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Category: Economics/Business

The United States is no longer a reliable, predictable place to do business

The United States is no longer a reliable, predictable place to do business

The New York Times reports: Through recessions, wars, financial crises and political turmoil, the U.S. economy has maintained its reputation as the safest place in the world for investors to put their money and for entrepreneurs to build their businesses. That has given the United States a nearly incalculable economic advantage, allowing it to borrow more cheaply, grow more quickly and emerge from downturns more successfully than nearly any of its global peers. President Trump may be chipping away at…

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Trump uses legal threats to push Federal Reserve member — the only Black woman — to resign

Trump uses legal threats to push Federal Reserve member — the only Black woman — to resign

Don Moynihan writes: One trademark of an authoritarian regime is the use of the legal system to target political opponents and forgive friends. This has the effect of undermining our basic conception of the law as a set of rules that is fairly and consistently applied. It also centralizes authority and undermines government capacity. Trump’s call for Federal Reserve member Lisa Cook to resign, under the threat of a DOJ investigation, is a clear example of this type of authoritarianism….

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Roger Alford: What I saw inside Pam Bondi’s DOJ

Roger Alford: What I saw inside Pam Bondi’s DOJ

Roger P. Alford served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in the first Trump administration, and as principal deputy assistant attorney general in the division in the second term. He writes: The Republican Party today is a battleground. The confrontation isn’t between traditional conservatives and Trump supporters. Rather, it pits genuine MAGA reformers against MAGA-in-name-only lobbyists. It’s a fight over whether Americans will have equal justice under law, or whether the…

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Trump’s military occupation of D.C. is hurting local businesses too

Trump’s military occupation of D.C. is hurting local businesses too

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the nation’s capital and forcing a federal law enforcement takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department is not only terrorizing residents and workers, it’s also harming local businesses. Washington, D.C., restaurants are experiencing significant drops in reservations, and bars are seeing fewer customers. Online reservations for D.C. restaurants plunged more than 25 percent in the days immediately after Trump announced the takeover of D.C. police for the first time in…

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U.S. economy is on the brink of recession, says Moody’s chief economist

U.S. economy is on the brink of recession, says Moody’s chief economist

Business Insider reports: Mark Zandi sees trouble ahead for the US economy. The Moody’s Analytics chief economist recently predicted in a post on X that the US economy is on the brink of recession following some of the latest economic data. While Zandi later noted that he doesn’t think the US economy is in a recession yet, there are certain industries that have already entered one. Yet, that’s just one of the reasons he thinks that the US economy is…

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AI bubble: Sam Altman says, ‘investors as a whole are overexcited about AI’

AI bubble: Sam Altman says, ‘investors as a whole are overexcited about AI’

TechSpot reports: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged what many economists have suspected for months: the artificial intelligence sector is in a bubble fueled by overexcited investors. In a dinner interview with reporters in San Francisco, the ChatGPT chief compared today’s AI investment frenzy to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s – a rare moment of candor from a leader whose company sits at the center of the boom. “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole…

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Consumer financial protections at risk as Wall Street reverses its stance on crypto

Consumer financial protections at risk as Wall Street reverses its stance on crypto

The New York Times reports: Not long ago, bank executives would compete with one another to be the loudest critic of cryptocurrencies. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, once compared Bitcoin to a pet rock and said the whole crypto industry should be banned. Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan described the space as an “untraceable tool for money laundering,” while HSBC’s chief executive proclaimed bluntly: “We are not into Bitcoin.” Now big banks can’t stop talking about crypto….

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Trump calls on Goldman to replace economist who has warned tariffs will cause inflation

Trump calls on Goldman to replace economist who has warned tariffs will cause inflation

The Wall Street Journal reports: President Trump on Tuesday appeared to call for Goldman Sachs Chief Executive David Solomon to replace the bank’s top economist over his past predictions, in his latest broadside against executives he believes are undermining his goals. Trump said on his Truth Social social-media platform that Solomon should “go out and get himself a new Economist” because the bank made a “bad prediction a long time ago” on the market and tariffs. The president asserted that…

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As crime rates fall, Trump’s DC takeover is yet another distraction from Epstein

As crime rates fall, Trump’s DC takeover is yet another distraction from Epstein

Axios reports: President Trump temporarily placed Washington, D.C., police under federal control on Monday and implied that he would intervene in other cities despite crime rates falling. Why it matters: Trump’s D.C. takeover is a major escalation of federal control not frequently seen in America, and further illustrates his willingness to target Democratic-led cities while testing the limits of presidential authority. While announcing the D.C. crackdown, Trump also named Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York and Chicago as cities that are “bad, very bad,” without offering specific…

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Essential workers forced to go into hiding as crops rot and farmers face bankruptcy

Essential workers forced to go into hiding as crops rot and farmers face bankruptcy

  Crops are rotting. Families have vanished. Behind closed doors, a hidden crisis is unfolding across the farms of the West. Fear of immigration raids has driven farmworkers indoors, with their kids stuck inside all summer and their livelihoods on hold. CNN’s David Culver goes inside homes few outsiders ever see and reveals how immigration enforcement is reshaping the fields and the families who keep them running.

The uncomfortable fact about the stock market’s historic run is that no one is sure why it’s happening

The uncomfortable fact about the stock market’s historic run is that no one is sure why it’s happening

Rogé Karma writes: Can anything stop the stock market? The U.S. economy recently weathered the worst pandemic in 100 years, the worst inflation in 40 years, and the highest interest rates in 20 years. Yet from 2019 through 2024, the S&P 500 grew by an average of nearly 20 percent a year, about double its historical average rate. Despite President Donald Trump’s erratic economic policies, which include the highest tariffs since the 19th century, the market is already up by…

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Will the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s, divest from Israel?

Will the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s, divest from Israel?

+972 reports: In 1990, Norway established the Oil Fund, a long-term investment vehicle to manage the country’s growing oil and gas revenues. Formally known as the Government Pension Fund Global, its primary aims were to safeguard these revenues for future generations and to protect the Norwegian economy, increasingly reliant on oil, from global market volatility. Managed by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) with operational independence under the central bank, the Oil Fund invests globally in equities, real estate, government bonds,…

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White House prepares order to punish banks that supposedly discriminate against conservatives

White House prepares order to punish banks that supposedly discriminate against conservatives

The Wall Street Journal reports: The White House is preparing to step up pressure against big banks over perceived discrimination against conservatives and crypto companies with an executive order that threatens to fine lenders that drop customers for political reasons. A draft of the executive order, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, directs bank regulators to investigate whether any financial institutions might have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws or consumer financial-protection laws. Violators could be…

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U.S. defence firms scramble for rare earth minerals after China blocks exports

U.S. defence firms scramble for rare earth minerals after China blocks exports

The Telegraph reports: The US is scrambling to get hold of the rare earth metals needed to make weapons after China slashed its supply to American defence firms. Prices of some rare earths have increased more than 60-fold after Beijing restricted the export of the materials for defence purposes earlier this year, amid a trade war with the US. Beijing controls around 90 per cent of the world’s rare metal supply and dominates the production of many other critical minerals,…

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Trump is turning America into a banana republic

Trump is turning America into a banana republic

Tom Friedman writes: Of all the terrible things Donald Trump has said and done as president, the most dangerous one just happened on Friday. Trump, in effect, ordered our trusted and independent government office of economic statistics to become as big a liar as he is. He fired Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for bringing him economic news he did not like, and in the hours immediately following, the second most dangerous thing happened:…

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For America’s thirty-five million small businesses, tariff uncertainty hits especially hard

For America’s thirty-five million small businesses, tariff uncertainty hits especially hard

By Peter Boumgarden, Washington University in St. Louis and Dilawar Syed, The University of Texas at Austin Imagine it’s April 2025 and you’re the owner of a small but fast-growing e-commerce business. Historically, you’ve sourced products from China, but the president just announced tariffs of 145% on these goods. Do you set up operations in Thailand – requiring new investment and a lot of work – or wait until there’s more clarity on trade? What if waiting too long means…

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