Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
America has crossed a fiscal line that will be hard to uncross. With the national debt now around $38 trillion and still climbing, the federal government is entering an era in which paying more than $1 trillion a year in interest is no longer a warning on a chart but a built-in feature of the…
China’s growth model is colliding with a new kind of resistance: households and private firms that would rather hoard cash than spend or borrow. The result is a powerful, bottom-up squeeze on policymakers in Beijing, who are discovering that even the most muscular central bank cannot force wary savers to open their wallets. As the…
President Donald Trump is again insisting that his sweeping tariffs will not land on American shoppers, casting them instead as a painless way to squeeze foreign governments and fund domestic priorities. Retailers, economists and even some of his own allies are signaling a different reality, warning that the costs are already creeping into grocery aisles,…
Pennies are vanishing from cash drawers and coin jars far faster than most people expected, as the supply of new one-cent pieces has abruptly gone to zero. With minting halted and businesses already adjusting prices and policies, the smallest unit of U.S. currency is slipping out of everyday use within weeks, not years, of its…
Warren Buffett is quietly preparing for a tougher market environment as 2026 approaches, and the signals coming out of Omaha are hard to ignore. Valuations have stretched, pockets of speculation have reappeared, and the world’s most famous value investor is acting as if a meaningful correction is not a remote risk but a realistic scenario….
Donald Trump has installed a Treasury chief who sees financial regulation as a brake on growth, not a guardrail. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is arguing that a sweeping rollback of rules could free up trillions of dollars in new lending, reshaping how credit flows to households, companies, and markets. Instead of tweaking at the margins,…
U.S. stocks are on the verge of doing something they have managed only a handful of times since World War II: string together a fourth straight year of strong gains. That rare setup is shaping expectations for 2026, as investors weigh whether momentum, monetary policy and earnings can keep the rally alive or finally force…
Federal Reserve governor Stephen I. Miran is sharpening his warning that interest rates may now be biting too hard, arguing that the central bank risks trading its inflation victory for a weaker labor market. His push for a sizable rate cut reflects a growing concern that policy is no longer just restrictive, but potentially tight…
Recession alarms are still blaring in some corners of Wall Street, but the core economic data and most professional forecasts point to something less dramatic in 2026. Growth looks set to cool rather than collapse, with a slower but still expanding economy and a job market that bends before it breaks. The bigger story is…
Kevin Hassett is trying to do something unusual in Washington: audition for one of the most powerful jobs in the world by promising to ignore the most powerful man in the world. As his name circulates on the shortlist to lead the Federal Reserve, he is making it clear that even if President Donald Trump…