Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Across grocery aisles, fast-food counters, and online carts, Americans are discovering new line items on their receipts that were never part of the deal. From bag surcharges to “improvement” add‑ons and surprise import duties, the extra costs are small in isolation but relentless in frequency, leaving shoppers feeling blindsided and squeezed. The frustration is not…
The Trump administration is backing away from a hard restart of student loan collections, halting a plan that would have let the federal government reach directly into paychecks of borrowers in default. Instead of moving ahead with broad wage seizures, the Education Department is pausing those involuntary tactics while it tries to steer struggling borrowers…
An 86-year-old New Yorker who spent a lifetime building a nest egg says it vanished in a matter of weeks, siphoned away through a sophisticated scam that her family insists should never have gotten past the banks. After losing $700,000 that she believed was being moved for her own protection, the NYC grandmother is now…
An elderly Texas grandmother who thought she had lost nearly all her savings to fraud has forced a rare about-face from one of the country’s biggest banks. After weeks of refusing to reimburse her, Wells Fargo returned roughly $15,000 to the 83-year-old only after television cameras and national coverage put a spotlight on her case….
President Donald Trump is escalating his long‑running feud with major institutions by vowing to sue JPMorgan Chase for what he describes as politically motivated “debanking” after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He is casting the threatened case as a test of whether powerful financial firms can quietly cut off access to money…
President Donald Trump’s latest move on student loans pauses some of the harshest collection tools just as younger voters are voicing anger over affordability. A prominent watchdog has branded the maneuver “beyond ridiculous,” arguing that the temporary freeze is less a coherent policy than a political gambit aimed at Gen Z borrowers. The clash over…
Grocery shoppers across the country are discovering a new line on their receipts as 2026 carryout rules take hold, with bag charges climbing and plastic options disappearing at many checkouts. The new fees are designed to push people toward reusable bags and cut plastic waste, but they are also reshaping the simple act of paying…
President Donald Trump is escalating his long running feud with major financial institutions, promising to take JPMorgan Chase to court within two weeks over what he describes as politically motivated “debanking” after the January 6 attack. He is framing the threatened lawsuit as a test of whether a sitting president can be cut off from…
President Donald Trump’s surprise call for a 10% ceiling on credit card interest has ignited a rare, emotional debate about the price of everyday borrowing. Personal finance educator Vivian Tu has stepped into that fight with a simple framework that cuts through the noise and asks a blunt question: which cardholders actually win, and who…
Inflation in the United States is no longer raging, but it is not fully tamed either, and the political response is veering into territory that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. With price growth stuck at 2.7% and households still feeling the sting of higher food and borrowing costs, President Donald Trump is…