Millionaires Are Up, Loan Approvals Are Down, & Walmart’s Starting a Knife Fight (kinda)
The Weekly from The Liquid Lunch Project, Issue No 170 | June 27, 2025
On this day in 1787, Edward Gibbon wrapped up The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, his 20-year autopsy of how a world power unraveled from the inside out. Corruption, complacency, bloated systems, too much outsourcing…Starting to feel a little familiar? We're not saying America is Rome…but if you squint a little and look at inflation, infrastructure, and TikTok trends, it’s not not Rome either. Moral of the story? You can’t control the empire, but you can control your margin, your team, and your backup plan. Might want to revisit all three.
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ON TAP THIS WEEK
💸 Cash Flow Wheezing? Might be time for a mid-year CPR
💣 The Bunker Buster Heard Round the World (And Wall Street)
🤑 Subscribing to The Weekly May Be Correlated with Wealth…Science Pending
💉 One shot to rule them all…or at least, lower cholesterol.
📦 From Blackjack to Billionaire: Fred Smith’s Final Delivery
📉 Loan approvals are TANKING…and small businesses are paying the price.
🌐 And from Around the Web: The Accidental Influencer, the Frozen Pencil Economy, and the Economics of Spite
THE CLASSROOM
Mid-Year Financial Check-In: The Come-to-Jesus Moment Your Business Needs
by Luigi Rosabianca
You’re halfway through the year, and whether you’re crushing it or clinging to the flaming dumpster fire of Q1 optimism, it’s time for a financial gut check. Are your goals still realistic? Is your cash flow coughing up red flags? Are you secretly dreaming of quitting to open a taco stand in Tulum?
Don’t white-knuckle it to December. Read the full guide for a mid-year financial check-in, and if your numbers need life support, 📞 book a call; we’ve got funding, strategy, and maybe even a fire extinguisher.
HEARD ON THE STREET
💥 Speak Softly, Carry a Big Stick
The Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran’s nuclear program were a feat of coordination, involving more than 125 U.S. aircraft, including 4th and 5th-generation fighter jets, B-2 stealth bombers, refueling tankers, reconnaissance aircraft, and the submarine that launched more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles. Here’s the logistical inside scoop:
The U.S. entered the battle after Israel attacked Iran on June 13, targeting its nuclear facilities to keep the country from developing atomic weapons. Last Saturday evening, U.S. operations targeted three of Iran’s nuclear sites - Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan - severely damaging them. Northrop Grumman’s B-2 bombers left for the mission from Missouri and refueled midair multiple times. Entering service in the 1990s, the B-2 resulted from years of stealth technology research and innovation. It is the only long-range penetrating stealth bomber in the U.S. arsenal.
The B-2 bombers dropped 14 bunker-busting bombs on the Iranian facilities, the first operational use of the 30,000-pound weapon that the U.S. Air Force ordered from Boeing. Northrop’s B-21 bombers will eventually replace the B-2s.
Boeing’s F-18 is a fourth-generation jet in service, and the fifth-generation fighter jet in America’s arsenal is Lockheed Martin’s F-35. Lockheed’s stock has been under pressure over the role of unmanned fighter jets in a future military that uses more drones. RTX makes the Tomahawk missiles, while Huntington Ingalls Industries and General Dynamics build naval vessels, including submarines. Along with suppliers, the entire U.S. defense industry played some role in these strikes.
While it is difficult to predict what comes next, it’s possible Iran can rebuild, rehire, and restart. Iran must want to stop as South Africa did when it signed a non-nuclear treaty in 1989. Regardless, there’s a lot of business in geo-political business.
💰 Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
A report from the Swiss bank UBS estimates the U.S. added 379K new millionaires in 2024, a 1.5% increase year over year. That amounts to about 1K new millionaires per day. Much of that wealth growth came from strong equity markets, a resilient real estate sector, and a stable dollar.
Mainland China came in second at 6.3M, up 2.3%, with 141K new millionaires. Turkey’s millionaire population increased the most by percentage, with an 8.4% bump to 87K. While nearly 40% of the world’s millionaires are based in the U.S., Luxembourg and Switzerland have higher concentrations of wealth. More than one in seven adults in both countries is worth at least $1M.
While they are still counting the ballots, initial indicators reveal that most newly minted millionaires gain their keen business acumen by subscribing to The Weekly.
🩺 Pharma Farming
Last week, Eli Lilly acquired Verve Therapeutics for $1.3B, creating an inflection point in the evolution of gene therapy. For the first time, a major pharmaceutical company is making a substantial bet that in-vivo gene editing can address not only rare genetic disorders but also cardiovascular disease, the world’s leading cause of death.
According to multiple genetic studies, individuals with mutations causing a loss of function in key genes, like ANGPTL3 and PCSK9, or expression-lowering variants in Lipoprotein(a) (LPA), have dramatically lower cardiovascular risk than those without mutations. Both Verve and CRISPR Therapeutics are developing in-vivo gene-editing therapies targeting ANGPTL3 and LPA, while Verve has a third candidate directed at PCSK9. The therapies aim to mimic the effects of naturally protective genotypes by introducing loss-of-function mutations in these genes.
The Verve acquisition signals important market validation of this science. Gene therapy platforms are maturing beyond boutique applications and could scale from tens of thousands of patients with rare diseases to millions with more common diseases. Despite help from chronic therapies—primarily statins—available today, more than 30M people in the US and EU cannot control levels of LDL-C (‘bad cholesterol’). Early clinical data highlight the potential for substantial benefit. Licensed from Beahighlightm Therapeutics, Verve’s single-dose base-editing approach targeting PCSK9 demonstrated up to 69% LDL-C reduction, while CRISPR Therapeutics’ in-vivo gene-editing therapy targeting ANGPTL3 has demonstrated reductions of up to 81%. A one-time infusion of each treatment is designed to deliver durable, curative efficacy.
Gene editing could reduce the need for decades of drug adherence, costs, and cardiovascular risks into one treatment. Lilly’s acquisition signals a growing conviction that gene therapies could scale to a market opportunity worth trillions of dollars.
🪦 Moment of Silence
Fred Smith, FedEx founder and chairman, and Mensch passed away at 80 years of age. Smith, a Marine Corps veteran and Yale graduate, founded Federal Express in 1973. He became an overnight shipping pioneer with a small fleet of planes based out of Memphis. His hub-and-spoke air cargo fulfillment system plan was devised while in college. A humble philanthropist, he donated generously to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, the University of Memphis, and Yale, among others.
His focus was on developing an integrated air-ground system. Smith developed FedEx on the business idea of a shipment version of a bank clearing house, where one bank clearing house was located in the middle of the representative banks, and all their representatives were sent to the central location to exchange materials. The success of this model led to our wide vernacular usage of replacing overnighting for FedExing.
One big bet he placed in Las Vegas became legendary. In 1973, FedEx was nearly bankrupt when Smith decided to wager its last $5K in a blackjack game. He won $27K, which bought him enough funding to restructure his debt and better organize his emerging empire. While his business was not an overnight success, he allowed many of us to succeed by overnighting. It seems the only person not impressed with Smith’s business model was his Yale professor; the term paper that was the foundation for FedEx’s hub and spoke methodology got a middling grade.
Those that can - do. Those that can’t - teach.
THE MONEY MINUTE WITH MRM
How small businesses are navigating rising uncertainty in 2025
with Matthew R. Meehan
Loan approvals for small businesses just dropped from 62% to 52%. Translation? Half of you are now getting politely screwed by your lender of choice. Inflation’s still gnawing at your margins, labor costs haven’t blinked, and now credit’s drying up right when you actually need to make moves. Perfect timing, right?
But hey, we’re not here to throw a pity party. We’re here to remind you that Credit Banc exists (because someone had to build a funding company that doesn’t ghost you mid-application). Whether you’re ready to pull the trigger on a loan or need to fix your credit before anyone says yes, we’ll help you get your sh*t together and stop spinning your wheels. Book a call with our team today, and let’s start giving the finger to every bank that told you “not right now.” (Metaphorically, of course.)
AROUND THE WEB
Sweet Tooths, Start Your Engines: A Massachusetts candy maker accidentally went viral after Bethenny Frankel posted about her Swedish-inspired hard candy. The result? 600 orders in 20 minutes, sold-out inventory, and a full-blown sugar storm the founder never saw coming. Moral of the story? Accidentally impress a reality star, and boom! Suddenly, you’re in Williams Sonoma and drowning in sugar skulls.
Inflation Who? Target’s Not Playing: Summer just started, but Target’s already in back-to-school mode, promising to freeze 2024 prices on must-have supplies (including that cult $5 backpack) and roll out 35¢ notebooks and $3 lunch sacks. Great news for parents, teachers, and anyone allergic to paying $9 for a pack of pencils in August.
Prep Your Wallet (And Your Soul): Walmart just made Prime Day a full-on retail dick-swinging contest, stretching its own summer sale to six days…two longer than Amazon’s record-breaking Prime Day. With 50¢ crayons, $238 TVs, and early access for Walmart+ members, they’re not just competing... they’re coming for Bezos’ lunch money. Let the discount deathmatch begin.
