for the quarter ended June 30, a staggering 62% jump from the same quarter last year and significantly higher than analysts had expected.

👀 Regulators are investigating the fact that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is not licensed by FINRA, Wall Street's powerful self-regulator.

🔌 SHAMELESS PLUG

This Thursday, July 29, at 11am ET, CNN Business presents Foreseeable Future: A Conversation About The Workplace Revolution.

My colleague Kathryn Vasel will talk about the future of work with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, followed by a panel discussion with Dan Springer (DocuSign CEO), Anjali Sud (Vimeo CEO) and Alexi Robichaux (BetterUp Co-Founder & CEO).

Click here to reserve your spot.