Uber's Value Just Doubled To $40 Billion In 6 Months (Sorry, Haters)

While many of us have spent the past six months getting mad at Uber, Uber has spent the past six months making $22 billion magically appear.

The ride-sharing app maker, a lightning rod for controversy, announced on Thursday that it has raised $1.2 billion in new funding, bringing the company's value to roughly $40 billion. That's up from a paltry $18 billion six months ago.

Uber's investors are apparently unfazed by bad press. In recent months, the company has had to apologize for a top executive threatening to smear journalists critical of the business. It's also been rated F by the Better Business Bureau, protested by its own drivers, kicked out of Las Vegas and accused of dirty practices aimed at undercutting its rivals.

But Uber is willing to acknowledge it has issues.

"The events of the recent weeks have shown us that we also need to invest in internal growth and change," CEO Travis Kalanick said in the blog post announcing the new funding. He promised Uber would make changes to become "a smarter and more humble company."

One possible teensy consolation for Uber is this factoid suggested by Wall Street Journal editor Dennis Berman: Roughly four years ago, the company was worth $60 million. Today it's worth $40 billion. At this rate of growth, it is appreciating by $19,839 per minute, according to Berman's math.

If you had invested $10,000 in the company when it started, that $10,000 would be worth about $80 million now, estimates tech investor Semil Shah -- though the effects of the company repeatedly issuing new stock would have cut that gain down significantly by making stock worth less. Maybe your $10,000 share would only be worth $20 million today. Still, $20 million > $10,000, according to my math.

At the moment, Uber is worth more than most members of the Standard & Poor's 500 index. It is worth more than Delta Air Lines and the railroad company CSX. It's also worth more than all the personal real estate in Anaheim, California.

Whether the company is actually worth all that money, or whether it's just the poster child for a growing startup bubble, is a different question altogether. Uber is making a lot of money, though the exact amount won't be entirely clear until the company goes public -- at which point maybe you can help boost Uber's valuation, too.

An Uber spokeswoman declined to provide further comment.

Child Care And Education Costs Are Off The Charts. Literally.

The costs of educating and caring for children just keep soaring.

Just check out this chart from a recent Brookings Institution analysis of consumer price data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing how various costs have changed relative to median U.S. household income in recent decades:

There are several striking things on this chart. For one, the costs of energy, gasoline and hospital services are rising far more quickly than income. Meanwhile, the prices of appliances and personal computers have fallen. And the price of a new car has risen a lot more slowly than income.

But the most jaw-dropping thing is the dark blue line that charts the rise in child care and tuition costs. That line goes so high it doesn't even fit on the chart. So we refigured the chart, in an effort to show just how goddamned high child care and tuition costs have gotten:

Child care and tuition costs include elementary, high school and college tuition and fees, as well as child care and nursery school, according to the BLS.

Here is a graphical representation of what that means for parents:

Though they're not shown on the chart, other important prices are also outstripping income, including rent, legal and professional services, and hotel rates.

"These large sectors and the high prices they charge are contributing heavily to the slipping economic position of American households," the Brookings analysts wrote.

The households they're referring to are low- and middle-class households, which suffer more when the costs of necessities rise. That has added to the pain of the slow destruction of the middle class in recent decades. It has also been a drag on the U.S. economy, which depends heavily on consumer spending. As the Wall Street Journal noted in its own analysis of consumer price data, the meteoric rise in the costs of health care, rent and education has led to a slowdown in spending on clothing and entertainment. As a result, large retailers and restaurant chains are struggling to get customers to spend.

Coke Is Going To Try And Sell You Milk

Soda sales are falling, so Coca-Cola is getting ready to sell us a new drink. You may have heard of it. It's called milk. It comes from cows.

Coke's new milk isn't just plain old white stuff, though. Called FairLife, the new drink is marketed as "premium" milk with 50 percent more protein, 30 percent more calcium, half the sugar of typical milk -- and a higher price tag.

“We’ll charge twice as much for it as the milk we're used to buying in a jug,” the president of Coca-Cola North America told analysts at a Morgan Stanley conference last week. “It's basically the premiumisation of milk," Coke's Sandy Douglas said, according to a transcript from the event.

Douglas compared the milk to Coke's high-end juice brand, Simply. If the new milk does as well as Simply, in a few years it will "rain money," he said.

So far, Fairlife is only sold in test markets. The soda giant plans to launch it nationally in the U.S. in 2015, according to a statement from a Coca-Cola spokeswoman. The enhanced milk is a joint venture between Coke and Select Milk Producers dairy co-op, a collective of large dairy producers.

The dairy industry needs this to work. American milk consumption is declining, along with soft drink sales, as Americans increasingly swap cereal and milk for breakfast bars and fast food breakfast sandwiches. Retail sales of milk dropped 3 percent in 2014 after falling 2 percent the year before, according to data from Euromonitor. Competition from non-dairy milk alternatives, protein drinks and ready-to-drink teas may make it difficult for the milk industry to reverse the trend.

Fairlife hits on a couple of food fads that may help it succeed. The drink offers more protein than traditional milk. And protein is having a moment, thanks largely to cross-fit enthusiasts and paleo dieters. Companies increasingly have been using claims of high protein to sell everything from jerky to cereal.

People also seem to love milk alternatives and are often willing to pay a little bit more for them. Soy milk and almond milk revenues are expected to grow by 7.1 percent annually over the next four years, to $1.4 billion, according to data from IBISWorld, a research firm.

Fairlife contains dairy, but the fact that “there is something special about the product” makes shoppers think of it a bit differently than “the basic private-label milk that people buy in supermarkets,” said John Sicher, the editor of Beverage Digest, an industry newsletter.

An ad for Fairlife.

Turning a staple drink into a premium beverage to justify a higher price isn't a new strategy. The alcohol industry does it with Grey Goose vodka, Patron tequila and Tanqueray gin.

Water is probably the best example. Once just something that you got from the tap or even, gasp, a well in the ground, water was a more than $11 billion industry in 2011, according to the International Bottled Water Association. In addition to fancy water like Fiji and Voss, there are now sommeliers and websites dedicated to helping shoppers find the most luxurious types of water. Coke is in the water business as well with Dasani, which contains filtered tap water and trace amounts of minerals.

For Coke, premium milk is part of a broader push to diversify as Americans tire of soda. Rival Pepsi, which owns Frito-Lay, has already done this. Coke's biggest competitor is pushing into dairy as well, with a yogurt brand sold in stores nationwide.

Earlier this year, Coke capitalized on the rising popularity of energy drinks by buying a 17 percent stake in Monster. Coke also will offer its brands in Keurig’s single-serve cold brew machines next year. Honest Tea is the first Coke brand Keurig users will be able to brew in single-serve form.

Injecting some new life into Coke’s business is paramount. The company reported a 14 percent drop in profit last quarter and announced a cost-cutting program aimed at reducing expenses by $3 billion a year by 2019.

The soda giant also reported a 1 percent decline in carbonated drink volume in North America and it’s “very unlikely” it will see much growth in the U.S. soda business in the future, said Howard Telford, a beverage analyst at Euromonitor International, a market research firm. Shoppers, increasingly aware of high levels of sugar in soda, are opting for other drinks.

Americans will drink way less soda over the next several years, according to this chart from IBISWorld.

Black Friday Brawls Captured On Camera As Shoppers Tussle Over Barbies, TVs, Bargains Galore

All's fair in love and ... shopping?

As Black Friday bargain hunters continue to swarm stores across the country in their attempt to snag the best deals, reports have started emerging of shoppers growing violent in the frenzy for discounted wares.

At a Houston-area Walmart on Thursday night, police reportedly intervened after a fight broke out following a scramble for discounted Samsung flatscreen TVs. A video, said to have been taken at the Texas store, shows shoppers lying on top of the TVs on the ground, apparently in an attempt to prevent other people from buying them.

Also on Thursday, sheriff's deputies were called to a Walmart store in Norwalk, California, after two women started fighting over a Barbie doll, according to CBS Los Angeles. At least one of the women is reported to have thrown a punch.

"The whole thing was pretty stupid," a shopper told the news outlet. "That was very dumb."

At a Walmart in Michigan City, Indiana, another video on YouTube allegedly shows people tussling over $88 subwoofers. "Oh my God, that is crazy," one woman can be heard saying in the video as customers scrambled for the electronics.

KTLA reported that three shoppers at a Kohl's store in Tustin, California, were arrested early Friday following a shopping-related altercation. The shoppers included two women and one juvenile, said KABC-TV.

Two shoppers -- a man and his girlfriend -- were also arrested at an Indianapolis mall early Friday after they allegedly attacked an off-duty police officer. WXIN reports that the man had started a fight with another man in the parking lot after being ejected from the mall for being "too rowdy." An off-duty officer then tried to break up the fight, but the man and his girlfriend allegedly attacked him. The two individuals were subsequently arrested.

Elsewhere in the country, bargain hunters lined up for hours to get into their favorite stores. Plenty of "shoving" and general frenzy has been reported.

Shoppers head into Target just after their doors opened at midnight on Black Friday in South Portland, Maine.

Macy's opens its doors at 6 p.m. for Black Friday in New York City.

People enter a J.C. Penney store at the Newport Mall on Thursday in Jersey City, New Jersey.

This year, Black Friday brawls have also been reported across the pond in the U.K.

"Keep calm, people!"

Black Friday shopping chaos hits Britain: http://t.co/aQdwndulRO pic.twitter.com/0JNbGWCCM5

-- CBS News (@CBSNews) November 28, 2014

Fights breaking out #BlackFriday https://t.co/r5jT1spiKj

-- kadhim (@kadhimshubber) November 28, 2014

Lady down #BlackFriday https://t.co/ruJ5XnXasM

-- kadhim (@kadhimshubber) November 28, 2014

Black Friday sales to top £150m on Oxford Street alone - as fights and scuffles break out http://t.co/of3ogGjJg5 pic.twitter.com/A6KGCO1lq0

-- The Independent (@Independent) November 28, 2014

According to the BBC, several people were arrested and some were injured following shopping-related clashes in cities across the U.K. Police had to intervene in stores in London, Cardiff, Glasgow and elsewhere, as customers quarreled over discounted goodies.

On Friday, Manchester police urged shoppers to "keep calm."

Walmart Black Friday Protests Hit Major Cities With Calls For '$15 And Full Time'

WASHINGTON -- Dirk Rasmussen had Friday off and could have slept in if he wanted to. Instead, the Maryland resident and Teamster rose early and drove to downtown Washington, eager to join a post-Thanksgiving protest against Walmart.

"Our local [union] president encouraged us to take part," said Rasmussen, 58, who works in a lumber and building-supply warehouse. "I raised eight children on a Teamsters benefit package and Teamsters wage. I'm a firm believer in collective bargaining, and I'm very concerned about the security of this next generation."

Black Friday may be most famous for doorbuster shopping deals, but among progressives it's becoming a regular holiday for labor demonstrations. Friday marked the third consecutive year of scattered but highly visible protests against Walmart. Demonstrators, along with an unknown number of Walmart strikers, are calling for better pay and scheduling practices from the world's largest retailer.

On Thursday and Friday, photos on Twitter tagged with #walmartstrikers showed sizable protests in D.C., Pittsburgh, Northern New Jersey, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif., and St. Paul, Minn., among other areas. The protests were led by OUR Walmart, a union-backed worker group, alongside community and labor groups in different cities.

100+ stand in solidarity w #WalmartStrikers on thanksgiving in DC pic.twitter.com/Spqc8rsooQ

-- DC Jobs With Justice (@DCJWJ) November 28, 2014

Dan Schlademan, campaign director of Making Change at Walmart, a project of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said on a call with reporters Friday that he expects the number of strikers to be in the hundreds by the end of the day, though the group could not provide a specific number of workers who'd submitted strike notices to their bosses.

"All the signs that we're seeing is that this is going to be the biggest day ever," Schlademan said.

Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Walmart, told HuffPost that the retailer was more concerned with serving its customers than with protests it views as union stunts. According to Buchanan, more than 22 million shoppers came to Walmart stores on Thanksgiving alone this year.

"We're really focused on our customers," Buchanan said. "We've got millions of customers coming in [on Thanksgiving] and Friday, and we're making sure they have a safe and exciting shopping experience."

In D.C., a crowd estimated at 200 to 400 people assembled outside the Walmart store on H Street Northwest, calling on the retailer to commit to "$15 and full time" -- a wage of $15 per hour, the same rate demanded by fast-food strikers, and a full-time schedule for those who want it. One of OUR Walmart's top criticisms of the retailer is that part-time workers don't get enough hours.

The protest was large enough to draw the D.C. police, who stood at the store's doors and dispersed the crowd after about an hour.

Melinda Gaino, an employee at the store, said she would be missing three shifts this week while on strike. Gaino took part in a sit-down strike on Wednesday inside the H Street store, where she and other protesters sat on the floor with tape over their mouths, calling on Walmart to end what they called the silencing of workers.

Gaino, a 45-year-old mother of four, said she joined OUR Walmart in August out of concern with some of the challenges faced by her colleagues. Many workers, she said, don't get enough hours to support their families.

"This has given me more confidence," Gaino, who earns $9.90 per hour, said of going on strike. "I said I've come this far, so I may as well go all in."

Correction: This item originally misstated the number of Walmart shoppers on Thanksgiving.

Nice of @walmart to set up a lovely tableau for #WalmartStrikers! Roll back? Fight back! #BlackFridayWOA pic.twitter.com/XR0y85co5o

-- Jess Banks (@ProfBanks) November 28, 2014

Your Credit Rating Might Predict How Likely It Is You'll Have A Heart Attack

A new study has found that your credit rating may be able to predict how likely you are to have a heart attack or stroke.

The multi-decade study, which was published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was performed by Duke University psychologists who looked at the cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes status and smoking habits of over 1,000 New Zealanders -- and then compared their findings to those people’s credit ratings.

The study found that people with lower credit scores were more likely to be at risk for cardiovascular disease. That, the study said, is because the same factors that account for better credit scores -- the researchers focused on self-control, educational attainment and cognitive abilities -- also account for better health.

“For example, being able to regulate your impulses lets you say no to that second helping of dessert as well as to buying something you can’t afford,” said Salomon Israel, one of the study’s authors and a postdoctoral fellow in psychology and neuroscience at Duke.

The study also found that those traits begin to develop in the first ten years of a person’s life. The researchers have been following the study participants' development since birth. "Despite the passage of nearly three decades, childhood factors were all significantly correlated with their corresponding adult measures," the study concluded.

In order to measure self-control, researchers relied on reports from study members’ teachers and parents, as well as self-reports from the members themselves, about qualities such as hyperactivity, inattention and lack of persistence. Educational attainment was defined by the level of schooling each participant had completed, while cognitive ability was measured by evaluating participants' IQs at various points throughout their lives.

Of course, the association between poor credit and poor heart health could be due to other factors, too. The study acknowledged, for example, that losing a job after getting sick could cause a person’s health to deteriorate and their credit score to drop. On the flip side, someone with more money might be both healthier and more financially stable because they can afford to pay their bills on time and access quality health care.

But the study concluded that self-restraint, educational level and cognitive ability were nonetheless more important than these other factors in explaining the link between a sound credit rating and a strong heart.

In the U.S., credit ratings are determined by a complex algorithm used by credit bureaus, which receive information about how punctually people pay their bills from places like utility companies, banks and mortgage providers. Then, the bureaus plug that information into an algorithm and come up with a three-digit number that lenders, landlords and others use to assess your financial reliability.

Having a less-than-perfect credit rating can have a host of consequences. Just a few dings on your score can mean you’ll be paying higher interest rates on mortgages, car loans and credit cards. Having a few more dings means you could be denied a job or a place to live.

But people shouldn’t be so quick to assume that a bad credit score is only because a person was impulsive, says Paul Bland, a consumer lawyer and the executive director of Public Justice, a public interest law firm that brings litigation against corporations on behalf of consumers.

“In the U.S., there are so many mistakes on credit reports that it seems dubious to make a strong association between these personality traits and your credit reports,” Bland told The Huffington Post.

Mistakes on credit reports affect millions of Americans: One out of every five people with a credit report on file had an error on their report, the Federal Trade Commission found in 2013.

Bland pointed out that even if a person is scrupulous and has a history of always paying bills on time, something like medical debt could still quickly ruin their credit. Because unexpected illnesses or accidents don’t discriminate in who they afflict, research has shown that unpaid medical debt is an imperfect predictor of creditworthiness. Partly as a result of such research, major credit score provider FICO said in August that it would start giving less weight to unpaid medical bills in determining credit ratings when that is the only negative in a person’s credit history.

So what does this all mean? For those who make indulgent purchases even when your paycheck doesn’t allow it, it can't hurt to get your blood pressure and cholesterol checked. But at the same time, just because you have a few dents on your credit report doesn’t mean you’re going to keel over the next time you have to shovel the driveway.

H/T Consumer Reports

Black Friday Is One Of The Busiest Days For Gun Purchases

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (AP) — More gun sales than ever are slipping through the federal background check system — 186,000 last year, a rate of 512 gun sales a day, as states fail to consistently provide thorough, real-time updates on criminal and mental histories to the FBI.

At no time of year is this problem more urgent. This Friday opens the busiest season for gun purchases, when requests for background checks speed up to nearly two a second, testing the limits of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

The stakes are high: In the U.S., there are already nine guns for every 10 people, and someone is killed with a firearm every 16 minutes. Mass shootings are happening every few weeks.

"We have a perfect storm coming," FBI manager Kimberly Del Greco told The Associated Press during a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the system.

Much of the responsibility for preventing criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns is shouldered by about 500 men and women who run the system from inside the FBI's criminal justice center, a gray office building with concrete walls and mirrored windows just outside Bridgeport, West Virginia.

By federal law, NICS researchers must race against the clock: They have until the end of the third business day following an attempted firearm purchase to determine whether or not a buyer is eligible.

"They won't proceed or deny a transaction unless they are ABSOLUTELY certain the information they have is correct and sufficient to sustain that decision," FBI spokesman Stephen G. Fischer told the AP.

In roughly two percent of the checks handled by the FBI, agents don't get this information in time. If three business days pass without a federal response, buyers can legally get their guns, whether or not the check was completed.

Americans are buying more than twice as many guns a year now as they did when the background checks were first implemented in 1998. And that means more gun sales are effectively beating the system.

The federal government often takes the heat in debates over gun rights, but the FBI says states are largely to blame for this problem. They voluntarily submit records, which are often missing information about mental health rulings or criminal convictions, and aren't always rapidly updated to reflect restraining orders or other urgent reasons to deny a sale.

"We are stewards of the states' records," Del Greco said. "It's really critical that we have accurate information. Sometimes we just don't."

There are more than 48,000 gun retailers in the U.S., from Wal-Mart stores to local pawn shops. Store clerks can use the FBI's online E-Check System, which federal officials say is more efficient. But nearly half the checks are phoned in. Three call centers — in Kentucky, Texas, and Wheeling, W.Va. — take these calls from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day but Christmas.

NICS did about 58,000 checks on a typical day last year. That surged to 145,000 on Black Friday 2013. They're bringing in 100 more workers than usual for the post-Thanksgiving rush this year.

The call centers have no access to privileged information about buyers' backgrounds, and make no decisions. They just type in their name, address, birthdate, Social Security Number and other information into the system. On Black Fridays, the work can be grueling: One woman took a call that lasted four hours when a dealer phoned in the maximum 99 checks.

"Rules had to be stretched," recalled Sam Demarco, her supervisor. "We can't transfer calls. Someone had to sit in her seat for her while she went to the bathroom."

In the years since these background checks were required, about 71 percent have found no red flags and produced instant approvals.

But ten factors can disqualify gun purchasers: a felony conviction, an arrest warrant, a documented drug problem or mental illness, undocumented immigration status, a dishonorable military discharge, a renunciation of U.S. citizenship, a restraining order, a history of domestic violence, or an indictment for any crime punishable by longer than one year of prison time.

Any sign that one of these factors could be in a buyer's background produces a red-flag, which sends the check to the FBI researchers to approve, deny or investigate. They scour state records in the federal database, and often call local authorities for more information.

"It takes a lot of effort ... for an examiner to go out and look at court reports, look at judges' documents, try to find a final disposition so we can get back to a gun dealer on whether they can sell that gun or not," Del Greco said. "And we don't always get back to them."

These workers have considerable responsibility, but little independent authority. They must use skill and judgment, balancing the rights of gun owners and the need to keep would-be killers from getting firearms.

Researcher Valerie Sargo said outstanding warrants often come up when they examine a red flag, and that can help police make arrests.

"It makes you feel good that this person is not supposed to have a firearm and you kept it out of their hands," she said.

It also weighs on them when the red flags aren't resolved in time. Tacked to a cubicle wall, a sign reads: "Our policy is to ALWAYS blame the computer."

FBI contractors and employees oversaw more than 9 million checks in the first full year, when the NICS system was established as part of Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1998. By last year, they oversaw more than 21 million. In all, only 1.25 percent of attempted purchases are denied. Denials can be appealed.

People can get guns without background checks in many states by buying weapons at gun shows or from individuals, a loophole the National Rifle Association does not want closed. But even the NRA agrees that the NICS system needs better data.

"Any database is only going to function as well as the information contained within," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

Del Greco doesn't see the states' data improving soon, which only adds to the immense challenge of getting through huge numbers of requisite checks on Black Friday.

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Stroud can be reached through Twitter @mattstroud.