Tech leaders are selling a vision in which artificial intelligence delivers limitless prosperity, shorter workweeks, and a world where creative pursuits replace drudgery. On the ground, many workers are instead watching their bargaining power erode as software quietly absorbs tasks that once justified middle class salaries. The gap between those two realities is becoming the…

Cuba’s leadership turned subsidized Venezuelan crude into a lifeline of hard currency, even as ordinary families endured rolling blackouts, food shortages and failing infrastructure. The gap between the government’s oil trade and the reality in darkened neighborhoods now sits at the center of a regional crisis that stretches from Havana to Caracas, Mexico City and…

Michael Saylor built his reputation, and Strategy’s market identity, on the idea that Bitcoin is a once‑in‑a‑generation monetary asset worth betting the corporate balance sheet on. After the latest pullback, that bet is temporarily in the red, with the company’s massive stack now sitting below its aggregate purchase price. Yet the structure of Strategy’s financing,…

Public anxiety about artificial intelligence is no longer a niche concern, it is a political and social force that the biggest tech platforms can feel at their gates. When a leading AI founder warns that ignoring that anger will eventually bring a mob to your doorstep, he is not speaking in metaphors so much as…

Luxury used to be the safest bet in retail, the one corner of consumer spending that seemed immune to anxiety. Now a new kind of fear is creeping in, as shoppers who once flaunted logos are starting to treat them like liabilities. That shift, often described as a “luxury phobia,” is especially visible in China…