Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Ferrara Candy Company, the parent of the Jelly Belly brand, is shutting down corporate operations at its Fairfield, California, headquarters and permanently eliminating 69 jobs, according to a WARN notice and local reporting. The cuts target white-collar roles at the Fairfield campus while manufacturing continues on-site. 69 Corporate Jobs Gone From Fairfield The layoffs were…
California Assembly Republicans introduced legislation to freeze the state’s motor vehicle fuel tax for a full year, targeting the $0.61 per gallon excise rate that hits drivers at the pump. Assemblyman Jeff Gonzalez and Republican coauthors introduced AB 1745, which would suspend the state excise tax on gasoline for one year. The bill arrives as…
Billionaire supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, CEO of Red Apple Group and the Gristedes grocery chain, called New York City’s budget “unsustainable” during a recent appearance on Fox Business’ “Varney & Co.,” drawing a sharp contrast with Florida’s fiscal approach. His critique lands as NYC confronts a projected $2.2 billion shortfall in Fiscal Year 2026 and…
A major furniture retailer’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy has set off a rush by shoppers to spend gift cards before they risk becoming worthless. In Pennsylvania, the attorney general is urging anyone holding Value City or American Signature Furniture cards to redeem them quickly, warning that a firm redemption cutoff is already in place. The scramble…
The expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits at the close of 2025 has put approximately 22 million Marketplace enrollees on a collision course, with sharply higher insurance costs. These subsidies, first created by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and later extended by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, kept monthly…
Amazon is cutting thousands of corporate jobs, with human resources among the hardest-hit departments, as the company redirects spending toward artificial intelligence and tries to flatten its management structure. The layoffs, which began in late 2025 and accelerated in January 2026, have already triggered billions of dollars in severance costs and formal job-loss notices across…
The sub-$20,000 new car has effectively vanished from American dealerships, and the average transaction price for a new vehicle hit $49,191 in January 2026. For households already spending $13,318 a year on transportation out of an average annual budget of $78,535, the math is brutal. But buyers who rethink their approach to financing, model selection,…
California hits top earners with the nation’s steepest state income tax rate, topping out at 13.3 percent. Yet for middle-income homeowners, Texas may actually extract more through property taxes, despite its reputation as a low-tax haven. The gap between headline tax rates and what families actually pay each month is driving a quiet but consequential…
Major U.S. employers across logistics, finance, retail, and manufacturing are shedding thousands of jobs in 2026, with official state filings and federal documents revealing the scale of cuts that are already underway or scheduled for the coming months. UPS alone plans to eliminate up to 30,000 positions this year, while companies like Wells Fargo, Lowe’s,…
JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon warned that he is seeing echoes of the period before the 2008 financial crisis, pointing to what he described as aggressive risk-taking by rival banks in the fast-growing private credit market. His comments arrive as major financial institutions expand lending outside traditional banking channels, and as the International…