Category: Finance

Recent population estimates show that Charlotte, North Carolina, is the fastest-growing large city in the United States. The city added more than 20,000 residents between 2024 and 2025 and is rapidly approaching a population of 1 million. Charlotte has become a magnet for businesses and residents seeking opportunities and a lower cost of living. But […]

The Buss family’s 47-year ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers, 17-time NBA champions, could soon come to an end despite their patriarch’s clear wishes before he died. A group of investors that includes former Disney CEO Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner – the brother of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law – wants to buy […]

Both major U.S. political parties regularly tout their commitment to working-class Americans and claim to be the party of the working class. However, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans nominate many candidates who spent substantial time in working-class jobs. This near-absence of people from working-class jobs in the halls of power matters. According to research […]

The number of Americans who file for bankruptcy is growing. More than 500,000 people took this step in 2025, nearly 50% more than in 2022. And the numbers have kept on climbing, with a 12% jump in June 2026 from a year earlier as many consumers struggled to pay their bills. I am a business […]

In Colorado, a full-time worker must earn US$36.44 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30% of their income on rent, according to a recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The state’s minimum wage is $15.16. Someone earning that would have to work 96 hours a week, […]

A record 332 million people visited U.S. national parks in 2024, followed by roughly 323 million in 2025. That’s a lot of love for national parks and lands. You might think that such big numbers of visitors automatically create windfalls for the towns and businesses that serve them. The National Park Service calls towns or […]

President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements no longer cause the market gyrations that they did in 2025. But their sticker shock for American consumers is becoming increasingly clear – just as economic sentiment is souring ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections. Many business groups had hoped that the tariff wars would end in February, when […]

As you read this article on your computer or smartphone, you are almost certainly using open-source technology in some way. It forms the foundation of the global digital economy, from operating systems and web servers to databases and encryption protocols. While the United States and Europe have led the development of open-source technology, China is […]

When Chevron reported its highest quarterly profit in six years on July 31, 2026, it was just one detail in a larger picture: Analyst firm Wood Mackenzie estimates the global oil and gas industry is on course for a cash windfall of US$495 billion in 2026. That’s profit above and beyond what the industry expected […]

Business leaders and investors face a deepening paradox: Companies are pouring more money into artificial intelligence than ever, but they’re not seeing the gains in productivity that they expect. Even CEOs are starting to admit this disconnect. One Atlanta Federal Reserve study found that about 90% of executives believe AI has not yet boosted productivity […]