Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Costco has long sold itself as the rare retailer that lets shoppers feel like insiders, trading an annual fee for access to bulk bargains and that famously unchanging $1.50 hot dog combo. Now the company is quietly reshaping that bargain, leaning harder on membership tiers and new rules that push more customers toward its most…
America’s red ink is often framed as a uniquely alarming problem, but the reality is that the United States is borrowing in a world where nearly every major economy is leaning heavily on debt. To understand how serious the situation is, I need to look not only at the sheer size of U.S. obligations, but…
Holiday shoppers heading into the aisles this year are getting a rare bit of relief: the typical Thanksgiving spread is expected to be slightly cheaper overall, even as some key ingredients keep climbing. After several seasons of sticker shock, the core promise for 2025 is a modestly lower grocery bill if you are willing to…
Grocery shoppers are still feeling the sting of higher prices, even as overall inflation cools. The latest research points to a handful of everyday staples that are doing outsized damage to family budgets, driven by supply constraints, corporate pricing power, and shifting consumer demand. I want to unpack five of the biggest culprits and explain…
A sweeping new warning has gone out to tens of millions of people after a cache of highly sensitive personal data surfaced for sale on the dark web, raising the risk of targeted fraud, account takeovers, and long‑tail identity theft. The alert covers roughly 70 million current and former customers whose names, contact details, and…
Wall Street’s AI trade is entering a more complicated phase. After a year of relentless gains for chipmakers and cloud giants, some of the most influential market forecasters now argue that the easy money has already been made and that much of the artificial intelligence boom is already reflected in stock prices. The question for…
Electric vehicles are no longer a niche curiosity in South America but a fast-growing part of the mainstream car market, reshaping who sells cars, how people fuel them, and which countries set the pace. The most striking twist is that this surge is unfolding largely without Tesla at the center, as regional buyers gravitate toward…
Airlines just scored a major legal victory that will keep billions of dollars in customer money flowing their way, and the practical effect for travelers is simple: it will be harder to get cash back when trips fall apart. The ruling cements a system in which carriers can cancel or significantly change flights, then steer…
The shutdown-ending deal that reopened the federal government did more than avert missed paychecks and shuttered offices. It quietly steered nearly $1 billion in fresh money toward the US Air Force’s next-generation bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile, locking in new momentum for two of the Pentagon’s most expensive nuclear programs. The move underscores how budget…
Donald Trump is now urging Congress to make public the government’s Jeffrey Epstein records, insisting he has “nothing to hide” after previously signaling resistance to a broad release. His shift turns a long‑running political liability into a test of transparency, and it raises fresh questions about how much control any president truly has over a…