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The good, the bad, and the ugly

On the surface, conditions in the US look pretty fantastic these days. Prices for lots of goods and services are soaring. Job openings are at record highs. Financial markets are awash in liquidity, and financial market conditions in general are about…

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On the surface, conditions in the US look pretty fantastic these days. Prices for lots of goods and services are soaring. Job openings are at record highs. Financial markets are awash in liquidity, and financial market conditions in general are about as good as they have ever been. Debt service burdens for most people are at all-time lows. The stock market is on the cusp of new all-time highs. Corporate profits are booming. Air travel is surging. The economy has recovered just about all it lost to the Covid-19 crisis. Household net worth is at all-time highs in nominal, real and per capita terms. Private sector jobs have recovered almost 70% of what they lost due to the Covid-19 shutdown. Vaccines and natural immunity have all but vanquished Covid-19. Conditions are improving daily, with no near-term end in sight. On the inflation front, expectations currently remain reasonably anchored at around 2.5%.

We are not free of problems or worries, of course. Is Biden of sound mind and body? Is Kamala capable of running the country? Will Congress pass, by the thinest of partisan margins, another round of trillion-dollar spending boondoggles and a permanent and massive expansion of the welfare state? Will the Fed wait too long to reverse its enormous QE efforts? How many of the 10 million workers currently sitting on their hands will want to return to work when emergency unemployment benefits expire in a few months? How long will it take for the Fed to boost short-term rates to a level that once again offers a positive real rate of return? What will happen, in the meantime, with the nearly $5 trillion in savings that have accumulated in the banking system since March 2020? Does the historically low level of real risk-free yields on TIPS suggest that US economic growth will be anemic at best for as far as the eye can see? Are equity valuations dangerously over-priced?

My sense of the news is that several potentially worrisome initiatives are now unlikely to prevail. Thanks to the opposition of the G7, Biden's proposal to unify and raise corporate tax rates to a higher level is dead; instead, the best he can hope for is an agreement to create a new, lower minimum tax rate (15%) that is uniform among developed economies. Even that looks dodgy, however. Senator Manchin appears to be standing firm against nuking the filibuster. Biden's spending plans, which are looking more extreme by the day, are facing growing pushback among the saner elements of his party. 

As for the ugly, the Libertarian-leaning Tax Foundation recent issued a report that says Biden's tax hikes and spending proposals (billed as all-in stimulus) would in fact hurt the economy (the WSJ has more details). I agree: Biden's tax and spend agenda is the last thing this economy needs right now.

The charts that follow flesh out several of these arguments and developments. In the end, I remain near-term bullish but still quite worried about the potential for 1) higher-than-expected inflation down the road and 2) more outrageous and destabilizing fiscal "stimulus" and tax-hike proposals, all of which could end up derailing what for now is looking like a classic boom-type recovery.

Chart #1

Chart #1 illustrates the bizarre developments in the labor market. Many millions of people have returned to work, but there are still millions more on the sidelines. The number of job openings has exploded because employers are unable to find workers who want to work. The obvious culprit is the emergency unemployment benefits which create an enormous incentive for people to remain unemployed until these benefits expire in early September. While this is mostly a temporary problem, it is unnecessarily holding back the recovery and continuing to balloon the deficit. 

Chart #2

Chart #2 has both good and bad news. Good: more companies are looking to increase their hiring than ever before. Bad: There's a huge shortage of willing workers which is stymying efforts by millions of companies to grow. 

Chart #3

Chart #3 illustrates the dramatic improvement in airline passenger traffic. However, the number of people passing through US airports is still about 30% below the prevailing levels at this time in 2019. 

Chart #4

Small businesses employ the lion's share of US workers, so it is concerning that their confidence has sagged from the heady levels of the Trump years, as Chart #4 shows. Undoubtedly several factors are at work: emergency unemployment benefits which pay people not to work, the prospect of rising tax rates on corporate profits and individual incomes, renewed growth in regulatory burdens, and the knowledge—which will not soon fade—that state and local officials can turn off their business at a moment's notice should a new virus surface. 

Chart #5

As Chart #5 shows, the number of private sector jobs today is about 7 million less than where they would have been if the prior trend had continued. Public jobs are more than one million less than they were pre-pandemic. Yet despite these huge job losses, real GDP today is at least as high as it was prior to the Covid shutdowns. That means that the productivity of those who have been working has shot up dramatically, as the economy was forced to find ways to produce more with fewer people. We've seen a revolutionary advance in productivity thanks to Covid. As millions of currently idled workers find there way back into the workforce, that will give GDP growth a significant boost lasting at least through year end.

Chart #6

Chart #6 is quite sobering. Prior to the Great Recession, the labor force (defined as all those of working age who are employed or looking for work) was growing at a rate of about 1.2% per year. Since then, growth in the labor force has been anemic—more so than ever before. I calculate that there are about 19 million fewer in the labor force today than there would have been at the prior trend growth rate. That's a lot of idled human capacity.

Chart #7

Chart #7, Bloomberg's Financial Conditions Index, today is about as high as it has ever been. This all but rules out a near-term recession or even a growth pause. Liquidity is abundant, credit quality is excellent, and nerves have calmed.

Chart #8

Chart #8 shows corporate credit spreads. Today, spreads are about as low as they have ever been, which is a sign that the market is quite optimistic about the outlook for economic growth and corporate profits. One factor contributing to this is the abundance of liquidity and the Fed's pledge that it will not tighten monetary conditions for a long time. Not only does this limit downside economic risk, but it also adds to inflationary pressures down the road, and inflation is something that generally benefits debtors.

Chart #9

Chart #9 is my indispensable tool for judging the likelihood of recession. With the exception of the Covid-19 shutdown/recession, every other recession on this chart was preceded by 1) a flattening or inversion of the Treasury yield curve (red line), and 2) a high and rising real Federal Funds rate. Today the yield curve is steepening, much as it has always done during growth cycles, and the real funds rate is as low as it has ever been. This adds up to an extremely low probability of recession for the foreseeable future.

Very low real yields, such as we have today, are not an unalloyed boon, unfortunately, since they weaken the demand for money (while also actively encouraging borrowing and spending), and thus this can be harbinger of rising inflation if the Fed does not take steps to a) reduce the supply of money by reversing its QE actions and b) boosting short-term interest rates. High and rising inflation would dramatically increase the likelihood of Fed tightening and eventually lead to another painful recession. That risk is not yet imminent, however, but it is certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Chart #10

Chart #10 shows an index of non-energy spot commodity prices. Prices have soared, beginning right around the time—in late March—when federal government started pumping trillions of dollars into the economy to offset the effect of shutdowns, and the Fed ended up buying almost all of the debt that was issued, thus massively expanding the money supply. How much of the increase in prices is due to monetary inflation, and how much to the economic recovery and increased demand for goods and services which had suddenly become in short supply? 

Chart #11

I've been featuring Chart #11 often over the past year, since I think it illustrates something that almost all commenters have either ignored or forgotten. The chart shows the percentage of annual income (GDP) that is held in cash or cash equivalents (M2); as such it is a good measure of money demand. As all economists should know by now, the balance between money supply and money demand is of crucial importance. When the supply of money exceeds the demand for it, inflation is the result. The Fed's massive increase in the money supply last year was matched by an equally massive increase in money demand—that's why inflation was low last year. More recently, it looks like money demand is beginning to soften. That makes sense, given the fading of the Covid crisis and the return of confidence. Yet the Fed has done nothing to reverse its massive increase in the money supply. That's why inflation has begun to rise at a troubling rate in recent months (see Charts #9 and 10 in my last post). 

The future course of inflation is of the utmost importance, yet most observers, including the Fed, insist that the recent rise in inflation is transitory—inflation has increased solely because demand has outpaced supply of late and supply eventually will catch up. That's probably true in part, but I think the more important explanation is that the Fed has allowed (and even encouraged) the demand for money to decline without taking offsetting action to either reduce money supply or boost money demand. 

Chart #12

Chart #12 compares the M2 money supply to nominal GDP. For many years they tracked each other closely. But now we've seen an unprecedented surge in M2 that has so far not been matched by a similar pickup in nominal GDP, (both nominal and real GDP today are above their pre-Covid highs, but have not yet exceeded their pre-Covid trend growth rate). In the absence of a concerted attempt by the Fed to reduce the money supply, I would expect to see nominal GDP pick up significantly in future years, with most of the pickup coming in the form of rising prices. There is an awful lot of potential inflationary fuel out there, and it only needs only a return of confidence and a laggard Fed to ignite.

Chart #13

Chart #13 compares the 2-yr annualized growth rate of real GDP (red line) with the real yield of 5-year TIPS. (I've assumed that GDP growth in the current quarter will be an annualized 7%.) Not surprisingly, these two variables tend to track each other. Strong GDP growth is consistent with generally high real rates, and weak growth with low real rates. The current level of real yields is about as low as we have ever seen. I can only think that is because market participants expect the long-term rate of GDP growth to be generally anemic. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Biden's recently proposed budget in fact assumes that despite many trillions of fiscal "stimulus" coupled with rising tax burdens the economy's rate of growth over the next decade will average only 1.7% per year, substantially lower than anemic growth of the Obama years (2009-2017), when growth averaged a little over 2% per year (the weakest recovery on record). 

Chart #14

Chart #14 compares the real Fed funds rate (blue line) to the real yield on 5-yr TIPS (blue line)—the latter being the market's expectation for what the blue line will average over the next 5 years. When the blue line is below the red line, that indicates the market is expecting the Fed to increase its real funds rate target in the future, which is generally the case in normal times. When the blue line is higher than the red line, this is the market saying that the Fed is too tight and is thus likely to have to ease policy in the future. Looks to me like the Fed is plenty easy these days. 

For practical purposes, a very negative real yield on cash and cash equivalents such as we have today (the blue line being a good proxy for cash yields) creates powerful incentives for people to borrow money and spend it. Why? Because borrowing at a negative real rate during a period of rising prices means you don't have to take on much risk in order to make a profit, since the price of most anything you buy will rise while your debt burden—which costs little or nothing to maintain—will shrink. Another way of looking at it: negative real rates strongly discourage people from holding money (i.e., it erodes money demand) and strongly encourage them to spend money. There's an awful lot of money being held these days which is steadily losing purchasing power. If the Fed doesn't reverse its QE efforts, unwanted money will find its way into higher prices.

Chart #15

Chart #15 compares nominal and real yields on 5-yr Treasuries, with the difference between the two (green line) being the market's expectation for the average annual increase in the CPI over the next 5 years. Note the significant pickup in inflation expectations that has occurred since March '20, when the market only expected inflation to average 0.2% per year. That expectation has now jumped to 2.5%. That's not particularly troubling, but it does represent a huge change.

Chart #16

Chart #16 shows the monthly history of the S&P 500 index of equity prices since 1950. As the chart shows, equity prices have increased by an annualized 7% per year over this 70+ year period. Add dividend yields to this, and you get an annualized total rate of return on equities of about 8.5% per year. There's a lot of variability along the way, to be sure, but a buy-and-hold strategy generally pays off handsomely. Note that the 7% trend line shows just about as many above-trend years as below-trend years. If anything, I take this to mean that the equity market today is not necessarily in a "bubble" like it was in the years leading up to 2000. 

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‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded…

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3 hours ago

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March 14, 2024

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'Excess Mortality Skyrocketed': Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack 'Criminal' COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus which primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.

Then there were the lockdowns - with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for Covid-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.

It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population.

Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn't work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of "vaccine" multiple times.

Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.

Keep reading below, or if you have roughly 50 minutes, watch it in its entirety for free on X:

"Do we have any real sense of what the cost, the physical cost to the country and world has been of those vaccines?" Carlson asked, kicking off the interview.

"I do think we have some understanding of the cost. I mean, I think, you know, you're aware of the work of of Ed Dowd, who's put together a team and looked, analytically at a lot of the epidemiologic data," Kory replied. "I mean, time with that vaccination rollout is when all of the numbers started going sideways, the excess mortality started to skyrocket."

When asked "what kind of death toll are we looking at?", Kory responded "...in 2023 alone, in the first nine months, we had what's called an excess mortality of 158,000 Americans," adding "But this is in 2023. I mean, we've  had Omicron now for two years, which is a mild variant. Not that many go to the hospital."

'Safe and Effective'

Tucker also asked Kory why the people who claimed the vaccine were "safe and effective" aren't being held criminally liable for abetting the "killing of all these Americans," to which Kory replied: "It’s my kind of belief, looking back, that [safe and effective] was a predetermined conclusion. There was no data to support that, but it was agreed upon that it would be presented as safe and effective."

Carlson and Kory then discussed the different segments of the population that experienced vaccine side effects, with Kory noting an "explosion in dying in the youngest and healthiest sectors of society," adding "And why did the employed fare far worse than those that weren't? And this particularly white collar, white collar, more than gray collar, more than blue collar."

Kory also said that Big Pharma is 'terrified' of Vitamin D because it "threatens the disease model." As journalist The Vigilant Fox notes on X, "Vitamin D showed about a 60% effectiveness against the incidence of COVID-19 in randomized control trials," and "showed about 40-50% effectiveness in reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in observational studies."

Professional costs

Kory - while risking professional suicide by speaking out, has undoubtedly helped save countless lives by advocating for alternate treatments such as Ivermectin.

Kory shared his own experiences of job loss and censorship, highlighting the challenges of advocating for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine safety in an environment often resistant to dissenting voices.

"I wrote a book called The War on Ivermectin and the the genesis of that book," he said, adding "Not only is my expertise on Ivermectin and my vast clinical experience, but and I tell the story before, but I got an email, during this journey from a guy named William B Grant, who's a professor out in California, and he wrote to me this email just one day, my life was going totally sideways because our protocols focused on Ivermectin. I was using a lot in my practice, as were tens of thousands of doctors around the world, to really good benefits. And I was getting attacked, hit jobs in the media, and he wrote me this email on and he said, Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to Ivermectin, they've been doing to vitamin D for decades..."

"And it's got five tactics. And these are the five tactics that all industries employ when science emerges, that's inconvenient to their interests. And so I'm just going to give you an example. Ivermectin science was extremely inconvenient to the interests of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. I mean, it threatened the vaccine campaign. It threatened vaccine hesitancy, which was public enemy number one. We know that, that everything, all the propaganda censorship was literally going after something called vaccine hesitancy."

Money makes the world go 'round

Carlson then hit on perhaps the most devious aspect of the relationship between drug companies and the medical establishment, and how special interests completely taint science to the point where public distrust of institutions has spiked in recent years.

"I think all of it starts at the level the medical journals," said Kory. "Because once you have something established in the medical journals as a, let's say, a proven fact or a generally accepted consensus, consensus comes out of the journals."

"I have dozens of rejection letters from investigators around the world who did good trials on ivermectin, tried to publish it. No thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And then the ones that do get in all purportedly prove that ivermectin didn't work," Kory continued.

"So and then when you look at the ones that actually got in and this is where like probably my biggest estrangement and why I don't recognize science and don't trust it anymore, is the trials that flew to publication in the top journals in the world were so brazenly manipulated and corrupted in the design and conduct in, many of us wrote about it. But they flew to publication, and then every time they were published, you saw these huge PR campaigns in the media. New York Times, Boston Globe, L.A. times, ivermectin doesn't work. Latest high quality, rigorous study says. I'm sitting here in my office watching these lies just ripple throughout the media sphere based on fraudulent studies published in the top journals. And that's that's that has changed. Now that's why I say I'm estranged and I don't know what to trust anymore."

Vaccine Injuries

Carlson asked Kory about his clinical experience with vaccine injuries.

"So how this is how I divide, this is just kind of my perception of vaccine injury is that when I use the term vaccine injury, I'm usually referring to what I call a single organ problem, like pericarditis, myocarditis, stroke, something like that. An autoimmune disease," he replied.

"What I specialize in my practice, is I treat patients with what we call a long Covid long vaxx. It's the same disease, just different triggers, right? One is triggered by Covid, the other one is triggered by the spike protein from the vaccine. Much more common is long vax. The only real differences between the two conditions is that the vaccinated are, on average, sicker and more disabled than the long Covids, with some pretty prominent exceptions to that."

Watch the entire interview above, and you can support Tucker Carlson's endeavors by joining the Tucker Carlson Network here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/14/2024 - 16:20

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Shakira’s net worth

After 12 albums, a tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth more than 4 decades into her care…

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March 14, 2024

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Shakira’s considerable net worth is no surprise, given her massive popularity in Latin America, the U.S., and elsewhere. 

In fact, the belly-dancing contralto queen is the second-wealthiest Latin-America-born pop singer of all time after Gloria Estefan. (Interestingly, Estefan actually helped a young Shakira translate her breakout album “Laundry Service” into English, hugely propelling her stateside success.)

Since releasing her first record at age 13, Shakira has spent decades recording albums in both Spanish and English and performing all over the world. Over the course of her 40+ year career, she helped thrust Latin pop music into the American mainstream, paving the way for the subsequent success of massively popular modern acts like Karol G and Bad Bunny.

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Shakira, the barefoot belly dancer of Barranquilla, was unveiled at the city's waterfront. The statue was commissioned by the city's former mayor and other leadership.

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

In December 2023, a 21-foot-tall beachside bronze statue of the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer was unveiled in her Colombian hometown of Barranquilla, making her a permanent fixture in the city’s skyline and cementing her legacy as one of Latin America’s most influential entertainers.

After 12 albums, a plethora of film and television appearances, a highly publicized tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth? What does her income look like? And how does she spend her money?

Related: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's net worth: How the new TKO Board Member built his wealth from $7

How much is Shakira worth?

In late 2023, Spanish sports and lifestyle publication Marca reported Shakira’s net worth at $400 million, citing Forbes as the figure’s source (although Forbes’ profile page for Shakira does not list a net worth — and didn’t when that article was published).

Most other sources list the singer’s wealth at an estimated $300 million, and almost all of these point to Celebrity Net Worth — a popular but dubious celebrity wealth estimation site — as the source for the figure.

A $300 million net worth would make Shakira the third-richest Latina pop star after Gloria Estefan ($500 million) and Jennifer Lopez ($400 million), and the second-richest Latin-America-born pop singer after Estefan (JLo is Puerto Rican but was born in New York).

Shakira’s income: How much does she make annually?

Entertainers like Shakira don’t have predictable paychecks like ordinary salaried professionals. Instead, annual take-home earnings vary quite a bit depending on each year’s album sales, royalties, film and television appearances, streaming revenue, and other sources of income. As one might expect, Shakira’s earnings have fluctuated quite a bit over the years.

From June 2018 to June 2019, for instance, Shakira was the 10th highest-earning female musician, grossing $35 million, according to Forbes. This wasn’t her first time gracing the top 10, though — back in 2012, she also landed the #10 spot, bringing in $20 million, according to Billboard.

In 2023, Billboard listed Shakira as the 16th-highest-grossing Latin artist of all time.

Shakira performed alongside producer Bizarrap during the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards Gala in Seville.

Photo By Maria Jose Lopez/Europa Press via Getty Images

How much does Shakira make from her concerts and tours?

A large part of Shakira’s wealth comes from her world tours, during which she sometimes sells out massive stadiums and arenas full of passionate fans eager to see her dance and sing live.

According to a 2020 report by Pollstar, she sold over 2.7 million tickets across 190 shows that grossed over $189 million between 2000 and 2020. This landed her the 19th spot on a list of female musicians ranked by touring revenue during that period. In 2023, Billboard reported a more modest touring revenue figure of $108.1 million across 120 shows.

In 2003, Shakira reportedly generated over $4 million from a single show on Valentine’s Day at Foro Sol in Mexico City. 15 years later, in 2018, Shakira grossed around $76.5 million from her El Dorado World Tour, according to Touring Data.

Related: RuPaul's net worth: Everything to know about the cultural icon and force behind 'Drag Race'

How much has Shakira made from her album sales?

According to a 2023 profile in Variety, Shakira has sold over 100 million records throughout her career. “Laundry Service,” the pop icon’s fifth studio album, was her most successful, selling over 13 million copies worldwide, according to TheRichest.

Exactly how much money Shakira has taken home from her album sales is unclear, but in 2008, it was widely reported that she signed a 10-year contract with LiveNation to the tune of between $70 and $100 million to release her subsequent albums and manage her tours.

Shakira and JLo co-headlined the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Florida.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

How much did Shakira make from her Super Bowl and World Cup performances?

Shakira co-wrote one of her biggest hits, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” after FIFA selected her to create the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. She performed the song, along with several of her existing fan-favorite tracks, during the event’s opening ceremonies. TheThings reported in 2023 that the song generated $1.4 million in revenue, citing Popnable for the figure.

A decade later, 2020’s Superbowl halftime show featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez as co-headliners with guest performances by Bad Bunny and J Balvin. The 14-minute performance was widely praised as a high-energy celebration of Latin music and dance, but as is typical for Super Bowl shows, neither Shakira nor JLo was compensated beyond expenses and production costs.

The exposure value that comes with performing in the Super Bowl Halftime Show, though, is significant. It is typically the most-watched television event in the U.S. each year, and in 2020, a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot cost between $5 and $6 million.

How much did Shakira make as a coach on “The Voice?”

Shakira served as a team coach on the popular singing competition program “The Voice” during the show’s fourth and sixth seasons. On the show, celebrity musicians coach up-and-coming amateurs in a team-based competition that eventually results in a single winner. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Shakira’s salary as a coach on “The Voice” was $12 million.

Related: John Cena's net worth: The wrestler-turned-actor's investments, businesses, and more

How does Shakira spend her money?

Shakira doesn’t just make a lot of money — she spends it, too. Like many wealthy entertainers, she’s purchased her share of luxuries, but Barranquilla’s barefoot belly dancer is also a prolific philanthropist, having donated tens of millions to charitable causes throughout her career.

Private island

Back in 2006, she teamed up with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame and Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz to purchase Bonds Cay, a 550-acre island in the Bahamas, which was listed for $16 million at the time.

Along with her two partners in the purchase, Shakira planned to develop the island to feature housing, hotels, and an artists’ retreat designed to host a revolving cast of artists-in-residence. This plan didn’t come to fruition, though, and as of this article’s last update, the island was once again for sale on Vladi Private Islands.

Real estate and vehicles

Like most wealthy celebs, Shakira’s portfolio of high-end playthings also features an array of luxury properties and vehicles, including a home in Barcelona, a villa in Cyprus, a Miami mansion, and a rotating cast of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Philanthropy and charity

Shakira doesn’t just spend her massive wealth on herself; the “Queen of Latin Music” is also a dedicated philanthropist and regularly donates portions of her earnings to the Fundación Pies Descalzos, or “Barefoot Foundation,” a charity she founded in 1997 to “improve the education and social development of children in Colombia, which has suffered decades of conflict.” The foundation focuses on providing meals for children and building and improving educational infrastructure in Shakira’s hometown of Barranquilla as well as four other Colombian communities.

In addition to her efforts with the Fundación Pies Descalzos, Shakira has made a number of other notable donations over the years. In 2007, she diverted a whopping $40 million of her wealth to help rebuild community infrastructure in Peru and Nicaragua in the wake of a devastating 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Shakira donated a large supply of N95 masks for healthcare workers and ventilators for hospital patients to her hometown of Barranquilla.

Back in 2010, the UN honored Shakira with a medal to recognize her dedication to social justice, at which time the Director General of the International Labour Organization described her as a “true ambassador for children and young people.”

On November 20, 2023 (which was supposed to be her first day of trial), Shakira reached a deal with the prosecution that resulted in a three-year suspended sentence and around $8 million in fines.

Photo by Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images

Shakira’s tax fraud scandal: How much did she pay?

In 2018, prosecutors in Spain initiated a tax evasion case against Shakira, alleging she lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014 and therefore failed to pay around $14.4 million in taxes to the Spanish government. Spanish law requires anyone who is “domiciled” (i.e., living primarily) in Spain for more than half of the year to pay income taxes.

During the period in question, Shakira listed the Bahamas as her primary residence but did spend some time in Spain, as she was dating Gerard Piqué, a professional footballer and Spanish citizen. The couple’s first son, Milan, was also born in Barcelona during this period. 

Shakira maintained that she spent far fewer than 183 days per year in Spain during each of the years in question. In an interview with Elle Magazine, the pop star opined that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate. It's clear they wanted to go after that money no matter what."

Prosecutors in the case sought a fine of almost $26 million and a possible eight-year prison stint, but in November of 2023, Shakira took a deal to close the case, accepting a fine of around $8 million and a three-year suspended sentence to avoid going to trial. In reference to her decision to take the deal, Shakira stated, "While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favour [had the trial proceeded], I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight."

How much did the Shakira statue in Barranquilla cost?

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze likeness of Shakira was unveiled on a waterfront promenade in Barranquilla. The city’s then-mayor, Jaime Pumarejo, commissioned Colombian sculptor Yino Márquez to create the statue of the city’s treasured pop icon, along with a sculpture of the city’s coat of arms.

According to the New York Times, the two sculptures cost the city the equivalent of around $180,000. A plaque at the statue’s base reads, “A heart that composes, hips that don’t lie, an unmatched talent, a voice that moves the masses and bare feet that march for the good of children and humanity.” 

Related: Taylor Swift net worth: The most successful entertainer joins the billionaire's club

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Delta Air Lines adds a new route travelers have been asking for

The new Delta seasonal flight to the popular destination will run daily on a Boeing 767-300.

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8 hours ago

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March 14, 2024

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Those who have tried to book a flight from North America to Europe in the summer of 2023 know just how high travel demand to the continent has spiked.

At 2.93 billion, visitors to the countries making up the European Union had finally reached pre-pandemic levels last year while North Americans in particular were booking trips to both large metropolises such as Paris and Milan as well as smaller cities growing increasingly popular among tourists.

Related: A popular European city is introducing the highest 'tourist tax' yet

As a result, U.S.-based airlines have been re-evaluating their networks to add more direct routes to smaller European destinations that most travelers would have previously needed to reach by train or transfer flight with a local airline.

The new flight will take place on a Boeing 767-300.

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Delta Air Lines: ‘Glad to offer customers increased choice…’

By the end of March, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  will be restarting its route between New York’s JFK and Marco Polo International Airport in Venice as well as launching two new flights to Venice from Atlanta. One will start running this month while the other will be added during peak demand in the summer.

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“As one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice is hugely popular with U.S. travelers, and our flights bring valuable tourism and trade opportunities to the city and the region as well as unrivalled opportunities for Venetians looking to explore destinations across the Americas,” Delta’s SVP for Europe Matteo Curcio said in a statement. “We’re glad to offer customers increased choice this summer with flights from New York and additional service from Atlanta.”

The JFK-Venice flight will run on a Boeing 767-300  (BA)  and have 216 seats including higher classes such as Delta One, Delta Premium Select and Delta Comfort Plus.

Delta offers these features on the new flight

Both the New York and Atlanta flights are seasonal routes that will be pulled out of service in October. Both will run daily while the first route will depart New York at 8:55 p.m. and arrive in Venice at 10:15 a.m. local time on the way there, while leaving Venice at 12:15 p.m. to arrive at JFK at 5:05 p.m. on the way back.

According to Delta, this will bring its service to 17 flights from different U.S. cities to Venice during the peak summer period. As with most Delta flights at this point, passengers in all fare classes will have access to free Wi-Fi during the flight.

Those flying in Delta’s highest class or with access through airline status or a credit card will also be able to use the new Delta lounge that is part of the airline’s $12 billion terminal renovation and is slated to open to travelers in the coming months. The space will take up more than 40,000 square feet and have an outdoor terrace.

“Delta One customers can stretch out in a lie-flat seat and enjoy premium amenities like plush bedding made from recycled plastic bottles, more beverage options, and a seasonal chef-curated four-course meal,” Delta said of the new route. “[…] All customers can enjoy a wide selection of in-flight entertainment options and stay connected with Wi-Fi and enjoy free mobile messaging.”

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