Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Precious metals surged on February 20, 2026, after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and President Trump responded by announcing a 15% global import surcharge under a different legal authority. Silver posted a roughly 9% gain while gold rose, as investors reacted to the tariff ruling, the…
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has warned that President Trump’s trade policies are turning the United States into a “scary place to invest,” increasing the risk of stagflation as GDP growth has already slowed. The warning comes ahead of a new 10% import surcharge scheduled to take effect on February 24, 2026, layering fresh costs…
Oregon lawmakers are advancing legislation that would dramatically expand property tax exemptions for large-scale data centers, building on the state’s existing enterprise zone framework to offer abatements stretching up to 15 years. The proposal arrives as tech companies race to build massive server farms to power artificial intelligence workloads, raising hard questions about whether rural…
Warren Buffett, who is scheduled to step down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO at the end of 2025, spent decades telling investors that market chaos is not a threat but an invitation. His shareholder letters, written over nearly six decades, repeatedly made the same case: panic selling destroys wealth, while disciplined buying during downturns builds it….
Federal Reserve Governor Barr warned in a speech that artificial intelligence is reshaping the U.S. labor market at a moment of near-zero job creation and low firing rates, a combination he described as a “delicate balance.” The address, delivered on the same day analysts flagged AI-driven profit growth as largely confined to a handful of…
A wave of tariff increases on steel, aluminum, and certain Chinese imports could ripple through the U.S. food supply chain, raising hard questions about how much more American households may pay at the grocery store. The federal government says it has collected over $100 billion in customs revenue since January 20, 2025, but estimates from…
American consumers lost more ground to inflation in January 2026, as prices climbed 2.4% over the prior 12 months, while international data show the dollar’s share of global reserves has been edging lower over time. The squeeze on household budgets arrives alongside federal projections of roughly $1.9 trillion in annual deficits in fiscal 2026, raising…
The Ethereum Foundation declared a strategic reorganization on February 17, 2026, formally treating Ethereum as a unified “platform” spanning its base layer and the rollup networks built on top of it. The announcement comes as new academic research has examined low-cost attack vectors against the rollup systems Ethereum increasingly relies on for scaling, and as…
Toyota is pumping $1.3 billion into its Georgetown, Kentucky factory to build a new electric SUV and assemble battery packs, even as Ford and General Motors pull back on their own EV timelines. The investment signals that the world’s largest automaker by volume is betting on a blended strategy of hybrids and battery-electric vehicles while…
Runaway demand for artificial intelligence hardware is draining the global memory chip supply and driving up the cost of smartphones, laptops, and other personal electronics. Contract prices for conventional DRAM are set to jump 90 to 95 percent quarter-over-quarter in the first quarter of 2026, while NAND flash is forecast to rise 55 to 60…