Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Eric Adams is turning a long running New York argument about housing into a sharp political contrast, casting homeownership as the backbone of immigrant prosperity while accusing his left flank of treating it as a suspect ideal. The clash has exploded into a personal feud with Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani over Mamdani’s choice of a…
Mortgage rates have tumbled to levels not seen in more than three years, catching many would-be buyers and even long-time homeowners off guard. After a long stretch of painfully high borrowing costs, the sudden drop is reshaping what buyers can afford and how quickly homes are selling. I see a market that is still constrained…
The United States is sliding into a harsher phase of its housing crunch, with banks repossessing an estimated 367,000 homes as strained borrowers fall behind and lenders move to collect. That surge in forced sales is colliding with high prices, elevated mortgage rates and a deep shortage of properties, creating a crisis that is both…
The race for the country’s most competitive housing markets is shifting away from the usual coastal suspects and toward a band of mid-sized metros where prices still look relatively attainable. Zillow’s latest ranking of the 10 hottest U.S. markets for 2026 shows where demand is expected to be fiercest and where both buyers and sellers…
For millions of people who buy coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, 2026 is not just another enrollment year. The lapse of enhanced premium tax credits has collided with steep rate hikes, turning what was once subsidized protection into a financial crisis. Instead of choosing among plans, many ACA enrollees are now weighing whether…
President Donald Trump is pitching a sweeping mortgage relief push as a way to make housing more affordable, but some of the most closely watched economists in the country say the plan could have the opposite effect. By driving down borrowing costs without fixing the shortage of homes for sale, they argue, the White House…
The widow of a telecom tycoon is locked in a high‑stakes legal fight over a $190 million Los Angeles estate, arguing that the lender engineered a “loan to own” play that was designed to pry the property from her family. At the center of the dispute is a Bel‑Air megamansion, a complex web of financing,…
For much of the past two years, millions of U.S. homeowners have been locked into ultra-cheap mortgages that made moving feel financially impossible. Now, as prices cool at the margins and buyers and sellers slowly recalibrate to higher borrowing costs, those golden handcuffs are starting to slip, exposing cracks in a housing market that had…
Jerome Powell is trying to do something unusual for a central banker: lower expectations. After a string of rate cuts and a modest retreat in mortgage costs, the Federal Reserve chair is warning that housing will remain one of the country’s most acute economic problems in 2026 and that monetary policy alone cannot repair the…
Marriott is leaning hard into loyalty, rolling out richer bonuses, faster status earning and more ways to turn everyday spending into high value trips. For frequent guests, the latest wave of promotions and policy tweaks can add up to thousands of extra points and a shorter path to elite perks. I see a clear pattern…