In today’s newsletter I discuss how insanely high our national debt it, GameStop tries to buy eBay for $56 Billion dollars, Ask.com shuts down, the ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’, Universal Music Group sells half their stake in Spotify, gas prices are up 50% since the start of the war in Iran, Elon Musk’s compensation from Tesla and SpaceX is out of this world, and LIV Golf has failed.

Let’s get into it!

We need to have a conversation about the national debt. I know it hasn’t been in the news lately, which is both ironic and sad at the same time, but it should be something every American thinks about daily, because it’s growing at an insane rate! Let’s get into it.

The national debt has reached an insane level that’s almost impossible to wrap your head around. I should know, because I’ve been trying to better understand just how large of a number it is for the last few weeks. As of the beginning of May 2026 the national debt currently stands at around $39.2 trillion dollars, depending on which debt clock or website you check, but either way it’s an insane number. I know I keep saying that, but by the end of this article I’ll have painted for you a picture that’ll leave you thinking “WoW! The national debt IS an insane number!”.

We didn’t just wake up one morning and all of the sudden the national debt was $39.2 trillion dollars! So how did we get here?

The national debt has grown to $39.2 trillion dollars because of a number of spending choices that have been made over several decades by both Republican and Democratic administrations, but the rise in the national debt can be traced back to the beginning of the early 1980s. During that era, under both Ronald Reagan’s and the first George Bush’s administrations, the government oversaw massive increases in borrowing to fund the military, and to pass huge tax cuts that cost trillions of dollars, which largely benefitted the wealthy under the economic theory of trickle-down economics.

By the late 1980s the national debt was $2.7 trillion dollars, but it started to climb quickly as the country moved into the 1990s and early part of the new millennium, which is a fancy way of saying the 2000s. There were several global conflicts and economic bailouts that required trillions of dollars in funding over those years.

Starting in 1990, we had the first Gulf war that cost roughly $102 billion dollars in order to liberate Kuwait from Sadam Hussain’s Iraq. Then after 9/11 we had the war in Afghanistan, which cost the U.S. government $2.3 trillion dollars in order to defeat the Taliban and bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Next we had the second Iraq war (you know, because the first one went so well), which cost U.S. tax payers $2 trillion dollars added to the national debt.

Fast forward to the 2008 financial crisis, which was triggered by the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble, which led to a bailout by the government to the tune of roughly $11.3 trillion dollars. This insane number includes all the bailouts of banks and stimulus packages, plus the trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue that resulted from the recession which had to be made up for in the form of more borrowing, thus expanding the national debt even more.

Now back to present day. Today the national debt is around $39.2 trillion dollars. How can you, as an average American tax payer, wrap your head around that number? Well, one way to imagine it is the national debt works out to around $116,557 dollars for every single American citizen. You heard that right! $116,557 dollars! I don’t personally have $116,557 dollars laying around that I can chip in to help pay down the national debt, and I’m guessing you don’t either. And you know what? Neither does the U.S. government! So since none of us seem to be able to pay down the national debt it just keeps growing at a rate of $5.26 million dollars every single minute, adding up to $7.5 billion dollars a day. At that rate the national debt increases by $1 trillion dollars every 93 days. I’ll save you from having to do the math yourself, but if the national debt continues to rise at a rate of $1 trillion dollars every 93 days, then it will increase by approximately $3.93 trillion dollars a year. So 1 year from now we could be looking at the national debt being around $43.1 trillion dollars! Again, that’s an insane number!

The biggest reason the national debt keeps climbing is there’s a massive gap between how much the government spends and how much it actually collects in revenue in the form of taxes. For the current fiscal year the federal government is expected to spend a total of $7.4 trillion dollars on everything from social programs to national defense. On the other side of the accounting ledger the federal government is only projected to bring in $5.6 trillion dollars. To say it as clearly as I can, the U.S. federal government spends more than it brings in, and it borrows in order to cover the difference, which adds to the national debt.

The last time the U.S. government had a balanced budget, and a resulting budget surplus, was in 2001 under President Clinton’s administration. And Bill Clinton didn’t just balance the budget once; he balanced the U.S. federal budget for 4 consecutive years from 1998 through 2001. And that was the last time the U.S. government had a balanced budget, meaning the U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has had to borrow money each year since 2001 in order to fund the government.

So what can we do to raise the public’s level of awareness about the growing national debt problem? Different government and non-profit organizations have tried over the years to raise the public’s attention about the country’s national debt, but none have been as popular as the National Debt Clock in New York City, which was created by Seymour Durst. He wanted to educate the public about the massive financial burden that was facing the country. Seymour Durst spent $100,000 dollars of his own money to install the original sign in Times Square on February 20, 1989 on the Durst Organization’s building at 145 W 42nd St. near Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. The clock featured 306 light bulbs that highlight the then nation's $2.7 trillion dollars of debt. Today the National Debt Clock in New York City has become a popular tourist destination where people from all over the world stop to watch the numbers jump by $5.26 million dollars every single minute.

If we as a nation don’t begin to have a conversation about our country’s national debt then it will only continue to grow to a point where our children’s generation will be saddled with a debt that can’t be brought down by any balanced budgets or economic windfalls from a growing economy. In fact, the U.S. national debt threatens the economic well being of the country going forward as rising interest rates cause the interest we pay on the national debt to grow faster than we can pay it down or cut costs. Any way you slice it, the growing national debt situation is getting worse, and we the people need to stand up and do something to address the country’s growing debt before it's too late….if it isn't too late already.

GameStop just made an unsolicited offer of $56 billion dollars to acquire eBay. Yes, you heard that correctly. Ryan Cohen, the former founder of pet company Chewy who is now the current CEO of GameStop, is leading the company in a transformation from a video game retailer into a digital marketplace that he hopes can compete with the likes of Amazon and Walmart. Hmm…ok then.

GameStop’s $56 billion dollar offer would be structured as a 50-50 mix of cash and GameStop common stock, and representing a 20% premium to eBay’s previous close price of $104.07 a share on Friday May 1, 2026. Before the acquisition offer eBay had a market cap of $30 billion dollars.

By combining eBay with GameStop, Ryan Cohen wants to use their existing stores to ship products faster to the massive user base of the combined companies, and believes they could offer a better experience for their customers than Amazon. Yea, good luck with that.

The ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ absolutely dominated at the global box office on its opening weekend bringing in $233 million dollars worldwide. The movie had a production budget of $100 million dollars, with a marketing budget of around $80 million dollars, so all told ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ is already a profitable movie and is getting early awards buzz for the cast’s performance. The original ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ brought in $326 million dollars worldwide, and only cost $35 million to make.

Much of the credit for ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ success goes to the talented cast made up of Anne Hathaway, whose movies have grossed over $6.8 billion dollars at the global boxoffice, and Meryl Streep, whose movies have grossed over $5 billion dollars at the global boxoffice.

‘The Devil Wears Prada’ is one of my family’s favorite movies to watch. It’s like one of those guilty pleasures. I’m a huge SyFi fan, but if I come across ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ streaming I just have to watch it. My wife and I are constantly quoting lines from the movie. It’s that good! I can’t wait to see it when it’s available on streaming.

Ask.com has been shut down. I’m betting most of you have never even heard of Ask.com, or the Internet famous Ask Jeeves, but that doesn’t matter because it’s shutting down and that’s a travesty. You see, Ask.com was an early internet pioneering search engine known for its friendly butler mascot Jeeves. Users would “ask Jeeves” anything they wanted to learn about to search for, and the search engine would give them back results. I know most of you are probably wondering why people would use such a corny service instead of Google, but the answer is because Google didn’t even exist yet when Ask Jeeves first launched in 1997.

In March 2005 Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp (IAC) bought the search engine Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion dollars in the stock. Following the acquisition, IAC rebranded the search engine to Ask.com and dropped the "Jeeves" mascot in 2006, which I always thought was a branding faux pas, or a big mistake for those of you who don’t speak French. Fast forward a few decades, and no one was really asking Jeeves anything anymore, so IAC decided to shut the service down on May 1, 2026.

I don’t know what IAC plans to do with Ask.com now. They might just be planning to leave it be, but I think that would be a big mistake. I have a couple of ideas.

My first thought was they could reintroduce Jeeves, and hook him up to a chatbot powered by ChatGPT or Claude, and let people go wild asking Jeeves anything they wanted to know about to search for. It’s a natural extension of the brand, and I’m guessing OpenAI or Anthropic would jump at the opportunity to partner and power the new Ask Jeeves service.

My second idea, and hear me out before you shut me down, is Apple should buy Ask.com and relaunch Jeeves as the male version of their already popular Siri. Think about it! Siri is wildly popular, and has over 500 million users worldwide who used Siri for over 300 billion requests in 2025. Hook a new front-end with a British sounding male butler’s voice, and this would be an instantly popular service that leverages already existing technology and service from Apple.

Barry Diller, if you’re listening, holah at your boy!

Universal Music Group (UMG) is selling half of their 3.10% equity stake, totaling nearly 3.25 million shares, in the streaming giant Spotify. This sale is expected to bring in roughly $1.4 billion dollars for the record label, which is valued at around $50 billion dollars. Under the leadership of Sir Lucian Grainge, Universal Music Group’s Chairman and CEO, he has overseen the growth of the company into a powerhouse that has dominated the music charts.

Universal Music Group acquired their stake in Spotify through a licensing agreement they signed in 2008 that allowed Spotify to launch. Since then it’s turned out to have been a pretty good deal, and now UMG is reaping the rewards of that deal by selling off half of their stake in Spotify, which has a market cap of approximately $89.2 billion dollars and over 246 million paying subscribers.

Universal Music Group plans to use a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Spotify to fund a $1.17 billion share buyback, as well as distribute a portion to their artists including Taylor Swift. Thanks Spotify!

Gas prices are now up more than 50% percent in many parts of the country since the war in Iran started, while the national average for regular gasoline at the pump is now $4.536 dollars a gallon compared to just $2.98 dollars on February 27, 2026 - just one day before the war in Iran started.

This surge in gas prices is hitting millions of Americans at a time of rising inflation and global instability. You know who’s not upset about rising gas prices at the pump? Oil companies and investors.

Right now the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is between $90.50–$93.00 dollars per barrel at the time of this article. The day before the war in Iran started the price was $66.96. That means the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate oil has increased by $23.54 dollars, for a 35.16% increase.

The three largest U.S. oil companies are ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. Each of those company’s stocks and market caps have soared since the war in Iran began, and investors are looking at the retirement accounts and portfolios with big smiles on their faces from ear to ear. ExxonMobil’s market cap has gone from $596.14 billion dollars before the war in Iran to $643.77 billion dollars today, for an increase of $47.63 billion dollars. Chevron’s market cap has risen from $362.88 billion dollars to its current valuation of $385.23 billion dollars for a gain of $22.35 billion dollars. Then we have ConocoPhillips, whose market cap has climbed from $111.36 billion dollars to $152.25 billion dollars today for an increase of $40.89 billion dollars. These big oil companies have added a combined $110.87 billion dollars to their market caps since the war in Iran began all thanks to the instability in the Strait of Hormuz. Once again, the rich are getting richer, and American families are struggling to fill up their tanks with a gallon of gas around $5 at the pump.

Elon Musk manages a business empire that spans from the surface of the earth to the deep reaches of space, and his compensation is out of this world! Elon Musk is the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, as well as a few other companies and the original side-project enthusiast. In order to keep Elon Musk motivated, his companies have had to compensate him in a rather unusual way. It’s not enough to just pay Elon Musk a fat salary. They’ve rewarded him with massive stock option grants that can only be exercised when he achieves for the companies certain milestones. If he succeeds then Elon Musk, his companies, and their shareholders all win, but if he doesn’t achieve those milestones the life still goes on, and he’s still the world richest man, but there’s something else driving Elon Musk. He wants to be the world's first trillionaire!

Tesla recently awarded Elon Musk a pay package of $158 billion dollars in stock options. While that number might sound astronomical, Elon Musk actually received zero cash last year, because he didn’t achieve any of Tesla’s twelve milestones. Elon Musk’s pay package at Tesla is structured around twelve tranches of stock options that only activate when Tesla hits specific revenue targets. Tesla must reach a market valuation of $8.5 trillion dollars for the full benefits to trigger for Elon Musk. If Tesla fails to meet these milestones then Elon Musk earns nothing in the form of compensation for the time he spends leading Tesla. This creates a direct link between the wealth of Elon Musk, and the market cap of Tesla.

SpaceX saw what Tesla was trying to do to motivate Elon Musk, and said “Hold my beer”. SpaceX has connected Elon Musk’s compensation to the company’s goals of launching massive rockets and colonizing Mars. Some of the milestones that SpaceX has set out for Elon Musk include achieving an IPO for SpaceX that values the company between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion dollars. Other milestones include the successful expansion of the Starlink satellite network, growth of SpaceX’s revenue by 50% year-over-year increases, and operational data centers in space.

So you know, just your average out of this world goals.

LIV Golf has failed. That’s right. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is reportedly pulling its massive financial backing from the startup golf league, and it’s going to have devastating effects.

LIV Golf has never really lived up to the popularity of its older brother, the PGA Tour. Sure, they flashed a lot of cash and paid Jon Rahm a $300 million dollar signing bonus, and over $87 million dollars in tournament earnings in just the two seasons he’s played in LIV Golf, but if the eyeballs aren’t there then the upstart league can’t stand on its own two feet and be successful. The Saudis had to pull the plug at some point, it just turns out that time is now.

The only real winner in all this appears to be the PGA Tour ,which now sports a valuation of $12 billion dollars, and is left as the only major golf tour in the world. I guess there’s a limit to how much money can buy you, and if you’re a golfer, apparently it can’t buy you happiness.

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The Business Behind The News is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.