Economy
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Meta’s $10 billion Louisiana data center is getting $3.3 billion in tax breaks—more than seven years of the state’s entire police budget
Data centers—the computing infrastructure required to power the country’s AI, on which companies are shelling out nearly $700 billion to build this year alone—are quickly popping up in rural and suburban towns across the country, some of which are more than two times the size of Manhattan’s Central Park. But the massive footprint of these
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Scott Bessent made a fortune spotting currency manipulation. He says Beijing’s $2.5 trillion black hole is ‘a problem for the Europeans’
In 1992, a 29-year-old Scott Bessent looked at the Bank of England and saw something no one else did. The Bank of England couldn’t afford to keep its promises. It had committed to keeping the pound trading within a narrow radius against the German mark, requiring it to spend whatever it took to defend the
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Wall Street no longer believes Kevin Warsh can do what President Trump wants
Good morning. On Fortune’s radar today: Markets: Full steam ahead! Wall Street simply doesn’t believe Kevin Warsh can deliver a cut. AI data center companies are stealing water. There is no jet fuel shortage, this CEO says. It took 8 years to create Google Sheets. AI cloned it in days. Chart: AI is a convenient
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Boeing lost China. Trump—and 500 jets—may be about to win it back
President Trump has declared that the main focus of the China Summit is trade, specifically unveiling big transactions for signature U.S. enterprises that further swell our flow of exports, and Washington-Beijing accords that mark a defrosting of the icy standoff between the world’s two biggest economies. The stateside player most likely to land a trophy
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Top economist says $39 trillion national debt leaves government worse prepared for recession than ever
The U.S. has run into recessions with a messy fiscal situation before, but never this bad. That’s the warning from Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok, who wrote in his Daily Spark newsletter on Tuesday the country is approaching a potential downturn “with this little fiscal buffer” for the first time in modern history. Gross national
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National debt fears are where Democrats and Republicans are most aligned—more so than on inflation, healthcare, or even the jobs market
When split along political lines, Americans are finding it hard to agree on most things these days. Polarization has been rising for years, recently spilling over into increasingly partisan viewpoints and even outright hostility. So when an issue breaks through to concern Americans from all political stripes, it’s likely worth paying closer attention to. Fears
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The U.S. auto industry went from global hegemon to running a $3.3 trillion trade deficit with the world: ‘That’s not acceptable’
It would hardly be an understatement to say the U.S. auto industry has historically been one of the country’s primary economic growth engines. The assembly line of the Model T days would go on to permanently reshape manufacturing work, and transportation infrastructure and cities were built around Americans’ unrelenting car-centric culture. But despite its outsized
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The China shock hollowed out factory towns. This professor thinks the AI shock is coming for your urban coffee shop
We all know that something changed in America in 2016, even if we’re still struggling to sort out what happens next. President Donald Trump broke through the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan as rust-belt voters agreed with his campaign messaging that they’d been “ripped off” and “taken advantage of” and the system had
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Trump is on a charm offensive ahead of President Xi meeting—and he wants Elon Musk and Tim Cook in tow
When President Trump lands in Beijing this week, he’ll be bringing with him the might of U.S. commerce. The U.S. and Chinese leaders meet after steadily escalating tensions over the past year—including a tit-for-tat trade battle following the announcement of the White House’s “Liberation Day” tariffs a little over a year ago. But it seems
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The Fed is ‘meaningfully deviating’ from one of the most basic rules for fighting inflation, BofA warns
Good morning. On Fortune’s radar today: Fed is breaking Econ 101’s golden rule, BofA warns. Markets: “Blown past expectations.” U.K.’s Starmer clings on as his MPs revolt. Iran vows to make U.S. taxpayers feel the pain. Tech bloodbath: 118,000 jobs gone in 2026. Forget your office ping-pong — meet the Wimbledon of work. Quick note: Subscribe