India’s “quick commerce” bubble may be about to burst, said the CEO of Blinkit, an app that promises delivery of orders within 10 minutes.

Albinder Dhindsa issued the warning as some competitors in the market are running on losses. He believes his company will thrive, but there has been unrest, and Blinkit's riders took industrial action over pay and working conditions earlier in the year. The strike is just part of a wider crisis developing in India’s growing gig economy, where “speed trumps safety and workers are easily replaced”, said The Independent.

“The pendulum has already swung once from scepticism to exuberance,” Dhindsa told Bloomberg and believes he does not know when “correction” will come, but only that it will.

Dark stores

Blinkit allows customers to order groceries, fresh produce and daily essentials, which they expect to be delivered in around 10 minutes. To achieve this speedy turnaround, the platform relies on a network of “dark stores” – retail spaces that act as dedicated hubs for fulfilling online orders, rather than in-person shopping.

It forms part of India’s rapidly growing quick commerce sector, funded by investors attracted by the country’s “dense cities, lower cost of labour and ubiquitous digital payments”, said Bloomberg.

The company launched in 2013 as Grofers, but rebranded in 2021 as Blinkit, invoking the idea that service will happen “in the blink of an eye”. Acquired by the country's food delivery giant Zomato in 2022, it’s now active in many cities across India, delivering “everything from eggs to iPhones” to a client base of millions.

But, it has yet to turn a profit, hampered by “capital costs and supply chain complexity” as it pursues further expansion, including into rural areas.

Straightforward demands

Earlier this year, more than 150 Blinkit workers in the city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, went on a two-day strike to protest “unsafe working conditions, falling earnings, and retaliatory ID suspensions” (when gig platforms deactivate workers' accounts without due process or a means of redress), said The Independent.

The striking riders had “straightforward demands”, including “weather-appropriate uniforms and shaded waiting areas” alongside an end to a “punishing rule that effectively forces them to work the hottest hours of the day”.

They also want the company to “restore the original incentive pay structure”. They are paid on a per-order basis, with “fluctuating incentives”, with terms having “ been quietly changed over time”. Riders claim that they used to receive Rs 555 (£4.93) per 32 orders delivered, but now earn just Rs 448 (£3.98) per 43, which means they are “doing more work for less”.

In November, the Indian government introduced new labour laws so that the fleet of self-employed workers will now receive social security, but they still have no right to a fixed wage or paid leave.

The April strike was a “flashpoint” but not the last in what is becoming a “growing struggle” between “speed-driven platforms” and the workers holding up a gig economy that’s forecast to employ over 23 million Indians by 2029.

Americans may find themselves paying more for a bourbon neat these days. U.S. whiskey distillers throughout the liquor industry are facing financial hardship lately, and economic experts are pointing to the Trump administration’s tariffs as a major cause. This includes Jim Beam, whose troubles have led to a drastic step: closing its distillery.

What brands are being impacted?

The economic slump has affected several iconic American brands. This includes Jack Daniel’s, Old Forester and Woodford Reserve, which are all owned by parent company Brown-Forman. The company previously announced it was “laying off about 650 employees, or 12% of its workforce, in the face of declining demand,” said The New York Times. Several other whiskey brands, including Garrard County Distilling Co. in Kentucky and Uncle Nearest in Tennessee, have been placed into receivership in 2025.

But Jim Beam has taken perhaps the most extreme move by announcing it would halt production at the plant’s main distillery in Clermont, Kentucky, for an entire year. The brand will “pause distillation at our main distillery on the James B. Beam campus for 2026 while we take the opportunity to invest in site enhancements,” the company said in a statement. This marks a significant step for the country’s largest bourbon manufacturer, given that this distillery “produces about a third of the company’s annual output of approximately 26.5 million gallons,” said the Times.

How are tariffs causing these issues?

The ongoing challenges “straining the liquor industry” are “part of the fallout of Trump’s trade war,” said CBC News. These tariffs (and subsequent counter-tariffs from countries like Canada) led to a trade deficit as “overall exports of American spirits fell 9% in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year.” Boycotts of American alcohol brands have also contributed to this decline.

However, there are other factors afoot beyond tariffs; the statement put out by Jim Beam did not even mention tariffs. Another culprit is the skyrocketing supply of aging barrels. Kentucky has an “all-time high of 16.1 million aging barrels of bourbon in its warehouses,” said the Kentucky Distillers’ Association. Because these barrels are taxed by the state, Kentucky distillers paid a “$75 million tab in aging barrel taxes this year, a 27% increase from 2024 and an astronomical 163% increase over the last five years alone.”

Overall demand for whiskey and bourbon has decreased, which has now “caused an oversupply of whiskey,” said Bloomberg. Sales have slumped as “consumers rein in spending and drinking” during downward economic times. And much of the available product can’t even be sold right now — most of the 16.1 million barrels of bourbon currently being aged “won’t be ready to bottle until after 2030.”

Despite these other factors, Kentucky politicians seem to place the blame on the Trump administration’s shoulders. It is “hard to overstate just how devastating Trump’s tariffs are for America’s signature spirit,” said Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.) in a post on X, referring to the Jim Beam closure. “Thousands of Kentuckians power the bourbon industry — we will all feel the impact of this.”

President Donald Trump thinks he has found a solution to the skyrocketing price tags for vehicles: building smaller cars. These vehicles are extremely popular in Asia, where they are known as micro cars or kei cars. But many auto industry analysts say translating the success of Asia’s micro car market to the United States is an unrealistic goal.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has mused on social media that the U.S. should start producing these cars, which are “small, fuel-efficient vehicles that are roughly 30% shorter” than a Toyota Camry and the same width as a Smart car, said The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s affinity for the vehicles seemed to arise “after a recent trip to Japan to talk about trade and economic investments.”

These cars are often much cheaper than standard vehicles, and “can cost as little as $8,000 or $10,000,” said CNN, while the “average price of a new car in the United States is currently around $50,000.” Manufacturing cars that are that cheap “would be an answer to affordability issues for many car buyers — and a major political headache for Trump.” But these vehicles “don’t make sense en masse here, from existing regulations to the Trump administration’s own contradictory policies,” said Car and Driver.

Part of the reason is straightforward: these cars “aren’t adapted to U.S. regulations and sold here because the demand simply doesn’t exist,” said Car and Driver. This is partially because Americans “barely buy cars anymore,” and favor larger vehicles like trucks. The incentive for automakers to sell smaller cars has also “gone out the window” with “regulations now set to be relaxed” by the Trump administration on gas-guzzling trucks.

These vehicles also “would have to be redesigned and retested to meet U.S. standards” for safety, said Axios. Current laws say imported micro cars must be at least 25 years old as part of U.S. safety regulations. These standards are different in Asia, and approving them for the U.S. would involve “stronger, heavier chassis and larger crumple zones to withstand crashes.” Manufacturers would also need to install “U.S.-spec safety equipment and lighting systems, among other changes.” This would involve high price tags for automakers that would “defeat the cost and efficiency advantages of micro cars.”

What next?

While these micro cars are exceedingly rare in the U.S., there is another type of these vehicles, kei trucks, which are the “largest class of vehicles being individually imported to the U.S., with around 7,500 arriving last year,” said Fast Company. They are the “size of golf carts” and “can’t go 60 miles an hour,” said Jason Marks, the CEO of electric truck startup Telo, to Fast Company, but they are “still this desirable.”

But while the truck variants of these vehicles are selling well, don’t expect to see micro cars dominating the streets anytime soon. They “would be nearly impossible to sell here” on a mass scale, said Michigan Advance. Despite these concerns, Trump is seemingly pressing ahead with his micro car plan. The president has “cleared them for production and is demanding that automakers manufacture them domestically,” writing on social media that the U.S. should “START BUILDING THEM NOW!”

Roomba once looked like the future. Its maker, iRobot, filled American homes with small but affordable robots that helped keep households clean and cats endlessly occupied. But iRobot has now filed for bankruptcy, a victim of innovation and politics.

iRobot’s bankruptcy filing came after it “struggled to keep up with foreign rivals” and failed to withstand the “new costs of tariffs,” said NPR. Most new Roombas are manufactured in Vietnam, and the company said it owes $3.4 million in unpaid tariffs to the U.S. government. But the little robots have also been displaced by newer models at lower prices from rival manufacturers. The main consolation for Roomba fans is that their devices should “keep running as usual.”

Wasn’t Roomba a big success?

The self-guiding vacuum cleaner was most Americans’ “first experience with a home robot,” said The Verge. iRobot was formed in 1990 by MIT professors who had previously used their expertise to build devices used in Mars exploration, “mine detection, bomb disposal, search and rescue,” and other tasks and places where “humans shouldn’t or can’t” go. That list eventually included household chores. The first Roomba launched in 2002 with a $200 list price and quickly became a hit. The robot’s designers quickly “realized something special was happening,” said former CEO Colin Angle to The Verge.

What went wrong

The beginning of the end came in 2022, when Amazon “came knocking” with a $1.7 billion offer to acquire iRobot to add to its Ring and Alexa home product lines, said TechCrunch. European regulators had “other ideas” and threatened to block the deal. Amazon called off the purchase and iRobot’s stock price “nosedived.” Those regulators “removed the most viable path for a pioneering American robotics company to scale and compete globally,” Angle said to TechCrunch.

But the Roomba may have also been a victim of its own success. iRobot “created a market for self-piloting Dustbusters,” said the Financial Times. Yet innovators are often “dethroned with alarming speed” in the consumer marketplace, and foreign rivals “flooded the market with passable substitutes,” including the cheaper imitators like the Roborock and Dreame vacuums. “Sometimes being the first mover sucks.”

Roomba’s legacy

“The best Roomba models were always the ones without a lot of flair,” said Kyle Barr at Gizmodo. The original models went after “rogue dust bunnies” in the living room. More recent versions included vacuums with pet treat dispensers, which mostly created “more mess that the vacuum would be forced to clean up later.” Those kinds of additions “don’t necessarily make for a better robot vacuum.” Despite that, the Roomba deserves to be remembered fondly “even after iRobot is kaput.”

iRobot’s bankruptcy is a “tragedy for consumers, the robotics industry and America’s innovation economy,” Angle told CNBC. But current Roomba owners should not fear their devices will be “rendered useless due to a lack of software updates,” said the Los Angeles Times. Chinese manufacturer Picea Robotics is buying out the company and says it will continue customer support.

What happened

The U.S. gained 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, and the unemployment rate climbed to 4.6%, the highest since 2021. Along with the net loss of 41,000 jobs, the department also revised August and September’s payroll numbers downward by 33,000 jobs. Wages grew an anemic 0.1% last month, the smallest gain since 2023. The October jobs report was delayed because of the government shutdown.

Who said what

“Taken together,” the data released Tuesday “point to one of the weakest American labor markets in years,” The Wall Street Journal said. Hiring has “clearly lost momentum,” The Associated Press said, “hobbled by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs” and the “lingering effects” of inflation-fighting high interest rates.

The “economy is flashing new warning signs,” but October’s steep losses “reflected the exit of tens of thousands of federal workers who took a deferred resignation package earlier this year,” The Washington Post said. “All roads lead back to policy out of Washington, D.C.,” RSM chief economist Joseph Brusuelas told the Journal. “I’m not saying this is a harbinger of a recession, but we have some real challenges to the economy that we didn’t have one year ago.”

What next?

The delayed jobs numbers, and a separate Commerce Department report Tuesday that showed flat retail sales, “buttressed the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates last week,” the Post said. After that meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell “warned that official statistics could be overstating job creation by 60,000 jobs a month.”

There’s money to be made in the business of extending lifespans, and this so-called longevity economy has become a flourishing part of the financial system. While humans have always looked for ways to live longer, recent health advancements alongside shifting demographics mean people are investing in the longevity economy like never before.

How much money is in the longevity economy?

Trillions of dollars are flowing into this economy. In 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic was surging, the longevity sector was valued at $15 trillion globally, according to market research from Data Bridge. It has been growing at a steady rate every year and is expected to have a value of $27 trillion by 2030, and some analyses have the longevity economy possibly reaching this mark by 2026.

This is due to several factors, most notably a shift “toward health span — the years we spend in peak physical and mental condition,” said Entrepreneur. Customer demand also plays a large role, as by 2034 the “U.S. will have more people over 65 than 18,” and one in six people globally will be over 60 by 2030. This is “not just demographics — that’s a new consumer majority.” Increasing health care costs also factor into the money being pumped into the economy, as “chronic diseases and mental health conditions already account for 90% of U.S. health care spending.”

What other factors make up the longevity economy?

There may be more to the longevity economy than many people realize. As “elders live longer and healthier lives and continue to actively participate in the global economy, possibilities open to potentially turn longevity into an asset for society,” said BBC News. In the U.S., it is estimated that by 2030, people over 55 “will have accounted for half of all domestic consumer spending growth since the global financial crisis.” In Japan, this figure will be 67%; in Germany, it will be 86%.

Demographics also play a large role. For the first time in history, the longevity economy “includes four generations of age 50 and older: the GI Generation (1901-1926); the Silent Generation (1927-1945); the Baby Boomers (1946-1964) and Generation X (1965-1980),” said the Los Angeles Daily News. But even though “populations may be aging in significant numbers, we can’t let the idea of ‘oldness’ and its implications stifle the way we think about economic opportunity,” Dr. Joseph Coughlin, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, said to BBC News.

Even though “millennial demands are linked to the rise of the on-demand economy, older adults benefit immensely from its convenience,” Coughlin told BBC News. This has resulted in a slew of products and services surrounding the longevity economy. Most notable are tech entrepreneurs like Bryan Johnson, who is at the “forefront of the movement looking for new ways to reverse aging and extend health span, and live to age 150,” said Fortune. Also emerging is the invention of technologies like wearable aging clocks and more devices designed to keep you younger longer.

President Donald Trump’s tariff-driven trade war is not slowing down China’s export economy. Beijing this week reported a record $1 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world in 2025, raising concerns about “growing imbalances” in the global economy.

The trillion-dollar milestone puts China’s well-known “dominance” of world trade “into even starker relief,” said The Wall Street Journal. While Trump’s tariffs have limited the country’s exports to the United States this year — plunging nearly a third in November compared to last year — China’s exports to Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America have “surged” significantly. The trend has “raised alarms around the world, especially in Europe,” whose automotive and luxury goods sectors find themselves threatened by “nimble Chinese competitors.”

That leaves Europe “squeezed between an ultra-competitive China and a protectionist America,” said Politico. China’s trade surplus “is untenable,” said French President Emmanuel Macron to the Les Echos financial newspaper. European companies were once big investors in China, he said, and now it is time for Chinese businesses to “create value and opportunities for Europe.” Europe could impose Trump-style tariffs on imports, Politico said, but Macron would prefer a “truce” with Beijing.

What did the commentators say?

China’s gigantic trade surplus reveals the difficulty that Trump and others will have “trying to rebalance global trade,” said Amy Hawkins at The Guardian. But it also demonstrates how much Beijing’s economic might is “still overwhelmingly reliant on foreign markets.” And it has raised fears that the country is now flooding non-American markets with “cheap goods that threaten local industry.” It is more likely, though, that those goods will “ultimately end up in the U.S.” after traveling through third countries to avoid Trump’s tariffs.

We could be looking at a “second China shock,” said Alexandra Stevenson at The New York Times. The first shock came two decades ago when American and European companies outsourced manufacturing to China while closing factories at home. The second will come now that China is “redirecting more of its exports to developing countries” that have “less control over how it unfolds.” And there could be “profound” social consequences like unemployment and unrest in countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. “They’re going to need to brace for impact.”

What next?

The next developments may depend on whether the current trade “truce” between the U.S. and China can hold. Some observers believe the relative peace “may not last,” said CNBC. That failure — and a second effort by China to push its exports to other markets — “might compel Europe to impose more restrictive measures to protect its manufacturing sector,” said Jing Wang, a China economist at Nomura, to the outlet.

China’s economy will increasingly “ride on the strength of domestic demand,” said Bloomberg. For now, though, Beijing “faces a worsening economic picture” at home. There has been a slowdown in domestic consumption and investment is also falling. As a result, analysts believe that China will continue to rely on exports and take “only incremental steps” toward relying on its own people to be customers for the goods it makes.

A “viral” essay on household income has sparked debate over a polarizing question, said Julie Zauzmer Weil in The Washington Post: Just how many Americans are living in poverty? Michael Green, a Wall Street portfolio manager, argues in a Substack article that the federal poverty line— calculated for decades at three times the cost of a “minimum food diet,” and currently $32,150 for a family of four—is an egregious “lie.” That calculation made sense in the 1960s, writes Green, when “housing was relatively cheap,” health care was employer-provided, and “college tuition could be covered with a summer job.” But such expenses have skyrocketed, and a second income is now essential for many families, which means they must also pay out for child care. A household income of $136,500 is now the real “break-even point” for a family of four, Green calculates, which would mean most Americans are impoverished. While many economists slammed Green’s argument, it met with “effusive” praise online. “The most important thing most of us will read all year,” wrote one commenter.

Green’s treatise is “silly,” said Noah Smith in his Substack newsletter. There are serious issues with his calculations—for example, he uses average spending figures and treats them as minimum amounts. But on a more basic level, his claims are just “out of touch with reality.” Given that the median income for a family of four is $125,700, he’s claiming “more than half of American families are poor,” at a time when our middle class enjoys unprecedented “material luxury.” Americans today live in bigger houses, eat out more often, and have more leisure time than they did in the 1960s. In the real world, official measures show poverty fell from 19.5% in 1963 to 10.5% in 2019, said Michael R. Strain in National Review. And over the past 30 years, inflation-adjusted wages for “typical workers” have risen by 40%.

Putting the poverty line at $136,500 may be “absurd,” said Jacob Weindling in Jezebel, but there’s a reason Green’s essay resonated. Record housing prices have put homeownership out of reach for many young people, who feel “priced out of the so-called American dream.” An estimated 100 million Americans have medical debts, while college graduates’ salaries increasingly don’t “cover student debt servicing.” In short, people whose incomes look decent on paper are feeling a new “kind of precarity.” That may not technically constitute poverty, but the financial hardship grinding them down “is very real.”

‘World of Warcraft is changing. I’m nervous about what that means.’

Louie Villalobos at USA Today

World of Warcraft’s new expansion means “just about every aspect of the game is changing or being tweaked,” says Louie Villalobos. If “you don’t play the game, it’s hard to describe just how massive and consequential these changes are going to be.” The new expansion “could set the game up for success for the next several years under a new foundation of systems and features. Or it could all collapse if the players reject it.”

Read more

‘An old-fashioned cure for fading trust in government’

Clive Crook at Bloomberg

The “fact of diminished trust is hardly a revelation, least of all in countries such as the U.S., where anti-establishment populists have turned politics upside down,” says Clive Crook. Good “macroeconomic management — not the same as ‘big government’ or ‘small government’ — promotes trust,” and the “main test of sound macroeconomic policy is low unemployment.” But “there’s another more unsettling implication: Declining trust will be self-reinforcing if, as seems likely, it makes sound macroeconomic policy more difficult.”

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‘How the Global South got caught in the West’s prison pipeline’

Baz Dreisinger and Alexus McNally at Time

Immigration facilities “reveal how a global vision of mass incarceration is spreading, one cellblock at a time,” say Baz Dreisinger and Alexus McNally. These “facilities illustrate a growing obsession with prison construction.” This “expansion is at least partly financed — even after the Trump administration’s major cuts to the U.S. foreign aid budget — by the U.S. and the European Union,” and “each of these facilities divert resources away from more effective and humane approaches.”

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‘The Gaza genocide has not ended. It has only changed its form.’

Hassan Abo Qamar at The Nation

After “two years of genocide” in Gaza, the “American president’s deal has not fully ended the suffering, though it has paused some of it,” says Hassan Abo Qamar. But “Israel still controls crossings, convoy movements, and the pace at which aid enters,” and this “suffocating blockade makes a lasting recovery impossible.” The “ceasefire did not bring relief but revealed the cruelty of leaving people to face their fate alone.” Many “now feel that this suffering is their destiny.”

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The next financial capital of the United States may not be Wall Street, but Y’all Street. Texas has been priming itself to become a major hub for finance, with investors in the Lone Star State working to usurp a share of the stock market from New York City. And it appears these efforts may be paying off, as a slew of stock indexes are set to open in Texas in early 2026. While Wall Street still reserves its place as the epicenter of global finance, experts say Texas is making a play for the top.

A trio of stock indexes

As of now, at least three major stock indexes, the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq have “announced plans to open stock exchanges in Dallas,” said the Texas Standard. The upstart TXSE plans to begin operations next year and begin trading by the end of 2026. The TXSE is “backed by more than $160 million from major investment firms,” said the University of Texas at Arlington. It is expected to “facilitate the listing of relatively smaller companies,” unlike Wall Street stock exchanges, which have strict requirements for corporations to be listed.

But the TXSE will have competitors, as the NYSE has “announced it would reincorporate its Chicago electronic exchange and move it to Dallas, branding it NYSE Texas,” said The Texas Tribune. And right alongside NYSE Texas, the Nasdaq is also making a move in the Lone Star State, launching a “new exchange building on Nasdaq’s existing presence in the state,” said The Dallas Morning News. The Nasdaq “already has more than 200 listed companies in the state, representing nearly $2 trillion in market cap.”

‘It’s no longer New York or nowhere’

All three of the exchanges are “electronic, and that means there won’t be any hectic trading floor in Dallas with brokers shouting out numbers,” said the Texas Standard. But their existence provides evidence that “Dallas and the overall Texas economy is rapidly growing,” and the “consumption market is also expanding” as more opportunities come to Texas, said Bulent Temel, an assistant economics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, to the outlet.

There has already been a “high tendency for spending money in Texas” due to an influx of businesses, Temel told the Texas Standard, which in turn can provide jobs in the financial sector. When it “comes to finance, it’s no longer New York or nowhere,” said Business Insider, and this goes beyond just stock exchanges themselves. There is also a “growing list of Wall Street names betting on Texas, drawn by low taxes, light regulations and a cheaper cost of living.” Banks and financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab have all expanded Texas operations in recent years.

This “shift is a result of a diversified economy, a deep bench of talent and a policy environment built to support growth,” said Texas Capital Bank. Y’all Street is now “home to more than 380,000 financial professionals making deals, advising clients and building the next chapter of Texas business.” The surge in exchanges coming to Dallas shows that “momentum is accelerating as major firms expand operations, invest in new capabilities and tap into the region’s talent pool.”

The Gen Z workforce has long been called entitled or lazy, but the generation’s method of career movement may be a response to the unfavorable job market. Younger workers are embracing career minimalism, in which they move between job opportunities rather than strive for upward mobility. The method could provide more security, flexibility and fulfillment.

What is career minimalism?

We have “traded the rigid career ladder for the career lily pad,” said Morgan Sanner, a Gen Z career expert and the founder of Resume Official, at Glassdoor. Instead of climbing the rungs of a ladder, people are “moving toward opportunities that fit their needs in the moment rather than staying in one organization for decades,” said Forbes. This is especially the case among younger workers. Instead of having ambitions to move their way up in the workplace, 68% of Gen Z workers “wouldn’t pursue management if it weren’t for the paycheck or title,” said a survey by Glassdoor. With career minimalism, workers are “prioritizing security and expansion over elevation,” as a result of a “landscape of mass layoffs, AI disruption and widespread burnout.”

This flexibility is “more sustainable, more realistic and better suited to today’s workplace realities,” said Fortune. Career minimalism is also a “conscious shift away from overreliance on a single employer, toward firmer boundaries, alternative definitions of professional fulfillment and a portfolio of potential income streams for financial stability,” said Chris Martin, a lead researcher at Glassdoor, to Fast Company. “It’s not that Gen Z are rejecting work. They are rejecting an outdated version of work that has been sold to them.”

Several factors have encouraged the shift toward career minimalism, but the largest is the volatility of the job market. “The traditional career ladder promised workers pensions, stability and prestige markers as a reward for their long-term commitment,” said Martin. “The past few generations of workers have seen these promises broken or hollowed out, and Gen Z’s views have changed accordingly.” Increasing the breadth of work rather than focusing on moving up allows for “less dependence on geography,” plus it also “encourages diversification,” said Forbes. It additionally combats skill obsolescence, as industries are rapidly changing due to technological advances.

How is it changing the workplace?

Gen Z has also embraced the side hustle. Having a secondary job allows people to “diversify income streams without abandoning job security,” said Glassdoor. These gigs are no longer “viewed as distractions or fallback options,” and have become “central to Gen Z’s identity, offering creative, entrepreneurial or activist outlets that main jobs cannot supply,” said Fortune. Success “no longer demands that work eclipse every other aspect of life,” and many have “stable jobs for security, side hustles for passion and strict boundaries for sustainability.”

While Gen Z has become a kind of poster child for career minimalism, “millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers are adopting it for their own reasons,” said Forbes. Many are “rethinking what motivates them,” as “titles and promotions have lost some of their power, especially when they bring longer hours and more stress.” However, that does not mean that Gen Z is not seeking management positions at all. The Glassdoor survey found that Gen Z managers “understand that work-life balance isn’t a perk, it’s a necessity for sustainable performance.” Many workers expect flexibility from Gen Z managers as well.

Career minimalism “addresses challenges that affect professionals in every generation,” including “broken advancement systems, burnout, shifting career paths and the desire for autonomy,” said Forbes. “The future of work is becoming less about relentless climbing and more about choosing roles that reflect a person’s values, energy and goals.”

President Donald Trump says he has chosen the next chair of the Federal Reserve, but he is not yet naming names publicly.

Current National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett is widely expected to be the nominee, said Axios. Trump is not saying. “I’m not telling you, we’ll be announcing it,” he said to reporters. The next chair will replace Jerome Powell, who has “faced months of complaints and demands” from Trump to bring interest rates down more quickly, said Axios.

Powell’s term does not end until May, so he may have to spend the final months of his term with a “shadow chair” peering over his shoulder, said Fortune. Trump officials have signaled their desire to undercut Powell even if he remains in his position. With a shadow chair in place, “no one is really going to care what Jerome Powell has to say anymore,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Barron’s last year. The question for Wall Street, then, is “will Powell or his successor hold more sway with the markets?” said Fortune.

What did the commentators say?

The likely choice of Hassett “appears to be about loyalty” to Trump, said John Authers at Bloomberg. Other possible nominees — including Bessent, as well as current Fed governor Christopher Waller and BlackRock executive Rick Rieder — might feel compelled to “establish themselves as independent from the administration.” But being seen as a Trump loyalist could also force Hassett to prove his independence to “win the confidence of markets.” For now, though, “markets aren’t freaking out at the prospect of a Hassett chairmanship.”

“Thank heavens” for Powell, said Brett Arends at MarketWatch. The latest numbers suggest the U.S. economy is “much stronger than people realized” even with the Fed chairman resisting Trump’s demanded rate cuts. If the president had gotten his way, the “likeliest scenario would be that inflation would be rocketing higher again.” Instead, the Federal Reserve has cut rates just twice this year and indicated another rate cut is unlikely in December. Americans should be grateful the current Fed chair has proven his independence and “refused to be intimidated” by Trump.

What next?

Hassett would have “closer ties to the sitting president” than any modern Fed chair, said Axios. That might mean a quick drop in short-term rates, but long-term rates may stay high if Wall Street comes to believe he is “simply doing Trump’s bidding, with little regard for inflation.” That notion “might be difficult for a pick like Hassett to shake.”

The next chair will face an unusually divided Fed board, said The Wall Street Journal. Fed chairs have ordinarily sought the “broadest possible consensus around rate decisions” and split votes have been rare. No longer. There is a “real prospect of three or more dissenting votes” at December’s meeting, whether Powell decides to pause rate cuts or continue them. “It’s not a slam dunk” that Trump’s choice will dictate policy as much as his predecessors, said Krishna Guha, a former New York Fed executive.

Crypto is supposedly the currency of the future, but it is not doing so well presently. The sector has lost more than $1 trillion in value over the last few weeks.

The crypto industry is having a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month,” said USA Today. Bitcoin has lost more than 10% of its value for the year, dropping from a high of $126,000 in October to under $90,000 last week. The drop in digital currency values is due to a “whirlwind of factors” that include shaky showings for artificial intelligence and technology stocks amid growing concerns about the overall economy. “No one can say” when the dust might settle.

“It was supposed to be crypto’s year,” said The Wall Street Journal. Since 2025 brought a “crypto-loving White House, Wall Street adoption and friendly legislation,” it seemed poised to erase the industry’s regulatory obstacles. Instead, the “sky-high expectations of a golden age” have foundered. Cryptocurrency’s original reputation was as an “antiestablishment asset” coming out of the Great Recession. Now the sector is trying to “go legit” but having trouble shedding its standing as the “deranged, foul-mouthed little sibling of Wall Street.”

What did the commentators say?

“Brutal” selloffs in the crypto sector happen “every few years, or whenever sentiment snaps,” said Emily Nicolle at Bloomberg. But those previous cycles did not match the “speed and scale” of crypto’s collapse in recent weeks. The difference this time is that crypto is now “woven into the fabric of Wall Street and the broader public markets.” That means its fate is now “tied to AI-fueled market optimism.” Amid growing fears of an AI bubble, though, it does not take much prompting to “spook investors into selling.”

Crypto in recent years has gone from an “object of mockery” to “broadly accepted, even encouraged” by mainstream financial institutions, said The Economist. That victory actually poses a problem. The “wider acceptance” has deepened crypto’s links to the broader financial markets, so that the “pain from a crypto crash will be felt more widely than in the past.” A government intervention seems remote, but “surprises can never be ruled out” in politics and in crypto.

What next?

Crypto believers see it as a “safe store of value against inflation and rising national debt,” said Marketplace. But the current instability comes amid “sticky inflation and a rising national debt.” The sector’s growing acceptance on Wall Street means your 401(k) probably includes some crypto stock. If the downturn lasts, that would produce “some knock-on effects on spending” in the broader economy, said Columbia Law School lecturer Todd Baker to the outlet.

There are now some fears of a “crypto winter,” said MarketWatch. But other observers say the sector is likely still in solid shape for the long term, thanks to its integration with financial markets. Banks like J.P. Morgan now accept crypto assets as collateral. We are not seeing a crypto winter, said Frontier Investments CEO Louis LaValle. “I think we’re watching bitcoin grow up.”

McDonald’s golden arches might as well be made of real gold and Burger King’s burgers may be reserved for kings. Fast food was once a cheap and accessible source of food, but now many lower-income Americans are being priced out of the restaurants. This is largely attributed to higher prices coupled with the high cost of living. At the same time, the gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening, making upward mobility difficult.

Why is fast food more expensive?

Across the country, prices are rising across the board, including at fast food restaurants. “Higher costs of restaurant essentials, such as beef and salaries, have pushed food prices up and driven away lower-income customers,” said the Los Angeles Times. The average price of a menu item at McDonald’s increased by approximately 40% between 2019 and 2024, according to a company fact sheet.

At the same time, consumer income is not keeping up with the cost of living. “You are seeing across the country that rents are at pretty high levels. You are seeing food prices are high, whether it’s in restaurants or grocery. You are seeing child care is high,” said McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski to investors. “There’s some significant inflation there that the low-income consumer is having to absorb.”

McDonald’s is not the only chain seeing fewer customers. Chipotle, Burger King and Wendy’s have also reported fewer lower-income patrons. So some restaurants have attempted to create value menus with cheaper items to bring back clientele.

President Donald Trump attended McDonald’s Impact Summit on Nov. 17 and praised McDonald’s for “recommitting to affordable options.” He also claimed that the Biden administration “started the affordability crisis” and that his administration is “ending it.” However, the Trump administration has played a significant role in making fast food more expensive. “Price hikes, in part due to the Trump administration’s tariffs, disproportionately affect lower-income Americans since they spend more of their incomes on goods than services, which are not directly impacted by levies,” said The Independent.

What are the economic outcomes?

Economic strain is not all equal. Over time, the U.S. economy has been turning more K-shaped. This means that the “high-earner cohort” is “doing better and better while others fall further down the economic ladder,” said NBC News. This has particularly affected those ages 25 to 30. This group is “facing several headwinds, including unemployment, increased student loan repayment and slower real wage growth,” said Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright to NBC News. As a result, those who are not rich are opting to budget and eat at home. On the flip side, the global luxury conglomerate that includes brands like Christian Dior and Tiffany & Co. had a “better-than-expected quarter, sending its stock 12% higher,” said USA Today.

Affordability continues to be a major policy issue for Americans, and “discontent will continue to increase so long as they perceive affordability as an issue, even if economic indicators improve,” said Fortune. This will “not only keep lower-income Americans from spending but could also lead some to harbor anger that could drive workplace resentment.” That is to say, confidence in today’s economy is deep-fried.

The UK’s unemployment rate hit 5% last week, the highest since the Covid-19 pandemic and higher than most analysts had predicted.

The Office for National Statistics figures, although in some dispute because of concerns over the quality of the data, indicate a weakening jobs market and slowing wage growth. Taking out the “skewed levels” of the pandemic years, the current unemployment rate is “the highest seen since August 2016”, said the BBC.

Two days after the unemployment numbers, it was revealed that GDP grew by only 0.1% in the third quarter of this year. The sluggish growth and rising unemployment rate are ringing alarm bells for economists about the risk that the UK will soon be entering a recession.

What did the commentators say?

To count as a recession, the economy has to have “two consecutive three-month quarters in negative territory”, said The Independent’s chief business commentator James Moore. In the first quarter this year, UK plc grew by 0.7%; in the second, by 0.3%. Now we’re “flatlining”.

And last week’s unemployment stats “caught most economists on the hop” – they “weren’t expecting anything quite as bad”. The jobs market “looks increasingly like a pile of industrial slag dumped in an area of outstanding natural beauty”.

Donald Trump’s state visit in September was accompanied by “a blizzard of announcements” on investment in AI, a “genuine vote of confidence in the UK economy”, said The Telegraph’s assistant editor Jeremy Warner. But outside of tech, there is “gathering gloom”; AI is “unlikely to save the UK” from “the growing drumbeat of an incoming recession”.

In September, a group of chief executives “fired warning shots at the Treasury”, said Christian May, editor-in-chief of City A.M. John Roberts, boss of British retail giant and FTSE-listed AO World, thinks “things are so bad he feels the UK is heading into recession”. The R-word is “a big call”, said May. More people are talking about stagnation – “an equally ugly phrase”. But the fact that we’re talking about recession at all is in itself “telling, and alarming”.

Fears of a recession are growing because all “the signals are lining up at the same time”, said Nigel Green, of the deVere Group, in the Daily Mail. “Weak output, higher unemployment and looming tax increases form a combination that investors cannot ignore.”

Britain’s economy is “in the dog house”, said The Economist. “Inflation is sticky, debts and deficits are high, and productivity growth is low.” Infrastructure and housing projects are “turning out to be a sorry disappointment” rather than drivers of growth.

But “some of the doomsaying is overdone”. Britain is not in a recession – yet. Its strengths, such as its universities, the English language, service sector, and the City of London, are “enduring”. In many ways, Britain “can look to continental Europe and count its blessings”.

What next?

No mainstream economist has “a fully blown UK recession pencilled in” for the coming year, said The Telegraph’s Warner. Recessions “generally require some sort of trigger” – although in this case it may not be necessary, given that the economy “seems instead to be simply dying”.

Office for National Statistics figures published today show the government has “inched a little closer to its 2% inflation target”, as inflation fell to 3.6% in October, down from 3.8% in September, said The Spectator. This “slight improvement offers limited relief” – “the real test” will be whether inflation falls to 2% by mid-2027, in line with Bank of England projections.

A further cause for modest optimism is that a December interest-rate cut is “all but nailed on, which will please mortgage borrowers”, said The Independent’s Moore. But tax increases will “inevitably attach a lead weight to Britain’s economic legs”. There’s “a lot riding” on next week’s Budget – “that R-word could at least be in play”.

‘Yes, we want no banana tariffs’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

Trump “insists his border taxes aren’t raising prices,” but the treasury secretary “more or less conceded otherwise” when he “floated exemptions for coffee and bananas,” says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. It “made no sense even on the administration’s protectionist logic to tariff products the U.S. doesn’t produce.” The “tariff costs are hitting home,” and are “making daily life less affordable now. Americans want a tariff reprieve for more than coffee and bananas.”

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‘Too many kids can’t read. Blame a lack of spelling tests.’

Abby McCloskey at Bloomberg

You “cannot assume that spelling is being taught to your children. Many schools have shifted their focus elsewhere,” says Abby McCloskey. We are “losing something important when schools move away from the basics, letting technology fill in the gaps with spellcheck. Or allowing childish spellings that are cute until they are not.” The “retreat from spelling comes with multiple costs, not the least of which is literacy.” There is a “crucial link between spelling and reading.”

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‘Abortion restrictions on young people cause trauma’

Margaret Wurth and Katie Baylie at The Progressive

Laws in “more than half of U.S. states require health care providers to notify or obtain consent from a parent or legal guardian before providing an abortion to anyone under 18,” say Margaret Wurth and Katie Baylie. These “laws make it difficult or even impossible for young people to get an abortion, even in states that have otherwise moved to protect and defend abortion access.” The “process of seeking a judge’s permission can be humiliating and even traumatizing.”

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‘Lessons from Google ruling: Attacking innovation doesn’t protect consumers’

George P. Bush at The Dallas Morning News

In the “wake of a recent ruling in the long-running antitrust suit against Google’s search platform, state attorneys general of both parties and the federal government have learned at least two valuable lessons,” says George P. Bush. But the “most important lesson they should have learned is that competition policy and enforcement should be focused on protecting consumers.” They “seem to have found one commonality: politically demonizing innovative companies under the guise of ‘protecting consumers.’”

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Chancellor Rachel Reeves has abandoned plans to increase income tax in the Budget on 26 November, and will instead focus on a range of smaller tax-raising measures.

The U-turn – leaked mere days after briefings about a plot to challenge Keir Starmer – comes after new Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts decreased the size of the economic “hole” Reeves needs to fill. This means she no longer feels under pressure to break Labour’s manifesto and put up income tax rates.

What did the commentators say?

The OBR told the chancellor that the hole in the public finances is now “closer to £20 billion than the £30 billion originally expected”, said Steven Swinford and Mehreen Khan in The Times. Reeves promptly ripped up the manifesto-busting plan she knew would “aggravate mutinous” Labour MPs and “fuel anger among voters”.

Downing Street officials “insisted” the Budget re-write was not a “response to the leadership crisis that has engulfed Keir Starmer” this week, said George Parker, Anna Gross and Sam Fleming in the Financial Times. But the chancellor’s about-turn has had an immediate effects on the markets, with gilts having their “worst one-day sell off since September” when the news broke.

When Reeves finally delivers the Budget, she will probably favour a “smorgasbord” approach, raising money from multiple avenues, including levies on gambling and taxes on expensive properties. She is also expected to “extend a freeze on personal tax thresholds” for a further two years, pushing more people into higher tax brackets as their wages rise.

“Rachel Reeves is Queen of the U-turn,” said Harvey Jones in the Daily Express. “She was forced to backtrack” on scrapping the winter fuel payment” and “caved on” over proposed cuts to the “ballooning” benefit bill. In fact, she has been made “to correct everything from her CV and childhood chess achievements to claims she didn’t know she needed a licence to rent out her property”.

“It is a mess,” said Matthew Lynn in The Telegraph. The Budget is “turning into a shambles”. In a week of “in-fighting, plotting and leaks”, the chancellor is being “buffeted” by political events, instead of controlling them. The proposed “series of minor tax rises” to try to stay within the fiscal rules shows that her preparation has “descended into a farce”.

What next?

A gap of £20 billion is “still a big number”, said Pippa Crerar in The Guardian. In addition to freezing income tax thresholds, we should expect “taxes on salary sacrifice schemes” and even a “fuel duty equivalent for electric vehicles”.

Talk of a new “exit tax” on entrepreneurs leaving the country has dwindled somewhat, said Swinford in The Times, but, if it is brought in, it could have a “significant impact on investment and growth”, particularly “in the artificial intelligence and broader tech sectors”.

The American dream feels increasingly out of reach. The average age of first-time home buyers is now 40, and home prices have skyrocketed for years. President Donald Trump is offering a purported solution: the 50-year mortgage.

Trump’s proposal “could meaningfully reshape a housing market where 30 years is the norm,” said CBS News. The extended term is a “potential weapon” for “ensuring the American Dream,” said Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte. Spreading house payments out over a half-century would offer buyers “lower monthly payments” but with the significant downside of a “dramatic increase in the total cost of the loan” thanks to interest payments, said CBS. Homebuyers would also “build equity far more slowly than those with shorter loans.” There are skeptics across the political spectrum. Fifty-year mortgages are “not the best way to solve housing affordability,” said Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com.

What did the commentators say?

“The idea is ridiculous,” said Michael Tomasky at The New Republic. Thirty-year mortgages let “typical homeowners” pay off their loans “by the time they’re in their mid to late sixties.” That, in turn, lets those owners use the rising value of their homes as a “nest egg” for retirement. Extending those payments by 20 years would erase that advantage. “Could you imagine having to make mortgage payments until age 85?”

A 50-year mortgage “isn’t the worst idea ever,” said Jonathan Lansner at The Orange County Register. “Few borrowers” hold onto 30-year mortgages for their full terms, either refinancing them or paying the loan off early. There is “no reason” to think longer-term loans would behave differently. If that is the case, “why shouldn’t a buyer grab a few years of savings?” Those savings could amount to a “few hundred bucks” monthly for most buyers. “That’s real money to new homeowners.”

One downside is that homeowners who sell before paying off their mortgages “will get less of the home’s value” under a 50-year loan, said Allison Schrager at Bloomberg. That seems to be a likely issue, because most owners “only live in their homes for less than 20 years.” But the tradeoff — lower payments now, lower return later — may be “worthwhile” for “someone who needs or wants a lower monthly payment.”

What next?

The share of first-time home buyers has dropped to a “record low” of 21% of all home purchases, said The National Association of Realtors. That reflects a housing market “starved for affordable inventory,” said NAR’s Jessica Lautz. This means today’s buyers are “building less housing wealth and will likely have fewer moves over a lifetime as a result."

Where Trump’s proposal goes next is unclear. Right-wing Influencers, including Laura Loomer, Mike Cernovich, Christopher Rufo, Sean Davis and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), “blasted the idea” as “bad politics and bad policy” that could “raise housing costs in the long run,” said Politico. The president remains committed to making it “easier and more affordable” to buy a home, said a White House spokesperson.

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, considered the benchmark for confidence in economic conditions, fell to 50.3 this month, marking a nearly three-and-a-half-year low. This 29.9% drop from last November could signal that Americans are wary of spending their money.

What did the commentators say?

With the “federal government shutdown dragging on for over a month, consumers are now expressing worries about potential negative consequences for the economy,” Joanne Hsu, the director of surveys of consumers at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. This did not appear unique to any one demographic, as the “decline in sentiment was widespread throughout the population, seen across age, income and political affiliation.”

The consumer sentiment data “confirmed what economists describe as a K-shaped economy, where the higher-income households are doing well and lower-income consumers are struggling,” said Reuters. There are concerns about the “labor market,” as both the University of Michigan and the New York Federal Reserve showed that “respondents expected the jobless rate to increase in the coming year and anticipated a tough time finding work if they were to become unemployed.” The Federal Reserve’s probability that unemployment will be higher in a year rose 1.4 points to 42.5%, the third monthly increase in a row.

But just because consumer sentiment is down doesn’t necessarily mean the economy is in a slump, experts say. Deteriorating sentiment “would suggest weak consumer spending, the economy’s main engine, but the correlation between the two is weak,” said Reuters. And most spending that is occurring is “being driven by higher-income households, as lower-income households are bearing most of the brunt of a sluggish labor market and higher prices from tariffs.”

Some people in these brackets are feeling unsure, though, according to the data. The “higher-income households are also less optimistic than they were at the start of the year,” said The Wall Street Journal. The lone exception seemed to be among people with large stock portfolios, who “posted a notable 11% increase in sentiment, supported by continued strength in stock markets,” Hsu said.

What next?

While the U.S. Senate has passed a controversial bill to end the government shutdown, the bill has yet to be rubber-stamped by the House. Amid the shutdown crisis and plummeting confidence, some analysts still feel it’s too early to ring the warning bells. While “sentiment does matter, over the past few years, we’ve seen consumers spend irrespective of how they’re feeling about things,” Mark Mathews, the chief economist of the National Retail Federation, said to Barron’s. Consumers are “sentimentally weak but fundamentally sound.”

Most people’s balance sheets “are in a good place” for now, and “disposable income and wages have grown at a steady pace, giving households confidence to keep spending,” Mathews said to Barron’s. A “record-breaking bull run and soaring housing prices have also contributed to the resilience in spending, especially for upper-income consumers.”

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That old saying has taken on a new label in 2025. America’s economy is increasingly “K-shaped.”

The term is used to describe when “wealthy consumers do well and spend freely” while folks in lower tax brackets “struggle and scrimp,” said Morning Brew. Evidence of a K-shaped economy is “popping up everywhere.” The richest Americans are now enjoying the fruits of a “booming stock market” and a steep rise in home values, while everybody else is increasingly challenged by a “shaky job market, high interest rates, and/or inflation.” That could cause “social and political instability,” said University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson.

What did the commentators say?

This phenomenon creates ripple effects throughout the economy. Everybody has to buy “deodorant and soap and toothpaste,” said Numerator’s Leo Feler to Marketplace, but middle-income Americans are pulling back on “things like toys, electronics, sporting goods, apparel.” There are signs the gap will only widen. A new report says the wealth of America’s 10 richest billionaires “ballooned by $698 billion” in the last year, said The Daily Beast. America’s economic policies are “driving inequality to new heights,” said Oxfam America.

“Consider the burrito,” David Goldman said at CNN. Chipotle last week cut its earnings forecast for the third consecutive quarter because the chain’s “core customers” of younger, lower-income consumers are “starting to skip the guac” and cutting back on their spending. Big companies are seeing the divide: Coca-Cola is seeing “growth in its high-end brands” like Topo Chico, Smartwater and Fairlife, but is “cutting sizes (and prices)” on lower-end brands to drive sales among struggling lower-income customers. The damage will be difficult to repair. America’s two-tier economy has been “increasingly bifurcated for quite some time.”

There is “room” for the argument that a K-shaped economy is “no bad thing,” said John Authers at Bloomberg. Poorer Americans would “benefit from lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve,” which would then strengthen the “wealth and spending of the affluent.” Certainly, the overall stock market has not been dragged down by the struggles of car loan companies and fast food chains like Krispy Kreme. From a macro-economic view, “bad times for the poor don’t matter so much if they’re outbalanced by gains for the wealthy.”

What next?

The American economy is at “risk of wobble” as lower-income consumers struggle, said Reuters. Corporate earnings will be tested as “rising healthcare costs, the potential loss of federal food benefits and a wobbly job market outlook” affect the earning power of “less affluent” American households. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is taking notice of the K-shaped economy as he looks to the future, particularly as “rising auto loan defaults and intense bargain shopping” offer signs of distress.

A recent Moody’s report found that the top 20% of earners are responsible for America’s economic growth, said Fortune. Economists are worried. “We are losing the middle class,” said Ohio State University’s Lucia Dunn to the outlet.

“Make no mistake, this is a major moment for the government – and quite the twist on the usual cheery breakfast telly,” said Sam Blewett in Politico. With less than a month to go until her Budget announcement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves made a televised speech with the aim of “setting the context” for what is to come on 26 November.

Reeves refused to confirm whether the Labour government would reverse its manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, stoking speculation that her blueprint for balancing the books could come at the cost of public opinion.

What did the commentators say?

The chancellor’s claim that “each of us must do our bit” was the “clearest indication yet that broad-based tax rises are coming”, said James Heale in The Spectator. Her 25-minute address had “echoes of Mrs Thatcher’s famous TINA: There Is No Alternative” speech. The question is whether Reeves “has a solution to stop this vicious cycle from repeating again in another 12 months’ time”.

The prolonged trailing of the sacrifices to be made in the Budget could well be a tactical ploy, said Politico: “setting expectations so low that the budget doesn’t sting as much as people fear”. This “by no means typical” televised speech proves that “senior strategists are trying to handle this make-or-break fiscal statement with the utmost caution”.

Reeves’ expected pledge to prioritise the NHS in the Budget is a “gamble” to leverage national support, said Kate Devlin in The Independent. She is banking on the fact that the public sees the health service “as a kind of religion”, and looking to fulfil the commitment of reducing waiting times – one of the consistent themes of the Starmer government – to curry favour. She hopes that those who are “hit” by reported National Insurance rises “will prefer to be able to see their GP than have some extra money in their pockets”. Whether this will pay off, “time will tell”.

“Households will not be fooled” by Reeves’s tax “wheeze”, said Adam Smith in The Telegraph. Labour is already in a situation that “no amount of communications spin will be able to fix”. The heart of the matter is that, if the rumours are true, “the government will have increased income tax after repeatedly promising not to”. No. 11 will be “kidding themselves” if they believe the public will think otherwise.

What next?

Reeves will claim that Trump’s tariffs, increased defence spending, and a dire fiscal inheritance from the Conservatives, have all affected her decisions, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. This cannot work forever: by next autumn, Labour will have been in office for more than two years and “memories” of their “economic inheritance will be even less fresh than they are today”.

While the “politics of raising tax remain fraught”, another potential pitfall for the Labour government is the “perception of inaction”. Reeves can only gamble that the road she chooses for the country “leads somewhere better”.

Nigel Farage today sought to position Reform UK as the “party of alarm clock Britain” championing both business and workers.

In a speech in the City of London this morning, the former stockbroker said the country was being “led by human rights lawyers, not entrepreneurs”, and blamed a “political class who are not business people” of wasting the “opportunities to deregulate and become more competitive” offered by Brexit.

Promising to balance the budget, and that the party would “never borrow to spend” if it came to power, “marks the first time Reform has articulated something resembling a fiscal rule”, said the Financial Times. It also raises serious “questions over the spending cuts or tax increases needed to achieve this goal, as well as the precise definition of the pledge itself”.

What did the commentators say?

This is a “big moment” for Reform, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. Headline-grabbing promises made at the last election such as lifting the income tax threshold to £20,000, scrapping inheritance tax on estates of less than £2 million, and taking water companies back into public ownership, are set to be junked.

In their place the “new-look ‘Nigel from Accounts’” is promising “a far more sober approach to the public finances”. But still “don’t be fooled: this doesn’t mean that Reform is abandoning the economic radicalism that the UK desperately needs if it is to break out of its doom loop of stagnant growth and rising taxes”.

One area the party appears willing to challenge the status quo is on the pension triple lock. The policy of raising the UK state pension each year by whichever is highest out of inflation, average earnings or 2.5% has “trapped Britain’s two main parties since 2012 in a bind that, for some, has come to symbolise the paralysis of the state”, said Politico’s Dan Bloom.

While economists have long argued this has become unsustainable, successive governments of both main parties have shied away from touching it in fear of angering older voters.

Reform, by contrast, has been “remarkably open” about whether the triple lock would survive, said Bloom. While any decision appears a “long way off”, when Farage does make up his mind, “he has the power to radically alter the political landscape in the UK – and set a new bar for insurgent parties across Europe telling hard truths that the centre cannot”. But saying that, “he would also come under ferocious attack”.

Another major spending area the party appears ready to start a fight over is reforming public sector pensions to bring them more in line with those offered by companies.

When spending is “under control” and borrowing costs down, said Farage, “then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth”.

What next?

There is a belief among Reform insiders that the economy is “only going to worsen before the next election,” said The Times, which will mean the Tories “having to abandon many of their promises to cut taxes”.

Farage may choose to keep his cards close to his chest until then, but he is “at least trying to signal a more traditional coding when it comes to the economy, entering the financial stability battleground on which elections are routinely fought”, said Politico’s London Playbook.

“On that front, the insurgent is straining to sound a little more like the opponents he’s trying to banish”.

Right on cue, Labour last night attacked Reform’s claim to be “on the side of working people, whilst also promising to slash the public services they rely on”, saying Farage’s plan would mark “a return to austerity, pure and simple”.

Meanwhile, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said Farage has committed to “extra welfare spending and a huge expansion of the state”, adding it is “impossible to take Reform seriously on the economy when their promises disintegrate after five minutes”.

Herein lies both the danger and opportunity for Reform as it looks to hone its offering to voters on both the left and the right.

Officials were “understandably chuckling at the opposing attacks from each angle – but there’s a serious point here”, said London Playbook. “Each new bit of detail that Farage fleshes out will give his rivals, and the public, more to unpick him on.”

They call it the Great Freeze. That’s how some analysts describe the U.S. job market recently — a “low-hire, low-fire” environment where workers who have jobs are not losing them but finding a new job is difficult. But a thaw may be coming.

A “slew” of “large-scale layoffs” may be a sign that the labor market is “starting to tip over,” said Axios. Amazon announced it will slash 14,000 jobs, UPS said it was cutting 48,000 positions, and Paramount said it was laying off 1,000 workers. The unemployment rate had hovered around 4% for more than a year, but that “apparent stability” has concealed “change beneath the surface.” Now, companies appear ready to “take advantage of the potential of AI to transform work.” This could mean fewer jobs for humans.

The massive layoffs suggest the job market’s “current state of suspension has changed for the worse,” said MarketWatch. While companies are still comfortably profitable, they are waiting on the “dust to settle” from tariff negotiations, the government shutdown and the corporate adoption of AI. Amazon’s layoffs could be the tipping point. “We may see others join the fray,” said John Challenger, the CEO of career-services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

What did the commentators say?

The job market “could get ugly,” Dan DeFrancesco said at Business Insider. “About 20 more Amazon-sized layoffs” would upend the labor market. That scenario is “not out of the realm of possibility” because “companies are known to follow the lead of their bigger peers.” Meta’s 2022 layoff of 11,000 workers led to a much larger wave of tech sector job cuts. American companies have recently been in a “holding pattern,” but if they start to let workers go without replacing them, the “somewhat resilient job market could start to show some real cracks.”

“The labor market is undeniably going through a transition,” Adam Hardy said at Money. Young workers are “canaries in the coal mine” since they are often the first to feel job market instability, and “young workers and recent college grads aren’t doing so well” at the moment. AI is often blamed, but there are other factors. Right now, there are “more graduates than there are jobs that require grads.” That’s a challenge that predates the rise of AI by “several years.”

What next?

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point this week to “shore up the softening job market,” said NPR. On top of private sector layoffs, the federal government has already cut about 100,000 jobs this year. American employment “may well be shrinking already,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said earlier in October.

Bad news for the job market might be good news for graduate programs. “Applications are on the rise” at law schools and MBA programs, said Fortune, with law school applications up 3% over last year. Gen-Z job seekers are buying “more time to figure out what’s next” instead of “facing the bleak job market head-on.”

“Labour promised not to increase income tax, not to increase National Insurance and not to increase VAT. Does the prime minister still stand by his promises?” That was Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s opening salvo at Prime Minister’s Questions this week.

The answer from Keir Starmer was eyebrow-raisingly non-committal, stating only that the government would “lay out” in the Budget its plans to “build a stronger economy” and “deliver a better future for our country”.

That Budget is still a month away but there are widespread reports that Rachel Reeves is considering a manifesto-busting move to increase the top 45p rate of income tax rate or to lower the threshold at which people have to start paying it.

What did the commentators say?

Come the Budget, the Chancellor faces “a terrible choice”, said Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. Either she must “cut spending that people want and raise taxes that people feel they cannot afford” or she has to “allow explosive rises in public debt”. That, in short, is “the plight of Rachel Reeves”.

With the Office for Budget Responsibility expected to deliver a further £20 billion-plus blow to public finances by downgrading its productivity forecast, the chancellor has limited options. She is under pressure from many within her party to increase spending, rather than cut it, and has already confirmed she will not borrow more to balance the books.

To avoid breaking Labour’s manifesto pledge, Reeves could impose some wholly new taxes. She has been “holding discussions over a raft of” possibilities, said David Maddox and Caitlin Doherty in The Independent. These are said to include a 1% mansion levy on properties worth over £2m, a gambling tax and a bank profits levy. There is also talk of further capital gains reforms, and “ending tax relief on pensions”.

But raising money in this way risks causing “unnecessary amounts of economic damage” and adding “needless complexity to the system”, Isaac Delestre of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, told the paper.

There is a “persuasive case for ignoring the Labour manifesto”, said Adam Smith in The Telegraph. Raising income tax will “demonstrate that the government is serious about getting a grip on public finances” and it will be rewarded by the bond markets with a “multibillion-pound fall in government borrowing costs”. It will “be less damaging to GDP than any further raids on business taxes” and the increased revenues will “help the Bank of England tackle inflation”.

What next?

Economists and Treasury mandarins may be lining up to agree that there’s a “powerful case” for a small income tax rise, said Smith in The Telegraph, but it would be “a misjudgement so grave, it would destroy Reeves’ career and this government”.

“Promises made” must be “promises kept”, said The Guardian’s editorial board. If not, “it will be terrible for politics”, said Lewis Goodall on his Substack. “Backtracking on one of the only promises about which voters might be aware” would mean it’s “game over for the party”.

Breaking the income tax manifesto promise would “come with a colossal political hit”, said the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason. But such is the state of the economy, “some within the party” are telling Reeves “to go for it” anyway.

President Donald Trump has pushed an “America First” platform since taking office, but some farmers — many of whom voted for Trump — are starting to feel that he has not kept his promise. This sentiment is particularly strong among beef farmers, since Trump has pledged to sharply increase imports of beef from Argentina, leaving many rural laborers with complaints. This issue is compounded by the continually rising cost of beef in the U.S.

Why is Trump importing Argentinian beef?

His plan is part of an effort to reduce the price of beef. These price hikes have become a “major part of the 3.1% increase in food prices over the past year,” said The Hill. Beef in particular has increased 15% year-over-year because of a “combination of environmental factors and tariffs imposed in Trump’s trade war.” To combat this, Trump announced plans to “quadruple beef imports from Argentina.”

This will involve raising the “tariff rate quota on Argentine beef to 80,000 metric tons,” which “will let the country ship more of its beef to the U.S. at a lower rate of duty,” said Reuters. But there may also be another motive, as it is “likely another move to support Argentina’s economy and its embattled president, Javier Milei,” said the Wisconsin State Farmer.

How have American farmers responded?

Trump’s decision has led to “feuding with some of his most loyal supporters,” said The Hill, including congressional Republicans and GOP farmers who support him. The president has “centered his economic agenda on reducing the U.S.’ reliance on cheaper foreign products and boosting domestic production of goods and food,” something farmers say his Argentinian beef plan goes against.

The plan caught “many cattle producers off guard,” and may not actually affect the cost of beef in the U.S., experts say, per the High Plains Journal. When considering the “likely imported volume, possible changes in imports from other countries and probable duration of increased Argentina-based imports collectively, I expect very little change in national beef or cattle prices to follow,” said Glynn Tonsor, professor in the department of agricultural economics at Kansas State University, to the Journal.

Industry lobbyists also panned the decision. Trump’s Argentinian plan is a “misguided effort to lower the price of beef in grocery stores,” the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said in a press release. The “efforts to manipulate markets only risk damaging the livelihoods of American cattlemen and women, while doing little to impact the price consumers are paying at the grocery store.” Trump has retorted that cattle ranchers “don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put tariffs on cattle coming into the United States,” the president said on Truth Social.

But many farmers don’t seem to buy into Trump’s premise. “ It feels like a slap in the face to rural America,” said Destinee Weeks, a cattle rancher in Oklahoma, to NPR. “It makes you feel invisible and overlooked.” Other farmers agreed. “Everything that the president is messing with and interfering with affects my farming operation,” John Boyd Jr., a cattle farmer in Virginia and the founder of the National Black Farmers Association, said to NPR. “I’m opposed to Argentina getting anything else from the United States.”

In Washington DC last week, Rachel Reeves “started laying the groundwork for a painful Budget”, said Hugo Gye in The i Paper.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, the Chancellor “adopted a strategy of doom and gloom”, confirming that both tax rises and spending cuts are on the table for 26 November, to help reverse an estimated £22 billion black hole in the public finances. Reeves blamed a likely growth downgrade by the Office for Budget Responsibility on Brexit, and warned that “those with the broadest shoulders should pay their fair share”.

‘Sitting on their assets’

Having already gone after non-doms and private schools, Reeves clearly believes the wealthy can be squeezed a bit more before the pips squeak, said Fraser Nelson in The Times. Problem is, we currently have a tax system “where the top 100 super-taxpayers contribute almost as much as the North Sea oil industry; where the top 0.1% pay more income tax than the entire bottom 50%”. The wealthy are already contributing their fair share – “and the fair shares of many others”.

Actually, in some ways the well-off are criminally “untaxed”, said Vicky Spratt in The i Paper. The UK’s vast property wealth – which has increased by almost £3 trillion in a decade – is hardly touched by the taxman. Homeowners who rode the historic house-price inflation wave through the 2010s have become “incredibly rich”. Reforming property taxes is the obvious answer. What’s wrong with asking them to contribute a small amount of the wealth they attained simply “by sitting on their assets”, when those on lower incomes are struggling to choose whether to “heat their homes, eat or pay rent”?

‘Electoral suicide’

A property tax is one option; Reeves is also reportedly looking at targeting pensions and cash Isas. But even if the Chancellor does choose to soak the better off, it still won’t be enough, said Andrew O’Brien on UnHerd. The Treasury now “needs huge amounts of cash”: the NHS alone has a £37 billion capital shortfall; we need another £17 billion just to fill potholes. It would be quicker and fairer to “stick this all on income tax”, where an extra 4p would raise around £30 billion a year. Unfortunately for Reeves, that would break a manifesto pledge, so it would be “electoral suicide”.

All options are painful, said Chris Blackhurst in The Independent, but the worst situation is the one we have now: a Treasury with a “tin ear” that feeds us a “drip, drip” of threats about November’s Statement – while also claiming to be kickstarting economic growth. In reality, businesses are putting decisions on hold, and the wealthy are eyeing the exits; “Britain is at a standstill”. All of this, and “the Budget is still over a month away”.

It often seems that economists are perpetually warning us about the next U.S. recession. One influential analyst says an economic slowdown is already a fact of life for many Americans.

Twenty-two states are “now experiencing persistent economic weakness and job losses that are likely to continue," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, to MarketWatch. The overall American economy is “on the precipice. Government data released before the shutdown showed the “broader economy was in pretty good shape,” said MarketWatch, but some are skeptical. The gross domestic product might be rising, said Zandi, but the “job market is weaker.”

Other observers are warning of a bifurcated “K-shaped economy,” said CNBC. Wealthy Americans are “engaging their purchasing power,” but lower- and middle-class consumers are struggling with “rising costs on daily essentials like groceries and gas.” Meanwhile, “unofficial signals” like rises in missed car payments and women leaving the workforce are offering “early warning signs about what is to come,” said Quartz.

What did the commentators say?

“This moment feels much like late 2007 and early 2008,” said Ball State University economics professor Michael J. Hicks at The Indianapolis Star. For a time during that period, the economy felt stable “even as we entered recession.” Today is similar. While the gross domestic product is still rising, driven by the AI boom, “nearly every other measure of economic activity has stagnated or is in deep decline.” The United States may already be in recession. But “we don’t feel it yet.”

The U.S. economy is in a “weird place right now,” said economist Paul Krugman at his newsletter. Policymakers are “flying blind” because of the government shutdown and unemployment is “relatively low by historical standards.” And Americans “feel very bad about the economy,” with consumer sentiment surveys rivaling the lows of the Great Recession. One problem is that President Donald Trump’s “wildly erratic policies” are creating “huge uncertainty” for businesses and consumers. We may not be in a recession yet, but the “frozen state of the U.S. economy has already made life much worse for many workers.”

What next?

The government shutdown is “complicating the Fed’s ability to help the economy,” said CNN. The Federal Reserve “relies heavily on official economic statistics” from the government to make decisions about interest rates to help goose or slow down the American economy, but the shutdown has “effectively cut off access to that data.” The available information is not great, though, with August data showing the “weakest pace of hiring since 2010.” The Fed is expected to announce its latest policies at a meeting on Oct. 29.

Americans are not happy with all of this. A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute shows that most voters — including nearly 30% of Republicans — gave the president “low marks on the economy,” said Axios. That dissatisfaction could “test the durability of Trump’s support.”

Donald Trump has targeted the “economic equivalent of Russia’s crown jewels” with a new wave of sanctions, said Sky News.

The president has slapped fresh restrictions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, in response to what he calls Vladimir Putin’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.

What did the commentators say?

The new measures, which target Russian giants Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as more than 30 subsidiaries, “aren’t just any sanctions”, said Sky News, they’re a “punch to the gut of Moscow’s war economy”. They’re “no slap on the wrist” because oil is “Russia’s bloodstream”, and Trump “just cut off the blood flow”, said the broadcaster.

The timing is significant too, said the BBC, because the new measures were announced “just days after the UK sanctioned the same two Russian oil companies”, and European Union countries have issued new measures that ban the import of Russian liquefied natural gas from 2027.

Putin’s “tactical triumph didn’t last long”, said The New York Times – last week “it looked as if the Russian president had outmanoeuvred his adversaries yet again” by making a “deftly placed call” to Trump that “scuttled any expansion in American support for Ukraine”. But yesterday “Russians awoke to new American sanctions against their oil industry”.

The sale of oil and gas accounts for about a quarter of the Russian budget, and Moscow’s oil industry is already under pressure from increasingly long-range strikes by Kyiv. So the measures “take aim at the heart of the Russian economy” and deal a major blow to Putin’s “effort to cajole” Trump into “forcing Ukraine to capitulate to Russia’s main demands”.

Actually, the sanctions are “not a maximal blow,” Daniel Fried, a former US assistant secretary of state for Europe, told Atlantic Council, and there may need to be tougher US actions, such as “joining Europe in lowering the price cap on Russian oil, enforcing the oil price cap by putting sanctions on the Russian shadow fleet of tankers, and sanctioning ports that service them”.

But the measures are still a “strong move” and they could “put even more downward pressure on Russian oil revenues” by pushing Moscow to further discount its oil and “forcing purchasers to consider alternative sources of oil”.

What next?

Some experts in Russia said that the new measures would have a “muted impact”, said The New York Times. Moscow has “become adept at evading restrictions” by using “hundreds of old vessels uninsured by Western companies” and by processing transactions “through buffer companies in third countries”.

So although oil prices “rose sharply” yesterday, the sanctions’ “potential potency” may “ultimately depend on how the penalties are enforced and how energy buyers react to them”.

In response to the move, four Chinese state oil companies have suspended purchases of Russian seaborne oil. Indian refineries have also announced that they will slash imports of Russian crude to comply with the new sanctions. If these cancellations “prove permanent”, Russia “faces a serious economic hit”, said The Telegraph.

With trick-or-treating just around the corner, many parents are feeling the pain when budgeting for Halloween this year. Inflation means many elements of the holiday are becoming more expensive, with everything from children’s costumes to candy to decorations costing more. Many experts attribute a significant portion of the blame to the tariffs implemented by the Trump administration.

Traditions and treats

Dressing up and getting candy are two hallmarks of Halloween for kids, but both of these things have seen price hikes in 2025. The average “cost for a 100-piece bag of candy is $16.39 in 2025, up more than $2 from last year, and 78% since 2020,” according to a study from the financial institution FinanceBuzz. This is “more than triple the national rate of inflation” of 25% during the same time period.

There was a slight dip several years ago when the “cost for a bag of Halloween candy increased by less than $1 year-over-year from 2020 to 2022,” said FinanceBuzz. But since then, the price has “gone up by more than $2 per year over the last two Halloweens.” And those who plan to pass out candy will “shell out an average of $70 for it” this year, said a report from LendingTree. At least 31% of Halloween spenders even “report going into debt by overspending” for the holiday.

Chinese tariffs are having a tangible effect on costume prices, as “90% of Halloween products contain at least one component made overseas,” said CNN. As a result, this year's Halloween costumes “will cost a little more, and you’ll see less variety.” Halloween companies are also feeling the hurt. “We’re all kind of on edge, but we’re trying to stay positive,” Chris Zephro, the president of costume manufacturer Trick or Treat Studios, told CNN.

How to save

There are ways to save money this Halloween, despite the rising costs. One option is purchasing costume pieces separately in advance. “I’d rather just do it ahead of time, little by little,” parent Reyna Hernandez said to CNN. Similar tactics can be used for purchasing candy, experts say, as many “warehouse clubs tend to offer the best per-piece value” for candy in bulk, said Reuters.

It can also help to set a “candy budget” for trick-or-treaters, such as giving out “one piece per kid early in the evening — extra for familiar faces and especially creative costumes,” said Reuters. This is especially important given that “chocolate makers are passing along earlier cost spikes via higher shelf prices and smaller package sizes.” For parents who can’t afford store-bought costumes, there are some other options. Many ”do‑it‑yourself outfits made from household items remain a popular fix, with sewing kits, glue guns and a dash of imagination turning everyday clothes into festive costumes,” said NBC affiliate KNDU-TV.

You can also look to social media, as TikTok “bursts with quick displays of DIY Halloween costumes that are practical, creative and undeniably fun,” said KNDU-TV. And many plan to celebrate the holiday despite rising prices. “Even in challenging economic times or with price adjustments, people are leaving room in their budgets for chocolate and candy,” said Carly Schildhaus, of the National Confectioners Association, to CBS News, “especially at these special candy moments like the Halloween season.”

It feels like old times, but not in a good way. Financial experts around the world are warning of an impending 1929-style financial market crash brought on by trade wars, large national debts and overbuilding in the AI sector.

“We will have a crash,” financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin told CBS News. Sorkin is promoting a new book, “1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — and How It Shattered a Nation,” about the market collapse that sparked the Great Depression. But other voices are also sounding alarms. World markets are “susceptible to a disorderly adjustment” thanks to economic and political uncertainty, said G20 risk watchdog Andrew Bailey on Monday, per Reuters. Bank of England officials warned last week that the AI bubble driving tech stocks may soon burst, said CNBC. And JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is similarly concerned about a “major market correction,” said Fortune. “Buckle up,” said International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva last week, “uncertainty is the new normal and it is here to stay.”

Echoes of 1929?

The 1929 crash was the “definitive stock-market collapse,” said David Champion at Harvard Business Review. The 1920s were beset with trade protectionism, anti-immigrant fervor and new technologies that were upending “traditional livelihoods.” The question is whether finance executives have “absorbed the lessons of history by now.” After all, the echoes of 1929 in today’s economic landscape seem clear. “Once you start looking for similarities, you see them everywhere.”

“The numbers just don’t make sense” when it comes to AI, said journalist Derek Thompson in his newsletter. Tech companies are spending $400 billion on artificial intelligence this year, which is more in inflation-adjusted terms than was spent on the entire Apollo moon program over a decade, yet it is “not clear” that those companies are “prepared to earn back the investment.” American consumers, after all, currently spend only $12 billion a year on AI services. Investors are still pouring money into tech, though. That looks like an “obvious economic bubble.” Bubbles pop, and “none of the typical rules for sensible investing can explain what’s going on with stock prices right now.”

Scary, but rare

Tech companies may be overinvesting in AI, but that does not mean investors should worry about a “contagion across the broader economy,” said Axios. The boom in tech investment is from “big, stable companies with the balance sheets to support their spending.”

Observers could be over-reading the signs of trouble. Bubble bursts are “memorable. They are colorful. They are scary,” said economic analyst William Goetzmann at The Wall Street Journal. But bubbles are also “much rarer than their presence in the public imagination.” Since 1887, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 10% in a day just four times, and two of those were in 1929. But investors are always expecting the next disaster. Research shows they typically put odds of an imminent crash at 10-to-20%, which is “much greater than history suggests.”

France’s attempt to bring its spiralling debt under control has sparked a political crisis that has seen off a series of prime ministers and left Europe’s second largest economy teetering on the brink.

At a moment when “the very sovereignty and freedom of France and Europe are at stake”, the country finds itself “paralysed by chaos, impotence and debt”, veteran political commentator Nicolas Baverez told the BBC.

How bad is the debt crisis?

The French economy “appears strong at first glance”, said The New York Times. Before Donald Trump’s tariff war, “growth was slow but steady and employment was picking up” but “behind the scenes, outsize government spending and falling tax receipts strained finances”.

In absolute terms, France now holds the highest consolidated national debt in Europe, currently at around €3.4 trillion, according to the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. Its debt-to-GDP ratio – 113% – is surpassed in the EU only by Greece and Italy, which were at the heart of the European debt crisis a decade ago.

How did the debt get so high?

France has long been among the most “spendthrift” countries in the EU relative to its economic output, said CNN. Social welfare, like pensions and unemployment benefits, represent the largest chunk of expenditure, but the state also funds some “unusual benefits”, such as financial support to families employing a nanny for children under six. “We do reimburse a lot of things that we basically can no longer afford to reimburse,” said Alexandra Roulet, a former economic adviser to Emmanuel Macron.

These commitments, combined with huge public spending to soften the blow of the Covid pandemic and the energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine, alongside the rising cost of government borrowing, has contributed to a massive increase in debt over the past two decades: from 60% of GDP at the start of the 2000s to a projected 125% by 2030.

The cost of servicing the national debt alone is estimated to be €67 billion this year, more than the budgets of “all government departments except education and defence”, said the BBC.

“In short, debt service is rising because the debt itself is rising,” said Le Monde. This means that “to cover its ongoing deficits year after year, the state has had to increase its borrowing. The interest that must be repaid accumulates, which further increases the debt and creates a vicious cycle.”

What will happen next?

While deficit-reducing measures such as attempts at pension reform have been met with mass protests through the Macron presidency, much of the current paralysis stems from the president’s disastrous decision to call a snap election last summer, resulting in a divided parliament and an intransigent opposition.

François Bayrou, who made attacking the deficit the central plan of his government, was forced to resign as prime minister last month after failing to pass €44 billion in spending cuts, which included scrapping two public holidays.

The resignation of his successor Sébastien Lecornu last week, followed by his rapid reinstatement, has “raised doubts over whether the 2026 budget – including much-needed debt-cutting reforms – can be passed in time”, said CNN.

France is still not at “immediate risk”, said Le Monde. The possibility of an intervention by the International Monetary Fund, which has been touted by some even within the government, seems “highly improbable”.

The best-case scenario is that “the country’s inherent strengths – its wealth, infrastructure, institutional resilience” – will allow it to weather what may prove a temporary storm, said the BBC. “But there is another scenario: that it emerges permanently weakened, prey to extremists of left and right, a new sick man of Europe.”

The collapse of an auto lender in Texas is a warning about the strains on lower-income Americans, said Amelia Pollard in the Financial Times. Tricolor Holdings, which specialized in loans to subprime borrowers, particularly undocumented Latino workers, broke down so suddenly its offices “look like they were evacuated in an emergency,” with Gatorade bottles still sitting on empty desks. The firm is also under investigation for irregularities in its car loans, “so its demise may not be a pure reflection of economic conditions.” But there are other signs of trouble at “the bottom rung of the U.S. income ladder.” The percentage of outstanding auto loans that have slipped into delinquency rose to 9.3% in August as costs and maintenance are pulling more borrowers underwater. Lower-income Americans will typically “do absolutely everything possible to remain current on auto payments,” said the economist Brett House, since having a car is “essential to having work in the U.S.”

“The question is whether Tricolor is an outlier or a harbinger,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “Many young people borrowed to buy cars during the pandemic when they didn’t have to make student loan payments” and are now struggling to pay both. Lenders in recent years have also “extended the duration of loans” to sometimes six or seven years “to keep monthly payments affordable.” That often leaves owners owing more than they could get for selling an aging vehicle. Tricolor is relatively unusual in that it worked closely with undocumented immigrants. But President Trump’s crackdown could produce “a surge in defaults by migrants who leave their debts behind as they leave the U.S.”

Let’s not rush to panic like this is a redux of the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, said Chris Isidore in CNN.com. Auto lending is “only a fraction of the size of the home mortgage market.” And everyone understands autos are a depreciating asset; neither lenders nor buyers expect to sell theirs at a profit. But there are some less than reassuring parallels, like the rise in riskier lending: “More than 15% of all new car payments today are more than $1,000 a month, a record share.”

A growing portion of the U.S. population is becoming “economically invisible,” said Nir Kaissar in Bloomberg. The overall economy appears “to be growing robustly.” Look closely, however, and you’ll see that the top 10% of earners “account for 49.2% of consumer spending,” the highest share on record. This makes for a “shrinking economic footprint” from the majority of the country. “If the economy can thrive without the spending of some 80 million households, what incentive do businesses have to serve them or policymakers to support them?”

While the consequences of inflation are obvious at the grocery store or gas pump, there’s another victim of rising costs that people may not expect: man’s best friend. Pets are increasingly becoming harder for people to afford, according to recent reports. As a result, animal shelters across the U.S. are filling up. But experts say pet insurance may offer a lifeline for Americans who want a furry friend but are struggling with the cost.

Why are pets becoming harder to afford?

There are a variety of factors, but it mostly comes down to the everyday cost of products for the animal, as well as veterinary care. If you “go into having a pet and don’t give serious thought about the cost, you’re doing yourself and your pet a disservice,” Matt Schulz, the chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, told USA Today. Several reports “point to a sobering conclusion: Maybe pets are only for the rich.”

One analysis shows that, to a degree some people might not grasp, pets are getting more expensive; the “average lifetime care for pets is approximately $35,000 for a 10-year-old dog and $32,000 for a 16-year-old cat,” said a report from pet care company Rover. The price for services like veterinary care and grooming in 2025 “are 42% higher versus 2019, compared to a rise of 22% for pet food and treats,” said a Bank of America Institute report.

Many Americans are also feeling the pain in their wallet. Over a fifth of pet owners, 22%, have at least $2,000 in pet-related debt, according to a survey from MetLife Pet Insurance. Some have gone to drastic lengths, too, as 58% of pet owners admitted to “skipping meals out to afford their pet’s needs.” All of this means that more animals are being left in shelters; an “estimated 5.8 million animals filled up facilities last year,” and while there “was a 1% decrease in shelter intakes from 2023 to 2024, the levels remain high,” said NBC News.

Can pet insurance help?

To a certain extent, yes. Pet insurance “promises to assist with rising vet bills, by covering at least part of your pet’s medical expenses for a monthly premium,” said Money. But there are caveats, as the “accumulated cost of those premiums, along with other policy costs and restrictions, make it far from certain that pet parents will save overall by insuring their animals.”

There are also certain expenses that most pet insurance companies will not cover. Most of the “initial medical costs of getting a pet are out of scope for a regular pet insurance policy,” said Money. This includes procedures like “neutering and spaying and vaccinations.” Preexisting conditions also play a large factor, as any health concerns that “appeared in your pet before you purchased your policy or during your policy’s waiting period are generally excluded.”

Despite this, most financial experts still recommend pet insurance as a worthwhile investment. Pet insurance “could save the life of an animal that would otherwise be euthanized if its owner couldn’t afford treatment,” said NerdWallet. Insurance “can be a godsend if your pet is facing an expensive diagnosis,” even if “your plan likely won’t reimburse every dollar you spend at the vet.”

President Donald Trump came into office promising to reverse the long decline of coal. Now he’s taking action with a plan to pour money into coal-burning plants and open federal lands to mining. But can coal compete with the ascendancy of clean energy technologies?

Coal use has been “displaced in many cases by cheaper and cleaner natural gas, wind and solar power” over the last two decades, said The New York Times. But “growing interest in artificial intelligence and data centers” has spurred a new surge in electricity demand that is keeping coal-burning plants open past their scheduled closure dates. The Trump administration is augmenting that by designating $625 million in funding to keep plants in operation, opening 13 million acres of land to mining and repealing “dozens of regulations” designed to curb coal pollution. If America does not “lead in electrical production, we’re going to lose the AI arms race,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The new policies merely “prop up the aging and outdated coal industry,” said the Sierra Club’s Holly Bender.

Propping up fossil fuels?

The U.S. needs more coal-burning power plants “or the future will be dark,” Terry L. Headley, a former coal industry spokesperson, said at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. America’s power grid still relies largely on fossil fuels, and without them “we’re headed for blackouts.” The retirement of coal-fired plants means a loss of the “only thing that stands between Americans and the dark.” At the same time coal has declined, electrical demand has surged. That makes it clear “we must preserve, reinvest in and expand our coal-fired baseload fleet.”

“Propping up fossil fuels will cost taxpayers dearly,” Bloomberg said in an editorial. Even as it pushes coal, the Trump administration is moving to block offshore wind and other renewable-energy projects nationwide. Analysts say that keeping old plants online past their retirement dates “could raise costs for consumers nationwide” — as much as $3 billion by 2028. Instead of trying to keep “uncompetitive old coal plants” alive, the federal government should “focus on converting them to clean energy.”

Trump’s love for coal is “irrational,” Paul Krugman said on his Substack. Administration officials say coal mining is an “economically viable industry that has been sabotaged by liberals.” But the industry is dying “for very good reasons, and anti-wokeism is unlikely to revive it.” Mining jobs underwent an “epic decline” after 1950 thanks to technological advances, and coal use started declining in 1980. That will continue to be the case because “coal is no longer cost-competitive, while wind and solar are.”

Can the decline be reversed?

The government’s decision to auction mining leases for federal land is a “key test of mining industry interest” in reversing coal’s decline, said Reuters. The auctions will kick off Tuesday with the auction of leases in Alabama. The industry is “well-positioned to make the most of new leasing opportunities to answer the call for increased domestic coal,” said Ashley Burke of the National Mining Association.

“Where’s the beef?” was a popular catchphrase in the 1980s. These days, it might be replaced with a new question: How much does the beef cost? Hamburger prices are rising, and there could be political fallout for President Donald Trump.

“Record high beef prices” are forcing restaurants to rethink their menus, said The Columbus Dispatch. The Department of Agriculture reported in July that beef is selling for $9.69 a pound — up from $6.09 in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, part of a 35% increase in food costs over the last five years. That puts restaurants “under financial strain,” said Rachel Demers of Ohio-based City Barbecue. Among the reasons for the higher prices: drought, smaller cattle herds and rising consumer demand, said the Dispatch.

The “law of supply and demand” is a factor in rising beef prices, said NPR, but so are political decisions. “Foreign imports are also down” due to Trump’s 76% tariff on imports from Brazil, as well as a federal ban on cattle imports from Mexico due to parasite concerns. “We’ve kind of hit this perfect storm,” said Utah rancher Brady Blackett. Diners are choosing cheaper options. Market analysts are “seeing people opt away from beef,” said Circana’s Chris Dubois.

What did the commentators say?

“Food prices are too damn high,” Matt K. Lewis said at The Hill. Rising costs mean that a family of four “could end up dropping close to $100 for a night out — at McDonald’s.” There might be a variety of reasons for that, but it has not been so long since then-President Joe Biden “got blamed for high food costs” by swing voters who “broke hard for Trump.” The question now is whether anyone will blame Trump or Republicans for this.

The president “promised to lower grocery prices, but they’re higher now,” Rex Huppke said at USA Today. During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump “said he would fix food prices right away” and that he would “wipe out inflation.” Instead, “ground beef prices are up 13%” since last August, while “beef steaks are up more than 16%.” The president, however, is “busy adding tacky gold fixtures to the White House.” If you want lower grocery prices, “there’s no gold here.”

What next?

Cattle ranchers are benefiting from record beef prices, said The Wall Street Journal. Business “hasn’t been this good for cattle ranchers in decades, maybe ever.” That is an exception to overall trends in agriculture. Grain farmers are “projected to lose money this year” and are seeking a bailout from the federal government. But the meat industry is “split on how long the good times for ranchers will last.” Companies like Tyson Foods and JBS expect that cattle supplies “could tick up in 2027 or 2028” and start to rein in prices.

“Americans can’t get enough of the red meat” despite the high prices, said Yahoo Finance. Consumer demand for beef has been “remarkably resilient,” said Virginia Tech agribusiness professor Mario Ortez. The high price of hamburgers has not “stopped the large majority of beef buyers.”

In another sign that the economy may be faltering, average credit scores across the country have taken a nosedive in 2025, according to a report released last week. And Gen Z is one demographic that's particularly feeling the pain of slumping credit. People in this age bracket have seen their credit scores drop by an average of three points this year, and economists are worried the numbers could keep dropping if historical trends hold.

Much lower than the national average

The average American’s credit score dropped to 715 in April 2025, according to a report from credit scoring institution FICO. The average American’s score had been “717 a year earlier, marking the second consecutive year-over-year drop,” said Bloomberg. This is largely due to the “resumption of reporting student loan delinquencies” by the Trump administration.

While the average score across all demographics remains 715, the situation is much more dire for Gen Z, a group defined by FICO as people ages 18 to 29. Gen Z Americans have an “average score of 676 — 39 points lower than the national average,” said FICO. This represents a three-point drop from Gen Z credit scores from the same time last year.

Several factors are weighing down Gen Z scores. This includes the aforementioned student loan reporting: about “34% of Gen Z have open student loans — double the 17% of the total population that has an open student loan,” said FICO. And because they are younger, Gen Zers have “had less time to build savings and are less likely to benefit from stock market gains and home price appreciation.”

This also means that Gen Zers have more substantial swings in their credit scores than older people who've had more time to build credit. Gen Z was “most likely to see their scores fall dramatically, with 14% of the group having a score decrease of 50 points or more, compared to 10% of the total population,” said Bloomberg.

‘The one most important factor’

While dealing with lower credit scores, Gen Zers are also working around another obstacle: They are “contending with the most difficult job market in years for new college graduates,” said CNN. Many Americans across demographics are now having to make tough choices. Nearly one in five consumers, 19%, have either skipped bills or borrowed money from friends and family in the past year, according to a survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“My credit score took a drastic hit because I had to compromise and take a job where I’m severely underpaid,” Dimitri Tsolakis, a 22-year-old who graduated from American University with a degree in international relations, told CNN. Tsolakis “owes $35,000 in student debt but has had to pause repayments to focus on making his car payments and paying for other living expenses.”

But there are ways to improve the situation, experts say. The “one most important factor in the FICO score calculation is whether you make your payments on time. And that’s about 35% of the score calculation,” Tommy Lee, a senior director at FICO, told The Associated Press. A person’s credit score is “dynamic.” It changes based on “how you make your payments.” So if you ”want to maintain it or improve it, you can do so by exhibiting good credit behavior.”

President Donald Trump has struck another blow against immigration. His White House has imposed a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas that American companies use to bring top talent from overseas. Experts suggest U.S. workers may not benefit from the change.

Friday’s “abrupt” announcement “stunned and confused employers, students and workers” around the world, said The Associated Press. The affected businesses — including tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Tesla — “don’t actually know what that process will be like,” said León Rodríguez, a former U.S. immigration official. The White House defended the move. The H-1B visa program was being used by American companies to “fire their American staff and outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers,’’ the administration said.

Why is Trump changing the H-1B?

The argument for making H-1B visas harder to get is that “big technology companies shouldn’t be spending billions to train and import foreign employees,” said The Dispatch. Trump’s most hawkish anti-immigration allies like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer have called for an end to the program, focusing particularly on Indian migrants who make up more than 70% of H-1B recipients. “How is it America First to let Indians replace America’s top talent?” Loomer asked last year. The H-1B program was capped at 85,000 visas a year. With the new fee, the president is “essentially saying that the number is too high,” said Hiroshi Motomura, co-director of UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy.

Will American workers really benefit?

“Economists aren’t so sure,” said The Wall Street Journal. Some research suggests H-1Bs helped U.S. workers and the overall economy “far more than it has hurt.” The visas “cause innovation, they cause entrepreneurship, they cause more R&D investment,” said George Mason University economist Michael Clemens. But others argue the program has displaced American workers. “The typical H-1B visa employee” is usually doing a job for which “otherwise available workers exist,” said University of Notre Dame economist Kirk Doran.

The fee “threatens to worsen a shortage of U.S. doctors,” said Bloomberg. The visa program has produced a “pipeline” of trained doctors, “especially in rural and underserved communities,” said American Medical Association President Bobby Mukkamala. International medical school graduates are a “critical part of our physician workforce.”

What next?

Trump has “scrambled a popular path” between the United States and India, said The New York Times. Making visas more difficult to obtain could “dent India’s economy” by reducing the money migrants send home and might result in “weakened ties between Indian and American companies.” While American tech companies are “globe-spanning behemoths,” India has produced more English-speaking engineers and scientists than “any other country.”

Trump’s new fee is a “significant opportunity for Canada,” said Bloomberg. “Cities like Vancouver or Toronto will thrive instead of American cities,” said Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator. Europe is also poised to reap the benefits, said CNBC. The continent’s nations may be the “beneficiaries of a potential rigorous brain drain,” said Paul Achleitner, former chair of Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board.

‘Americans want dark money out of politics. We don’t have to wait for Supreme Court.’

Tom Moore at USA Today

Americans have “lived unhappily with the belief that only two things can stop corporate and dark money in politics: a constitutional amendment or a sudden change of heart from the majority on the nation’s highest court,” says Tom Moore. But politicians can “amend state law so that corporations are no longer granted the power to spend in politics.” A “state that takes this step instantly drains corporate and dark money from its local, state and federal politics.”

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‘College advising isn’t just an educational imperative; it’s an economic one.’

Cameron Schmidt-Temple at The Hill

The U.S. is “quietly defunding one of its most effective workforce tools: college advising programs,” says Cameron Schmidt-Temple. These “cuts do more than just negatively impact postsecondary attainment; they also jeopardize a cost-effective two-for-one economic strategy.” Advisers “support students by providing otherwise inaccessible information about college and career,” while the “presence of these advisers drives economic progress in the communities they serve, and oftentimes supports the development of early career skills for the advisers themselves.”

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‘The last Americans really paying taxes’

Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic

Donald Trump is “altering the tax code for the benefit of millionaires and billionaires,” says Annie Lowrey. Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act “creates ways for waiters and consultants, truck drivers and technology executives, to avoid taxation — but not so much the back-office managers and accountants working alongside them.” This “will result in families with similar incomes facing wildly different tax bills, while subjecting a smaller share of earnings to taxes in the first place.”

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‘More Americans going hungry, worst still to come’

Whitney Curry Wimbish at The American Prospect

Donald Trump is “making food too expensive to buy, slashing food aid, and frightening the most vulnerable away from the organizations that can help,” says Whitney Curry Wimbish. The “deportation machine is not just taking away farmworkers, it’s also scaring hungry people away from places that can help.” These “policies are forcing people to go hungry across America, even in well-off parts of the country,” but “one group of people that is not going hungry is grocery store executives.”

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What happened

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee yesterday trimmed its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point, its first cut since President Donald Trump took office. It was the Fed’s first meeting since Trump tried to fire one of its governors, Lisa Cook, as part of his campaign to assert control over the traditionally independent central bank.

Who said what

The Fed judged that “labor-market softness outweighed recent setbacks on inflation,” said The Wall Street Journal. A “narrow majority” of the board also “penciled in at least two additional cuts this year,” suggesting a “broader shift toward concern about cracks forming in the job market.”

All but one of the Fed officials voted for the quarter-point cut. “Lone dissenter” Stephen Miran pushed for cutting a half-point, CNN said, which is “hardly a surprise” since he is on unpaid leave from Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers and the president “fervently” wants sharply lower borrowing costs. Miran is “Trump’s wholly owned subsidiary,” the Journal’s editorial board said, and the president also “owns” this rate cut, “having staked so much on his political assault on the Fed.” Maybe “everything works out fine,” but the rate cut can’t “offset” either of the economic “negatives” the Fed identified yesterday: Trump’s tariffs and immigration crackdown.

What next?

The “well-telegraphed” rate cut, to between 4% and 4.25%, is “unlikely to bring much relief to borrowers,” The Washington Post said. And given the economy’s “stagflation-lite” signals, “what comes next” isn’t clear.

Nearly two decades ago, the collapse of the subprime home loan market sparked the Great Recession and devastated the economy. There are echoes of that history in the recent collapse of Tricolor Holdings, a subprime auto lender.

Tricolor’s bankruptcy filing last week has “prompted questions about the health” of the auto finance sector, said Financial Times. The Texas firm was a “fast-growing lender” that quadrupled in size in recent years, making most of its loans to low-income Latino immigrants and other “borrowers with limited credit histories.” Tricolor charged that “financially precarious” customer base an average interest rate of 17% for loans. President Donald Trump’s deportations undercut that business model. Many borrowers were “deported back to Mexico, and they abandoned the vehicles,” said one former Tricolor employee.

There were additional problems: Tricolor faces a federal fraud investigation, and the broader auto loan market has been marked by a growing number of borrower defaults and car repossessions. The company’s unraveling is "just an extreme example" of the sector’s challenges, said Rod Dubitsky, an independent financial analyst.

How does this affect the financial markets?

The crisis is “ensnaring giants including JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock,” companies that are among outlets that “lent hundreds of millions of dollars” to Tricolor, said Bloomberg. Perhaps that should not be a surprise: The auto loan market has shown “clear signs of strain,” with “mounting consumer stress and a surge in delinquencies” forcing other subprime lenders into bankruptcy, and car repossessions rising to their highest level since 2009. With the economy continuing to show signs of slowing, “market watchers say more pain is likely ahead.”

Is this like the subprime mortgage crisis?

Opinions differ. Tricolor’s troubles “aren’t likely to upend the broader financial services industry” as happened in 2008, said CNN. That crisis forced the federal government to “pour billions into each of the nation’s major banks” in order to keep the American economy from collapsing entirely. But the $1.7 trillion car loan market is an eighth the size of the home mortgage sector. That makes subprime auto loans a “very different animal.”

The unraveling of Tricolor could be a “canary in a subprime debt mine,” said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. The company’s troubles raise the possibility that creditors and investors ignored “financial and other risks hiding in plain sight.” The firm’s business “grew amid the Biden-era surge in migration and auto prices,” and more than two-thirds of Tricolor’s borrowers had no credit score. Despite the broader warning signs, investors still “snap up” subprime debt owed by low-income borrowers. That could be a “harbinger” of more problems.

What’s next?

“Tricolor’s collapse isn’t just about one company,” said Moneywise. When an auto lender fails and borrowers cannot pay their loans, “it signals trouble for the whole economy.” It also becomes a headache for borrowers in general. Lenders are “getting pickier” about who they lend to, so “buying a car will get even harder.” The one spot of hope is that the Federal Reserve could soon cut interest rates, which could “provide some relief.”

‘A tariff lesson for coffee drinkers’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

Trump’s “tariffs are coursing through the American (and world) economy,” says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Every “American coffee drinker either is paying more or soon will as a result.” The “U.S. has only a few regions suitable for growing coffee, and the amount they produce isn’t grande.” In the “case of coffee, tariffs don’t even protect a domestic constituency. They are a tax on American consumption pure and simple — a tax on MAGA’s forgotten man.”

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‘Indonesia’s climate ambitions can’t shine in the dark’

Sisilia Nurmala Dewi at Al Jazeera

There's “no sugarcoating what many Indonesians feel about the recent violence: anger but also dread and fear,” says Sisilia Nurmala Dewi. The “climate movement, too, is drawing the line.” Both “reducing emissions and protecting natural resources are crucial to keeping the planet cool and protecting the people from even more devastating climate impacts.” But “instead of using these resources wisely for wealth redistribution and sustainable national development, our leaders have repeatedly been accessories to corruption and environmental plunder.”

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‘As a young mom, I gave up alcohol. Why more Americans are joining me.’

Ericka Andersen at USA Today

Eliminating “alcohol fits in perfectly with a wave of public research on and interest in reducing toxins in food, products and technology,” says Ericka Andersen. If “you’re worried about toxins in the body, it’s almost laughable not to start with alcohol.” If “alcohol remains absent, we could see a generation with fewer cancers, drunken driving tragedies and less long-term organ damage — a glimpse of a healthier future.” People are “taking back control of their health.”

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‘American students’ reading skills are in crisis’

The Dallas Morning News editorial board

The “reality is that students are doing worse in reading, if they are reading at all,” says The Dallas Morning News editorial board. These “losses could be attributed to any variety of factors: endless scrolling on social media, increases in screen time or the pandemic’s impact on learning. But whatever the causes, the consequences are clear.” Students are “graduating with dangerously weak reading skills, at a moment when communication and critical thinking have never been more essential.”

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What happened

President Donald Trump yesterday called for the U.S. to end its 55-year-old practice of requiring publicly traded companies to post quarterly earnings reports. He suggested that the Securities and Exchange Commission mandate six-month corporate earnings reports instead. 

Who said what

Changing the reporting schedule would “save money and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies,” Trump said on social media, comparing the current quarterly report schedule unfavorably to China’s “50 to 100 year view on management of a company.” Trump also asked the SEC to consider switching to semi-annual reports during his first term, but no change was made.

Relaxing reporting requirements “might ease the burden for corporate managers” and limit the widely acknowledged “element of farce” in quarterly earnings calls, The New York Times said, but “critics say it would reduce the amount of information available to investors, regulators and the public.” In recent earnings reports, for example, “companies revealed that they had increased prices or planned to do so to offset the cost of tariffs.”

What next?

The SEC, which would have to approve any changes, said it was “prioritizing this proposal” at Trump’s request. And it “may have a chance to weigh in on such a change soon enough,” CNN said, thanks to an incoming petition from the Long-Term Stock Exchange, a marketplace focused on encouraging companies to focus on longer-term goals and performance.

‘The rising threat of extreme heat for young athletes’

Laura Schifter at Time

The “devastating consequences of extreme heat are no longer freak weather events but a dangerous new reality for young people,” says Laura Schifter. As “millions of children return to fall sports, these threats continue.” We “can’t shield kids from intense heat. But we can give them language, strategies, and confidence to recognize risks.” Even “when coaches are acquainted with the risks, kids themselves often don’t know about them, leaving children unable to recognize danger early.”

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‘The quiet force imperiling our booming stock market’

Bryce C. Tingle at The New York Times

There is a “puzzling contradiction at the heart of America’s economy,” says Bryce C. Tingle. Stocks are “reaching record highs. But a growing number of American companies are refusing to participate in public markets at all.” The “impact can be felt in every corner of our economy.” The “decline of our public markets goes hand in hand with the meteoric rise of private equity, which too often weakens companies and leaves them less committed to their employees.”

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‘Team Biden never gave Kamala Harris a chance’

Renée Graham at The Boston Globe

Kamala Harris has confirmed “what became apparent during her years as this nation’s No. 2: those most loyal to her boss, Joe Biden, spent more time undermining her than uplifting her,” says Renée Graham. What “comes across is that Team Biden valued the optics of having a Black woman as vice president but not the woman herself.” As “Harris learned, getting in the door isn’t necessarily the hardest part.” It’s the “high price of admission.”

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‘What would a No Kings budget look like?’

David Dayen at The American Prospect

Democrats have “now confirmed what was an open secret last week: They’re going to use their leverage in the upcoming government funding showdown,” to “ask for health care changes,” says David Dayen. But this “diminishes the urgency of the moment.” Presenting the “upcoming battle as an event where Democrats fight for a health care provision is a woefully inadequate way to send a big flashing signal to the public about our shared reality.”

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Amid a difficult job market, many have resorted to “job hugging,” or “holding onto their jobs for dear life” even if they aren’t progressing in their careers or lack motivation, said consulting firm Korn Ferry. The lack of higher career aspirations is a result of the poor job market that has made people uncertain about their employment futures.

Background

It is no secret that the job market has not been promising recently. The revised data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the U.S. job market was “much weaker in 2024 and early this year than originally reported, adding to concerns about the health of the nation’s economy,” said The Associated Press. “Employers added 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March 2025.”

Overall, the “economy has been in a low-hire, low-fire equilibrium,” said The Atlantic. This has extended to almost all sectors aside from health care. The “amount of time a worker has spent looking for a job has climbed to an average of 10 weeks, meaning that Americans are spending two weeks longer on the job market than they were a few years ago.” Many are unable to find jobs altogether.

The latest

In a job market without many new jobs or potential for upward mobility, job hugging naturally occurs. Given the “activity that happened post-Covid and then some of these constant layoffs, people are waiting and sitting in seats and hoping that they have more stability,” said Stacy DeCesaro, a managing consultant at Korn Ferry, to Fortune. A July 2025 report found that a majority of employees plan to remain in their current jobs for at least the next six months. This trend aligns with quiet quitting and quiet vacationing, as many are not necessarily engaged in their jobs and are more concerned about not having one. “They don’t seem happy, they don’t give 100% — and they don’t quit,” said The Wall Street Journal.

However, job hugging does not just apply to those who are only trying to keep a job. “The phrase ‘job hugging’ just kind of coined itself, because of the reluctance of especially top performers to leave where they’re currently at,” DeCesaro said to Insider. In many cases, workers who have outgrown their current roles are “sitting in the wrong seat at this time in their careers and clinging to it because of market fear,” said Forbes.

The reaction

“The process of getting a job has become a late-capitalist nightmare,” said The Atlantic. This has led many people to feel that they must remain in their current jobs and not seek out new opportunities. “When people were moving during the Great Resignation, that allowed others to get promoted, perhaps ahead of schedule and have a stretch job,” said Alan Guarino, the vice chairman of Korn Ferry, to the Journal. “Now people can’t move up and they potentially get demotivated because of the lack of opportunity.”

This can be bad for both employers and employees as “go-getters hankering for promotions might lose out if mediocre co-workers refuse to vacate the next rung on the corporate ladder,” said the Journal. There is also less room for new grads to be hired. However, it could also be an opportunity. “Great teammates are not leaving for external jobs every couple years," said Korn Ferry, “which means firms can develop those talents and create more internal career paths.”

'Disney and the decline of America's middle class'

Daniel Currell at The New York Times

America's "middle class has so eroded in size and in purchasing power — and the wealth of our top earners has so exploded — that America's most important market today is its affluent," says Daniel Currell. Only "after the economic shock of the pandemic" did Disney "seem to more fully abandon any pretense of being a middle-class institution." Compared "with the past, a Disney trip is more expensive, to be sure, but perhaps more important, it feels much more expensive."

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'Obesity treatments should be up to doctors, not insurers'

Lisa Jarvis at Bloomberg

As "evidence grows supporting the potential health benefits of obesity drugs like Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly & Co.'s Zepbound, so too — frustratingly — do the barriers to accessing them," says Lisa Jarvis. Decisions are "too often made not by doctors in consultation with their patients, but behind closed doors between drug manufacturers and the middlemen." In the "case of obesity drugs, it's forcing doctors and patients to spend excessive time and resources navigating coverage."

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'Why American presidents love Pakistani strongmen like Asim Munir'

Mohammad Hanif at Time

Pakistan has "all the trappings of democracy, a parliament, a prime minister, judiciary, a noisy press but after putting the country's most popular leader Imran Khan behind bars two years ago, the army calls the shots," says Mohammad Hanif. It's "no surprise that Trump instead of wasting time with civilian figureheads extended his hand of friendship to the man who matters." America has "always had a soft spot for Pakistan's military dictators because they see them as a one window operation."

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'Europe must get real on Russia-Ukraine'

Andrew Day at The American Conservative

The "acceleration of U.S. diplomacy on Russia-Ukraine last month led to greater irritation with the old continent," says Andrew Day. The "Europeans really do seem to be throwing obstacles onto the road to peace." The "Europeans must take a more realistic view of the conflict and of its belligerents' relative military capabilities." If Ukraine "wants to retain a sovereign, albeit truncated, state after the war, then it should embrace the imperfect deal that Trump is trying to secure."

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Waiting for a small package from overseas? You might not get it, at least anytime soon. A growing number of postal services and shippers around the world are cutting off deliveries to the United States, citing President Donald Trump's new tariff rules.

The interruption of deliveries is "threatening the flow of hundreds of millions of packages a year," said Axios. That's because Trump in July revoked the so-called "de minimis" exemption that had long blocked tariffs from being applied to packages valued at $800 or less. That exemption fueled a lot of e-commerce from China-based companies like Shein and Temu. Now, postal authorities and private shipping companies in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Japan and a host of other countries are putting at least a temporary stop to American deliveries, "citing uncertainty about the new rules."

What did the commentators say?

Critics of de minimis say the exemption has made it too easy to let "drugs and unwanted goods" enter the United States, said The Hill. But the suspension of the rule "will likely impact the global economy significantly." Research suggests dropping de minimis "could result in costs of $11 billion to $13 billion for American consumers." For now, "more countries will likely continue to cease certain shipments" to America rather than deal with the headache.

"Ding-dong, de minimis is dead," said George E. Bogden, a former trade official in the Trump administration, at The New York Times. Changes to the rule had raised the threshold from $5 in 1978 to $800 in 2015. That allowed overseas exporters to "flood the U.S. market" with packages "without adequate inspection," with the result that "American industries were gutted." Trump's order revoking the rule "infuriated de minimis defenders," but it reasserted the principle that "all goods must face the full scrutiny, and the full weight, of U.S. law."

"Trump's trade war has come to your Etsy shopping cart," said Ryan Teague Beckwith at MSNBC. The de minimis exemption was created in the late 1930s, as the country "shook off the tariff hangover" from a trade war that "prolonged the Great Depression." The $800 exemption is "pretty high" and gave a boost that retailers like Shein "didn't really need." The sudden cutoff will have a dramatic impact, however. A "normal president" would be trying to "avoid needlessly harming" small businesses and U.S. consumers, but "Trump doesn't seem particularly concerned."

What next?

Small businesses are "scrambling" to make new arrangements, said CNN. Depending on the country of origin, previously exempt packages coming into America will face at least an $80 charge, or as much as $200 for countries with a tariff rate of 25% or more. Some foreign exporters have decided to stop shipping to the U.S. for now, regardless of whether their postal services will carry the shipment. "Clearly this is not something we want to do," said Wool Warehouse, a U.K.-based yarn and crafting company. The de minimis exemption formally ends on Friday.

Lots of factors contributed to the downfall of Joe Biden's presidency, but one voter complaint really stood out: The price of eggs. Inflation helped put President Donald Trump back in the White House. Could it derail his presidency, too?

New polling shows that Trump's approval rating among Republicans has "slipped steadily," said Axios. While GOP support for Trump is still robust at 83% of respondents, the wider picture shows the president's policies on inflation "aren't sitting well with Americans by and large." About half of Americans — 48% — "expect inflation to increase in the next six months." That is the highest number for that question since October 2023, and a sign that "financial anxiety" is on the rise as "Trump's trade war begins to show up in inflation data," with "costs soaring for grocery staples and critical materials."

What did the commentators say?

Trump is now "as unpopular on inflation as Biden was in 2022," said Strength In Numbers. Rising prices are a "continued source of stress for voters" no matter who is in charge. July polling showed that 61% of Americans "disapprove of how the president is handling inflation" and just more than half "disapprove of his policies on jobs and the economy." That is not what might have been expected "based on what Trump promised during the 2024 campaign."

"Republicans need to beware the return of inflation," said the National Review editorial board. Inflation has been "stuck around 3% since June 2023" despite efforts to get it down to 2%, and the "administration isn't doing much to help." Trump's badgering of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates would "push the price level even higher." The GOP's deficit spending "isn't going to push prices lower" and neither will the president's tariffs. While a "variety of factors" are keeping inflation stubborn, "voters are unlikely to be interested in a technical conversation" about the causes.

Trump's campaign promises to bring down prices "may finally be catching up to him," said Ed Kilgore at New York magazine. It is possible that "inflation has already been baked into assessments of Trump's job performance." But Biden's example is instructive: Improved inflation numbers did not help him in the last two years of his presidency. Americans seem to want to "go back down to where they were before their post-pandemic spike." That can happen only with a recession. This will not be good news to voters who were "sold a bill of good by Trump."

What next?

A new report from Moody's Analytics predicts Trump's policies will "slow U.S. growth and push up inflation" but stop short of an outright recession," said USA Today. "It's not yet stagflation but it's edging that way," said Moody's Justin Begley.

Equis Research, a Latino polling organization, said a third of Latinos who voted for Trump last year are "not set on voting for a Republican" during the 2026 midterms, thanks to "economic issues such as persistently high prices on groceries," said NPR. That discontent "hasn't directly translated into support for Democrats, though."

Following a long campaign against the abortion pill mifepristone by conservative religious groups, Costco announced on Aug. 14 that it will not stock the abortion pill mifepristone at its stores, declining to provide the medication at the 500-plus pharmacies the chain has nationwide. Now many Democrats and liberal politicians are pushing back against the decision by one of the nation's largest big-box stores.

Facing criticism

Costco's choice not to stock the drug is "based on the lack of demand from our members and other patients," the company told The Washington Post in a statement. But many question this claim. There's "no good reason for Costco to refuse to sell this medication," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on X. Murray is "demanding that Costco immediately reverse course — follow the science and the facts, not the demands of far-right anti-abortion extremists."

Whether far right groups are "actually responsible for the wholesale chain's decision is unclear, but they are framing it as a success and pledging to target retailers that already dispense the drug, which would be a blow to abortion access," said MSNBC. It is "disappointing that Costco will not dispense mifepristone, a necessary medication for people who need abortions and people experiencing miscarriages — and one that is set to become increasingly difficult to access."

Others were more forceful in their criticism. It's "no shock that many beloved brands are often swayed by fascist politics," said Jezebel. Costco "isn't the only brand caving to the religious right," and it "really sucks when companies we know and love bend to the enemy's will."

'A courageous move'

Those on the right lauded Costco's decision. "We applaud Costco for doing the right thing by its shareholders and resisting activist calls to sell abortion drugs," the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, which previously sent a letter to Costco urging it not to stock mifepristone, said in a press release. The company has "nothing to gain and much to lose by becoming abortion dispensaries. Retail pharmacies exist to serve the health and wellness of their customers, but abortion drugs like mifepristone undermine that mission."

Religious groups expressed similar sentiments. Costco's choice is "not only a courageous move, but also a wise one as it will have a far-reaching positive effect on our nation and their bottom line," Penny Nance, the head of the conservative Christian group Concerned Women for America, told The Christian Post. Mifepristone has "also been used on unsuspecting women by predatory men, making it possible that lawsuits could be filed against businesses who sell the abortion pill — one more reason Costco's decision is wise."

The Family Research Group, an evangelical think tank, also had praise for Costco. Instead of "worrying that they are contributing to the killing of countless innocent unborn children, families can continue to shop at Costco knowing that the great deals they're getting are helping other families believe that adding another child to the mix is possible," the organization said in a statement on X. "What a win for America!"

Republicans were the party of free enterprise. That may no longer be true. President Donald Trump is taking an "unprecedented amount of control" over American businesses, edging the system toward what some economists call "crony capitalism."

The president is "tightening his control over Wall Street and corporate America," said NPR. In recent days he has called on Intel's CEO to resign, announced an "unprecedented" deal to take a cut of Nvidia's chip exports to China and urged Goldman Sachs to fire an economist who has said tariffs will raise consumer prices. Those actions are not "really free markets as Americans have understood it," said Cato Institute economist Ryan Bourne. The result is an economy in which "we have winners and losers based on cronyism," said Yale University's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.

Fostering corruption?

If you are a CEO under this administration, "set aside a slush fund for paying tribute to the Decider-in-Chief," said Rick Newman at Yahoo Finance. Trump is "essentially extorting certain companies" for the privilege of doing business. That is expensive: Nvidia's "gratuity" to the administration for its exports will cost the company $3 billion a year. That may be "better than losing chip sales to China completely," but there are "obvious risks." Brands could suffer if consumers start to view companies as "partisan operators." Trump is plainly "reviving crony capitalism."

Trump's emergence as the "would-be CEO of America" carries "political and substantive risk," said The Washington Post. The GOP has long held that "economic intervention by the government" hurts the economy, and charged that Democrats who "argued otherwise" are "communist" and "Marxist." But an economic system that depends on a "single individual" can "foster corruption as businesses try to curry favor in licit or illicit ways."

The interventions are "creating a risk for business leaders" who thought they could placate Trump with flattery and "splashy U.S. investment announcements," said The Wall Street Journal. Some of those leaders are fearful but only privately critical. "It's wrong for the president of the United States to be telling a major corporation's board to fire their chief executive," said Bill George, the former CEO for Medtronic. The White House counters that it is putting "Americans and America first" in its economic policies. "Businesses should follow suit," said spokesman Kush Desai.

'Short-termist, transactional style'

Some Democrats "see the appeal" of Trump's approach, said NBC News. Progressives who want to take on corporate power argue that they now have the precedent to do that if their party regains the White House. "You can't go back to normal after this," said one anonymous strategist.

Trump's "quid pro quo" approach is "ominous," said the Financial Times editorial board. The "short-termist, transactional style" of governing the economy will have a "stultifying effect on the private sector." To adapt, American companies may need to follow the example of corporations in "emerging markets ruled by similarly controlling and capricious leaders." That will be a drag on growth. Trading the rule of law for "arbitrary deals" will erode the "stable foundations on which America's prosperity has long rested."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been under government control since 2008, when their losses on the collapsing housing market helped trigger the Great Recession. President Donald Trump now wants to sell stock in them with an initial public offering.

Trump and senior members of his administration "met with executives from the nation's largest banks in recent weeks" to discuss the potential IPO, said The New York Times. The two corporations are collectively a "linchpin of the $12 trillion mortgage market," making the existence of 30-year mortgages possible. It is unclear, though, if there is "much investor appetite" for shares in the firms. How and why would privatization work?

What are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

The companies "don't issue mortgages to borrowers," but they do "ensure America's housing market functions properly," said CNN. They buy mortgages from lenders and resell them as packaged bonds to investors, "helping money flow in and out of the housing market." That "frees up capital and allows lenders to make more mortgages available," said Politico. They play an important role, as the companies are estimated to "stand behind more than 60% of the mortgage market."

What was their role in the Great Recession?

The companies "guarantee bond investors that they will be made whole" if too many homebuyers default on their mortgages, said the Times. In 2008, the private investors backing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "panicked as more and more homeowners defaulted on their mortgages." The two companies soon jointly entered a government conservatorship that included a "taxpayer-funded $187 billion bailout to prevent the firms from filing for bankruptcy."

Why is there IPO talk?

The Trump administration believes the offering "could raise around $30 billion," said The Wall Street Journal. Proponents argue the IPO "could reduce the country's deficit and return money to taxpayers" but there are questions about the "impact on government finances." The offering could also be a "windfall" for investors like billionaire Bill Ackman "who bought shares years ago" expecting an eventual government sale.

How would privatization work?

That is still unclear. "This would be a complex deal," said Axios. A lot of important details still need to be worked out, "including whether the companies would remain under government conservatorship."

What are the criticisms?

The investors who buy Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds believe the government conservatorship offers an "implicit guarantee" that they will recoup their investments even if there is another housing market collapse, said Jim Parrott and Mark Zandi in a brief for Moody's Analytics. The IPO could put the guarantee "back in play," which could make those investors skittish and lead to a "less liquid, less stable and much more cyclical housing finance system" with higher lending costs. That would be a problem during the "worst housing affordability crisis in a generation." Trump's response to those concerns: The government "will keep its implicit GUARANTEES," he said in a Truth Social post.

What next?

The IPO could take place "later this year," said Politico.