Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, has just turned a teen banking app into his latest stage. By buying Step through his company Beast Industries, he is not only adding another business line to an empire that already spans snacks, philanthropy and streaming, he is inserting himself directly into the fight for Gen Z’s money…
President Donald Trump is moving to harden America’s semiconductor defenses while quietly building an escape hatch for the companies most critical to the artificial intelligence boom. The White House is preparing broad new tariffs on imported chips, but it is also exploring a path that would spare hyperscale cloud providers if they route their orders…
TSMC just gave Wall Street something rare in a market saturated with artificial intelligence hype: numbers that actually justify the excitement. The contract chip giant reported a powerful finish to 2025, with fourth quarter revenue of $33.73 billion, up 20.5% year over year, and profit jumping 35%, while January sales accelerated again with 37% growth….
The headline numbers say the United States still has a functioning job market. Unemployment is low, payrolls are edging higher, and the dreaded recession has not arrived. Yet once I strip away the noise and look at where new positions are actually being created, one sector stands out so starkly that it changes the whole…
Warren Buffett turned a contrarian wager on Japan into one of Berkshire Hathaway’s most lucrative international moves, transforming a roughly $6.5 billion outlay into a gain of about $24 billion in six years. By quietly building large positions in five sprawling trading houses, he tied Berkshire’s fortunes to Japan’s market revival just as global investors…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average blasting through 50,000 has given the White House a powerful new data point in its defense of President Donald Trump’s trade agenda. For Peter Navarro, the longtime advocate of aggressive tariffs, the milestone is proof that the administration’s bet on “Trumpnomics” has paid off despite years of warnings from Wall…
Corporate failures are no longer a background hum in the economy, they are a defining feature of the current business cycle. More than 700 US companies went bankrupt in 2025, a 14 percent jump from the previous year, and the trend has pushed insolvencies to levels not seen in more than a decade. The real…
Tariffs are often sold as a way to make foreign companies pay more, but the bill that arrives at the kitchen table tells a different story. New research finds that President Donald Trump’s trade policies effectively functioned like a tax on consumption, with the typical household paying about $1,000 more over the past year in…
The United States has slipped to its weakest position yet on a leading global corruption ranking, a symbolic blow to a country that has long cast itself as an anti-graft standard bearer. The new score reflects mounting concern that political interference, weakened oversight, and eroding norms are making it easier for those in power to…
Washington is edging toward a historic break with its income tax free past, as Governor Bob Ferguson backs a 9.9% levy on annual earnings above $1 million and lawmakers race to shape the details. Supporters frame the plan as a surgical fix for one of the most regressive tax codes in the country, while critics…