Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Weak home sales across the United States are draining demand for appliances, cabinets, and flooring, sending a slow-moving shock through domestic manufacturers that depend on housing turnover for a large share of their revenue. With existing-home transactions still running well below pre-rate-surge levels and mortgage-rate lock-in keeping many homeowners in place, manufacturers that supply the…
Kia’s all-electric EV4 sedan, built in South Korea and aimed squarely at American buyers, is pressing ahead with U.S. sales plans even as a 25% tariff on imported vehicles reshapes the economics of every foreign-assembled car sold in the country. A recent White House order easing some of that tariff burden, combined with a two-year…
San Francisco is moving to expand public power options and reduce reliance on Pacific Gas and Electric Co., combining a federal regulatory victory with steep rate cuts to strengthen the case for a larger city role in providing electricity. The effort, years in the making, reached a new milestone on January 28, 2026, when the…
Nvidia filed its quarterly earnings with the SEC for the period ended July 27, 2025, and the reaction across Wall Street was strikingly muted. A company that once moved entire indexes with a single report now barely nudges the broader market, raising a pointed question: has the era of Nvidia as the sole bellwether for…
Chicago city workers collectively owe $23.5 million in unpaid tickets, a figure that takes on new urgency as the municipality confronts a budget gap exceeding $1 billion. The debt, largely tied to parking and traffic violations, has persisted through gaps in payroll deduction systems meant to collect such fines automatically. With the city’s fiscal outlook…
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum have added hundreds, and by some estimates well over a thousand dollars, to the sticker price of a new car since 2018. Yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index for new vehicles shows that prices have actually declined on a year-over-year basis in recent readings. That creates…
California’s proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, a one-time wealth levy targeting the state’s ultra-rich, may already be pushing billionaires and their assets out of the state before a single dollar has been collected. A nonpartisan fiscal analysis warns that while the tax could produce a short-term revenue windfall, it risks triggering a lasting decline in…
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont traveled to Los Angeles to campaign for a ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on California billionaires, putting him in direct conflict with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has warned the measure would drive the ultra-rich out of the state. The clash between two of the Democratic…
America’s post-pandemic economic recovery continues to split along income lines, lifting asset-rich households while leaving millions of low-wage workers stuck near or below the poverty threshold. The pattern, widely described as a K-shaped recovery, has persisted well beyond the initial pandemic shock, and new federal data on wages, wealth, and poverty suggest the gap is…
Gold futures were quoted near $5,200 per ounce in early trading as investors fled equities following President Trump’s announcement of a sweeping global import tariff, a move that collided with a Supreme Court ruling limiting the White House’s claimed legal authority for trade barriers. The collision of a constitutional rebuke and an aggressive new levy…