Wallethub – The best choice for insurance, whether auto or life, is a mutual company. That is a consideration equally as important as the cost–perhaps more so. In a mutual insurance company, like top-rated Geico, as a policyholder you are also an owner. This aligns the incentives for the insurer to give good, reliable coverage.
Fred Carstensen
Rising prices hit CT student budgets
ctpublic.org – M’Lynn Gonzalez walks up and down the aisles of her local grocery store, picking up ingredients for dinner tonight. She finds what she needs, heads to the register and rings herself up. She sighs and takes her card out to pay as she reads her total — $40.
Gonzalez, a student at the University of Connecticut, says $40 is the average price she pays at the grocery store for just one dinner’s worth of ingredients. The cost of food and other essential items has risen beyond the budgets of many. Services such as food pantries continue to grow in popularity as the U.S. population deals with the increased costs of essential goods.
Dan Haar: Slow growth quells Connecticut’s claim as the richest state. Who’s No. 1?
CT Insider – That’s a complicated question for a lot of us. For the state as a whole, it’s even more so. Connecticut held the claim as the nation’s richest state, measured by average income per person, from 1987 until 2021. Massachusetts passed us that year, powered by a biotech boom in the Boston area.
Ask the Experts – Best Banks for Personal Loans
Wallethub – Q: Do you think credit unions and online lenders can compete with the best banks for personal loans?
Credit unions often offer better terms on all of those collateralized loans. I do not know how competitive they are on unsecured loans. Without researching it, I assume they do not offer such loans or limit them. The risk on unsecured loans is quite high, regardless of credit ratings. Large banks have the reserves and the legal teams to take on that risk; I suspect—but do not know—that credit unions are reluctant to take those risks. They do not have the reserves and the legal teams.
While credit unions vary widely in how they are run, I know that my credit union offers car loans three points or more lower than banks and some other credit unions. I also know that its equity lines and mortgages are lower than those of major banks. My bank offers equity loans fully four points higher than the rate on those from my credit union.
On the other hand, I have higher returns on a savings account (at 4.65%) at a commercial bank with no minimum level, much higher than returns offered at any credit union of which I am aware.
The simple reality is that people have to spend some time looking around and considering the options. As my personal experience outlined above suggests, credit unions often offer very competitive rates and services, including credit cards, but for specific products some banks or other credit unions will offer superior terms. However, it is almost always the case that the major banks offer the lowest rates on savings and CDs and insist on the highest rates for loans of any sort. They have the market power so long as people are not willing to invest the time to find better deals.
Data centers could transform local CT communities, but some officials are hesitant
CTPost – Efforts to improve Connecticut’s position as a potential host for data centers appear to be stuck in neutral at the moment, despite an increased focus on artificial intelligence and how the two are intertwined.
Is CT’s cannabis market growing too quickly? Experts say CT can avoid mistakes Massachusetts made
Stamford Advocate – In the nearly nine months since recreational cannabis sales began in Connecticut, the market has grown quickly — already surpassing the number of dispensaries per person that neighboring Massachusetts had within its first year.
$100M Rehab of Hartford’s XL Center comes as cities spend big on arenas
Yahoo News – With $100 million budgeted for an overhaul of the XL Center set to start next year, consultants in the arena business say that Connecticut needs to spend big to just stay in the game as cities around the nation invest in major venues.
A recession could last 2 years according to Connecticut economics experts
Fox 61 – CONNECTICUT, USA — Two respected economics experts from Connecticut universities said a recession is coming and it could be a couple of months before the economy straightens out.
America is enduring the worst inflation in 40 years, spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Soon, it’s expected the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates for the first time in four years.
Inflation: Economists from Connecticut and beyond on how we got here and where we’re going
Yahoo! News – Jun. 11—The average consumer probably isn’t pondering how PepsiCo controls more than 80% of the dip market when they’re standing in the grocery store picking up a Tostitos creamy spinach dip for a cookout or Super Bowl party.
But when setting the backdrop for a conversation about the factors in inflation — which economists mainly cite as pandemic-induced disruptions in supply and demand and the war in Ukraine, with dispute over the impact of stimulus packages — lack of market competition is something economist Fred Carstensen can’t emphasize enough. He cites the impacts of the United States largely abandoning antitrust policy over the past 40 years.