This 28-year-old from Miami started selling sweatshirts 2 years ago — and they've already achieved cult status
If you've noticed your daughter wearing an oversized sweatshirt with 'PARKE' stamped across the chest, you're not alone. Launched in 2022 by 28-year-old Chelsea Kramer, the brand has quickly become a Gen Z wardrobe staple.
Kramer started out focusing on upcycled vintage denim, but it was the simple, cozy and limited-edition sweatshirts that created a viral following.
In just under three years, the Miami-based entrepreneur (whose middle name is Parke) has amassed 150,000 followers on TikTok and 80,000 on Instagram.
Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how
I'm 49 years old and have nothing saved for retirement — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 5 of the easiest ways you can catch up (and fast)
Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10)
Last year alone, the business net $16 million in revenue, as Kramer told The Cut.
This past weekend, close to 1,000 shoppers lined up for a three-day pop-up in New York City's SoHo. One 27-year-old grad student drove in from New Jersey and waited nearly six hours to buy her eighth sweatshirt.
Still, not everyone is walking away with the goods.
'Stuff should not be selling out in a minute,' one frustrated fan posted on TikTok. 'I get it gives you clout … but make your customers happy.'
The real question is can Parke keep delivering or will the hype wear thin?
'We went through a shift where we were like, 'Okay, we shouldn't be so conservative,'' her sister-in-law and co-founder Kira Kramer said. 'It's so easy to get caught up in the success, and we've always been mindful about trying not to get ahead of ourselves.'
Read more: This is how American car dealers use the '4-square method' to make big profits off you — and how you can ensure you pay a fair price for all your vehicle costs
They're increasing inventory to keep up with demand, but reducing the number of Parke collections they release this year, a cautious move in an unpredictable economy.
Like many U.S. brands that manufacture overseas, Parke got caught in the crossfire of President Trump's imposition of 145% tariffs on imports from China.
While the Trump administration has since [paused]https://www.reuters.com/world/us-china-tariff-live-updates-bessent-greer-announce-details-constructive-geneva-2025-05-12/) that penalty and reduced the tariff on Chinese imports to 30%, many small business owners say the damage is done.
For one thing, as Beth Fynko Beniko, owner of Busy Baby observes, 30% is still a steep duty, and she started paying it in May.
'That sucks for any small business owner,' Beniko said on TikTok. 'It's still going to cost me $48,000 more than this shipment would've cost me two months ago.'
As rising tariffs drive up production costs for companies like Busy Baby and Parke, small business owners are raising their prices, or considering doing so in the coming months.
That means consumers are becoming more cautious.
'Recent events have people confused about how they can effectively budget because they do not know how the prices of things are going to change in the coming months,' Lawrence Sprung, a certified financial planner based in Long Island, New York told CNBC.
Now's the time to be proactive with your finances.
While you can't control what tariffs will do to prices, you can control how and where you spend your money. If you've been eyeing a purchase — like a viral sweater — it might be worth hitting pause.
Prices could rise, and even if they don't, it's worth asking: Do you really need another sweater? Consider looking for alternatives with similar quality at a more affordable price.
It's not just fashion. Things that have always been big-ticket items like refrigerators, dishwashers and car parts have even bigger price tags now. Even 'Made in America' products may rely on imported materials.
Tariffs on steel and aluminum are expected to increase the cost of appliances by 20%. That could turn a $2,500 range into a $3,000 expense.
Protect your wallet by prioritizing on your needs over wants. That doesn't mean cutting out every treat — just make sure essentials like rent, food and bills are covered before splurging on impulse buys.
At the same time, build or replenish your emergency fund with regular savings.
Experts recommend setting aside three to six months' worth of expenses, but even small, consistent contributions can go a long way.
A solid cushion can help you manage unexpected costs without racking up credit-card debt or pulling from long-term savings.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Reinsurance Group of America Ranked #196 on the 2025 Fortune 500 List
ST. LOUIS, June 03, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated (NYSE: RGA), a leading global life and health reinsurer, announced today it has been ranked #196 on the 2025 Fortune 500 list, moving up 27 positions from its 2024 rank and breaking into the top 200 for the first time. The annual list, which ranks US-based companies by total revenue, appears in the June/July issue of Fortune magazine. "RGA's ascent to the top 200 in the Fortune 500 rankings signifies more than growth—it illustrates our enduring commitment to empower financial security and peace of mind globally," said Tony Cheng, President and CEO, RGA. "This achievement, made possible by our incomparable team in the US and worldwide, underscores our strong momentum. By focusing on client relationships and innovative solutions, we continue to lead the way in expanding financial protection and delivering value to our clients and stakeholders." As the only global reinsurer exclusively dedicated to life and health, RGA has consistently expanded its reach and influence. RGA premiered on the Fortune 500 ranking in 2010 at #321 and has significantly improved its position, rising 125 spots since its debut. RGA's growth underscores its mission-driven approach and commitment to providing meaningful financial solutions that support individuals and families worldwide. About RGA Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated (NYSE: RGA) is a global industry leader specializing in life and health reinsurance and financial solutions that help clients effectively manage risk and optimize capital. Founded in 1973, RGA is today one of the world's largest and most respected reinsurers and remains guided by a powerful purpose: to make financial protection accessible to all. As a global capabilities and solutions leader, RGA empowers partners through bold innovation, relentless execution, and dedicated client focus — all directed toward creating sustainable long-term value. RGA has approximately $4.0 trillion of life reinsurance in force and assets of $128.2 billion as of March 31, 2025. To learn more about RGA and its businesses, please visit or follow RGA on LinkedIn and Facebook. Investors can learn more at View source version on Contacts Lynn PhillipsSenior Vice President, Corporate Communications636-736-2351lphillips@ Lizzie CurryExecutive Director, Public Jeff HopsonSenior Vice President, Investor Relations636-736-2068jhopson@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Time Magazine
13 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
The American Tradition of Trying to Address Anxiety with Parks
As summer approaches, America's national parks are bracing for an influx of visitors, even as deep federal cuts to park services likely mean fewer camp employees, closed campgrounds, long lines, and cancelled programs. Travelers have been warned away from some national parks by experts, urged to reschedule for next year. But millions are still opting to go. Last summer, a record 332 million people visited America's 63 national parks. Based on yearly upward trends, the estimates for this summer are even higher. In a 'hold-your-breath year' for national park tourism, Americans are still turning en masse to the natural environment as respite from the stresses of modern life. The frenzy shouldn't surprise us. With festering worries related to economic uncertainty, inflated costs, and federal policy whiplash, the popularity of park vacations is no coincidence. Rather, the rush to escape to these beautiful sanctuaries echoes a long history of Americans turning to nature for relief from anxiety, particularly during moments of sudden and widely felt changes. In the 1870s, the United States was in the midst of the most spectacular transformations yet in its history. The end of the American Civil War brought an end to slavery and the emancipation of some 4 million Black people, while a slew of new innovations brought irreversible changes to the day-to-day lives of all Americans. New machinery brought advanced manufacturing, jobs, speedier production of goods, and lower costs for consumers. Hundreds of thousands of miles of telegraph cable delivered information at break-neck speed, forever reshaping how Americans accessed news, communicated, conducted business, and envisioned the world. And the completion of a continent-crossing railroad in 1869 revolutionized travel, making it possible to move people and cargo across vast distances in hours, rather than weeks or months. Spurred by monumental developments in technology, industry, and travel, more Americans than ever before—including new immigrants—made their way to growing cities, seeking work, education, entertainment, and exposure to new people, ideas, and possibilities. Sudden and rapid change fired up excitement about the future. But it also stirred anxieties. During this time, American doctors noticed more and more seemingly healthy patients with a range of complaints about hard-to-explain medical issues, including digestive problems, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, aches and pains without identifiable injuries, and profound exhaustion without obvious cause. In response, a widely respected neurologist named George Miller Beard offered a theory. Americans, he said, were suffering from a malady called 'neurasthenia.' Writing in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Beard borrowed an old term used to describe 'weakness of the nerves' and reintroduced it to the medical community as a 'morbid condition' afflicting Americans at a worrisome rate. In his 1881 book American Nervousness, Beard also pinpointed the key culprit: modern change. For instance, new communication technology delivered shocking news of faraway crime, disaster, and war; mechanization in industry brought extreme economic volatility and labor strife; speedy railroad travel introduced the real possibility of horrific accidents involving ' wholesale killings.' Even the invention of the pocket watch, a simple hand-held timepiece, fostered a maniacal obsession with punctuality. Americans were 'under constant strain,' Beard warned, 'to get somewhere or to do something at some definite moment.' Constant strain was a big problem, according to Beard and his contemporaries. Victorian-era neurologists theorized that the body functioned like an electrical machine, powered by energy distributed through the nervous system. When Americans spent too much energy navigating the extreme shifts and new worries in their modern lives, they experienced aches, pains, exhaustion, irritability, and malaise. Doctors also theorized that urban life only made such conditions worse by further taxing and weakening the body. In response, a range of popular remedies and medical treatments for neurasthenia emerged. Some doctors recommended that women suffering symptoms should halt all physical and intellectual activity. Colloquially known as the 'rest cure,' this treatment—famously recounted in 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' a horror novella written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman—involved isolation in the home, bed rest for weeks, and an embargo on reading, writing, drawing, socializing, and exercising. Women patients and doctors, including New York City physician Grace Peckham, successfully argued that the rest cure was not only quack medicine but more harmful to patients than the nervous sickness itself. Thus, it didn't stick. What did catch on was the ' West cure,' a different kind of treatment originally reserved for men. Neurologists worried that the urban environment, factory work and office jobs, and other modern pressures were making men tired, indecisive, and physically weak. On doctor's orders, male patients ventured into the western wilderness, where, it was thought, the natural environment would inspire the mind and reinvigorate the body. Prescriptions emphasized physical exercise, including hiking and horseback riding. The legacies of this are notable. In the 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt, a young, well-to-do New Yorker at the time, suffered from a range of neurasthenic conditions including asthma, and he sought treatment. Roosevelt was so inspired by his own privileged experience of the West cure, and its restorative outcomes, that later, as president, he built upon state park preservation and forest protection acts to dramatically expand federal support for public access to park lands, including National Parks. Most famously, in 1903, Roosevelt partnered with naturalist John Muir —also diagnosed as neurasthenic—to expand federal protection for Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. Initially, it was urban elite white men, like Roosevelt, who were most likely to have the means to travel and to pay for the therapy of riding horses, hunting game, and sleeping under the stars. But the notion of the natural world as an antidote for the stresses of modern life appealed broadly, across lines of class, race, and gender. Although few Americans had access to medical care in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the idea that the body could be recharged through outdoor physical activity caught on thanks to the low-cost medical pamphlets, ads for over-the-counter remedies, advice columns, and simple word of mouth. The media-fueled desire to fend off neurasthenia drove a booming market in exercise equipment, including bicycles, and participation in cheap outdoor sports, like baseball and pedestrianism, a competitive walking trend. By the end of the 19th century, city planners, imagining more healthful, walkable, livable urban environments, also incorporated green spaces for urban residents to enjoy for free. From small picnic areas and playgrounds to sprawling urban parks designed to feel like the bucolic countryside, American cities began providing West cure benefits without the steep price tag or the need to travel. Camping became another popular, and more affordable, option for vacations from modernity. Working people could purchase a simple tent, one-burner stove, and a few other provisions, load up the horse and buggy and head to a park or campground just outside the city. This cheap and accessible alternative to West cure travel ballooned in popularity in the early 20th century, with the proliferation of camping guides and camping clubs, the growth of the National Park Service, and the introduction of the car. Enthusiasm for camping and national park tourism as affordable restorative activities endured through the 20th century. And they remain as popular as ever today. Neurasthenia as a diagnostic category, has not endured. It disappeared in the early 20th century, thanks mainly to the rise of psychoanalysis and expanding knowledge about mental health and conditions like chronic fatigue, anxiety disorders, phobias, and depression. But its most popular remedy—particularly exercise, outdoor recreation, and reflection in nature—has proved truly beneficial for both mental and physical health. Amid unsettling changes, Americans touted the curative powers of the natural world, fueling the call for outdoor exercise and recreation, and laying the groundwork for the astounding growth of national and state park tourism. Today, with so much to worry about, it is important to remember how national and state parks, and the workers who run and sustain them, have long played a healing role in American society. As we head off to America's many majestic park destinations—our favorite 'mental health escapes' and ' calmcation ' getaways—may this history reinforce the need to preserve, protect, and invest in them, especially in uncertain times. Felicia Angeja Viator is associate professor of history at San Francisco State University, a culture writer, and curator for the GRAMMY Museum.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Commentary: What America's default risk is costing you
For decades, investors thought the risk of the US government defaulting on its debt was essentially zero. It was nice while it lasted. There's still a low chance the US government will fail to pay principal or interest on nearly $30 trillion worth of Treasury securities circulating around the world. But global investors think US debt is getting riskier, and they also think US policymakers in Congress and the Trump administration are doing nothing about it. That rising risk is likely pushing interest costs higher for every American borrowing to finance a home, a car, or a business investment. A new paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago uses an arcane security known as a credit default swap, or CDS, to estimate the risk of the US Treasury defaulting on a payment. The analysis highlights not just the damage caused by 15 years of political squabbling in Congress over budget issues but also the startling decline in market assessments of US creditworthiness. Congress may soon make this worse by passing a tax-cut bill that makes America's fiscal position even shakier. There are two basic market concerns with America's creditworthiness. One is the sheer amount of borrowing the US government must do to finance annual deficits that are now routinely close to $2 trillion. The total national debt is $36.2 trillion, and the amount of US debt in circulation now equals about 100% of GDP, a record for peacetime. That's only going higher. The other issue is the US debt ceiling, which puts a limit on the total amount of federal borrowing the Treasury is allowed to do. The debt limit itself isn't problematic. But Congress's handling of it is. Three times — in 2011, 2013, and 2023 — Congress has refused to raise the borrowing limit until the Treasury Department was dangerously close to running out of money. If the Treasury missed even a single payment it owed, it would constitute a default and roil the global trillion-dollar market for Treasury securities, the world's most widely traded assets. In January, the Treasury hit the debt limit once again. Since then, it has been relying on 'extraordinary measures' — basically, moving money around — to pay its bills. Congress must soon raise the debt limit once again, with the Treasury likely to run out of maneuvering room sometime between mid and late summer. Credit-default swaps are private contracts that work like an insurance policy, with one party agreeing to cover losses for a second party if the issuer of a given security defaults. The market for CDS contracts on government debt has been most active during debt crises in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. The market for CDSs guaranteeing US debt is often dormant. But it springs to life around the time that the US debt ceiling needs to be raised, because Congress could trigger a default by waiting too long. The Chicago Fed research uses data on CDS pricing to estimate the market's perception of the risk of US default going back 14 years. In 2011, the United States came within a few days of default before Democrats and Republicans sparring in Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling. That standoff led S&P to downgrade the US credit rating for the first time ever. The Chicago Fed paper estimates that the risk of default in 2011 peaked at more than than 6%. During debt-ceiling showdowns in 2013 and 2023, CDS pricing suggests the risk of default peaked at around 4%. CDS pricing today suggests the risk of a US default is around 1%. It's lower now than in prior standoffs because Republicans have unified control of Congress and don't need to negotiate with the opposition party to raise the borrowing limit. That 1% risk could also go higher as the Treasury comes closer to the "X date" when it runs out of money.A 1% risk of default might seem inconsequential. But it's not. 'Everyone says the US will never default,' David Kotok, co-founder of investing firm Cumberland Advisors, told Yahoo Finance. 'Somebody is saying, we don't believe you. The CDS market is saying the risk is greater than zero.' Kotok estimates that the higher perceived risk of default pushes the interest rate on a typical mortgage up by about three-tenths of a percentage point. That's because investors demand higher interest rates on riskier securities, such as the 10-year Treasury note, which is the benchmark for most interest rates paid on business and consumer loans. Read more: What is the 10-year Treasury note, and how does it affect your finances? On a 30-year mortgage for a median-priced house, lowering the interest rate by three-tenths of a point would lower the monthly payment by about $66. That's $792 per year or $23,769 over the course of the loan. Not a fortune, maybe, but shrewd investors welcome every marginal gain. Congress could eliminate the debt limit altogether by repealing the 1917 law that was supposed to simplify government borrowing, rather than creating a default mechanism. Back then, the executive branch needed congressional approval for every unique instance of borrowing. The debt limit was supposed to let the Treasury borrow freely up to a certain limit. That worked more or less as intended until 2011, when Republicans, who controlled the House of Representatives, used the debt ceiling as leverage to negotiate spending cuts with Democrats, who controlled the Senate and the White House. Repealing the debt limit might wipe out the market for credit default swaps on US debt, since debt limit deadlines are the very thing creating the default risk. Nobody would complain about that. Kotok estimates that the 30-basis-point premium on US interest rates would disappear. Then the US government would only face one debt problem: the vast amount of it. Markets have been jeering the mushrooming national debt this year, with investors showing unprecedented reluctance to buy some US assets. That has been another factor pushing US interest rates higher, when in normal market action, they'd be holding steady or falling. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon is the latest voice of alarm on the US debt, warning that a 'crack' in the bond market could signal coming market turmoil. That would most likely occur as more investors shunned US assets, including Treasurys, sending rates even higher. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Dimon is overreacting, giving cover to Republicans working up the big tax-cut bill that could add another $3 trillion or $4 trillion to the national debt. Moody's downgraded US debt for the first time in May following Fitch's first-ever downgrade in 2023. Like S&P in 2011, both rating agencies cited political dysfunction and huge annual deficits. The rumble of discontent with America's fiscal recklessness is growing louder. Eventually, they'll start to hear it in Washington, D.C. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices.
