Intel has announced a massive investment in US manufacturing and in the state of Ohio.
Chip giant Intel plans to officially announce Friday that it will invest $20 billion to build two computer chip plants in Jersey Township in Licking County in what will be Ohio’s largest economic development project to date. State and local officials are set to gather in Newark this afternoon to celebrate the news.
The factories, called fabs, will employ 3,000 workers at an average salary of $135,000 per year. On top of that, the project is expected to create 7,000 construction jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs. And that’s just the start.
This is big news in so many ways. First, it’s a big step in bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States. This is welcome news for the long-term health of U.S. manufacturing, but also due to the current chip shortage being experienced in many industries.
2021 was a boom year for cryptocurrencies and NFTs, with many investors realizing massive financial gains when selling crypto or NFTs. Meanwhile, this has moved so fats that we have some uncertainty as to how the IRS will treat these gains. Of course investors will need to declare realized gains, but the applicable tax rate may be different between crypto and NFTs:
Specifically, an investor who sells an NFT, such as digital art, may owe a top 31.8% federal tax rate on any earnings. By comparison, appreciation in bitcoin, ethereum and other digital coins is subject to a 23.8% top rate.
That’s because NFTs are likely collectibles, for tax purposes. Collectibles carry a higher maximum tax rate on capital gains relative to assets like stocks, bonds and cryptocurrencies.
The IRS has not made a formal announcement, but tax experts are fairly confident that NFTs will be treated as collectibles. Keep this in mind as you plan your finances for 2022.
We’ve been hearing about how the residential real estate market is booming, and now this trend is spreading to the rental market.
Demand for two particular types of rentals is especially high: single-family homes and apartments in smaller cities that have less inventory. Rents for single-family homes are growing at the fastest pace in 15 years, according to data firm CoreLogic. Parts of the country that used to be considered affordable are suddenly experiencing the kind of rent frenzy with bidding wars and surging prices that had previously been exclusive to mega cities like San Francisco and New York City.
This is a logical development given what’s been going on in housing. The economy is rebounding and we’re flooded with liquidity, and now we have young people who have been living at home starting to venture out again. The rise of remote work has people fleeing huge cities like New York and San Francisco to places like Boise.
We know there will be short-term affects when it comes to the real estate market and rental market in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. The question is how long that lasts. Will there still be issues 6 months from now? One year from now?
In places like New York City, the effects are significant. New rentals have plunged 71% in Manhattan. That’s a lot to unwind over the next 6 months to a year.
Will there be fewer office jobs in NYC as companies offer more remote work options? Will fewer people want to move to NYC until the virus is completely eradicated or we have a vaccine?
The psychological effects are real, and sometimes it can take years to get back to normal after a recession or event like an earthquake or hurricane. Effects from a pandemic may be even worse.
Are we opening too fast? That’s one of the main questions we face as the nation and the world struggles to get economies moving again during the Coronavirus pandemic. As pointed out in the video about, there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about this virus and what are the safest ways to re-open.
We also have some extremists who want to pretend that there isn’t any real danger here. That complicates things as some irresponsible people can be a threat to others who try their best to be safe.
We will learn a lot over the next several months, and some of those lessons may be painful if we move too fast. We don’t want this terrible recession to turn into a long-term depression.
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