Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
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…
Banks across the United States are now sorting software companies into winners and losers based on their exposure to artificial intelligence, creating a two-tier lending system that is driving up borrowing costs and killing deals for firms seen as vulnerable to AI disruption. The Federal Reserve’s January 2026 lending survey confirms that commercial lenders are…
Los Angeles’s voter-approved transfer tax on high-value property sales, formally called the United to House L.A. Real Property Transfer Tax, has triggered steep declines in building permits, land transactions, and multifamily housing production across the city. A growing body of academic research from UCLA, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, and Harvard now links the levy…
Shares of Europe’s biggest listed private-equity and private-credit firms fell sharply on Monday as investor anxiety over the quality of their underlying holdings intensified. EQT, Partners Group, CVC Capital Partners, and Intermediate Capital Group were at the center of the rout, extending a selloff that has wiped out weeks of gains and raised pointed questions…
San Diego County transit riders could soon pay more per trip than commuters anywhere else in California if the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) board moves forward with a proposed fare ordinance update. The potential increase, rooted in historical fare governance records maintained by the state, would push flat-rate bus and trolley fares above even the…
For decades, a set of economic assumptions about self-correcting markets and rational actors shaped how Wall Street managed risk and how Washington regulated finance. Those assumptions, embedded in formal models used by the Federal Reserve, the SEC, and major investment banks, failed spectacularly during the 2008 financial crisis. The wreckage left behind a trail of…
The U.S. Supreme Court on February 20, 2026, struck down President Donald Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping global tariffs, instantly throwing $133 billion in collected duties into legal limbo. Within days, the administration pivoted to an obscure Cold War‑era trade statute to reimpose levies, setting up a…
The phrase “no tax on tips” became a rare point of bipartisan agreement during the 2024 presidential campaign, with both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris backing the idea. But proposals and guidance now being discussed by Treasury and the IRS are far narrower than the slogan suggests, with reporting requirements, income…
Tesla filed its latest annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission confirming that the company designs, manufactures, and sells “high-performance fully electric vehicles,” directly contradicting speculation that it might pivot away from battery-powered cars. The 10-K for fiscal year 2025, along with record energy storage numbers and Tesla’s January 28 earnings webcast materials, paints…
Gold climbed to a three-week high as the U.S. dollar slid sharply following a Supreme Court ruling that struck down President Trump’s emergency tariffs, triggering a rapid policy pivot that has amplified uncertainty across global markets. The administration responded within hours by issuing a presidential proclamation imposing a 10% ad valorem import surcharge under Section…