Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
America’s debt problem is no longer an abstract worry about future generations. In the opening stretch of the current fiscal year, the federal government effectively borrowed $43.5 billion a week, and by 2026 interest alone is on track to hit $1 trillion a year. The numbers are big enough that they are starting to reshape…
Corporate profits are climbing, stock indexes are hovering near records and yet job cuts keep coming in waves that feel less like a cycle and more like a new operating model. Of the 1.2 m job cuts U.S. companies announced in 2025, nearly twice 2024’s total, executives explicitly cited artificial intelligence in only a sliver…
Corporate profits are surging even as wage growth for typical workers lags, and the gap is no longer a cyclical quirk but a structural feature of the modern economy. The core story behind that divergence is where money flows first: into machines, software, data centers, and financial assets, not into payrolls. I see the same…
Millions of low paid workers started the year with bigger paychecks after nineteen states lifted their minimum wages, part of a broader shift that has already pushed seventeen states and Washington, D.C., to a floor of at least 15 dollars an hour. The raises are landing in an economy still wrestling with inflation and uneven…
California’s latest immigration crackdown has not just inflamed politics, it has punched a billion‑dollar hole in the state’s economy. After a summer of federal raids and street clashes in Los Angeles, officials now tally more than $1 billion in lost productivity, sales, and wages, a shock that lands on top of existing fiscal stress and…
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is turning a dry export-license fight into a full-blown corruption brawl, arguing that a massive sale of advanced U.S. chips to the United Arab Emirates is inseparable from Trump family money. At the center is a proposed transfer of 500,000 cutting-edge artificial intelligence processors to a close security partner that also happens…
Elon Musk’s latest prediction about SpaceX’s finances is as blunt as it is symbolic: he says NASA will contribute only about 5 percent of the company’s revenue this year, even as SpaceX prepares for a blockbuster IPO and pivots its long-term focus to the Moon. The claim signals a decisive shift from government anchor client…
Grocery shoppers are facing a fresh jolt at the checkout as food prices notch their sharpest monthly rise in more than three years. The spike caps a year in which overall inflation cooled, yet the cost of filling a cart kept grinding higher and is now accelerating again. For households that already trimmed back, the…
After a blistering two-year run that left the S&P 500 up roughly 26% in 2023 and another 25% in 2025, the air was always going to get thin at the top. The sharp swings that opened 2026 are less an out-of-the-blue calamity than the natural consequence of stretching valuations, concentrated leadership and political risk to…
The headline numbers say the United States is booming. Official estimates show the economy expanded 4.4 percent last year, powered by steady price gains and big-ticket spending from affluent households. Consumer sentiment has climbed from its post‑pandemic lows, and the stock market has rewarded anyone with the savings to stay invested. Yet the more I…