Category: Markets and Macro

When a political strategist argues that the “real” poverty line now sits around $140,000 a year, it captures a growing sense that traditional measures of hardship no longer match the lived reality of middle class families. The claim sounds extreme, but it taps into a concrete mix of housing costs, child care bills, medical expenses,…

The Federal Reserve has quietly pointed to a new source of strain in the economy, and it is not the usual debate over interest rates. Instead, policymakers are flagging a shift in credit conditions and business sentiment that suggests the expansion is more fragile than headline job and inflation numbers imply. I see this as…

The Republican Party is confronting a grinding, structural crisis that reaches far beyond the lurid headlines surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. Internal polling, leadership messaging, and public feuds all point to a movement struggling to connect with voters’ daily realities while managing deep fractures inside its own ranks. The Epstein files may inflame existing tensions, but the…

President Donald Trump is arguing that the real payoff from his tariff strategy has yet to show up in the data, even as critics point to higher prices and political backlash at home. He is casting the policy as a long game, insisting that the headline numbers understate what he calls a coming windfall for…

Bitcoin’s latest slide has been sharp enough to rattle even seasoned traders, with the price down about 21% in November and wiping out a chunk of this year’s gains. Yet the core narrative that draws many buyers into the asset, the idea of long-term growth potential, still looms large over the short-term pain. I see…

Investors are bracing for another bout of price pressure, and the easy political story is to blame tariffs. Jason Bessent is pushing back on that narrative, arguing that the latest inflation flare-up is rooted in deeper forces inside the economy rather than in the White House’s trade brinkmanship. I see his argument as a test…

The same crypto boom that helped define Donald Trump as a “crypto president” is now inflicting heavy losses on his own balance sheet and on the small investors who followed him into speculative tokens and stocks. As digital asset prices slide, the Trump family’s paper gains are shrinking, and the pain is radiating through a…

Donald Trump did not just promise cheaper power, he set a stopwatch. On the trail he vowed to “cut the price of energy and electricity in half” within 12 months of taking office, a pledge that turned kitchen-table anxiety into a concrete benchmark. With his second term now roughly 10 months old, there is enough…

Elon Musk is escalating his warnings that a left-wing economic agenda gaining traction in New York City would not only squeeze local businesses but also undermine the case for universal basic income across the United States. Framing Zohran Mamdani’s proposals as a shortcut to stagnation rather than shared prosperity, he argues that aggressive redistribution paired…

Global markets spent much of the past year flirting with the idea that the United States was no longer the default safe harbor for capital, yet the money never really left. Instead of a lasting “sell America” stampede, investors have been quietly doubling down on U.S. Treasurys, treating them as the one asset class that…