Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Luxury used to be the safest bet in retail, the one corner of consumer spending that seemed immune to anxiety. Now a new kind of fear is creeping in, as shoppers who once flaunted logos are starting to treat them like liabilities. That shift, often described as a “luxury phobia,” is especially visible in China…
Elon Musk is testing how far a single corporate structure can stretch, weighing a consolidation that would bind rockets, artificial intelligence and electric vehicles into one of the most complex tech groups on the planet. The talks center on SpaceX potentially combining with Tesla or xAI ahead of a blockbuster listing, a move that would…
Corporate America is entering 2026 with a chill running through its white-collar ranks, as hiring stalls and job cuts spread from tech into manufacturing, retail, finance, and logistics. What looked like a brief correction in office jobs has hardened into a deliberate strategy to run leaner, automate more, and plan the year with fewer people…
Donald Trump has turned tariffs into a signature economic weapon, promising that foreign governments will foot the bill. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman is warning that the real tab will land in American mailboxes, paychecks, and grocery carts, leaving the country poorer even if headline growth holds up. His argument is not abstract theory but a…
New York City is staring at a projected $12 billion budget gap, and the new mayor is making it clear that the crisis is not an abstraction. Zohran is warning that the shortfall is real, structural, and the product of political choices, not an unavoidable act of nature. His central argument is blunt: working people…
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has framed Donald Trump’s new oil tariff threat as an attempt to “suffocate” Cuba’s economy, casting the move as a direct assault on the island’s sovereignty rather than a narrow sanctions tweak. At stake is not only the survival of Cuba’s already fragile energy system but also a wider test of how…
Gold’s violent pullback has rattled latecomers to the trade, but for long term investors it may be the last deep breath before a speculative sprint toward $10,000. With forecasts for four and even five digit prices colliding with algorithm driven calls for a parabolic spike, the real question is not whether to own gold, but…
President Donald Trump has repeatedly told Americans that grocery costs are coming down, casting his economic agenda as a relief for families squeezed at the checkout line. The official data and on-the-ground receipts tell a very different story. Food inflation has cooled from its peak, but prices are still climbing, and the gap between the…
The United States is trying to cheapen its currency at the very moment its debt load is racing toward $40 trillion, a collision of priorities that will shape borrowing costs, inflation and living standards for years. President Trump has openly cheered the slide in the Dollar, arguing that a softer currency is good for America…
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has started talking about inflation in a way that puts President Donald Trump’s trade policy squarely in the frame. In his latest press conference, Powell linked today’s stubborn price pressures to the White House’s sweeping tariffs, even as he insisted the central bank is acting independently. I read his comments…