Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Google is turning artificial intelligence into a new kind of checkout layer, collapsing search, recommendation and payment into a single conversational flow that sits on top of retail apps and websites. Big names like Walmart, Kroger and Papa John are already wiring their storefronts into this system, betting that shoppers will increasingly let AI do…
President Donald Trump’s push to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year has set off a rare public debate between the White House, big banks, and fintech lenders. At the center of that debate is SoFi, whose CEO Anthony Noto argues that a hard ceiling on card rates would shrink traditional credit…
President Donald Trump has turned Cuba into the next test case of his hard-edged energy diplomacy, telling Havana to make a deal with Washington “before it’s too late” and tying the island’s economic survival to decisions made in Caracas. His message is blunt: with a key ally in Venezuela shaken, Cuba must choose between accommodation…
Greenland looks like a frozen blank on most maps, yet beneath its ice lies a resource story that could reshape global energy and technology. From oil and gas to rare earths and graphite, estimates of what the island might hold routinely stretch into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and some analysts argue the long…
Oil’s next big move may not be another spike, but a slide that catches producers, investors, and even drivers off guard. Charles Schwab strategist Liz Ann Sonders is now flagging the risk that crude could tumble in late 2026 and into 2027, a view that lines up with increasingly bearish forecasts from major banks and…
America’s middle class is not just feeling squeezed, it is objectively shrinking and losing ground in the national economy. The share of adults who once sat comfortably between poverty and affluence has eroded, while costs for basics like housing, health care and child care have raced ahead of paychecks. The numbers now show a country…
Across kitchen tables and group chats, a familiar complaint keeps surfacing: official numbers insist the economy is improving, yet many households feel squeezed. The disconnect between upbeat data and lived experience is not a mirage, it reflects how statistics, markets and policy filter through to very different realities for workers, renters and borrowers. I want…
The United States is reshaping its global footprint on three fronts at once, moving militarily and financially in Venezuela, pressing an audacious bid for influence over Greenland, and still talking up the prospect of the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching 50,000. Taken together, these moves reveal a White House that sees energy security, Arctic access,…
Global oil majors are racing to line up ships and offshore logistics to move a sudden wave of Venezuelan crude, turning a long-sanctioned producer into the hottest new prize in the tanker market. The scramble reflects both the commercial lure of heavy barrels that fit U.S. refinery needs and the political gamble of operating under…
The United States is pouring money and political capital into reviving domestic chipmaking, but the country’s former Intel chief executive, Pat Gelsinger, is warning that the comeback is still in its early innings. Even as Washington courts semiconductor leaders and celebrates new factories, Gelsinger argues that reclaiming production from Asia will be a decade‑scale project,…
Retirement Shield
The money news that hits your wallet
The free Retirement Shield newsletter covers the benefits, tax, and cost-of-living changes that affect what you keep, a couple of times a week.