Category: Finance

The fate of President Donald Trump’s estimated US$400 million White House ballroom may hinge on the little-known and somewhat surprising rules as to when the federal government and its agencies can accept privately donated funds. That’s because Trump’s using the fact that he’s been accepting private donations to pay for at least some of the […]

Michael Scott, the hapless regional manager at the center of the American version of “The Office” played by Steve Carell, believed he was the world’s best boss. He even had the mug to prove it. Meanwhile, for most of the show’s 2005-2013 run, his employees endured pointless meetings, cringed through his speeches and quietly counted […]

For many Americans, energy bills are becoming increasingly unaffordable. Energy prices increased approximately 30% on average from 2021 to 2026. In some places, the rates of increase have been much steeper. In the Mid-Atlantic and eastern Midwest region where several of us live, the regional electricity grid is run by PJM Interconnection, and power prices […]

It’s summer grilling season, but for many Americans, surging prices mean beef is no longer what’s for dinner. The cost of beef, having spiked since early 2025, is coming under even more pressure. The most recent is the screwworm outbreak that hit cattle in Mexico and has now spread to the United States, where the […]

The “right to repair” movement is gaining steam as consumers push corporations to offer them more freedom to fix products – from cars to dishwashers to toys. In April 2026, farm equipment maker Deere & Co. inked a US$99 million settlement in a class action suit over its prohibition on independent repairs to its increasingly […]

The federal government provides grants – any amount of money that the recipient doesn’t have to pay back – for a wide array of purposes that serve the public interest. States, local governments, colleges and universities, students, nonprofits and other kinds of organizations receive these funds. Huge sums are involved. The federal government dispatches at […]

Few city planning concepts are as sacrosanct as the idea that growth is good and decline is bad. For cities and counties, population growth is universally seen as a metric that defines success. Even stable population trends can be cast as stagnation to be avoided at all costs. The Pittsburgh region illustrates the problem with […]

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is becoming a publicly traded company after selling 555.6 million shares in what was the biggest initial public offering in history. But my new research suggests that investors who bought those shares are unlikely to see the explosive growth that past IPOs had. The rocket and satellite maker raised US$75 billion on […]

Executives are facing pressure from boards, employees, regulators and consumers to either defend or abandon diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Many are retreating from their DEI commitments. But in the rush to respond to political headwinds, a more fundamental question is going unasked: Is inclusion a moral imperative? As marketing scholars who study consumer ethics […]

California’s leaders have repeatedly promised to tackle homelessness. “I know homelessness can be solved,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared in his 2020 state of the state address. “This is our cause. This is our calling.” But six years later, his state is spending just a small sliver of its budget, less than 0.5%, on helping the […]