Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
President Donald Trump has ordered a sweeping halt to some of the harshest collection tools used against borrowers who have fallen into default on federal student loans. The administration is freezing wage garnishment, tax refund seizures, and other involuntary collections, giving millions of struggling borrowers a temporary reprieve as the government rethinks how it pursues…
For households squeezed by higher prices at the supermarket, the promise of tax relief that effectively pays for months of food is not an abstraction, it is a line item in the family budget. The latest round of Trump-backed tax changes is being sold on the idea that roughly $4,000 in savings could offset about…
The United States is waiting on a single court decision that could either cement President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy or trigger a sprawling fight over who gets billions of dollars back. As the justices hold off, companies, markets and the White House are all trying to game out whether the delay points to a political…
China’s trade machine just delivered a blunt verdict on Washington’s tariff strategy. In 2025 the country booked a record trade surplus of $1.2 trillion, a figure that surged even as President Donald Trump escalated duties on Chinese goods. Rather than forcing Beijing to bend, the tariff fight has coincided with a wider realignment of global…
Tariffs were sold as a way to make foreign producers pay, but the latest Federal Reserve survey shows the bill is increasingly landing in American checkout lines. From groceries to machinery, higher import duties are quietly being folded into prices, turning trade policy into a stealth tax on shoppers. The shift is subtle, but it…
The Internal Revenue Service has now locked in the 2025 income tax brackets, standard deduction amounts, and key retirement contribution limits, setting the rules that will govern how much of your paycheck ultimately goes to Washington. The structure of the system is familiar, but the thresholds and deductions have shifted enough that a passive approach…
President Donald Trump is again dangling the prospect of direct cash from his trade agenda, telling Americans that $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks could start arriving around the middle of 2026. The idea, pitched as a way to share tariff revenue with households, has energized some voters who remember earlier pandemic-era relief, but it is colliding…
California’s richest residents are staring at a ballot proposal that would do something the state has never tried before, a one time levy on their net worth that supporters say could reshape public finances and critics warn could upend the state’s economic model. The plan, aimed squarely at billionaires, has already prompted some of the…
Google co-founder Larry Page has quietly executed one of the priciest residential moves in American history, assembling a Miami waterfront compound for roughly $173 million and, in the process, positioning himself to save millions in future taxes. The deal drops one of Silicon Valley’s most influential fortunes into Florida at the exact moment California is…
Tax filing for 2026 is shaping up to be very different from the last few years, with a larger standard deduction and a fresh round of business-friendly write offs reshaping how much income actually gets taxed. The changes grow out of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which locks in several individual breaks while expanding…