INTERNATIONAL

Taliban Advance Is Bad News for the Drug Trade

The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group that brutally ruled Afghanistan in the late ’90s, has taken over more than half of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals as of yesterday evening, including the country’s second-largest city, Kandahar. Four cities fell to the Taliban’s rule Thursday night alone. 

The Taliban’s advance comes months after President Biden announced plans to withdraw all US troops from the country to end the US’ longest-running war. But now, Biden’s sent 7,000 troops back to evacuate the American embassy and US citizens.

• Afghanistan’s capital and largest city, Kabul, is still under government control, along with three other major Afghan cities—but one of those is currently under siege and the rest are being closed in on. 
• The Taliban now effectively controls all of southern Afghanistan, and US officials told the NYT that the Biden administration is preparing for the possibility of the Afghan government collapsing within the next month.

One of the many ramifications of the Taliban’s onslaught: It could pour fuel on the illegal drug market.

The “world’s biggest cartel” is getting bigger

Even insurgents need capital to fuel their ventures, and the Taliban's biggest source of revenue is the drug trade. The organization made $416 million trafficking opium, heroin, and increasingly meth in fiscal year 2020, per the Conversation. 

And in the Afghan countryside now under Taliban control, opium poppies are in perpetual superbloom. Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of opium, which most heroin is derived from: 84% of all the world’s opium was sourced from the country from 2015–20, per the UN’s World Drug Report.

• The Taliban has also started peddling meth recently. And ephedra, a plant used to make methamphetamine, grows natively in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban didn’t just beef up its drug supply. It also took over international crossing points to ramp up distribution, gaining access to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Pakistan. From those countries, drugs can be shipped to the rest of the world. 

Bottom line: The Taliban’s power grab likely means more heroin and meth will be pushed into the hands of dealers and users around the world.

ECONOMY

Economists’ Fall Plans // The Delta Variant

US consumer sentiment plunged 13.5% from July to its lowest level since 2011—yes, even lower than when they tried to make Barnett the most desirable man on Love is Blind. The dive was primarily sparked by concerns surrounding the Delta variant.

What exactly is “consumer sentiment”? Each month, the University of Michigan surveys 500 people across the continental US about how they’re feeling re: personal finances and business conditions. It’s one data point used to evaluate how the economy is faring.

What happened? The Michigan survey’s chief economist said such a dramatic change is an “emotional response, mainly from dashed hopes that the pandemic would end soon.”

• It’s not just consumers going blue. Only 39% of US small business owners said this month that they expect economic conditions to improve in the next year, compared to 50% in July, per a study from Vistage Worldwide.

Bottom line: Surging Delta cases and reinstated mask mandates are giving Americans flashbacks to the early days of the pandemic. And some companies, such as Southwest Airlines, are saying that concerns about Delta are cramping the economic recovery. 

WORK

New Covid Wave Upends Back-to-Work Plans

Nearly 47% of respondents to a Morning Brew survey said their employers are reconsidering return-to-office plans because of the spread of the Delta variant. 

Not only does that show how seriously employers are treating the latest Covid wave, but also how comfortable they are with remote work. Last quarter companies scored some of their best financial results ever...without employees seeing the inside of an office. 

We posed several other questions to readers about remote work and the pandemic. Here’s what we learned:

• Commutes are the worst: “No commute” was the top choice for what readers like most about working from home.
• Offices are still empty: 75% of respondents are working fully remote, while 20% head in a few times a week. 4.5% are fully in-person.
• People miss their coworkers: Readers said socializing with colleagues was the thing they missed most about not working in an office, followed by the opportunity to work in a different setting other than their house.
• But they like working from home: 66% of readers said working from home during the pandemic was better than expected.

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GRAB BAG

Key Performance Indicators

Stat: Just 203 coronavirus cases were found in connection to the Lollapalooza music festival several weeks ago, according to Chicago health officials, indicating “no sign of a ‘superspreader’ event.” The festival, attended by about 385,000 people, required proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test upon entrance.

Quote: “It will be in textbooks.”

How physiologist Leanne Redman described a new paper on metabolism to the NYT. The paper, published Thursday in Science, may have upended what we thought we knew about metabolism, concluding that it doesn’t decrease from age 20 to 60 and that there are no real differences in the metabolic rates of men and women. 

Read: Why China’s crypto cowboys are fleeing to Texas. (Rest of World)

PERSONAL FINANCE

Money Matters: Taking the Plunge on a House

Note: Sadly, this is the final Money Matters column...ever. Author Ryan Lasker will be writing a personal finance newsletter that starts next Tuesday. You should sign up. 

Hey Ryan, when should I make the transition from renting an apartment to buying a house?—Tai from Texas

I could write a mile-long column about this, but Neal told me I have 200 words. So here goes.

A few prereqs for buying a house: a solid credit score to qualify for a good mortgage rate, cash for maintenance and repairs (2%–4% of your home’s value), and no plans to move for a while. Oh, and some more cash for a down payment—somewhere between 5% and 20% of the purchase price.

Owning a home can make for a great investment. Median US home sale prices climbed 46% between 2007—the height of the subprime mortgage crisis—and this June, per the St. Louis Fed. Real estate is a much less volatile investment than stocks, making it a better place to preserve wealth.

However, just because you can buy a house doesn’t mean you’re ready. For some, it’s much more appealing to rent so that you can dial up a landlord when your AC unit freezes over (not speaking from experience). The average HVAC unit is $7,000, and I cannot think of a more boring way to spend that much money.

Bottom line: Buy a house when you find the perfect place at the right price and are ready to take on the financial and physical responsibility.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• A federal judge denied a request from landlords to halt the Biden administration’s new freeze on evictions.
• Boeing delayed the launch of its Starliner astronaut capsule...again...meaning it could be months before this thing gets airborne.
• Samsung’s de facto leader, Jay Y. Lee, left jail on parole yesterday after serving 18 months for his role in a massive political scandal.
• Richard Branson sold $300 million worth of Virgin Galactic shares (not the first time he’s sold a bunch of stock since the company went public).
• Amazon is moving production of its upcoming Lord of the Rings TV show from New Zealand to the UK.

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FROM THE CREW

Brew's Bookshelf

Every other week, Brew’s Bookshelf brings you a few of our favorite business-related reads.

1. If Modern Monetary Theory confuses you, or if you've never even heard of that term before, let Stephanie Kelton break it down for you in her classic, The Deficit Myth.
2. Adam Harris's The State Must Provide dives into the origin stories of America's colleges and universities.

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Back to work: As part of our series on Covid and the workplace, we speak with unvaccinated workers returning to the office—and explore how employers are dealing with it. Read it here.

Conversation starters: 

• With unlimited infrastructure funding, what would you fix? 
• Do you live in a growing or shrinking county?
• What actually happens when you swallow a bug? 

GAMES

Brew Crossword: Let's Declare a Truce

Today's puzzle includes clues about a TikTok star, James Corden, and Megan Thee Stallion. Yeah, it's not your average crossword. Give it a try here.

✳︎ A Note From Bakkt

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