Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
The White House is trying to convince voters it is “laser focused” on the cost of living at the very moment its own tariff strategy is being forced into a rethink. After months of escalating trade measures that helped push up prices on everyday goods, President Donald Trump is now pausing some increases and floating…
The United States is suddenly positioning itself not just as the world’s largest oil producer, but as a potential gatekeeper of the planet’s biggest reserves. By moving aggressively into Venezuela after the fall of Nicolás Maduro, Washington is trying to turn a onetime adversary’s buried wealth into long term leverage over global energy flows. I…
Extreme heat is no longer just a public health warning, it is quietly eroding American paychecks and the broader economy. New economic research points to multi-trillion dollar losses in global output from rising temperatures, and a growing body of U.S. data shows that heat is already cutting into wages, hours, and productivity. The headline figure…
President Donald Trump’s declaration that the United States is now “in charge” of Venezuela after the arrest of Nicolás Maduro has turned a long‑running regional crisis into a direct test of American power. By framing Maduro’s capture as the prelude to U.S. control over the country’s future, Trump has raised urgent questions about sovereignty, international…
Wall Street is entering 2026 with a rare kind of consensus: the bull market is not done yet, even if valuations already look rich by most historical yardsticks. Strategists broadly expect stocks to grind higher, but they are pairing that optimism with louder warnings about volatility, policy shocks, and the limits of the artificial intelligence…
Economic models spent much of 2025 flashing red, yet the year ended with a mix of solid growth, jittery factories, and stock indexes flirting with records. President Donald Trump called it proof that his instincts beat the experts, while many economists were left explaining why their recession calls did not land. The story of 2025…
Oil prices are sliding again, and for critics of President Donald Trump that has become a convenient shorthand for predicting an economic comedown. The argument is simple: if crude is falling, it must be a sign that demand is weakening and growth is about to crack. The former Treasury official I am focusing on is…
Bitcoin markets are wrestling with an extraordinary claim: that crisis‑hit Venezuela has quietly amassed more than 600,000 coins, turning the country into a covert crypto superpower. The allegation, surfacing just as the United States moved against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, has jolted traders who are suddenly forced to price in the possibility of a vast,…
Donald Trump argues that his sweeping tariffs made the United States more powerful, framing them as a patriotic tool that forced trading partners to respect America and revived domestic industry. The data that has accumulated since the first tariff waves, however, points in a different direction, showing higher prices for families, disrupted supply chains, and…
Venezuela’s vast oil reserves are suddenly back at the center of global energy politics, with regime change in Caracas raising the prospect of a long, uneven comeback for one of the world’s classic petro-states. If that recovery materializes at scale, it could help cap crude prices for years and quietly erode one of Russia’s most…