In recent weeks, there have been viral images from the Philippines show couples exchanging wedding vows in flooded churches after Tropical Storm Wipha made landfall in late-July. The storm swept through southern China and central Vietnam, with heavy rain causing flooding in both locations.
Vietnam and the Philippines are used to periods of intense rain, but climate change threatens to make these events more severe. Southeast Asia as a whole faces an escalating climate risk, due its densely populated cities, frequent heavy rain, and insufficient infrastructure.
Recent modelling from Zurich Resilience Solutions found that six major cities in Southeast Asia—Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila—all face at least a “high risk” of extreme precipitation, heatwaves, and rising sea levels through the 2040s.
In particular, the modelling noted that Manila, Bangkok, Singapore, and Jakarta are among Southeast Asia’s most climate-vulnerable cities, with critical infrastructure facing high exposure to multiple climate hazards.
Zurich’s risk modelling used data points from seaports, airports, and notable cultural sites, like Bangkok’s Grand Palace and Manila’s Fort Santiago. The analysis was conducted under the SSP2-4.5 scenario, a widely used projection developed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The “middle-of-the-road” pathway assumes moderate global mitigation efforts and anticipates a two degree Celsius increase in global average temperatures between 2041 and 2060.
“In Manila, sites are at severe risk from extreme precipitation, storm surge, sea level rise, and flooding, threatening trade and cultural preservation,” the report’s authors wrote. Both Bangkok and Jakarta are also threatened by worse flooding from climate change.
Zurich notes that governments are already investing to address some of these risks. For example, its report highlighted that Singapore added another 5 billion Singapore dollars ($3.9 billion) to its coastal and flood protection fund this year to support new infrastructure like detention tanks, widened canals, and elevated platform levels. Ho Chi Minh City is also upgrading its drainage systems and expanding green urban spaces to curb local flooding.
Not investing in mitigation could result in severe financial losses. A recent report from the World Economic Forum and Singapore International Foundation estimates that the impact of climate change could reduce Southeast Asia’s GDP by up to 25% by 2050.
Another study from Oxford Economics estimates that a 1% increase in average temperatures could raise food prices across Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Businesses in the region are also taking notice of how climate change’s financial cost could hit their own operations.
City Developments Limited (CDL), No. 139 on the Southeast Asia 500, estimated in 2023 that climate inaction could cost 120 million Singapore dollars ($93.2 million) by 2030, equal to almost 4% of its 2024 revenue. CDL is working on another climate scenario study to be published later this year.
President Donald Trump said members of his Cabinet would continue discussions with Lip-Bu Tan in the coming days after meeting with the Intel Corp. chief executive officer at the White House on Monday.
“The meeting was a very interesting one,” Trump said in a social media post. “His success and rise is an amazing story. Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week.” Intel didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Tan’s meeting with Trump.
The warm remarks were a stark reversal from just four days earlier, when Trump called for Tan’s resignation and accused him of having conflicts of interest.
Trump last week wrote in a post on Truth Social that Tan should step down as chief of the American chipmaker, describing him as “highly CONFLICTED.”
The post came after Republican Senator Tom Cotton asked the chairman of Intel’s board to answer questions about Tan’s ties to China, including investments in the country’s semiconductor companies and others with connections to its military.
Tan has said he has the full backing of the company’s board and had reached out to the White House to clear up what he called “misinformation” about his track record.
The chipmaker’s shares jumped more than 2% in extended trading following Trump’s post on Monday. The stock declined 3.1% on Aug. 7, the day of the president’s initial remarks.
AI skills are in demand, and HR will need to fork over higher salaries to recruit this talent.
Adding AI skills to job descriptions could cost employers 28% more in annual compensation, a recent report from research firm Lightcast found. AI-related skills can include expertise with large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot, as well as prompt engineering, text summarization, and more.
A Lightcast analysis of over 1.3 billion job postings in 2024 found roles advertising at least one AI or generative AI skill offered $18,000 more in annual compensation on average than those that did not. Some 51% of these AI roles were not in tech-related industries, up from 44% in 2022.
“AI is becoming more and more pervasive throughout all of the job descriptions that we’re seeing for virtually any different career area,” Cole Napper, VP of research at Lightcast, told HR Brew.
No longer are AI skills only associated with tech or IT roles, Napper said, and the roles that are seeing the biggest rise in AI skill demand are recruiters and HR pros.
Companies that don’t keep up with this trend, he said, could miss out on talent.
“There is a divergence that’s going on between employers who are saying, ‘We’re not leaning into this space. We’re not really seeing the need to do that,” Napper said. “It’s better to recruit sooner than later, because if you try to play catch up later, this is going to cost you even more.”
It’s a supply and demand issue, Napper added. More employers are demanding AI skills, but the supply of employees with these skills has stayed consistent, he said. He suspects the workforce will adjust through upskilling and reskilling, but this will take time.
“There is always a lagging effect, because it takes time for people to build skills,” he said.
Figma’s billionaire CEO Dylan Field cold-emailed his former coworkers from LinkedIn, Flipboard, and O’Reilly Media as the then 19-year-old was looking to get his design tool off the ground. The millennial cofounder used the same tactic to take his tech “heroes” out for coffee. Now, Figma is a $68 billion success. And multimillionaires and executives at Google and Squarespace have found success the same way.
The 33-year-old CEO was just 19 when he founded the online design tool in 2012, and the aspiring tech entrepreneur pulled on any loose thread he could find to persuade others to use it.
“Really, the first users of Figma, a lot of it was cold-emailing and people in-network,” Field recently revealed at Y Combinator’s AI startup school. “So folks that I had interned with…and from that, there were people I could reach out to that could tell me others to talk with.”
Field had dropped out of the Ivy League school Brown University and took up Peter Thiel’s prestigious fellowship, granting Field $100,000 to launch his startup. But if it weren’t for his nine-month research assistant job at Microsoft, four-month data analytics internship at LinkedIn, and two internships at aggregation software company Flipboard, he may not have amassed a base to get his business running.
Field didn’t stop at cold-calling his ex-coworkers and gaining steam behind a screen—he also scraped the internet for the best tech talent. If they agreed to hear out his Figma dream, he took them out for coffee and sang his praises of their influence. Surprisingly, in a world of rampant ghosting, a lot of people took the bait.
“I just looked online, like, ‘Who are the designers that I think could be really helpful to us and I respect their work?’ If they answer my email and they let me buy them a coffee, it’ll just be like a personal moment for me, because they’re my hero,” Field recalled. “And a lot of them replied. It’s kind of wild that people reply to cold emails, but they do.”
Fortune reached out to Figma for comment.
Millionaires and executives at Google and Squarespace who put themselves out there
Figma’s CEO isn’t the only one admitting to reaching out to the upper echelons of business for help out of the blue—and actually finding success from it.
Venture capitalist and multimillionaire Rashaun Williams, now a host on the iconic investing show Shark Tank, found success by employing a strategy he calls “sneaking into the party.” With few business opportunities growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he would insert himself into any event, starting every conversation with “Hear me out.” Williams toldFortune: “I don’t mind cold-calling people. I don’t mind pulling up at conferences.”
Google executive Sameer Samat also didn’t achieve success by sitting on the sidelines. He began his meteoric rise in tech by plucking up the courage to cold-email one of the biggest names in his industry: Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
At the time Samat was in his twenties, trying to make it in the startup world, when a cofounder at his company Mohomine was weighing leaving the business for graduate school. Unsure of how to convince them to stay, he emailed Brin at 3 a.m., hoping for some words of wisdom. A mere minute later, Brin replied and invited Samat and his entire team down to Google’s headquarters, interviewing them on the spot. Brin offered Samat a job, but the now executive turned down the opportunity, opting instead to build up his company.
Even the CMO of $7.2 billion company Squarespace calls cold-calling employers the “life hack to avoiding long interview processes.” Years before her success in tech, Kinjil Mathur spent her summers as a college student skimming telephone books to find the contacts of businesses and professionals in her city. She would go to the company listings section, and started cold-calling businesses inquiring about internships—stating she was even willing to do without a paycheck.
“I was willing to work for free; I was willing to work any hours they needed, even on evenings and weekends. I was not focused on traveling,” Mathur told Fortune. “You really have to just be willing to do anything, any hours, any pay, any type of job—just really remain open.”
Dylan Field may not be helming a $68 billion company if it weren’t for cold-calling his former coworkers and taking his tech “heroes” for coffee—and execs at Google and Squarespace found success the same way.
The fintech giant Stripe is developing a new blockchain, according to a recent job posting on a site for the crypto lobby group Blockchain Association. “Tempo is a high-performance, payments-focused blockchain,” reads the job advertisement, which is for a product marketing position and dated Aug. 3.
The posting goes on to say that Tempo is in stealth, has a team of five, and is being built in partnership with Paradigm—a crypto venture capital firm whose cofounder and managing partner, Matt Huang, is on the board of Stripe. Applicants for the marketing position should have “experience marketing to a Fortune 500 audience,” per the ad.
The blockchain is a layer 1, or not built on top of other protocols, and it’s compatible with the coding language used on the blockchain Ethereum, according to four sources briefed on the matter. All sources requested anonymity to talk about private business conversations.
Spokespeople for Stripe and Paradigm declined to comment. The job posting was taken down after Fortune reached out to both companies.
Tempo is the latest bet on crypto from Stripe, which has grown to an almost $92 billion valuation on the back of payment products like easy online checkout and automated invoicing for businesses.
In October, Stripe announced it was paying $1.1 billion for the stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge, its largest acquisition to date. And in June, the payments titan said it bought the crypto wallet developer Privy. (It didn’t disclose the price.)
Stripe’s crypto shopping spree comes amid a rush of interest in stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar. Boosters say the crypto assets are a more effective payment technology than legacy financial infrastructure like SWIFT or wires. They also argue that the technology can reduce cross-border payment costs as well as cut down on transaction fees, among other benefits.
Although stablecoins have existed for more than a decade, broader interest in the technology has picked up steam over the past year, especially after President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July. The bill outlines federal regulatory guidance and rules for the burgeoning sector of crypto.
Stablecoins have become such a buzzy subject in the world of payments that even Big Tech giants like Meta, Apple, and Airbnb are exploring stablecoinintegrations—but Stripe is leading the charge. “We are now seeing meaningful business interest in stablecoins as the underlying technology has matured,” Patrick Collison, cofounder and CEO of Stripe, said in testimony to the House in March.
Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge gives the fintech ownership of a platform that helps companies integrate stablecoins into their payment flows and issue their own. And its purchase of Privy gives it the ability to build out crypto wallets for customers to help them manage their holdings. A new blockchain would allow it to control another layer in the stablecoin tech stack—the servers that process stablecoin transactions.
Stripe hasn’t publicly stated its reasons for building a blockchain. It also hasn’t said it intends to issue a cryptocurrency to support it—a common move for founders of a new crypto protocol.
Update, Aug. 11, 2025: This article has been updated to note that the job posting has since been taken down after Fortune reached out to Stripe and Paradigm for comment.
US President Donald Trump reportedly signed an order delaying the reimposition of higher tariffs on Chinese goods on Monday, hours before a trade truce between Washington and Beijing was due to expire.
The halt on steeper tariffs will be in place for another 90 days, the Wall Street Journal and CNBC reported, citing Trump administration officials. The White House did not respond to queries on the matter.
While the United States and China slapped escalating tariffs on each other’s products this year, reaching prohibitive triple-digit levels and snarling trade, both countries in May agreed to temporarily lower them.
But their 90-day halt of steeper levies was due to expire Tuesday.
Asked about the deadline earlier Monday, Trump said: “We’ll see what happens. They’ve been dealing quite nicely. The relationship is very good with President Xi (Jinping) and myself.”
Trump also touted the tariff revenue his country has collected since his return to the White House, saying “we’ve been dealing very nicely with China.”
“We hope that the US will work with China to follow the important consensus reached during the phone call between the two heads of state,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in a statement.
He added that Beijing also hopes Washington will “strive for positive outcomes on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit.”
The full text of Trump’s latest order has yet to be released. The 90-day extension means the truce is set to expire in early November, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Shaky truce
Even as both countries reached a pact to cool tensions after high level talks in Geneva in May, the de-escalation has been shaky.
In June, key economic officials convened in London as disagreements emerged and US officials accused their counterparts of violating the pact. Policymakers met again in Stockholm last month.
US trade envoy Jamieson Greer said last month that Trump will have the “final call” on any such extension.
Trump said in a social media post late Sunday that he hoped China will “quickly quadruple its soybean orders,” adding that this would be a way to balance trade with the United States.
For now, the extension of a truce means that US tariffs on Chinese goods this year stand at 30 percent.
Under their de-escalation, Beijing’s corresponding levy on US products stood at 10 percent.
Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has slapped a 10-percent “reciprocal” tariff on almost all trading partners, aimed at addressing trade practices Washington deemed unfair.
This surged to varying steeper levels last Thursday for dozens of economies.
Major partners like the European Union, Japan and South Korea now see a 15-percent US duty on many products, while the level went as high as 41 percent for Syria.
The “reciprocal” tariffs exclude sectors that have been separately targeted, such as steel and aluminum, and those that are being investigated like pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.
They are also expected to exclude gold, although a clarification by US customs authorities made public last week caused concern that certain gold bars might still be targeted.
Trump on Monday said that gold imports will not face additional tariffs, without providing further details.
The US president has taken separate aim at individual countries such as Brazil over the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of planning a coup, and India over its purchase of Russian oil.
Canada and Mexico come under a different tariff regime.
ESPN and Fox announced Monday they will launch a joint streaming bundle for sports and entertainment fans, providing direct access to major events—including the NFL and NBA—for $39.99 per month starting October 2, 2025.
The new bundle combines ESPN’s highly anticipated direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform with Fox’s newly branded Fox One streaming service. Both ESPN DTC and Fox One will launch individually on August 21, with standalone prices of $29.99 per month for ESPN and $19.99 per month for Fox One, meaning the bundle saves $10 per month for people who would get each independently.
Subscribers will gain access to all of ESPN’s live channels—including ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN on ABC—plus ESPN+, SEC Network+, and ACC Network Extra. Fox One wraps in Fox’s suite of brands, delivering FS1, FS2, Fox local stations, and many others.
The joint bundle’s centerpiece is live coverage of major sports leagues and events: NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, college football and basketball, NASCAR, INDYCAR, UFC, and the upcoming FIFA World Cup. ESPN covers roughly 47,000 live events each year, including through replays, original programming, studio shows, and expanded NFL content. This makes the new streaming combo one of the most complete options for die-hard sports fans who want flexibility and volume but have no interest in legacy cable.
Tony Billetter, SVP of strategy and business development for Fox One, said “viewers will have access to an incredible portfolio of content through this bundle.” He added both companies would “continue to look for opportunities to streamline the user experience, especially for the ultimate sports fan.”
Background and industry implications
This bundle arrives in the wake of Venu Sports, a failed joint streaming venture between Disney (ESPN), Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, which was shelved after antitrust challenges and internal strategy shifts.
The move reflects broader shifts in media, as more consumers ditch cable in favor of streaming. Days earlier, Disney unveiled a mixed earnings report along with an arsenal of sports-streaming assets, especially its spotlight deal with the NFL to absorb the league into ESPN’s ownership structure while acquiring several NFL properties. Amazon Prime and Netflix both have NFL games as of 2024, and both are massive rivals to Disney in every regard with respect to streaming, making sports a key lever in the battle for eyeballs and engagement.
It is unclear whether the ESPN/Fox bundle will face antitrust review, but Reuters reported that ESPN’s tie-up with the NFL is expected to face scrutiny, citing a source familiar with the matter. Disney has settled a lawsuit with the Trump administration while News Corp. faces a pending lawsuit, related to The Wall Street Journal‘s reporting on President Donald Trump’s alleged friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. It is unclear whether the resolution of a lawsuit by News Corp. would have any impact on a sports streaming bundle, but the example of Paramount shows that the settlement of Trump lawsuits can coincide with seemingly unrelated, significant impacts elsewhere in the business.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
US President Donald Trump said Monday that gold imports will not face additional tariffs, days after confusion flared on whether recent hikes applied to certain gold bars — threatening to upend global trade of the precious metal.
Trump’s comments came after US customs authorities made public a letter saying that gold bars at two standard weights — one kilogram and 100 ounces (2.8 kilos) — should be classified as subject to duties.
“Gold will not be Tariffed!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, without providing further details.
The letter, which was made public last week and dated July 31, was first reported on by the Financial Times, sending the price of gold on the US futures market to a record high.
But a White House official told AFP on Friday that the Trump administration plans to “issue an executive order in the near future clarifying misinformation about the tariffing of gold bars and other specialty products.”
On Friday, gold for December delivery hit a record high on the Comex, the world’s biggest futures market.
The concern is whether gold products would be exempt from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs impacting goods from dozens of economies including Switzerland, which sees a 39-percent levy.
One-kilo bars are the most common form traded on Comex and comprise the bulk of Switzerland’s bullion exports to the US, the FT said.
The US customs ruling letter, typically used to clarify trade policy, came as a shock amid expectations that gold bars would be classified under a different customs code that spared them from Trump’s countrywide levies.
Gold, seen as a safe haven investment, already reached record highs this year on tariff worries and geopolitical unrest.
The historic surge in employment among working mothers seen during the pandemic has reversed sharply in 2025, as new data reveal tens of thousands of American women, especially those with young children, leaving the workforce. According to federal labor statistics analyzed by the Washington Post, the labor force participation rate for women ages 25 to 44 with children under 5 fell nearly three percentage points between January and June 2025, reaching its lowest level in over three years.
Workforce trends and gender gaps
Fortune’s analysis integrates these workforce shifts with a broader view of corporate America’s changing priorities. Our coverage finds:
While flexible and remote work previously enabled women—particularly mothers—to remain employed, return-to-office requirements have pushed many out, with CEOs openly acknowledging greater losses of female talent.
Surveys show that women who work from home report less feedback and mentorship than their in-office peers, raising new barriers to career advancement.
Mothers working remotely often face the “motherhood penalty”—less pay, fewer raises, and limited promotion prospects—while those forced back in person are sometimes left with only the option to quit.
Despite a recent record in female workforce participation, the disappearance of flexibility risks lasting damage to women’s financial independence and retirement readiness.
Women flee the workforce
Labor force participation of mothers with young children dropped from 69.7% to 66.9% between January and June 2025.
212,000 women age 20 and older have left the workforce since January—compared with 44,000 men who joined it.
Full-time office requirements among Fortune 500 firms rose to 24% in 2Q25, up from 13% at the end of 2024.
Flexibility vanishes; mothers exit
This pullback follows the widespread rollback of remote and flexible work policies that initially ushered many mothers back to the job market. Major corporations and the federal government have now instituted strict return-to-office mandates, requiring five-days-a-week in-person attendance. For many mothers, the loss of flexibility means a logistical and financial reckoning. JPMorgan Chase, AT&T, and Amazon, among others, ramped up their in-office requirements in 2025, with Fortune reporting that the share of Fortune 500 companies with full-time mandates nearly doubled since late 2024.
Childcare costs and cultural shifts bring complications
Compounding these changes are rising childcare costs, closures of childcare centers due to lapsing federal aid, and a noticeable trend toward traditional gender roles. Social media movements like #tradwife encourage women to prioritize home and children, amplified by calls from political leaders for more parents to stay home.
For many families facing unaffordable childcare, the decision is an economic necessity rather than a cultural choice. Black women and those with college degrees have been hit especially hard. The unemployment rate for Black women climbed to its highest in nearly four years; federal layoffs and the dismantling of diversity initiatives eliminated stable jobs that disproportionately supported minority women.
Why it matters
Experts interviewed by both the Washington Post and Fortune warn that these trends, if left unchecked, will have “huge implications” for women’s lifetime earnings, career prospects, and retirement security. With breaks in employment history, women frequently return to lower-paying jobs and face diminished opportunities for advancement.
Studies, including a 2024 University of Pittsburgh analysis, similarly show that aggressive return-to-office mandates have led to a loss of senior employees—many of them women—threatening productivity and competitiveness.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
A question looms over Wall Street as it digests the stock market highs in the dog days of summer 2025: Is this another version of the dotcom bubble? Apollo’s Torsten Slok has already calculated that the top 10 S&P 500 companies today are more overvalued than in the late ’90s tech boom. Now the investment bank Stifel is predicting that even as “euphoric markets party like it’s 1999,” a stock market correction and stagflation are ahead.
Stifel’s strategists, led by Barry Bannister and Thomas Carroll, wrote in a research note that they are simply “uncomfortable” with the S&P 500 gaining 32% off its April 7 intraday low as the latest GDP figures show the actual economy slowing almost to a crawl. They further warn that “hopium” is a powerful drug and that stock markets may be “whistling past the graveyard.”
Simply put, Bannister and Carroll say consumers are not as rich as their account balances show, following the “money illusion” of COVID-era fiscal stimulus that they described as a “World War–level” effort.
With the mighty American consumer running out of breath amid an economic slowdown in the second half of 2025, Stifel sees a decline of 10% or more in the S&P 500.
Real economic pain is brewing
According to Stifel, the apparent health of the U.S. consumer belies an underlying slowdown, with personal consumption—responsible for 68% of GDP—showing effectively 0% growth year to date. Their research highlights several red flags.
They note that growth in real wage income, the main driver of personal consumption, has slowed to an annual rate of just 1% as stagflation hits.
In addition, monetary and fiscal policies are in a “tug-of-war” that counteract each other, resulting in a minimal boost to consumer spending.
And unlike in 2022–23, there is significantly less consumer savings to support consumption.
About that money illusion: Stifel’s data shows that from September 2019 to March 2022, household cash balances increased 44%, while consumer spending doubled against the historic median. Bannister and Carroll argue that the illusion kept spending afloat and helped drive asset prices upward, but it’s now fading after the “helicopter dump” of cash in the early 2020s.
The tell here, they say, is that savings rates have come back into balance with equity net worth, after a period when excess money moved first through consumption, then assets. Put another way, America is essentially cash-poor.
What’s more, Stifel’s calculation shows that the personal savings rate has fallen dramatically since COVID, so Americans have binged on spending and now have less cash on hand than in the years before the pandemic.
The analysts warn that this shows the artificial boost has waned and there is no apparent new source of household spending power, amid persistent fiscal deficits and tariffs.
The Federal Reserve has been left in a “too late” posture from stagflation, as the rate cuts that Trump keeps calling for can’t save an “overvalued” S&P 500, with inflation proving sticky and supply constrained in the economy.
While the capex boom around AI temporarily supports GDP and asset prices, Stifel forecasts this bump will fade as corporate tech spending plateaus. Such a build-out, after all, occurs only once, while consumer spending power is entering a lull that could expose markets to abrupt correction, they write.
Valuations have ballooned. Stifel notes the S&P 500 hit 6,375 and the Nasdaq 100 reached 23,587 earlier this month. Yet history shows that momentum can turn on a dime. “Valuation doesn’t matter until it does,” the analysts warn, citing the Great Depression of 1929, the dotcom boom of 1999, and the post-COVID atmosphere of 2021. They forecast a more than 10% selloff beckoning for the S&P 500.
An explanation for a ‘weird’ feeling?
Stifel’s bearish prediction, echoing Bank of America, may offer an explanation for a “weird” feeling permeating the economy. Nick Maggiulli, COO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and author of the New York Times bestseller The Wealth Ladder, previously spoke to Fortune about the odd state of the economy in 2025 and concluded that “something weird’s going on.”
Maggiulli, whose book focuses on what his research indicates about the emerging six economic classes of the U.S., said “the economy wasn’t built to handle this many people with this much money.” He cited data showing that the upper middle class, with household net worths between $1 million and $10 million, have ballooned from just 7% of the country in 1989 to 18% as of 2022–23, with much of this run-up in wealth occurring since the pandemic.
UBS Global Wealth Management has similarly documented a dramatic rise in the “everyday millionaire,” with a fourfold increase on a global basis since the start of the 21st century. Even after adjusting for inflation, their number has more than doubled in real terms since 2000. “There’s a good portion of [everyday millionaires] that feel like they don’t have enough,” Maggiulli told Fortune, “and they feel like they’re just getting by, even though statistically they’re in the top 20% of U.S. households.”
President Donald Trump’s tariffs are generating revenue for the federal government at an annual rate of about $300 billion. While that sounds like a promising source of funding, tariffs went into effect with the stroke of a pen, and they can go away with one, too. And in the next recession, there will be calls for tariff relief to help consumers, Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said.
The federal government is on pace to reap a significant amount of revenue from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but they may not be a reliable source of funding, especially in a recession, according to Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.
The average effective tariff rate is now 20.2%, the highest since 1911, according to Yale’s Budget Lab. Based on the revenue tariffs are generating so far, they should bring in about $300 billion annually.
Though that’s not nearly enough to eliminate the federal budget deficit, which is expected to widen to nearly $2 trillion this year, it’s still a meaningful amount. So why not rely on them as a long-term revenue source?
On last Wednesday’s episode of the Facing the Future podcast from the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group focused on reducing the national debt, Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi pointed out tariffs were imposed via executive order and can be changed in an instant.
In addition, the so-called reciprocal tariffs are facing court challenges on the argument they’re not covered under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
As a result, Zandi cautioned against making other tax and spending decisions based on the assumption those tariffs will remain in place. And if the economy goes south, then all bets are off.
“I suspect that the next time the economy gets into recession—and it will, maybe not this go around, but at some point it will—whoever’s president is going to be under significant pressure to cut those tariffs because they can do it under executive order. They don’t need to go to Congress to get a piece of legislation,” he added.
On Sunday, he followed that up, saying while the U.S. isn’t in a recession now, more than half of the roughly 400 industries tracked in government data are already shedding workers, a phenomenon that’s accompanied previous downturns.
Meanwhile, most of the cost of tariffs is being passed on to consumers, meaning those import taxes are effectively sales taxes. Goldman Sachs calculated that around 67% of the tariff costs are being passed on to consumers.
“There’s going to be a strong incentive on that president’s part to say, ‘Okay, I’m going to cut the taxes,’” Zandi told the Concord Coalition’s Carolyn Bourdeaux and Robert Bixby.
While Trump has floated the idea of using tariff revenue to provide some kind of dividend or rebate to Americans, the White House insists consumers are not shouldering tariff costs and that foreign exports are.
Either way, Zandi said he thinks it’s highly unlikely that tariffs will generate $300 billion a year over the next decade and warned against counting on a windfall like that.
“In fact, if you did do that, we’re setting ourselves up for an even more dire, darker fiscal situation down the road, because I just don’t think those tariffs are going to be around 10 years from now,” he added.
Starbucks patrons in South Korea are setting up de facto offices at the coffee chain, bringing along their desktop computers and printers. The company implemented a new policy banning bulky items from store locations. In South Korea, where office space is scant, remote workers are using cafés as a cheap place to work.
There’s getting cozy at a Starbucks to sip a latte and catch up on emails, and then there’s lugging your printer and desktop to the coffee chain to clock into work.
Starbucks South Korea is experiencing this exact phenomenon and is now banning patrons from bringing in large pieces of work equipment, treating the cafés like their own amenity-stuffed office space.
“Starbucks Korea has updated its policy so all customers can have a pleasant and accessible store experience. While laptops and smaller personal devices are welcome, customers are asked to refrain from bringing desktop computers, printers, or other bulky items that may limit seating and impact the shared space,” a Starbucks spokesperson told Fortune in a statement.
The company said it will continue to be a “welcoming third space.” The store policy change was first reported by the Korea Herald.
Starbucks has been a fixture in Korea since opening its first store there, in the Edae neighborhood of Seoul, in 1999. South Korea has surpassed Japan in the number of Starbucks stores, boasting 2,050 to Japan’s 2,040 locations, despite having less than half its population.
But the coffee chain’s crackdown on cagongjok, a term referring to individuals spending prolonged periods of time working at cafés, may indicate a changing attitude toward customers who may be loyal but taking Starbucks’ burgeoning efforts to become a cozy third space for granted. Starbucks South Korea is majority owned by retail giant E-Mart Inc. as of 2021. Starbucks continues to oversee its licensed business.
For years, there have been pockets of cagongjok as a result of the COVID-induced remote-work boom, as well as the rise of temporary-contract jobs following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, according to Jo Elfving-Hwang, an associate professor of Korean society and culture at Curtin University in Australia.
“It’s quite a cheap way to work really,” Elfving-Hwang told Fortune. “You can just go and have a cup of coffee, work there—but people are taking it a little bit to the extreme nowadays.”
Rising visibility of cagongjok
Korea has a strong tearoom culture, Young-Key Kim-Renaud, professor emeritus of Korean language and culture and international affairs at George Washington University, told Fortune.
“Even when they were dirt-poor, people gathered in the tearooms to discuss things [like] literature, art, politics, or whatever, and felt that they were civilized,” she said.
But cagongjok—a portmanteau of the Korean words for café, study, and a word for a tribe that has taken on a pejorative meaning—has gained public awareness as a result of South Korea’s labor market and remote-work shift. The pandemic caused an influx of employees needing to work remotely, but as many Koreans returned to office, government redevelopment restrictions limited how much space was available for businesses to set up their employees in office spaces—especially in South Korea’s capital of Seoul, where rent prices are skyrocketing as businesses fight over office spaces. Office vacancies in Seoul remained low last quarter at around 2.6%, according to April data from commercial real estate service CBRE, while rent for the offices increased on average 1.5% from the quarter before.
Korean companies failing to find or afford office spaces has led some to let employees work in third-party co-working spaces or remotely, Elfving-Hwang said, leaving many to flock to cafés.
“People just started working from home more, and [businesses] discovered that they didn’t necessarily need a space in the same way,” she said. “Part of the reason is that it’s become more of a practice that just a lot of companies discovered that they didn’t necessarily need an office of their own.”
However, not all café owners are so sympathetic to changing labor culture, calling cagongjok “electricity thieves” and claiming patrons stay working at their businesses for hours while nursing just a single cup of coffee in that time.
While the rise of remote workers in cafés marks the shift of coffee shops from a place of leisure to a place of work, Elfving-Hwang said, she said she believed it was only a matter of time before coffee shops itched to shift the balance back toward reputations of relaxation.
For years, the crypto economy was a digital Wild West: volatile, speculative, and often untethered from the real world. Now, Asia is leading a reinvention—building a blockchain ecosystem that doesn’t just trade coins, but tokenizes roads, solar farms, and financial instruments. It’s a shift from roulette wheels to regulated rails, from speculation to scaffolding.
The first uses of the blockchain were purely virtual: cryptocurrencies and NFTs that reflected digital assets with no real-world counterpart. Yet the next wave of financial innovators are trying to make blockchain work in the “real world” by tokenizing real-world assets like artwork, real estate—and, if two small Asia-based financial startups have their way, clean energy.
If predictions hold true, real-world assets on the blockchain can be a lucrative opportunity: Standard Chartered believes the market could be worth $30.1 trillion within the next decade.
Amber Premium, a Thailand-based institutional crypto services provider, and Evolve, a tokenized infrastructure company specializing in renewable energy, are tiny by global standards: Amber’s market capitalization hovers around $600 million, while Evolve manages a relatively small asset base.
Unlike crypto giants such as Binance or Coinbase, Amber and Evolve are niche, but their focus on tokenizing real-world infrastructure is an example of how Asia is transforming the realm of digital finance.
What connects both Amber and Evolve are tokens: the conversion of real-world assets into digital tokens onto a blockchain. In principle, this offers institutions a compelling alternative to legacy investment structures. Rather than have layers of financial intermediaries, investors have direct, auditable ownership through the blockchain. Users can then divide and trade these tokens however they wish, and set up smart contracts to automate yield distribution.
These tokens represent tangible physical or financial assets—solar arrays, government bonds, EV fleets—bringing real yield, lower volatility, and legal transparency to crypto markets. Amber Premium allows clients to hold tokenized clean energy debt, money-market stablecoins, and more—all within a single digital wallet. Meanwhile, Evolve’s tokens are linked to solar farms and battery networks, seamlessly bridging the gap between industrial infrastructure and digital finance.
Amber Premium, led by CEO Wayne Huo—a former Morgan Stanley trader—recently merged with iClick, securing a Nasdaq listing and establishing itself as a fully regulated institutional crypto player. Amber’s regulatory framework spans multiple jurisdictions: Its Singapore arm (formerly Sparrow Tech) operates under the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), while other subsidiaries hold licenses adapted to local Asian markets. The firm invests heavily in compliance infrastructure, aiming to meet the expectations of institutional clients and regulators alike.
Amber’s Nasdaq listing established the company as a U.S.-listed institutional gateway into “Web3”—shorthand for an internet built on decentralized blockchain technologies. Huo took over as CEO, giving the company a bridge to traditional finance.
Amber Premium’s clientele is distinctly institutional. As of Q1 2025, the platform counted roughly 928 active clients—an increase from 891 the previous year—which collectively held $1.275 billion in assets under management. These clients span regional banks, family offices, hedge funds, and corporate treasuries across Asia, the Middle East, and North America. A significant share of Amber’s clients are based in Greater China and are looking for exposure to digital assets amid uncertainty around mainland China’s treatment of cryptocurrency.
Amber is still a tiny company, generating just $14.94 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, up from $1 million a year prior. Amber Premium has yet to turn a profit, instead prioritizing infrastructure, licensing, and regulatory compliance over short-term earnings. And its revenue has tracked the ups and downs of the crypto market: It generated just $33 million in revenue in 2024, down from $308 million in 2021, the height of the COVID-era crypto boom. Shares have lost half their value since the listing, falling from a peak of around $12.80 in March to around $6.50 today. Analysts blame low awareness, thin trading volume, and skepticism about the viability of crypto-finance hybrids after FTX’s spectacular collapse in 2022.
Evolve, founded by Maverick Hui, a pioneer of Canadian crypto ETFs and early digital asset regulation, is turning renewable energy infrastructure like battery-swapping stations, solar farms, and EV-charging networks into digital tokens that deliver proportional returns to investors. Several of its ETF offerings, including those tied to Bitcoin and Solana, have received approval from the Ontario Securities Commission. The company partners with U.S.-licensed custodians like Coinbase Custody Trust for cross-border holdings.
Hui, from Evolve, is focusing on yield-generating clean-energy assets, particularly through e-scooter and battery station manufacturer Mile Green. In early 2025, Mile Green secured $50 million from CMAG Funds, a Singapore-based private investment firm, to expand battery-swapping and EV-charging infrastructure across Southeast Asia and parts of Africa.
(Fortune’s parent company holds a minority stake in CMAG Funds. Chatchaval Jiaravanon, Fortune’s owner, is also an investor in Amber, Mile Green, and Evolve. Chatchaval recently took part in a $25.5 million private placement in Amber.)
Mile Green is Evolve’s infrastructure partner: Mile Green develops the clean energy assets, which Evolve converts into investment-grade digital tokens. Investors can now track performance through these tokens rather than company filings.
Asia leads the way on crypto
Asia is taking the lead in tokenized finance, thanks to clearer regulatory frameworks, innovation sandboxes, and startups that are eager to experiment. Even mainland China, which bans most cryptocurrency trading and mining, is experimenting with enterprise blockchain through its state-backed Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) and central bank digital currency, the e-CNY.
The financial hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore are among Asia’s most crypto-friendly jurisdictions. Yet regulators in both cities are still cautious about cryptocurrency. Tokenized products still face strict limitations, retail access is tightly controlled, and approval processes can be unpredictable. One major constraint is the difficulty of transferring tokenized assets between wallets. As a result, wallet-to-wallet transfers are often restricted or require complex approvals, limiting broader adoption.
Changing winds in Washington are also buoying Asia-based crypto platforms. The second Trump administration is taking a decidedly more pro-crypto stance. In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting responsible blockchain growth. He paused enforcement actions against crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, and Trump’s SEC then launched a “Crypto 2.0” task force to clarify rules on crypto, moving away from the preceding Biden administration’s more skeptical stance.
In March, the White House announced a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile, naming Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and Cardano as national digital assets. Then, in August, new rules opened 401(k) retirement plans to crypto, private equity, and real estate—unlocking trillions in potential institutional capital.
The administration also backed the GENIUS Act, which clarifies rules for stablecoins. Together, these moves are ushering in what the crypto industry hopes will be a more friendly, legally stable foundation for growth.
These shifts benefit both Amber and Evolve. Amber, as a Nasdaq-listed company, gains regulatory legitimacy and improved U.S. market access. Evolve’s yield-bearing, tokenized infrastructure may soon appeal to pension funds and fiduciary investors seeking new types of assets.
As the U.S. softens its stance and Asia doubles down on digital finance, companies like Amber Premium and Evolve are quietly building the financial plumbing for the next phase of blockchain adoption—and getting the real world on the blockchain.
There’s still a long way to go. Liquidity remains thin, valuation remains depressed, and the sector remains vulnerable to global regulatory swings. Then there’s the ownership question: How do you ensure a digital token on the blockchain grants a clear and enforceable claim on the real-world asset in question?
Tokenized finance may still be in its early innings—but the infrastructure is maturing. Asia didn’t invent blockchain. But it may be where blockchain becomes real.
Financial innovators are trying to make blockchain work in the “real world” by tokenizing real-world assets like artwork, real estate—and clean energy.
FOMC member Michelle Bowman has urged consistency in interest rate policy, following questions about why the FOMC cut rates in late 2024 but is holding steady now despite similar levels of inflation and unemployment data. Citing sharp downward revisions to U.S. job growth, Bowman reiterated her forecast for three cuts this year while warning that declining data reliability complicates policymaking.
Critics of Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) have argued the group’s shifting stance on when to cut the base rate has been anything but constant.
They point to a cut in the base rate in December, when Powell and his peers decided to lower the base rate despite inflation being at 2.9%—higher than the inflation rate from March to June this year. Moreover, the unemployment rate was at a relatively similar level to current readings.
Yet in 2025, and despite mounting pressure from the White House and economists to do so, Powell has thus far refused to ease interest rates.
While every member of the FOMC is aware of this rhetoric, Michelle Bowman has been the most recent to flag the issue.
“In my view, it is … important that the committee’s approach to monetary policy decision-making is consistent over time—especially when we face shifting economic conditions,” Bowman said this weekend in a speech at the Kansas Bankers Association 2025 CEO and Senior Management Summit, held in Colorado Springs.
Bowman’s statements are all the more interesting given that she was one of two dissenters from the Fed’s recent decision on the base rate. While the FOMC decided to hold the rate at 4.25% to 4.5%, Bowman had indicated prior to the meeting that she would like to see that figure come down.
Speaking in Colorado, she added: “I recognize and appreciate that other FOMC members may see things differently and that they were more comfortable with leaving the target range for the policy rate unchanged. I am committed to working together with my colleagues to ensure that monetary policy is appropriately positioned to achieve our dual goals of maximum employment and price stability.
“In the meantime, I will continue to carefully monitor the incoming data and information as the administration’s policies, the economy, and financial markets continue to evolve.”
Questions about the motivations—and even the political nature—of the FOMC’s decisions have come from influential voices in Washington, D.C. While Powell has long maintained that the Fed is not influenced by politics in any way, and has staunchly defended its independence from such influences, observers are still questioning, Why cut in 2024 but not now?
For example, Trump’s former commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, told Fortune last month: “Powell didn’t have any trouble reducing interest rates. It’s only since Trump got in that he has been much more cautious.”
He added: “Whoever is in the Fed is, after all, a human being, and human beings have political preferences, they have economic preferences, so the word ‘independent’ doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be just fact-based.”
Trusting the data
Bowman, who is the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, also hinted that she (and potentially other members of the FOMC) may have lost some faith in key data releases which help inform decision-making.
“I have discussed many times in the past that, in recent years, the monthly labor market data have become increasingly difficult to interpret, in part reflecting declining survey response rates and the changing dynamics of immigration and net business creation,” Bowman said. “It is crucial that U.S. official data accurately capture cyclical or structural changes in the labor market in real time so that we can more confidently rely on these data for monetary and economic policymaking.”
The warning comes after a shocking report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which revealed the U.S. labor market is in far worse shape than previously believed.
The Labor Department reported on Aug. 1 that payrolls grew by just 73,000 last month, well below forecasts for about 100,000. But downward revisions for prior months alarmed investors even more, revealing that the labor market came to a near standstill over the spring. May’s tally was cut from 144,000 to 19,000, and June’s total was slashed from 147,000 to just 14,000, resulting in a combined cut of 258,000. The average gain over the past three months is now only 35,000.
Trump responded by firingErika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the BLS, prompting questions about the Oval Office’s influence over data departments.
Bowman added: “I remain cautious about taking too much signal from data releases, but I see the latest news on economic growth, the labor market, and inflation as consistent with greater risks to the employment side of our dual mandate.
“My summary of economic projections includes three cuts for this year, which has been consistent with my forecast since last December, and the latest labor market data reinforce my view. I want to reiterate, though, that monetary policy is not on a preset course. At each FOMC meeting, my colleagues and I will make our decisions based on each of our assessments of the incoming data and the implications for and risks to the outlook, guided by the Fed’s dual-mandate goals of maximum employment and stable prices.”
Michelle Bowman, vice chair for supervision at the U.S. Federal Reserve (left), and Jerome Powell, Fed chair, at an open board meeting in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2025.
The crypto markets keep roaring. The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies notched a new all-time high of almost $4.15 trillion early Monday morning, according to data from CoinGecko. That beats the last record set in late July. The total value of the crypto market has since dipped but is still up almost 0.6% over the past 24 hours.
Among the top tokens, Ethereum is the biggest gainer. The world’s second largest cryptocurrency crossed the threshold of $4,000 over the weekend for the first time since December. The token is up over 2% in the past 24 hours and now trades at around $4,300, according to data from Binance.
Ethereum’s surge outpaces Bitcoin’s, but the world’s largest cryptocurrency is still up 1.4% over the past day to cross the $120,000 mark, per Binance. The stock markets are essentially flat, with the S&P 500 slightly up since Monday morning.
The surge in the digital assets market comes amid two crypto-friendly executive orders from President Donald Trump.
On Thursday, the 47th president instructed federal regulators to reevaluate their guidance on the allowance of alternative assets like crypto or private equity into employer-sponsored retirement plans.
The measure essentially reinstated a similar order Trump had issued in 2020 during his first term that Preisdent Joe Biden rolled back when he assumed office.
Still, crypto industry analysts hailed last week’s executive order as a potential windfall for the industry. Assets in 401(k)s totaled $8.7 trillion in the first quarter of 2025, according to the Investment Company Institute.
On the same day that Trump potentially opened up 401(k)s to crypto, he also tackled one more pet issue for the digital assets industry. In an executive order, he instructed financial institutions to stop the practice of “debanking” of customers based on their politics, religious beliefs, or business activities.
The crypto industry has long decried banks’ shuttering of their accounts, and some have alleged that there was a centralized conspiracy, known as Operation Chokepoint 2.0, to deny crypto businesses access to traditional financial institutions. Still, there hasn’t been a smoking gun, or discrete guidance from regulators that instructed banks to stop working with crypto firms.
Regardless, industry advocates cheered on the president’s order on debanking.
“Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was real,” Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer at the crypto exchange Coinbase, posted Thursday on X. “And now we see real action taken to fix it.”
For more than two decades, AriZona’s iconic 99-cent iced tea has shrugged off pandemics, recessions, and supply shocks. Now, President Donald Trump’s new 50% aluminum tariffs could finally crack its unshakable price tag.
AriZona Iced Tea uses about 100 million pounds of aluminum for its signature cans, about 20% of which comes from Canada. Founder and chairman Don Vultaggio told the New York Times that unless Trump strikes a deal to lower the new aluminum levy with Canada, the company may be forced to raise prices.
“I hate even the thought of it,” Vultaggio told The Times. “It would be a hell of a shame after 30-plus years.”
The founder has made headlines for refusing to hike the price of his tea, even as inflation drives the prices of all other goods up. If Vultaggio adjusted the price of AriZona iced tea to match rising input costs, the tea would cost $1.99 today. Yet, the billionaire didn’t see a point.
“We’re successful. We’re debt-free. We own everything. Why?,” Vultaggio said in an interview with Today in June. “Why have people who are having a hard time paying their rent have to pay more for our drink?”
Vultaggio has tried other workarounds to save money on aluminum, including downsizing the can from 23 ounces to 22 ounces. Even that decision weighed on him.
Now, the founder worries the price of aluminum, which he said has “dramatically bumped up” because of the tariffs, might be the final blow to the 99-cent cans.
A test case for U.S. manufacturing
AriZona’s predicament could be a test case for what happens when a domestic manufacturer—one that’s nearly fully vertically integrated, even owning the railroad tracks its trains use to ship sugar daily—gets punished for importing some of its materials.
PNC’s Chief Economist Augustine Faucher told Fortune he thought the aluminum tariffs were unnecessary and inefficient.
Canada, which has access to abundant and inexpensive hydroelectric power, is one of the world’s leaders in aluminum production. Given the higher input costs of making aluminum in the U.S., importing it will always be cheaper than producing it domestically, he said.
“It’s going to be difficult to completely avoid tariffs, and that’s likely to contribute to higher consumer inflation in the near term as these companies pass along some of their higher input prices,” he said.
Faucher said companies like AriZona have few ways to blunt the impact. Unlike industries with slow turnover, which can stock up on inventory before the tariffs hit, beverage makers move product quickly. That means the aluminum tariffs will immediately hit the company’s bottom line.
All the price pain comes with very little gain, Faucher noted. Companies like AriZona, which imports some aluminum but produces the rest of the product domestically, might decide to just package the product overseas to avoid the duty.
“The idea is to help American manufacturers, but this hurts American manufacturers who use these types of imported inputs,” Faucher said.
The economist said he doesn’t see a need for the United States to have a strong domestic aluminum industry at all.
“It makes sense over the long-run to specialize in areas where the United States does well,” Faucher said. “But given the energy costs associated with aluminum production and getting bauxite and all that kind of stuff, it just doesn’t make sense for the industry to be located in the United States.”
Don Vultaggio, Chairperson of the Arizona Beverage Company, attends AriZona Iced Tea's "AriZonaLand" Grand Opening on September 19, 2024 in Edison, New Jersey.
Nvidia and AMD agreed to share 15% of their revenues from chip sales to China with the U.S. government, President Donald Trump confirmed at a press conference Monday.
The Trump administration halted the sale of advanced computer chips to China in April over national security concerns, but Nvidia and AMD revealed in July that Washington would allow them to resume sales of the H20 and MI308 chips, which are used in artificial intelligence development.
The president said he originally wanted 20% of sales in exchange for Nvidia obtaining export licenses to sell the “obsolete” H20 chip to China, but credited Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for negotiating him down to 15%.
“So we negotiated a little deal. So he’s selling a essentially old chip,” Trump said.
Nvidia did not comment about the specific details of the agreement or its quid pro quo nature, but said they would adhere to the export rules laid out by the administration.
“We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” Nvidia wrote in a statement to the AP. “America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America’s AI tech stack can be the world’s standard if we race.”
AMD did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The top Democrat on a House panel focusing on competition with China raised concerns over the reported agreement, calling it “a dangerous misuse of export controls that undermines our national security.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, said he would seek answers about the legal basis for this arrangement and demand full transparency from the administration.
“Our export control regime must be based on genuine security considerations, not creative taxation schemes disguised as national security policy,” he said. “Chip export controls aren’t bargaining chips, and they’re not casino chips either. We shouldn’t be gambling with our national security to raise revenue.”
Derek Scissors, senior fellow and China expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, questioned the constitutionality of the deal and also warned against risking national security for revenue.
“There’s no precedent for this, probably because export taxes are unconstitutional,” said Derek Scissors, senior fellow and China expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “They call it a fee, but 15% of sales revenue is about a standard a tax as it comes. For this reason, I don’t think the ‘arrangement’ is at all durable. ‘’
“If it were to last, it has two possible implications. First, there’s a possible export tax that high-profile companies and goods must consider. Or the tax only applies in exceptional situations, such as changing export controls. Then we’d risk national security for the sake of tax revenue, which is effectively the same as cutting the defense budget,” Scissors said.
Back in July, Nvidia argued that tight export controls around their chip sales would cost the company an extra $5.5 billion. They’ve argued that such limits hinder U.S. competition in a sector in one of the world’s largest markets for technology, and have also warned that U.S. export controls could end up pushing other countries toward China’s AI technology.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC in July that the renewed sale of Nvidia’s chips in China was linked to a trade agreement made between the two countries on rare earth magnets.
Restrictions on sales of advanced chips to China have been central to the AI race between the world’s two largest economic powers, but such controls are also controversial. Proponents argue that these restrictions are necessary to slow China down enough to allow U.S. companies to keep their lead. Meanwhile, opponents say the export controls have loopholes — and could still spur innovation. The emergence of China’s DeepSeek AI chatbot in January particularly renewed concerns over how China might use advanced chips to help develop its own AI capabilities.
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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Shawn Chen contributed to the reporting.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang poses for a photo before President Donald Trump speaks during an AI summit at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Washington.
David Sacks, the longtime Silicon Valley investor turned special adviser to the White House for AI and crypto, has weighed in on the AI “doomer” debate. In a widely discussed post on X, Sacks laid out a vision for AI’s present and future, arguing the fearmongering in recent years about AI’s malevolence is deeply misguided and humanity remains firmly in the driver’s seat. Sacks added that job loss fears are overhyped, and instead, people stand to benefit most by learning to harness AI for new opportunities.
Also, Sacks argued, the ultimate doomer prediction, of the technology spiraling into an uncontrollable, superintelligent dominance out of a science-fiction movie, hasn’t come to pass. And on the economic front, he envisions a landscape that’s more competitive, decentralized, and fundamentally human-driven than many anticipated.
In a long statement posted on X over the weekend, Sacks declared: “The Doomer narratives were wrong,” taking a stance in the yearslong AI debate. Sacks assures his audience that “right now the current situation is Goldilocks.” This means Sacks comes down somewhere close to Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, who has staked a middle position between Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, whose war of words over the future of AI is growing ever more heated. Furthermore, Sacks has four reasons that AI’s impact on the economy is just fine, actually.
1. Vigorous competition in the space
Doomer narratives assumed one leading AI model would suddenly trigger a rapid “takeoff” to artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a runaway scenario in which a single AI would quickly self-improve, leaving humanity, and all other model competitors, in the dust.
Instead, Sacks points out, the reality is quite the opposite: Top models are “clustering around similar performance benchmarks,” and companies are “leapfrogging each other” with each new version released. This ongoing rivalry and specialization—whether in coding, math, or personality—show that no godlike superintelligence is running away with the lead.
A crucial feature is the five major U.S. companies vigorously competing on “frontier models,” Sacks writes. It wasn’t clear which companies Sacks was referring to, as frontier AI work is being done by the major tech firms Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, and xAI, as well as the significant startups OpenAI and Anthropic. (Sacks’ firm, Craft Ventures, moved to divest stakes in both Meta and xAI when Sacks began advising the White House.)
Regardless, Sacks says, this dynamic “brings out the best in everyone and helps America win the AI race,” as high-performing models from multiple companies diffuse power and prevent any single entity from establishing unchecked dominance. The balance of power among these players means AI progress is distributed and avoids what Sacks called the “Orwellian” scenario of one model or faction ruling them all.
2. The rise of open-source
Sacks is passionate about the potential of open-source AI, saying these models offer “80%–90% of the capability at 10%–20% of the cost,” making high-quality AI accessible and customizable for a wide range of users. In China, he noted open-source dominates—and American firms like OpenAI and Meta are following suit, giving customers options that prize flexibility and control over sheer performance. The spread of open-source blunts monopolistic tendencies and democratizes innovation, a major check against doomer fears.
Sacks sees the AI industry “likely” developing in this way, citing the China example and OpenAI and Meta in the U.S.
“It would be good to see more American companies competing in this area,” he added.
3. Division of labor
Instead of a single superintelligence capturing all value, Sacks foresees a vibrant ecosystem where “numerous agentic applications [are] solving ‘last mile’ problems.” There is, and will likely remain, a clear division of labor: Generalized foundation models provide the baseline, while startups build vertical applications that address specific needs.
This specialization, Sacks argues, would be “great news for the startup ecosystem” because it will foster creativity, decentralize value creation, and ensure that AI becomes a tool for empowerment rather than displacement.
4. Human oversight is essential
Perhaps most critically, Sacks rejects the idea AI will render humans obsolete overnight. While models have advanced, they are proving to really need humans at the wheel.
“Models need context, they must be heavily prompted, the output must be verified, and this process must be repeated iteratively to achieve meaningful business value,” Sacks wrote.
When it comes to setting their own objective functions, he adds, “AI models are still at zero.” This means humans must remain not only users—but guides, strategists, and validators. “The truism that ‘you’re not going to lose your job to AI but to someone who uses AI better than you’ is holding up well,” Sacks wrote, adding that “apocalyptic predictions of job loss are as overhyped as AGI itself.”
Sacks adopts the wording of entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan, who has described AGI as a “middle-to-middle” technology that is powerful in augmenting human decisions, not replacing them end-to-end.
Despite Sacks’ optimism, evidence is emerging AI may be disrupting the job market already. One survey from employment consultant Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed a 140% layoff spike in July 2025, nearly half connected to AI and “technological updates.” The disappearing college wage premium may also be tied to AI’s impact on entry-level work, or an economy headed toward either stagflation or recession.
Sacks’ argument underscores that, for all of AI’s impressive bells and whistles, humans are still very much driving the train at this juncture. Economists at the Federal Reserve have been studying the same question, and their “modal forecast” is for a significant boost to labor productivity—dependent on how quickly and thoroughly firms integrate the technology. Still, they warn it may not evolve into a general-purpose technology such as electricity or the internet. What if, they ask, it temporarily raises productivity growth before fading amid widespread adoption? That would render it an invention more like another, revolutionary in its day and taken for granted now: the light bulb.
Ford Motor Co. will invest nearly $2 billion retooling a Kentucky factory to produce electric vehicles that it says will be more affordable, more profitable to build, and will outcompete rival models.
The automaker’s top executive unveiled the new EV strategy Monday at Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant which, after producing gas-powered vehicles for 70 years, will be converted to manufacture electric vehicles.
“We took a radical approach to solve a very hard challenge: Create affordable vehicles that are breakthrough in every way that matters — design, technology, performance, space and cost of ownership — and do it with American workers,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a release.
The Big Detroit automakers have continued to transition from internal combustion engines to EV technology even as President Donald Trump’s administration unwinds incentives for automakers to go electric. Trump’s massive tax and spending law targets EV incentives, including the imminent removal of a credit that saves buyers up to $7,500 on a new electric car.
Yet Farley and other top executives in the auto industry say that electric vehicles are the future and there is no going back.
The first EV to roll off the revamped Louisville assembly line will be a midsize, four-door electric pickup truck in 2027 for domestic and international markets, the company said Monday.
The new electric trucks will be powered by lower-cost batteries made at a Ford factory in Michigan. The Detroit automaker previously announced a $3 billion investment to build the battery factory.
The automaker sees this as a “Model T moment” for its EV business — a reference to the mass-produced vehicle that launched the venerable automaker more than a century ago. But Ford says it’s also a nod to the future and the vastly different way Ford says it will build electric vehicles.
The company said it will use a universal platform and production system for its EVs, essentially the underpinning of a vehicle that can be applied across a wide range of models.
The Louisville factory — one of two Ford assembly plants in Kentucky’s largest city — will be revamped to cut production costs and make assembly time faster as it’s prepared to churn out electric vehicles.
The result will be “an affordable electric vehicle that we expect to be profitable,” Farley said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the announcement. “This is an example of us rejuvenating our U.S. plants with the most modern manufacturing techniques.”
The new platform enables a lineup of affordable vehicles to be produced at scale, Ford said. It will reduce parts by 20% versus a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners, 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant and a 15% faster assembly time, Ford said. The traditional assembly line will be transformed into an “assembly tree” at the Louisville plant, it said. Instead of one long conveyor, three sub-assembly lines will operate simultaneously and then join together, it said.
“Nobody wants to see another good college try by a Detroit automaker to make an affordable vehicle that ends up with idled plants, layoffs and uncertainty,” Farley said in the release. “So, this has to be a good business. From Day 1, we knew there was no incremental path to success. … We reinvented the moving assembly line.”
Other specifications for the midsize electric truck – including its reveal date, starting price, EPA-estimated battery range, battery sizes and charge times — will be announced later, the company said. Ford revealed in its release that the truck will have a targeted starting price of about $30,000.
Ford said its investment in the Louisville plant will secure 2,200 hourly jobs.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday that the automaker’s plans for the Louisville plant will strengthen a more than century-old partnership between Ford and the Bluegrass State.
“This announcement not only represents one of the largest investments on record in our state, it also boosts Kentucky’s position at the center of EV-related innovation and solidifies Louisville Assembly Plant as an important part of Ford’s future,” Beshear said.
Ford said its combined investment of about $5 billion at the Kentucky assembly plant and Michigan battery plant is expected to create or secure nearly 4,000 direct jobs between the two plants while strengthening the domestic supply chain with dozens of new U.S.-based suppliers.
Ford previously forecast weaker earnings growth for this year and further losses in its electric vehicles business as it works to control costs. Model e, Ford’s electric vehicle business, posted a full-year loss of $5.08 billion for 2024 as revenue fell 35% to $3.9 billion.
Ford’s new EV strategy comes as Chinese automakers are quickly expanding across the globe, offering relatively affordable electric vehicles.
“We’re not in a race to build the most electric cars,” Farley told the AP when asked about competition from China. “We’re in a race to have a sustainable electric business that’s profitable, that customers love.
“And this new vehicle built in Louisville, Kentucky, is going to be a much better solution to anything that anyone can buy from China,” he added.
The USPS will once again hike prices during the holidays. The increased prices will begin on Oct. 5 and run through Jan 18. First-class postage won’t be affected, but anyone planning to send packages during the holiday season should be prepared to pay more.
It’s not just tariffs and inflation that will be driving the cost of the holidays up this year. The U.S. Postal Service says it will once again add surcharges onto packages shipped between Oct. 5 and Jan. 18 to help offset higher shipping costs. That will mean you can expect to pay anywhere from an extra 30 cents to an extra $16, depending on the size of the package and the distance is needs to travel.
The extra charges will apply to both individuals and corporations. The USPS has rolled out the surcharges for at least the last five years (and at least six for commercial customers).
The increased prices will only apply to Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select service. The higher rates must first be approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission, but that’s expected to be a largely ceremonial approval.
“These temporary changes will support the Postal Service in creating a revitalized organization capable of achieving our public service mission — providing a nationwide, integrated network for the delivery of mail and packages at least six days a week — in a cost-effective and financially sustainable manner over the long term,” the USPS said in a statement.
Retail customers can expect to pay between 40 cents and $3 more for Priority Mail and USPS Ground Advantage packages for Zones 1-4 (destinations that are closer to the shipping location). For farther destinations, the increase on Priority Mail will range from 90 cents (for packages that are 0-3 lbs) to $7 (for those between 26-70 lbs.) Ground advantage for longer trips will cost between 50 cents and $5.75.
Priority Mail Flat Rate will see an increase of $1.45 for large flat-rate boxes, while others will cost 90 cents more. The Priority Mail express flat rate will jump $2 for envelopes.
And customers who use Priority Mail Express can expect to spend between $1.10 and $16 more, depending on package size and the distance it will need to travel.
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