Cramer said he was “plugging the dike with a finger,” according to CNBC. He made the remark while arguing that bonds give a truer read on the outlook than oil.

The jab landed a month after Bessent took the opposite tone. In early September, Bessent said he had an informational edge over traders and declared “I am the house now.”

Treasury had already promised in August to at least double its usual debt repurchases. Bond traders took him up on the bet.

Also read: JPMorgan’s CEO sends stern bond market warning to investors

Cramer’s case against the buybacks

Cramer’s argument comes down to scale. In his telling, Treasury’s purchases are a single finger holding back a wall of Treasuries worth trillions of dollars. No realistic amount of buying, he said, can steer prices for long.

Bessent has said something close to that himself. He told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that officials cannot set the equilibrium price of Treasury yields. He said the buybacks were meant to keep the market working during a stretch of poor liquidity, not to cap yields.

The timing of the purchases made Cramer’s point for him. On Sept. 9, Treasury announced $6 billion in buybacks on the same day it held a new 10-year note auction. Bond strategist Guy LeBas said the buying was not enough to make a difference.

Cramer is not alone in his skepticism.

Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, called the largest operation “little more than a rounding error” next to the size of the Treasury market. Traders read the buybacks as too small to hold down long-term rates.

Why Jim Cramer trusts bonds over oil

The other half of Cramer’s message is about which market to believe. On the same show, he said bonds, not oil, are telling the truth over the longer term.

He also rejected the idea that cheaper crude means the war risk has faded. Oil is falling, he said, because a major producer cut prices to win market share. It would only trade on its fundamentals, which point much lower, if the war with Iran ends.

That is a shift from his view a few weeks ago. On Sept. 14, Cramer summed up his bull case on X as oil going down, rates going lower and the market going higher.

The bond market broke that chain the next day. The 10-year yield closed at 5%, its highest close since 2007. The Fed raised rates the day after that.

Bessent reads the same link the other way. He has said long-term yields are closely tied to crude prices and refining spreads, and that rates should come down once the conflict passes and oil supply improves. Cramer is not willing to wait for that.

What Cramer thinks is really selling bonds

Cramer sees several forces behind the selloff. He pointed to heavy government borrowing, demand for financing to build data centers, and hedge funds betting against bonds. He said bond sellers have been anything but stupid so far.

The bond market has also brushed off good news. Cramer noted that the relief a jobs report brought to yields lasted less than a day.

On Oct. 5, the 10-year yield topped 5.34% even as stocks rallied, according to CNBC. The Federal Reserve is not offering much cover either. On Sept. 16, it raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point, its first increase since 2023.

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Citing inflation above its target and higher energy prices, most officials expect another hike this year. Big banks share Cramer’s doubts about the buybacks. Goldman Sachs strategists said the program is unlikely to meaningfully reset rate levels even if it grows.

Wells Fargo said real relief would need slower growth and inflation or tighter government finances. JPMorgan warned that moving away from regular, predictable issuance could make investors demand a higher risk premium.

What Cramer’s warning means for investors

For stock investors, Cramer’s concern is how narrow the rally has become. He said Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta are propping up the market while rising yields weigh on most other stocks.

He described “tremendous distortion caused by some very big winners,” according to CNBC. If higher yields eventually reach those three, he argued, the market’s record highs could prove less durable.

He also warned against reading those gains as a sign that all is well. The AI-led rally, he argued, is masking stress in the Treasury market. The bond market, he said, is the better guide to where Wall Street goes next while rates stay under pressure.

Households are feeling it too. The average 30-year mortgage rate passed 7% in late September for the first time since January 2025.

Mortgage rates tend to follow the 10-year yield. Higher borrowing costs could keep would-be buyers on the sidelines. If Cramer is right, the daily close on that yield matters more than any promise from Washington.

Related: Scott Bessent sends clear signal to bond market investors

In fact, Americans have already adapted to the rising borrowing costs in ways that are easy to miss.

Goldman Sachs said the pressure is now broad-based across the U.S. economy, and in a note shared with me, the bank explores how persistently elevated rates could work their way through housing, consumer spending, and business investment over the coming quarters.

What stands out to me is how uneven the impact could be.

Cash-rich companies and savers might absorb higher rates relatively well, while borrowers, homebuyers, and smaller firms might feel the squeeze much sooner.

That makes the next phase less about whether rates are “high” and more about how long households and businesses are asked to live with them.

Goldman Sachs sees higher rates slowing the economy

Goldman Sachs recently made a surprising call on interest rates, saying the Federal Reserve would likely deliver just one more rate hike in December, then begin three cuts in the second half of 2027.

At the same time, the bank sees the 10-year Treasury yield fall from 5.3% to 4.4% by the end of next year. Under that path, Goldman estimates higher rates will shave off just about 0.2 percentage points from 2027 GDP growth, leaving the economy near its estimated 2.3% potential growth rate.

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I think the important part is the alternative scenario. 

If rates simply stay around current levels, Goldman sees the GDP drag rising to slightly more than 0.5 percentage points. That’s far from being a recession forecast, but it materially changes the available cushion if another shock hits. 

The latest economic data makes that distinction even more pertinent. September payrolls increased by just 29,000, as reported by Reuters, while unemployment rose to 4.2%, suggesting hiring has cooled.

Yet August consumer spending jumped 0.9%, and retail sales rose 1.2%, which shows households haven’t stopped spending. 

Meanwhile, the Fed’s policy rate is already 3.75% to 4%, and Governor Christopher Waller said this week that additional hikes may still be needed, Reuters noted, even if policymakers have flexibility over timing.

That leaves me focused on duration. It’s clear that the economy has absorbed high rates surprisingly well so far, but Goldman’s work suggests that the length of time rates stay high now matters almost as much as how high they ultimately go.

Housing feels the squeeze first, but consumers and businesses follow

Perhaps the clearest pressure point is housing. 

Mortgage rates have risen more than a percentage point since February, leaving more than 90% of borrowers with mortgages below current market rates. That “lock-in” effect discourages existing homeowners from moving and forces prospective buyers to finance homes at substantially higher monthly costs.

Goldman expects higher rates to subtract about 2 percentage points from annualized residential-investment growth in the fourth quarter, with roughly a 1-point average drag in 2027. 

Conditions have already tightened further since the report’s underlying data. The average 30-year mortgage rate reached 7.49%, its highest level in nearly three years. August housing starts fell 2.6% from July. 

Consumers look better insulated, but not immune. 

Goldman estimated that higher rates reduce 2027 consumption growth by about 0.2 percentage points, primarily by making credit-financed purchases such as vehicles and other durable goods less attractive. Higher interest income offsets some of that because U.S. households are net lenders overall. 

I see the business side as the sleeper issue. 

Goldman estimated that higher refinancing costs could subtract around 0.3 percentage points from annual capex growth, with small businesses particularly exposed because roughly half their debt carries variable rates. Large corporations have longer debt maturities, slowing the hit. 

AI spending is a notable exception. 

Goldman said hyperscalers account for more than two-thirds of U.S. AI investment and have so far shown little sensitivity to higher funding costs.

That creates an increasingly uneven economy where capital-rich AI leaders can keep spending while housing, small businesses, and credit-dependent consumers absorb the rate shock first.

The rate path matters more than the headline rate for investors

So in essence, Goldman is making a conditional call on the U.S. economy.

If long-term yields retreat as Goldman expects, growth might remain reasonably resilient despite weaker housing, softer consumption, and higher refinancing costs.

On the flip side, if yields stay near current levels, the drag compounds through housing, corporate investment, consumer wealth, and eventually government finances.

That last channel matters for markets. 

Goldman estimated that persistently elevated rates could push publicly held federal debt to 132% of GDP by 2035, roughly 10 percentage points above its baseline, while higher yields could also limit stock market upside, weakening the household wealth effect. 

For investors, I would watch 10-year Treasury yields rather than Fed headlines alone. Housing stocks, REITs, utilities, smaller companies, and highly leveraged businesses should remain more rate-sensitive, while cash-rich AI hyperscalers appear better insulated.

The next major checkpoint is the September CPI, which arrives on Oct. 14, and if inflation keeps rates elevated, Goldman’s downside scenario becomes increasingly relevant. If yields begin retreating, the economy has considerably more room to keep expanding.

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Permanent magnets made with neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium sit inside electric vehicles, power steering units, wind turbines and data-center cooling systems. You never see them, and you rarely think about who makes them.

China makes most of them.

Some 94% of the world’s sintered permanent magnets were produced in China in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. That leaves Western automakers with few backup suppliers when Chinese shipments slow.

That concentration matters because factories don’t buy magnets one week at a time. Automakers and electronics makers sign supply contracts months ahead, so a deadline in January starts changing purchasing decisions in October. A window that looks generous in Washington can feel tight on a factory floor.

That deadline became real on Sept. 23.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. and China would extend the truce they reached in Busan, South Korea, from Nov. 10 to Jan. 10, 2027, S&P Global Commodity Insights reported. The extension gives both sides “more time to see what we can do on the economic front,” Bessent said.

If you own rare-earth stocks, or plan to buy a car next year, the date matters because the biggest dispute under that truce is still open.

A Jan. 10 deadline moves magnet orders now

Two extra months may sound like breathing room. For a manufacturer trying to lock in magnets for early 2027, the extension works more like a countdown.

It also came in shorter than Washington had floated. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg Television on Sept. 21 that three to six months was “probably the right kind of range,” The Edge Malaysia reported.

Greer tied that preference to rare earths. He said China’s export limits had created uncertainty, so Washington wanted shorter extensions it could use to check compliance.

“In my view, the significance of this short extension is being overstated,” said Alon Rajic, CEO of Finofin and founder of rare-earth research platform EarthRarest.com. “The truce includes concessions on certain export restrictions, but it has not fundamentally resolved the West’s dependence on China for strategically important materials.”

Rajic also warned against looking only at magnets. Gallium and germanium aren’t rare earths, but they feed semiconductors, fiber-optic communications and infrared imaging, and he said their prices remain far above 2023 levels despite earlier efforts to ease trade tensions.

Related: Rare earth materials offer investors potential gains along with big risks

“My speculation is that China will continue to manage these exports according to its own commercial and strategic interests,” Rajic said. “The relative easing of restrictions is more of a smoke screen than a demonstration of its collaborative spirit.”

I’d keep that timing in mind as an investor. Nobody has to announce a new restriction on Jan. 10 for supply to tighten, because buyers worried about that date can start stockpiling this quarter.

China’s August shipments fell even under the deal

The truce has not restored the flow of Chinese magnets to American buyers.

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China shipped 512 metric tons of rare-earth magnets to the U.S. in August, down 13% from a year earlier and about 20% from July, the Financial Times reported, citing Chinese customs data.

Capital Economics told the FT that Beijing appeared willing to test the limits of the truce by slowing license approvals.

Licensing may not be the whole story. Some Chinese suppliers have declined to ship to the U.S. for fear of repercussions from Beijing, three sources told Reuters in early September.

“I am confident that China is deliberately controlling access to these materials,” Rajic said. “What we cannot establish from one month’s shipment figures is how much of the decline reflects deliberate restraint, administrative delays or changes in demand.”

He pointed to the gap between Chinese and overseas prices as a better signal. “Material can be available to Chinese manufacturers while foreign manufacturers face much higher costs and uncertain access,” Rajic said.

The two governments also described the September summit differently. Here is what each side put on paper:

• China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs listed eight deliverables, including a $30 billion reciprocal tariff reduction and an extension of earlier trade outcomes. None mentioned rare earths or critical minerals.
• The White House said the two sides were still working on U.S. concerns over rare-earth and critical-mineral shortages, with the goal of returning shipments to “appropriate levels.”

“The silence in the summit readout does not prove a particular motive, but it gives buyers no explicit Chinese commitment to a new shipment target,” Rajic said. “I would take that as a reason to remain skeptical.”

Weaker shipments and no public breakthrough give you little reason to treat the rare-earth fight as settled.

The supply chain bottleneck sits after the mine

Rare-earth investing can look simple. A country either has the ore or it doesn’t.

The real supply chain runs through extraction, beneficiation, chemical upgrading, separation into oxides, metal refining, alloying and magnet manufacturing, the IEA said.

China’s grip tightens at each step. It accounted for 60% of mined production of magnet rare earths in 2024, 91% of refined output and 94% of sintered magnet output, according to the IEA.

“Separation and processing are where much of China’s advantage lies,” Rajic said. “Having a mineral deposit is very different from being able to turn it into a consistent, commercially usable material.”

The hard part, he said, is the technical knowledge, equipment and operating experience needed to separate closely related elements, reach the required purity and handle the waste economically.

The IEA reached a similar conclusion. Magnet production remains the main bottleneck for diversification, the agency said, with constraints most acute in magnet making and metallization, where oxides become metals and alloy powders.

“The West already has some capacity and should add more over the next few years, particularly for NdPr,” said Rajic, referring to the neodymium-praseodymium blend used in most magnets. “But when it comes to many other critical materials, it could take about a decade until the West becomes independent of Chinese supply.”

That gap shows up for you in two ways. A company can own a great deposit and still be years from shipping a finished magnet.

And when China’s April 2025 controls squeezed supply, some automakers outside China cut utilization rates or temporarily shut down production, the IEA said. That is how a mineral dispute reaches a car lot.

MP Materials faces a Shenghe ownership question

MP Materials (MP) has spent years pushing down the supply chain. Its Independence facility in Fort Worth, Texas, made finished magnets on commercial equipment in 2025, and its planned 10X campus in Northlake, Texas, is set to begin commissioning in 2028, according to MP Materials.

Washington is now its partner. The July 2025 Pentagon deal included preferred equity, warrants, financing, a price floor for MP’s neodymium-praseodymium products and offtake commitments for 10X magnets, the company said.

A new wrinkle surfaced in September. State-owned China Rare Earth Group is in talks to acquire Shenghe Resources, two sources told Reuters. Shenghe owns three percent of MP, so a deal would put that stake under a Chinese state group.

Shenghe called the reports false in a Shanghai exchange filing, saying its controlling shareholder has no plans to transfer control, Reuters reported. MP has repeatedly said neither Shenghe nor the Chinese government has any control over its operations.

“If the reported talks are accurate, I would see them as part of Beijing’s effort to bring more of the rare-earth industry under direct state control,” Rajic said. “That can make it easier to coordinate production, allocate quotas and influence access to raw materials.”

Rajic said MP holders should watch for changes in board representation, new shareholder rights or supply arrangements that seem out of place. “The larger investment question remains whether MP can keep expanding its own processing and manufacturing capacity and turn that into dependable sales,” he said.

In my analysis, that makes the 10X timeline a bigger swing factor for MP holders than the Shenghe stake.

USA Rare Earth and Lynas take different paths

USA Rare Earth (USAR) is assembling a mine-to-magnet business. It completed its combination with Brazil’s Serra Verde on Sept. 3, adding what it calls the only scaled producer of all four magnetic rare earths outside Asia, according to USA Rare Earth.

The company targets a 600-metric-ton annual run rate at its Stillwater, Okla., magnet plant in the fourth quarter, it said in its second-quarter results. With a planned Blacksburg, S.C., plant and a Stillwater expansion, it expects 10,000 metric tons of annual magnet capacity.

One risk is easy to miss. USA Rare Earth says China has placed it on an export control list, which the company expects to keep hurting its ability to source key raw materials from China.

Lynas Rare Earths (LYC.AX) is the most established of the three. The Australian company says it is the world’s only commercial producer of separated light and heavy rare-earth oxides outside China, a lineup that includes dysprosium and terbium, according to Lynas.

So you’re looking at three different bets. MP is scaling U.S. magnet output, USA Rare Earth is stitching together assets on three continents, and Lynas already runs separation outside China.

All three will react to the same U.S.-China headlines. Their execution risks look nothing alike.

What investors should watch before the truce expires

Rare-earth stocks swing hard on political headlines. That makes it tough to tell a real supply change from a mood swing.

“Between now and Jan. 10, I would watch actual export volumes, delivery times and the availability of the specific materials manufacturers need,” Rajic said. “An improvement in total shipments can still leave shortages in particular grades or heavy rare earths.”

He would also track the gap between Chinese and overseas prices, because it shows whether foreign buyers are gaining more reliable access. On the company side, he pointed to production and sales rather than share prices.

MP produced 840 metric tons of neodymium-praseodymium in the second quarter, up 41% from a year earlier, the company reported. For USA Rare Earth, Rajic said the test is turning magnet-line capability into customer-approved output and sales, while for Lynas he would watch processing volumes, costs and heavy rare-earth growth.

“Tighter supply does not automatically make every rare-earth company profitable,” Rajic said. “A magnet manufacturer can face higher input costs, and a promising project can still need years of investment.”

“My base case for Jan. 10 is another extension or limited compromise, with China retaining substantial influence over supply,” Rajic said. “I would not expect a sudden return to unrestricted trade.”

That is a useful test for your own holdings. If a rare-earth position only works when Washington and Beijing extend again, it is probably sized too big.

For most people, rare earths stay invisible inside a car, a phone or a laptop. For anyone holding the companies trying to break China’s grip, Jan. 10 is already on the calendar.

Related: Greenland again a focus as Critical Metals ups rare-earths stake

When multiple international visitors who came to the U.S. for the FIFA World Cup during the summer of 2026 saw the bottles of ranch dressing they bought as souvenirs confiscated at security, the TSA put out a viral PSA reminding travelers that the tangy sauce is, in fact, a liquid.

In the past, TSA put out similar public warnings about everything from cream cheese and power banks to hair curlers and clothing with sequins.

Medication and pacemakers: TSA spokesperson points out common travel mistakes made by the elderly

In an interview with Travel + Leisure, a TSA spokesperson singled out elderly passengers as making specific kinds of travel mistakes that slow them down and cause inconvenience at security screening.

As aging generally increases the medications that a person tends to take daily, older travelers will often have more pills, liquid solutions, and even syringes with them when they travel.

According to the TSA spokesperson, travelers should have anything they travel with clearly separated and marked, should an agent ask questions about what they brought aboard. While liquid medications are exempt from the three-one-one liquid rule and the subsequent 100-milliliter limit, they must be declared when one passes through security.

Related: Popular tourist destination adds ‘bikini ban’

Many seniors will also, according to former TSA agent Caleb Harmon-Marshall, forget that they have a pacemaker and walk through the metal detector when prompted to by an agent. (While patients with this cardiac device can generally pass through modern metal detectors without medical issue, full-body scanners are a better bet as they cannot set off a metal alarm or inadvertently alter the pacemaker’s settings.)

Travelers who have a pacemaker are urged to inform the TSA agent of this at the start of the screening or wear a medical card that makes this information visible to agents should one not want to remember to repeat it.

Related: TSA changes & announcements during Trump’s presidency: A timeline

“This can be dangerous:” TSA on mistakes at security screening

“[Not doing] this can be dangerous, and they may think the metal detector is a safe option instead of the body scanner, which is what they should be using,” Harmon-Marshall said to T + L. “[…] For any senior citizen who isn’t sure what machine to use, they should always request a physical pat-down.”

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The other common mistake the TSA calls out is not keeping one’s identification documents and boarding pass within easy reach. While a misplaced document happens to everyone, the TSA spokesperson said agents see this significantly more frequently with elderly travelers.

As a result, the agency recommends using a passport holder or organizing case to keep everything in one place and avoid having to rifle through bags the moment one approaches an agent.

“Passengers sometimes arrive at the checkpoint without ready access to their ID, passport, or boarding pass,” the spokesperson said.

Related: TSA issues strong warning about summer cooking item

Heading into 2027, the same script is unfolding. Premiums are expected to rise. The COLA figure has not been released yet. Whatever number the Social Security Administration announces, Part B will take a share of it before beneficiaries see a dime.

Into that gap, the White House and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have dropped a one-time $90 payment. More than 20 million Medicare Part B beneficiaries are eligible, the White House announced.

Direct deposits are landing on or around Oct. 8, and paper checks are expected later in the month.

Also read: Suze Orman flags the Medicare gap retirees are missing

Not every Part B enrollee qualifies for the $90 payment

Medicare covers more than 70 million people, but the $90 payment reaches only about 20.8 million of them. The eligibility rules are specific, and several large groups are left out.

Beneficiaries who receive Medicaid assistance do not qualify. Medicaid already helps cover their Part B premiums. Sending them the $90 would duplicate a benefit they already receive.

People who pay an income-related monthly adjustment amount, known as IRMAA, are also excluded. IRMAA surcharges apply to higher-income enrollees who pay more than the standard Part B premium. The payment is aimed at those on the standard rate only.

Medicare Advantage enrollees are not eligible, nor are beneficiaries living outside the United States.

To qualify, a person must be enrolled in Medicare Part B, pay the standard monthly premium, and live in the United States without Medicaid assistance or an IRMAA surcharge.

Beneficiaries who are unsure whether they qualify can call Medicare at 1-800-633-4227 to confirm their status before the payment window closes.

Where the $90 is actually coming from

The money is drawn from the Medicare Improvement Fund, a pool of unused federal dollars that Congress authorized to support improvements to Medicare’s fee-for-service program.

Nobody touched it for years. Using it now for direct payments to beneficiaries is something critics are watching closely, writes MEAWW News. The checks land weeks before the official 2027 premium announcement. That timing has people asking whether this is a policy decision or a political one.

The payment is separate from the $500 refund checks going to certain Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollees. The two programs are unrelated and funded differently.

Beneficiaries do not need to apply or provide any banking information to receive the $90. It will arrive automatically based on existing Medicare records.

What the 2027 premium increase actually looks like

The standard monthly Part B premium is currently $202.90 in 2026. It is projected to rise to approximately $209.50 in 2027. That is an increase of $6.60 per month.

Annualized, that is $79.20 in extra costs per beneficiary. The $90 covers it and leaves a few dollars to spare. But that math only works once.

After 2027, the higher premium stays. The payment does not come back. Beneficiaries will pay the full increase out of their Social Security checks with nothing to offset it.

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Part B covers doctor visits, outpatient care, preventive services, and certain medical equipment. Because the premium is deducted directly from Social Security benefits, any increase reduces the net value of whatever COLA adjustment beneficiaries receive in a given year.

That connection matters. A higher Part B premium does not just cost more in isolation. It directly shrinks the effective value of the annual raise that Social Security is supposed to deliver.

The Social Security COLA announcement is still coming

No official number yet on the 2027 COLA. Analysts have it landing somewhere between 3.4% and 3.6%, FOXBusiness reported. The Social Security Administration is expected to publish the final figure later this month.

Whatever that number turns out to be, the Part B premium increase will reduce how much of it actually reaches beneficiaries’ accounts. A COLA that looks meaningful on paper can shrink considerably once the premium deduction is applied.

A 3.5% increase on an average monthly benefit of around $1,900 would add roughly $66. That is before the premium adjustment. After accounting for the higher Part B cost, the net gain narrows further.

Beyond Part B, beneficiaries may also face higher costs for Medicare Part D drug coverage, Medigap supplemental policies, and out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs and healthcare services. The $90 payment does not address any of those rising costs.

How to confirm payment status and avoid scams

To check eligibility, call Medicare directly at 1-800-633-4227. After Oct. 15, the Social Security Administration at 1-800-772-1213 should also be able to pull up payment status.

Beneficiaries should use those official numbers only. Unsolicited calls, emails or text messages asking for banking details or Social Security numbers in connection with this payment are scams.

Medicare will not ask for account information or charge any fee to process the payment. The money arrives automatically. No action is required to claim it.

Those who believe they qualify but do not receive a payment by the end of October should verify their mailing address and direct-deposit information with Medicare or the Social Security Administration directly.

Related: Health insurance is about to cost you a lot more in 2027

Household budgeters have been able to focus their response to rising crude prices on just filling up their vehicles, but now that it’s officially fall, the weather is turning, the leaves are changing color, and the focus will now start to shift to the cost of heating the home.

But vehicle gas tanks will also still need to be filled, so Americans will experience some extra pressure, thanks to the fallout from the war with Iran.

On the positive side, 2026 is an El Niño year, and typically El Niño winters feature warmer temperatures in the northern region of the country, Time noted. Meanwhile, the southern and western parts of the country usually experience wetter, stormier conditions.

Despite that small reprieve, this year Americans should expect a significant increase in their winter energy bills, one that’s even steeper than previous estimates.

Also read: World’s biggest oil CEO shares stark oil price warning as pressure builds and supplies run dry

Heating oil costs surge

The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) now expects heating oil costs to increase by 50% year over year, up from its previous estimate of 31.3% just a few weeks ago.

NEADA identifies the ongoing wars in Iran and Ukraine that have disrupted petroleum markets as the culprit for higher prices.

Related: Crude oil is falling, but when will pump relief arrive?

“Heating oil is a product very similar to diesel gasoline. Both are distillate fuels made from the same part of the refining process, so when the price of diesel goes up, the price of heating oil generally follows,” NEADA said in a recent report.

“The disruptions in the Middle East have hit diesel and other distillate fuels like heating oil especially hard. Supplies were already tight, and refinery disruptions have put even more pressure on prices.”

Higher prices will hit different regions differently

While the average cost of heating a home with oil is expected to increase by about $878 from $1,749 last winter to $2,627 this year, certain regions will be hit harder than others.

Despite the milder El Niño winter in the Northeast, where about 82% of the nation’s heating oil is used, New England residents are expected to spend about $1,000 more than they did last winter.

“For example, the price of a gallon of home heating oil in Massachusetts reached $6.15 this week, up 74.7% from $3.52 a year ago this time. New York State is reporting similar numbers at $6.27 per gallon, up from $3.69 last year. A standard residential fuel oil tank holds 275 gallons. In other words, a tank of heating oil in New York will increase from $880 to $1,568, well out of reach for many families,” NEADA said.

New England has more than 2 million homes using heating oil, and they’ll average paying $2,849 to heat their homes this winter. Meanwhile, the 2.3 million households in the Mid-Atlantic (which NEADA counts as Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) should expect to spend about $779 more year over year for an average of $2,429.

Energy prices could become an emergency for lower-income families

NEADA acknowledges that El Niño will play a factor in lowering demand this winter, but the increase in prices will overtake any savings for the milder cold season.

Lower-income families are particularly vulnerable.

“Winter is just around the bend, and we are very concerned about what this means for low-income families that use heating oil,” said NEADA Executive Director Mark Wolfe.

“A 50 percent increase in heating costs is simply too much for a family living paycheck to paycheck to absorb. Families are already paying more for electricity, food, and rent. Now they are looking at another big increase just to keep their homes warm. These numbers are alarming!”

For older Americans on Social Security, the 3.6% increase in benefits slated for January won’t come close to covering these added costs.

“For low-income families, an additional $779 in the Mid-Atlantic states to about $1,000 in the New England states for heating costs is not a small increase. It can mean falling behind on another bill, cutting back on food or medicine, or turning the thermostat down to unsafe levels,” Wolfe said.

“Winter is almost here, and families have very little time to prepare. We are looking at a 50 percent increase in heating costs for families that depend on heating oil while electric bills are rising rapidly across the country.”

NEADA says it has asked Congress for $3 billion in supplemental funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Related: Chevron CEO sounds the alarm on global oil supplies

“Markets have turned more defensive this morning as renewed Middle East tensions, rising oil prices and persistently elevated bond yields put pressure on risk appetite,” said Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com.

“The broader equity rally remains supported by strong earnings expectations and AI investment, but the increasingly narrow leadership is leaving markets exposed to shifts in the rates outlook.”

The combination of rising bond yields, higher oil prices and the Fed’s hawkish signals weighed on stocks Wednesday.

Hathorn said the Fed minutes reinforced the central bank’s hawkish bias, although the key takeaway appears to be a lack of appetite for continued rate hikes.

“Most policymakers still anticipate another rate hike before year-end, despite softer employment data suggesting the labor market is losing momentum, but these are seen as an insurance against sticky inflation rather than the start of a new tightening cycle,” she said.

“However, the 10-year Treasury yield continues to trade around 5.3%, with the bond sell-off reflecting a combination of resilient economic activity, persistent inflation risks, heavy government borrowing and growing competition for capital.”

For the last few years, the Nordic nation has been bringing in an average of 2.2 million international tourists per year.

National airline Icelandair already flies to 17 cities across the United States and Canada at different points of the year but, in May 2027, will add a new route to Keflavík International Airport (KEF) in Reykjavik from St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) in Missouri to its network.

“St. Louis is an exciting addition”: Icelandair on new U.S. flight

The new seasonal route will run four times a week from May 14 through October 24, 2027 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. According to the airline, it will test demand for direct service for the smaller Midwestern city while also furthering the airline’s efforts to expand in the west of the U.S.

“St. Louis is an exciting addition, further strengthened by our growing partnership with Southwest Airlines, which will create convenient connections between destinations across North America, Iceland, and Europe,” Icelandair’s Chief Commercial Officer Tómas Ingason said in a statement.

The route is also being unveiled to coincide with Icelandair’s 90th birthday; initially known as Flugfélag Akureyra, the airline was established in June 1937 from a single seaplane that serviced the country’s more remote north coast.

Related: Literary tourism and hotels that amp it up have come to Iceland

The codeshare partnership between Icelandair and American budget airline Southwest was cemented in the fall of 2024 as a way of joining their networks and connecting more travelers from smaller U.S. cities to Reykjavik on a single ticket.

While St. Louis was previously among the cities in the Southwest network to which Icelandair was granted access through the partnership, choosing it as a new Icelandair route shows that it is seeing greater potential in its ability to generate traffic.

How to book the new Icelandair flights to St. Louis and Madrid

Along with the new St. Louis route, Icelandair is also planning to bring back its Reykjavik-Madrid flight for the 2027 summer season. The flight between Reykjavik and
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD) was launched as a seasonal route in 2024 and not brought back in either 2025 and 2026; in 2027, it will run from April 9 until October 25, 2027, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays

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Both routes will run on a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane with room for 160 passengers.

While their launch is more than half a year away, both flights are already available to buy on the Icelandair website at a starting fare of $500 USD for a roundtrip ticket.

Along with St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer and airport officials, Ingason also called the recent additions ones that “support the continued development of our route network and strengthen the range of options available to our customers.”

Related: The Sydney-New York flight is almost here to book

Bank of America estimates that the GDP-weighted two-year yield across emerging Asia is 174 basis points, or 1.74 percentage points, below the two-year U.S. Treasury yield, according to a note shared with TheStreet. A broader bond-market measure also puts Asia’s yield discount to Treasuries at its widest in more than 20 years.

That kind of gap would normally favor the dollar. But BofA said lower-yielding currencies, including the South Korean won, Chinese yuan, and Singapore dollar, have held up better in 2026 than higher-yielding currencies such as the Indian rupee, Indonesian rupiah, and Philippine peso.

The bank sees another set of flows pulling the region apart: North Asian exporters are bringing in dollars from booming technology shipments. At the same time, oil importers need more dollars to pay energy bills as Brent trades above $100 a barrel.

Brent remained above $100 on Wednesday, Oct. 7, as investors weighed threats to global supply.

Also read: ‘Bond King’ issues stunning warning to stock market investors

Why a 20-year yield gap isn’t sinking all Asian currencies

Higher U.S. interest rates still give investors an incentive to hold dollar assets.

But BofA says bond yields are no longer the only force driving currencies. Cross-border equity flows, investors’ currency hedges, and exporters converting dollar revenue back into local currencies are playing a bigger role.

BofA also says some of the extra yield offered by developed-market bonds reflects higher fiscal and inflation risk.

The export effect is particularly visible in South Korea and Taiwan, where technology shipments have surged.

Chip exports are giving Korea and Taiwan an FX cushion

South Korea exported a record $120.9 billion of goods in September, up 83.5% from a year earlier, Reuters confirmed.

Semiconductor shipments rose 262.8% to $60.3 billion as AI infrastructure spending fueled memory demand and chip prices.

Those exports generate dollar revenue. When Korean companies convert part of those earnings into won, they sell dollars and buy the local currency, helping support the won.

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Taiwan has a similar source of support.

BofA said Taiwan’s current-account surplus reached about 24% of GDP in the second quarter, and the bank expects higher prices for technology exports to keep supporting export revenue.

Taiwan’s September consumer prices, released on Oct. 7, added another piece to BofA’s argument. CPI increased 2.73% from a year earlier, above Taiwan’s 2% policy rate.

BofA states that stronger inflation gives Taiwan’s policymakers more reason to tolerate currency appreciation, because a stronger Taiwan dollar can lower the local cost of imported goods.

The bank therefore suggests shorting offshore yuan and long Taiwan dollar trade.

But it doesn’t mean that the yuan must fall against the U.S. dollar. China still faces a softer inflation backdrop, and Taiwan is receiving more support from strong technology exports and a large current-account surplus.

Oil above $100 squeezes Thailand, the Philippines, and India

Energy importers face the other side of the dollar flow.

Higher crude prices force countries that buy oil from abroad to spend more dollars on the same fuel. The added cost can also push domestic inflation higher.

The latest data show that pressure clearly:

• Philippines: September inflation reached 7.2%, compared with a 5% central-bank policy rate.
• Thailand: September inflation reached 2.82%, compared with a 1% policy rate.

Philippine inflation accelerated from 6.1% in August. Transport prices rose 14.6%, and housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels increased 8.4%.

Thailand’s inflation increase was driven partly by higher fuel and food prices.

That leaves policy rates below inflation in both countries. On BofA’s measure, real policy rates are about -2.2% in the Philippines and -1.8% in Thailand, reducing the interest-rate cushion for their currencies.

India raised rates on Oct. 7 as higher oil prices added to inflation and pressure on the rupee.

The Reserve Bank of India increased its repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.5%, its first hike in nearly four years, and shifted its policy stance toward calibrated tightening.

The rupee still fell to 96.845 per dollar, close to its record low of 96.96. High oil prices, foreign portfolio outflows, and elevated global rates have continued to pressure the currency, despite RBI intervention.

BofA prefers to be short the Thai baht against a basket of the Indian rupee and Malaysian ringgit.

The bank expects India’s rate increases to provide the rupee with some support, while Malaysia’s status as a net energy exporter gives the ringgit more protection from expensive oil.

Taiwan’s September export figures are due on Oct. 8. Another strong report would add evidence that technology shipments continue to bring dollars into the economy.

For oil importers, Brent staying above $100 would keep pushing in the opposite direction.

The next test is whether export dollars can keep supporting North Asian currencies as high U.S. yields draw capital toward the dollar and expensive oil increases dollar demand among the region’s importers.

Related: Scott Bessent sends clear signal to bond market investors

You open the letter, see a bigger number and assume you’re ahead. The raise that counts is the one left over after the grocery store, the utility company and your landlord take their share.

Employers reported pay increases in about the same narrow band in 2024, 2025 and 2026, according to Marsh’s Mercer QuickPulse Survey. The number on the letter kept going up, and so did the price of nearly everything it was supposed to cover.

That balance has now tipped against you. Employers have set aside 3.2% for merit raises next year, while consumer prices rose 3.4% over the 12 months through August, the latest reading from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So the default outcome of your next review is a pay cut dressed up as a raise. That leaves one variable you control: whether you ask for more, and how.

Ramit Sethi, the author of “I Will Teach You to Be Rich,” has a blunt answer to the 3% review. He tells workers to stop thinking in percentages and ask for a dollar figure, starting at $5,000.

I ran his advice against this fall’s pay data. The ask holds up, and so does his headline math, with two caveats you should know before you walk into that meeting.

What September’s payroll report showed about your paycheck

Nonfarm payrolls grew by 29,000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 4.2%, with 7.1 million people out of work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics release of Oct. 2.

Average hourly earnings rose five cents to $37.81, a 3.0% gain over the year. At the average workweek of 34.4 hours, that works out to about $67,635 a year.

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That’s an average across private-sector workers, so treat it as a yardstick for your own review rather than a typical salary.

The revisions were worse than the headline. July went from a gain of 21,000 to a loss of 10,000, and August fell from 162,000 to 133,000.

Why a 3.2% raise loses ground to inflation

Employers plan to spend 3.2% of payroll on merit increases in 2027 and 3.5% on all salary increases combined, according to Marsh’s Mercer QuickPulse Survey, published Aug. 31 and fielded among 1,001 U.S. organizations in mid-July.

“Economic uncertainty is top of mind for employers this year, and compensation dollars are tight,” said Tauseef Rahman, Marsh’s U.S. workforce reward solutions leader, in the release.

In my analysis, the gap shows up fast once you run that budget against prices. A 3.2% raise on $67,635 is $2,164, while keeping pace with 3.4% inflation takes $2,300.

Related: Ramit Sethi’s 87% rule is why big earners still feel broke

You finish $135 behind before you’ve spent a dollar.

The official measure already shows it happening. Real average hourly earnings, which adjust pay for consumer prices, fell 0.3% over the 12 months through August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Sept. 11.

Energy did most of the damage, rising 16.3% over the year, while shelter rose 3.0% and food 2.7%, per the agency’s August consumer price index release.

Sethi’s $5,000 negotiating rule, run through the math

Sethi frames his advice in dollars instead of percentages. His fixed-cost rule, which I covered in September, explains why high earners still feel broke, and this one is about growing the top line.

“$5,000 or even $10,000 a year might sound like a lot to you, but it’s a drop in the bucket for most companies,” he wrote in the raise guide on his website, last updated July 29, 2025.

The same page sells his Road to $100K memberships, priced at $30 to $49 a month, which is worth knowing when negotiation advice arrives attached to a course catalog.

He argues a $5,000 bump compounds over a career once it’s invested. “If you invest that raise every year, it could grow to over $1.3 million by the time you retire, assuming an 8% return,” he wrote.

That checks out on his assumptions. Investing $5,000 a year at 8% reaches $1,295,283 after 40 years, by TheStreet’s calculation, and clears $1.3 million in year 41.

Two caveats belong next to it. At a 7% return, the same 40 years produce $998,176.

And four decades out, $1,295,283 is worth about $340,050 in today’s money if inflation holds at the current 3.4%.

The ask itself is the more useful number. On average pay of $67,635, $5,000 is a 7.4% raise, or 2.31 times what employers have budgeted.

Where the money goes next is a separate decision, and Sethi has an automation system most people skip.

Your raise by the numbers

• 2027 merit increase budget: 3.2%, with total salary increases at 3.5%
• Consumer price inflation, 12 months through August: 3.4%
• Real average hourly earnings, 12 months through August: down 0.3%
• Average hourly earnings, September: $37.81, up 3.0% over the year
• Wage growth for job stayers: 3.6%, versus 5.0% for job switchers (August)
• Job openings, August: 7.1 million, with a 3.3% hires rate and a 1.9% quits rate

Sources: Marsh’s Mercer QuickPulse Survey, Aug. 31, 2026; Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI, Real Earnings, Employment Situation and JOLTS releases; Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker, data through August 2026.

Job switchers still out-earn people who stay put

Leaving has been the reliable way to beat a 3% review, and it still works by a measurable margin.

Wage growth for workers who changed jobs ran 5.0% in August, up from 4.4% in July, while workers who stayed put held at 3.6%, according to the Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker, a three-month moving average updated Sept. 10.

On $67,635, that 1.4-point spread is worth $947 in the first year, and it repeats every year after because it’s built into your base.

The hard part is getting through the door. Hires ran 5.2 million in August, a 3.3% rate, and quits ran 3.1 million, a 1.9% rate, per the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Sept. 29.

Openings stood at 7.1 million in August, roughly matching the 7.1 million people the BLS counted as unemployed in September.

Who you are when you knock matters. The wage premium for job switchers “rebounded significantly through first quarter 2026,” Anton Cheremukhin and Theresa Rincker of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas wrote in a May 26 analysis.

They also found that “firms are bypassing the unemployed to hire from within the ranks of the already employed.”

Hiring out of unemployment has “consistently failed to keep pace with either prepandemic baseline,” they wrote. That leaves the bottom rung of the ladder cut off from the ones above it.

How to prepare for your 2027 salary review

Price your own review first. Multiply your salary by 0.032 and compare the result with what your household spends on energy, rent and groceries.

Then rehearse. TheStreet has covered how to ask when prices are rising, and the mechanics haven’t changed.

Ask for a dollar figure. A request for 3.5% invites a counteroffer inside the budget, while a request for $5,000 forces a conversation about where the money comes from.

Move before the budget closes. Mercer fielded its survey in mid-July for the following year, so the pool you’re negotiating against is often set months before your review.

Speak up. “If you don’t bring up the topic of compensation, most managers will assume you’re satisfied with what you’re earning,” Sethi wrote on the same page.

If you’re employed and weighing a move, the Atlanta Fed data put the switching premium at 1.4 points. If you’re out of work, the Dallas Fed research suggests this market treats you differently, so budget for a longer search.

September’s inflation and real earnings data land Oct. 14. If prices hold near 3.4% while employers hold near 3.2%, the 2027 review season arrives with its arithmetic already settled.

The people who beat it will be the ones who walk in with a number, and who treat the raise as part of a bigger plan for their money.

Related: Ramit Sethi’s 5 best financial insights for building a rich life

With the rise of North American travelers looking to avoid a transfer in a major airports like London Heathrow (LHR) and Charles De Gaulle (CDG), North American airlines such as United, Delta, and Air Canada have all added cities like Catania, Dubrovnik and Venice to their 2026-2027 flying network.

But amid the cost-cutting that came as a result of jet fuel price increases in 2026, riskier flights that can either tap into a unique market or flounder with low uptake are often the first to get cut.

WestJet cuts 13 cities from its 2026 flight schedule

Over the last month, flag carrier and national airline Air Canada permanently suspended flights to Dubai International (DXB) and Houari Boumediene Airport (ALG) in Algiers due to traffic numbers disproportionate to the cost of fuel.

Its main Canadian competitor and the tenth-largest airline in North America, the Calgary-based WestJet, has recently also cut three long-haul European destinations and 10 North American ones from its flight schedule.

Read now: Air Canada exits entire market

As first reported by airline news outlet Simple Flying, the airline has removed its flight to Glasgow Airport (GLA) from Toronto Pearson (YYZ) after bringing it back from a four-year hiatus in May 2026. The carrier is also not scheduled to bring back two seasonal flights between Copenhagen (CPH) and Madrid (MAD) from Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ) that ended their seasonal run in September for the coming year.

The Glasgow route was the second European destination to which WestJet expanded its network in May 2014 but was later suspended and relaunched several times before getting brought back in 2026.

Other North American destinations WestJet has quietly axed in 2026

These long-haul route cuts come, since the start of 2026, alongside 10 other market exits from holiday destinations in the U.S., the Caribbean and Mexico.

WestJet canceled seven flights to different cities in Cuba. It also axed three routes and three other flights to San Andrés Island (ADZ) in Colombia, Lihue (LIH) in Hawaii, and Guadalajara (GDL) in Mexico from different Canadian cities.

While Cuba was once a popular holiday destination for Canadians, the Cuban flight cuts came following the U.S. fuel blockade of the island and subsequent security situation as a result of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on its government. The other destinations were cut later in 2026 due to the network shake-ups and unprofitable traffic numbers.

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In each case, the cut routes represent a permanent market exit from the specific city for the airline. For the long-haul European flights, the canceled flights also mark a WestJet exit from the countries of Scotland, Denmark and Spain.

John Weatherill, WestJet’s Executive VP and Chief Commercial Officer, classified these cuts as part of “difficult decisions” that needed to be made in order to ensure the airline can remain financially strong and weather economic ebbs going forward.

Related: Another airline in bankruptcy, flights canceled

The department store chain revealed in its most recent earnings report that its comparable sales decreased 0.9% year over year in the second quarter of 2026, while recent Placer.ai data showed overall visits to Kohl’s stores declined 1.4%.

Kohl’s CEO Michael Bender said on the August earnings call that the company is “operating in a challenging macroeconomic environment” where customers are “experiencing persistent financial pressures from inflation in their everyday expenses, like gas and food.”

Against this backdrop, Kohl’s has taken several steps to make its merchandise more affordable. It introduced Deal Bar and Toy Towers in stores earlier this year, featuring products priced below $10. It also priced thousands of back-to-school items under $25 in July. 

Kohl’s sweetens Deal Days event with more savings for customers

In its latest effort to win over price-conscious customers, Kohl’s has made its annual Kohl’s Deal Days savings event more generous this year. 

The event, which runs from Oct. 6-8, offers customers up to 50% off thousands of seasonal items in stores and online, according to a press release.

The discounts include select Sephora at Kohl’s products from brands, such as Rare Beauty, Sephora Collection and Ilia, as well as home products such as Shark floorcare and bedding.

Customers can also save on toys from brands including Lego and Barbie, along with baby and kids’ clothing and men’s apparel. 

Related: Kohl’s expands in-store partnership as customers look elsewhere

Kohl’s is also offering customers up to 40% off kitchen appliances, pajamas and shoes. 

In addition to these discounts, the retailer has, for the first time, added Kohl’s Daily Deals to the event, which unveils daily limited-time offers on select styles. 

This includes 60% off Carter’s clothing, 50% off smart home devices, and 40% off holiday decor, including throw blankets starting at $9.99.

For extra savings, customers can get an additional 25% off qualifying purchases with a coupon and enjoy free shipping on all online orders throughout the event. To encourage shoppers to return to stores, Kohl’s is also rewarding them with $10 in Kohl’s Cash for every $50 spent on qualifying merchandise.

Kohl’s Deal Days rival Amazon, Target, and Walmart events

Kohl’s Deal Days event rivals other fall savings events from several major competitors, all vying for early holiday shoppers looking for value. 

Kohl’s event runs longer than Amazon Prime Big Deal Days, which kicked off on Oct. 6 and ends on Oct. 7 at 11:59 p.m. EST. Amazon’s event offers exclusive deals to Prime members across more than 35 categories with free delivery.

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Target Circle Deal Days also runs between Oct. 6 and Oct. 7, offering Target Circle members up to 40% off thousands of items across categories such as beauty, toys, apparel, and tech.

Walmart’s fall savings event, Deals & More, lasts a full week, running from Oct. 5 to Oct. 11. It offers discounts such as up to 50% off home products, 40% off tech, and 30% off toys, food, and Halloween items. 

Many retailers have been ramping up discounts this fall as U.S. consumers grow cautious about holiday spending amid ongoing economic pressures.

A recent International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) survey asked Americans about these challenges, finding that 49% are worried about their ability to afford holiday gifts this year, while 50% said their financial debt will impact their holiday spending. 

Meanwhile, 49% said they expect to borrow money to make purchases they cannot pay for in full immediately, while 68% said discounts, promotions, and exclusive offers will encourage them to shop more in stores. 

In an interview with Retail TouchPoints in August, Marshal Cohen, a retail analyst and chief retail advisor at Circana, said economic headwinds will weigh on holiday spending this year. 

“Holiday 2026 is up against a soft one from last year,” said Cohen. “However, with higher prices and several economic headwinds like gas prices and elevated credit card debt, we will have a ho-hum holiday, looking at below 2% growth.”

He emphasized that the holiday season will “feel different” this year as U.S. consumers shift their shopping habits.

“The spirit of the holiday has changed,” said Cohen. “Gone are the days of feeling like you can spoil your loved ones. Gone are the days where you would shop until you drop over the Thanksgiving weekend. Gone are the doorbuster items that people scrambled and waited in line outside stores at 4 am.” 

Related: Kohl’s has a customer problem that’s proving hard to fix

The debt he had in mind was mostly owed by governments. But Dimon has long argued that the pain lands somewhere else.

In a 2025 Fox Business interview, he said bond market volatility hurts the people raising money, small businesses included. He admitted he could not tell whether trouble was six months or six years away. This time, he named the next group in line.

Also read: Scott Bessent just made a bold move on the bond market

Dimon says corporate borrowers will start to squeeze

Speaking on the sidelines of a JPMorgan event in London on Oct. 6, Dimon said the worldwide scramble for capital could begin to squeeze corporate borrowers, Bloomberg reported. Investors will keep asking for more, he said. At some point, that feeds into corporate debt and credit spreads.

A credit spread is the extra interest a company pays over what a government pays to borrow. When spreads widen, refinancing an old loan or raising a new one costs more.

Dimon’s advice was to move early. “The best thing to do with any of these things is deal with it before it becomes a crisis,” he said. If it does become one, he added, it will still get dealt with, only in a much less pleasant way.

His comments land in the middle of a global bond sell-off. It began after the start of the war in Iran, which pushed inflation materially higher.

The benchmark 30-year Treasury yield recently climbed past levels last seen in 2007. The U.S. economy’s strength and the AI boom’s demand for capital have added to the pressure.

Riskier debt is already showing the strain. In the credit default swap market, the cost of insuring U.S. junk bonds against default has widened sharply, according to LSEG data compiled by Yardeni Research.

Distressed loans hit a pandemic-era high

JPMorgan’s own strategists have put numbers on the problem. Leveraged loans trading below 60 cents on the dollar reached $65 billion. That is up from $40 billion a year earlier and the most since March 2020.

The wider pool of troubled loans is larger still. Loans priced at or below 80 cents on the dollar total $139.8 billion. That is nearly 90% more than 12 months ago and just $4 billion short of the peak set in May 2020, as reported by Bloomberg.

Technology is the weak spot. The sector makes up 39% of the distressed total, or $54.4 billion. In all, 141 issuers have loans trading below 80 cents, which is 35 more than a year ago.

The bank expects more companies to miss payments. Its strategists see the high-yield bond default rate rising to 2.75% in 2027, up from a projected 2.25% this year. Defaults on leveraged loans are expected to reach 4.50% in 2027 as well.

Bonds rated CCC, the lowest rung of junk, already yield 15.58%, the highest since November 2022, according to Bloomberg.

Why money is getting more expensive

Dimon’s explanation starts with supply and demand. In May, he said the world had moved from a savings glut to a shortage of savings. He warned that interest rates could climb far above where they stood. The 30-year Treasury yield had by then reached levels not seen since 2007.

He pointed to three forces: high oil prices; worries about government spending in Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.; and growth driven by AI. He also noted that $30 trillion of that debt carried an average rate of 3.5%, with about $2 trillion due to be refinanced this year, Bloomberg reported.

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The U.S. debt load adds another layer. Federal debt had reached $39 trillion by the time Dimon spoke in Norway on April 28.

He cited the 2022 U.K. gilt crisis as a case study: Yields surged within days, and the Bank of England was forced to intervene. His point was that these things move fast.

Inflation rounds out the picture. Dimon’s April 6 shareholder letter called it “the skunk at the party.” His concern was that prices would move up rather than down through 2026, with energy costs pushed higher by the war in Iran.

What borrowers and investors should watch

For companies, Dimon’s test is a plain one. Leveraged or not, any business that has to refinance or borrow should ask whether it is ready for higher credit spreads. That goes for healthy balance sheets as much as stretched ones.

So far, the damage has stayed contained. After the Federal Reserve raised rates in September, Dimon told Yahoo Finance that borrowing costs could keep rising. But the job market’s relative strength showed those costs had not yet turned into broader economic stress.

He does not expect that calm to hold forever. It has been a long time since the last credit recession. When one arrives, “it would be worse than people think,” Dimon said in April.

That warning carries extra weight, given the size of what is now at stake. The private credit market alone is worth about $1.7 trillion, and that number has only grown.

Related: Scott Bessent just made a bold move on the bond market

Many travel agencies serving groups, ultra-luxury travelers, and other niche clients continue to thrive, but as a general trend, there has also been a string of closures since the start of 2026.

Some companies that filed for bankruptcy or collapsed over imminent cash flow problems in 2026 include Virginia-based bus tour operator Sunshine Tours, Florida booking agency North America Destinations, and Boston-based GoPlay Sports Tours LLC.

While not shut down outright, the most recent travel company to make the news over widespread trip cancellations is Maryland’s Charles County-based luxury travel company Younique Ventures. Founded by Kendra Ashe in 2012, the company marketed travelers’ small-group curated travel itineraries and group luxury retreats.

Younique Ventures travelers still waiting for refunds

In July 2026, 70 women who traveled with Younique Ventures on a “Goddess Refresh Experience” trip to southern France and Spain were left stranded abroad after the airline canceled a flight to Spain’s Canary Islands.

Instead of arranging for alternative travel arrangements, Younique Ventures cut the entire trip short by four days and reportedly told customers to find their own way back home.

Amid the travel chaos and complaints from stranded travelers, Younique Ventures also indefinitely postponed trips to Australia, Fiji, and Colombia. For both itineraries, travelers put down deposits and have not received them back as they wait to know when and if the trips will take place.

The latest reporting on the situation shows that many travelers on the canceled European trip are still waiting to receive refunds for the flights and hotel rates they paid when the trip was cut short.

“I want my money back, not a postponement”

“I want my money back, not a postponement,” Cynthia Quinnie Davis, a customer who put down $15,000 for the Australia and Fiji trip that was initially slated to start on Oct. 18, wrote in a Facebook post.

Other travel agencies that shut down or filed for bankruptcy in 2026:

• AVG Travels: Before entering bankruptcy in May 2026, the Melbourne-based travel agency selling cheap vacation packages to travelers in Australia and New Zealand sent more than 200 travelers an email saying the trips were canceled.
• GoPlay Sports: In April 2026, the men’s basketball team of the University of Dallas was left without a planned trip to compete in the United Kingdom after Boston-based GoPlay Sports Tours LLC accepted two payments of $30,000 and then went unreachable.
• Havantur: Havantur was forced to shut down its main European office in France at the start of 2026 after tourist numbers to the Caribbean country plummeted due to U.S. military actions in Venezuela and threats against the country.
• Vegas Vacations and North America Destinations: Two travel agencies in the Canadian province of British Columbia, Vegas Vacations and North America Destinations, were shut down by regulators within a few days of each other in January 2026 after multiple travelers complained of buying trips and receiving invalid plane tickets and hotel bookings.

In a statement issued at the start of October, Younique Ventures said that the rush of customers filing chargeback requests with their credit card companies made it unable to issue the direct refunds it had intended to process within 60 days of the canceled trips.

“The number of chargebacks that have occurred has escalated due to false and misleading statements that are being made about Younique Ventures and what occurred on the trip in question,” Younique Ventures wrote in an Oct. 2 statement in which it states that the trip cancellation “was very disappointing to many of our travelers and it was to us as well.”

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In an additional statement to Maryland broadcaster WUSA9, the company also went on to say that, as part of the changes that it put in place after the canceled France trip, it will “no longer schedule our group experiences at the same time as other custom trips” and “added dedicated support to manage trips before departure and while travelers are away.”

Related: Popular luxury travel company abruptly cancels all trips

During the fall of 2026, active seasons are currently being streamed in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.

Amid the show’s viral popularity, travelers have increasingly been looking to stay at a castle that mirrors the castle locations where many of the versions are filmed. The versions with the biggest multimillion viewer reach, the UK version hosted by broadcaster Claudia Winkleman and the U.S. version hosted by Scottish actor Alan Cumming, are both filmed in the Andross Castle in the Scottish Highlands.

Off to Scotland or England? Where to stay for a true The Traitors vibe

While this 19th-century castle itself is closed to tourists as a private estate and filming location, multiple hotel groups behind large hotels have used the public interest in the show and the spooky murder-mystery vibe to entice guests to stay at hotels operated in other historic properties.

Highland Coast Hotels, a luxury hotel group based in Inverness, has previously run a “Coastal Castles” promotion in which travelers can book two nights at the Royal Marine Hotel in Brora and two nights at the Tongue Hotel in Sutherland alongside entry to the nearby Dunrobin Castle and The Castle of Mey.

Related: Luxury hotel chain Nobu sets its latest sights on Puerto Rico

Now operated as a 21-key Relais & Châteaux Hotel, the Glenapp Castle was built in 1870 by local industrialist James Hunte on 110 acres along the Ayrshire coast. While not officially marketed in connection to “The Traitors”, the five-star property offers very similar vibes of a Scottish Baronial fortress full of sandstone battlements, turrets, and towers, as well as guest activities such as curling and falconry on the estate grounds.

Depending on the season, individual rooms cost between £300 and £750 (up to $900 USD) per night.

The history of Airlie Castle in the northeast of Scotland dates back to 1492 when King James I granted lands to local aristocrats of Walter Ogilvy. While the castle itself was rebuilt in the eighteenth century following a fire, the rebuilt castle towering over the junction of the River Isla and the Melgam Water is today frequently used as a filming and wedding venue.

It can also be booked as an estate with room for 14 guests at a price of £8,000 per week. An expansive moat that was dug up to block access for enemies and others with nefarious plans gives the entire property a particularly Traitor-esque vibe.

For a more affordable option, Lumley Castle has rooms starting at $70 per night

For a significantly more affordable option, Lumley Castle in northeastern England is a historic fortress that was built in County Durham by local aristocrat Sir Ralph Lumley in 1389. The castle is approximately a 30-minute drive from the northeastern city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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In 2026, it is a four-star hotel with 72 suites decorated to hearken back to the Baroque period (think purple velvet drapes, four-poster canopy beds, and gold and brass details). Rates for a standard double room start at £52 ($69 USD) during the off-season.

As the castle also hosts monthly murder mystery game dinners for local residents, it is a particularly good setting for fans of “The Traitors” as well.

Related: The hotel for the next ‘White Lotus’ season has been leaked

Selling them to a specialist operator tends to make financial sense, as long as you can still access the services.

The math gets more complicated when midstream infrastructure comes with a debt load. Owning a stake in a midstream partnership means the partnership’s liabilities can flow onto your books, and those liabilities become a drag, whether oil prices cooperate or not.

That is the problem Chevron (CVX) just moved to resolve. The company confirmed an agreement to divest its ownership interest and general partner position in Hess Midstream LP, along with crude oil midstream assets in Colorado’s DJ Basin.

The transaction removes approximately $3.7 billion of Hess Midstream debt from Chevron’s consolidated balance sheet.

Also read: Bank of America resets its oil price target with strong warning

Removing $3.7 billion in debt changes Chevron’s financial picture

Chevron will receive $200 million in cash as part of the transaction, but the more significant financial effect is the debt deconsolidation.

Removing $3.7 billion in liabilities from the balance sheet immediately changes how the company looks to lenders and investors evaluating its financial position.

The deal does carry a cost. Chevron expects to record a one-time after-tax loss of approximately $3 billion to $4 billion at closing. That is a significant charge, but it is the price of cleaning up a balance sheet rather than an indication of operational trouble.

Chevron expects the transaction to be accretive to return on capital employed by 0.5% on an absolute basis. The company also projects the new commercial framework will enhance future earnings through improved long-term midstream contracts.

Bakken midstream costs are getting cut in half

The deal is structured as an exchange rather than a straightforward sale. In total, Chevron receives $200 million in cash and revised midstream contracts in the Bakken across both components of the transaction.

Those revised contracts are expected to reduce Chevron’s Bakken unit midstream costs by approximately 50%.

That cost reduction is the operational payoff. Midstream expenses in the Bakken include gathering, processing, and transportation, and they directly affect production economics. Cutting those costs by half improves the margin on every barrel Chevron produces in the region.

The Bakken, located primarily in North Dakota, is one of the largest shale-oil producing areas in the United States, the Energy Information Administration noted. Midstream infrastructure is critical there because producers depend on pipeline and processing capacity to move crude to refineries and export markets.

Chevron is not exiting the Bakken. It is changing the terms under which it accesses midstream services there.

How Hess Midstream LP becomes a fully independent company

The buyer in this transaction is Hess Midstream LP itself. The publicly traded partnership, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HESM, is acquiring Chevron’s ownership interest and GP position, giving it a path to operate as a fully independent company.

Chevron inherited its Hess Midstream position through its acquisition of Hess Corp, according to CNBC. The midstream stake came with the deal, but it was never a natural fit for an upstream-focused major.

Divesting it completes one piece of the integration work that followed the Hess acquisition.

For Hess Midstream investors, the key question is what changes commercially. The partnership operates crude oil, natural gas, and water infrastructure in the Bakken.

The deal includes new long-term midstream contracts with Chevron in both the Bakken and DJ Basin, which should help support future volumes and cash flows. The pricing terms of those contracts will matter more than the ownership change itself.

Related: Does Chevron pay dividends? When & how often?

Chevron swaps DJ Basin pipelines for service contracts

In Colorado’s DJ Basin, Chevron is selling its crude oil midstream infrastructure outright and replacing it with new service contracts. The structure mirrors what the company is doing in the Bakken: trading asset ownership for contractual access to the same services.

Owning pipelines means paying to keep them running, whether volumes are up or down. Contracting for the same service moves that obligation off Chevron’s books.

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What Chevron gets back is fixed pricing, which simplifies planning at the well level. The catch is that volume commitments tend to be baked into those contracts, so if production disappoints, the terms can get expensive fast.

Chevron is not leaving Colorado. Its drilling program in the DJ Basin stays intact. What it shed was the hardware sitting between the wellhead and the market, and that hardware was never the point.

The company has been moving away from infrastructure ownership for years, Energy Intel reported, concentrating its balance sheet on the assets that actually produce oil. This deal is another step in that direction, and the DJ Basin upstream position does not change.

Also read: Who owns Chevron? Understanding who controls one of the world’s largest energy companies

3 numbers that will define this deal’s final value

The deal is expected to close before the end of 2026, pending regulatory sign-off.

The exact proceeds from the DJ Basin midstream asset sale have not been disclosed separately. The terms of the new Bakken and DJ Basin midstream contracts, including duration and pricing structure, will determine whether the cost savings hold up over time.

The one-time after-tax loss, estimated at $3 billion to $4 billion, will hit Chevron’s reported results in the quarter the deal closes.

Nothing here touches Chevron’s production plans in either basin. The wells keep running. What changes is the financial structure around them, and the question now is what Chevron does with $3.7 billion less debt on the books.

The company has kept its dividend growing through a difficult stretch for oil prices, and shareholders will be watching to see whether this kind of balance sheet work accelerates that trajectory or funds something else.

Related: Chevron CEO sends a strong message on oil price and the economy

Happy Wednesday. Stocks were lower and oil prices were rising Wednesday after Wall Street closed at record highs, as investors await the release of the Federal Reserve’s minutes from its September meeting.

The minutes are expected to show a much broader debate among policymakers than reflected in the unanimous decision to raise interest rates, with possible implications for the U.S. central bank’s next policy steps, Reuters reported.

The rate hike at the conclusion of the September 15-16 meeting was billed by Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh as an effort to remove a “dose of accommodation” at a time when inflation appeared stalled above the central bank’s 2% target and monetary policy, in Warsh’s view, was putting little restraint on the overall economy.

The minutes are scheduled for release today at 2 p.m. ET.

Markets closed higher Tuesday, with the S&P 500 scoring a record close and the Nasdaq Composite hitting an all-time high.

“Tuesday closed with another all-time high in Wall Street helped by continued enthusiasm around AI and expectations for close to 30% S&P 500 earnings growth in Q3,” Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst with Capital.com, said.

“However, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are edging lower this morning as investors reassess the balance between strong earnings expectations and a renewed rise in bond yields.”

Hathorn said the main constraint remains the Treasury market, with the 10-year yield back around 5.31% and the 30-year near 5.68%, reversing part of Tuesday’s relief.

“This keeps valuation pressure elevated, particularly outside the mega-cap technology names that continue to dominate index performance,” she said.

“Investors are also waiting for today’s FOMC minutes for clues on how much appetite remains for another rate hike later this month, with markets currently putting the probability of a 25bp move at only around 20%.”

A fleet of 15 Boeing 737-800 planes allowed the airline to fly to 23 destinations across Argentina and neighboring countries, including Brazil, Paraguay, and Peru.

But since June 2026, Flybondi has remained largely grounded, as the spike in jet fuel prices caused a snowballing financial hole and creditors froze financial accounts over missed payments.

Amid hundreds of flight cancellations, Brazilian authorities blocked the airline from selling any new flights into the country in July. The 2,500 flight cancellations in summer 2026 affected more than 350,000 passengers.

Flybondi files for creditor protection in Argentina, remains grounded

At the start of September, Flybondi grounded all but one of its Boeing 737 planes and canceled all flights for what it initially said would be four weeks. The airline, however, has not flown for the last 58 days, and on Oct. 2, it filed for creditor protection in Argentina’s National Commercial Court No. 24, Aviacionline reported.

The creditor protection proceedings (called “concurso preventivo de acreedores” in Argentina) allow a company to restructure its debts under deadlines and the supervision of a court-appointed trustee. The process is the closest equivalent to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S.

Related: Low-cost airline cancels all flights for 4 weeks, shuts down

The case was assigned to Judge Guillermo Mario Pesaresi, while law firm Grispo & Asociados is representing Flybondi in the case.

Several local Argentine outlets reported that the airline owes debts of more than $122.4 million to creditors that include tax authorities and aircraft lenders. The exact extent of its debt as a private company has not been publicly disclosed.

Flybondi’s collapse follows a script U.S. travelers already know.

Spirit Airlines, the largest airline shutdown of 2026, canceled all of its remaining flights on May 2. Spirit had already been through Chapter 11 twice, but it was the spike in jet fuel prices that finally finished it off.

That’s the same cost that blew the hole in Flybondi’s finances and left its planes sitting on the ground.

What is happening with Argentine low-cost airline Flybondi in October 2026

Buenos Aires-based newspaper La Nación previously reported that a court-supervised restructuring may involve Flybondi being absorbed into the local logistics and postal giant OCA Air, according to Air Data News.

As OCA Air is not currently in the business of commercial aviation, many serious questions about Flybondi’s post-restructuring future remain. Communications executive Lucía Ginzo left her role at the airline in late May 2026.

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Over the last few months, the airline’s website has been reopened, allowing travelers to book flights into the fall of 2026, and then taken down several times. It currently shows visitors a 404 page.

Other airlines that shut down or filed for bankruptcy in 2026:

• Spirit Airlines: The largest airline shutdown of the year occurred when Spirit Airlines canceled all remaining flights on May 2. Although the airline had filed for Chapter 11 protection twice before, the skyrocketing price of jet fuel dealt the final blow to its operations.
• Magnicharters: The Mexican low-cost airline canceled all of its flights and eventually shut down in a collapse that left thousands stranded.
• Starflite Aviation: Houston-based Starflite Aviation had its AOC license revoked in March 2026, amid FAA claims that owners falsified pilot training records to bypass safety audits.
• AlpAvia: Slovenian charter airline AlpAvia also shut down in March 2026 over financial problems.

Related: Another airline in bankruptcy, flights canceled

The airline has launched a number of new routes to smaller European cities such as Basel in Switzerland and Dubrovnik in Croatia, while suspending at least seven long-haul routes to India, the Middle East, and northern Africa.

The flight to the latter country’s capital of Algiers from Montréal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL) was launched in June 2017 as a seasonal summer flight between June and September. It ran for nearly a decade but, amid high jet fuel costs, was not brought back for 2026.

Air Canada permanently cuts only flight to Algeria, along with four others

Air Canada has now confirmed that it will not be returning the route to Houari Boumediene Airport (ALG) in Algiers in the summer of 2027, according to Simple Flying, which means the carrier has exited the country of Algeria as a market.

The move comes as part of wider network cuts that also include the cancellation of its India routes between Calgary and Delhi and Toronto and Mumbai, as well as an earlier cancellation of its flight to Dubai International (DXB) from Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ).

A flight between Vancouver (YYR) and Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) will also be phased out by January 2027.

Related: Another airline cancels almost all U.S. flights due to low demand

“If we can derisk this a little bit and move and be a bit proactive and move capacity into other sectors [where] we see strength, I think that’s the right move right now in this context,” Mark Galardo, Air Canada’s executive vice president, revenue and network planning and president of cargo, said of the airline’s wider network strategy at the start of 2026.

Routes to smaller cities that serve a particular market but do not always bring in the necessary traffic are often the first victim of such network changes.

Which other airlines fly to North Africa from Canada?

The flight between Montreal and Algiers connected French Canadians to the French-speaking diaspora in northern Africa as well as members of the Algerian diaspora who live in Canada.

The initial plan was to run the flight on an Airbus A330-300 four times per week from June 2027. Mohammed V International Airport (CMN) in Morocco’s Casablanca is now the main airport connecting Air Canada to northern Africa; the airline flies to the city multiple times a week from Montreal.

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Air Algérie, the country’s national airline, currently operates a nine-hour direct flight to Montreal, and Royal Air Maroc flies to Toronto and Montreal. Air France is another major connector of flights to northern Africa through its Charles de Gaulle (CDG) hub.

Air Canada has not commented directly on the cancellation of the Algiers route but previously named jet fuel prices as “affecting some lower profitability routes and flights which now are no longer economically feasible.”

Related: A luxurious Canadian hotel brand is coming to snowy Japan

Happy Tuesday. Stocks were rising and oil prices were retreating as markets sought to build on the previous session’s gains.

The major U.S. indexes finished higher on Monday, with the Nasdaq closing at a record high.

“The rally in the market was tech-led once again, with the marginal easing of interest rate uncertainty along with a slight moderation in geopolitical risk — reflected in a dip in crude prices — allowing market participants to focus on the extraordinary earnings growth being delivered by AI names,” said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst with Capital.com.

Rodda said that while the narrative justifiably remains captured by the short-term swings in expectations about global monetary policy and the developments in the war between the U.S. and Iran, “a less discussed factor driving the markets is extraordinarily strong (albeit concentrated) earnings growth expectations.”

“According to FactSet, earnings growth estimates for the upcoming earnings season have been upwardly revised to nearly 30%,” he added. “This follows on from the remarkable 50% growth delivered in Q2.”

The 10-year Treasury yield once again touched levels last seen in 2002, surpassing 5.3%, according to CNBC. The 30-year yield also breached 5.7% at one point, its highest level in 24 years.

The ADP Weekly Employment Change is scheduled for release at 8:15 a.m., followed by the International Trade in Goods and Services report at 8:30 a.m.

But 2027 is shaping up to be worse than the usual creep. The numbers being floated right now are significant, and open enrollment starts Nov. 1.

On the employer side, health benefit costs per worker are projected to rise 8% to 11% next year. On the ACA marketplace, insurers have proposed a median premium increase of 15% for 2027, according to CNBC.

Those are still proposals, not final numbers. But the proposals for 2026 came in at 18% and the final number landed at 20%, so the direction is pretty clear.

A few things are all pushing in the same direction at once. GLP-1 drugs. Medical inflation. Hospital consolidation. Expiring ACA subsidies.

None of it is reversing anytime soon. And depending on your plan and your income, you could feel this as a higher monthly premium, a bigger deductible, or both.

Also read: Mark Cuban warns AI could make US healthcare even worse

What’s happening with employer plans

About 166 million Americans under 65 get health insurance through an employer, according to a KFF analysis. Your company usually covers most of the premium. But when your employer’s costs go up, it tends to find its way to you.

Could be a higher payroll deduction. Could be a bigger deductible. Sometimes it’s both, plus a narrower network on top of it.

Three separate firms put out projections on this. Marsh has employer health benefit costs rising 8.2% per worker in 2027, according to Fierce Healthcare. That would be the biggest single-year jump since 2003. WTW came in higher at 11.1%.

Aon landed at 9.5%. None of them are calling for costs to come down. Workers’ total healthcare tab already climbed 7.9% in 2026, the sharpest annual rise in ten years. Aon isn’t expecting it to let up.

Nearly six in 10 employers say they’re planning to make cost-cutting changes to their health benefits, reports Fierce Healthcare.

Raising deductibles is the most common approach. A higher deductible keeps the monthly premium from climbing as fast, but it means you’re paying more before your insurance actually does anything. If you stay healthy, you might not notice. If something goes wrong, you will.

What ACA marketplace enrollees are looking at

The ACA marketplace is where about 19.2 million Americans get their coverage. We’re talking self-employed workers, gig workers, early retirees, people who don’t have access to a job-based plan.

Premiums on those plans have been rising sharply, and there’s no sign 2027 is going to be any different.

Insurers have proposed a median 15% premium increase for 2027, based on a KFF analysis of filings from 276 insurers. That would be the second consecutive year of double-digit proposed increases. And as 2026 showed, proposed increases tend to get finalized at levels that are just as high or higher.

Some marketplace enrollees could be looking at premiums that are 30% to 40% higher than they were two years ago.

Now, a lot of people on the marketplace do get premium tax credits, and those help. The federal government picks up part of the tab based on your income. But that help has a ceiling.

If you earn above 400% of the federal poverty level, you’re mostly out of luck. For a single person, that’s somewhere around $64,000 a year. For a family of four it’s closer to $132,000.

There were enhanced subsidies that used to reach people in that range, but they expired at the end of 2025. About 1.6 million people on the marketplace were in that income bracket last year. Whatever the final 2027 increase looks like, they’re paying it.

What’s driving costs this high

GLP-1 weight loss medications are one of the biggest new cost drivers for employers right now. As these drugs have grown more popular, covering them has gotten expensive fast, as TheStreet reported.

Marsh estimates that rising GLP-1 use alone will add about one percentage point to overall employer health cost growth in 2027. Some employers are already pulling back. They’re adding prior authorization requirements, restricting coverage, or shifting more of the cost onto workers.

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Regular inflation is doing its part too. Hospitals, insurers, and medical practices are paying more for staff and supplies. Healthcare wages have climbed as labor shortages drag on. When an insurer’s costs go up this year, it shows up in your premiums next year. That’s just how the math works.

Hospital consolidation has made it worse over time. When big health systems absorb smaller practices, they get more leverage in negotiations with insurers. That usually leads to higher reimbursements, which flows through to higher premiums and bigger out-of-pocket costs for patients.

On the ACA side, insurers are also pricing in the risk that healthier people drop coverage because it’s gotten too expensive. If that happens, the remaining pool skews older and sicker, which costs more to cover, which pushes premiums higher still.

What to do before open enrollment

Most people zero in on the monthly premium. That’s the number that shows up first and feels the most real. But it’s not what you actually pay for healthcare. It’s what you pay to have healthcare.

Marketplace deductibles went up 37% in 2026, adding more than $1,000 per person and landing at a record average of $3,786, according to KFF. Monthly premiums climbed 58% that same year.

A plan can look affordable on the premium line and still wipe you out when you actually go to use it, especially if the deductible is steep or the prescription coverage is weak.

Before you pick a plan, think through what you actually expect to use in the next year. Look at deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums alongside the monthly premium. Check whether your doctors and the hospitals you’d actually go to are still in-network.

If you’re on a GLP-1 medication, check whether it’s covered before you sign up. Coverage varies a lot by plan, and finding out after enrollment isn’t fun.

If you’re buying on the ACA marketplace, update your projected income before you enroll. Your subsidy amount is based on what you expect to earn. If you get it wrong, you could owe money back when you file your taxes.

If your income shifted in 2026 or looks different for 2027, take the time to run those numbers carefully. And if your plan qualifies for a health savings account, using one lets you cover out-of-pocket costs with pre-tax dollars, which is a real reduction in what coverage actually costs you.

Costs aren’t going down in 2027. But how much of the increase lands on you depends a lot on the choices you make before enrollment closes.

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First introduced by local councillors as an anti-crowding measure in 2024, the fee started out as €5 for any person older than 14 coming into the city’s historic center on weekends between April and July.

After a trial run, the fee was reintroduced (and expanded to €10 for those who do not book more than three days in advance) for the 60 busiest days in the subsequent summers.

“The current €5-10 charge is affordable for virtually everyone”: Venice on tourist tax

Although the period when the fee was charged in 2026 has now come to an end, local budget and taxation councillor Michele Zuin said the experiment of charging day trippers has not helped with overcrowding in the way the officials initially predicted, Reuters reported.

“The current €5-10 charge is affordable for virtually everyone; ​the risk is that it no longer has the deterrent ​effect that this measure is supposed to have,” Zuin told local newspaper Il Gazzetino, according to Reuters.

Related: Popular tourist destination adds ‘bikini ban’

Zuin said local councillors were now weighing raising the fee to €30 (approximately $34 USD) and, in remarks widely picked up by local media, potentially even up to €50 during the busiest periods.

Any specific numbers are currently at the budget proposal phase and would need to be approved by the city council and discussed by the Italian government before taking effect for 2027. The other proposal is to expand the current fee to longer periods during the summer.

The city of Venice released numbers showing that the 680,000 day-tripper entry tickets it sold in 2026 brought just over €5.2 million into the city budget. While there are no official entry checkpoints like at a museum or tourist attraction, local police conduct random checks throughout the city on the days when the entry fee is in effect.

What the day tourist tax in Venice means for tourism and overcrowding

Those caught without a QR code confirming payment of the daily fee can be hit with a fine of between €50 to €300.

The daily tourist fee has been controversial since it was introduced in 2024. Some see it as targeting less wealthy tourists who already cannot afford to stay at a central hotel overnight, while failing to address longstanding issues of noise and affordability that affect the local population.

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The Venetian model is rare and possibly unique, as almost all other destinations handle the tourist tax either through a nightly accommodation levy or a fee charged to international arrivals coming into a local airport.

The daily fee charged to anyone, regardless of residence, has been floated by individual lawmakers in cities such as Amsterdam and Dubrovnik, which also deal with overwhelming summer crowds. So far, these have not come to fruition.

Related: The latest tourist tax could soon come to all of England

Happy Monday. Stocks were mixed Monday as investors contended with rising bond yields and the upcoming release of the Fed’s meeting minutes.

Investors will look to minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September meeting Wednesday for clues on the path of interest rates.

Markets closed higher on Friday, with the Nasdaq reaching an intraday record high during the session, as a weaker-than-expected jobs report eased concerns about potential interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

“Equities are benefiting from Friday’s softer US labor market report which saw September payrolls increase by just 29,000, well below expectations,” Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst with Capital.com, said. “The previous two months were revised down by a combined 60,000 and unemployment edged up to 4.2%.”

“The data helped reduce expectations for another Fed hike in October, helping the Nasdaq 100 close Friday at fresh highs and taking some strength out of the dollar.”

The complication is the bond market, Hathorn said, which remains stubbornly weak.

“The 10-year Treasury yield is still around 5.25%, despite the disappointing payroll report and reduced expectations of an imminent Fed hike,” she noted.

“That reinforces the idea that the long-end sell-off is being driven by more than monetary policy: elevated real yields, heavy borrowing and competition for capital continue to demand a higher term premium.”

“For equities, this creates an unusual divergence as growth stocks are rallying because Fed expectations have softened, while the risk-free rate against which those valuations are judged remains exceptionally high,” Hathorn said.

Constellation Brands (STZ), Levi Strauss (LEVI), PepsiCo (PEP) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) are among the companies reporting earnings this week.

The Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq-100 jumped to all-time highs and ended strongly as the technology sector surged. The Dow Jones industrials finished with a 250-point gain, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.7% to 7,223.

Optical equipment giant Lumentum Holdings (LITE), up 15.3% last helped power those gains.

• Read more: Diesel, gas prices jump in September: Now what?

The G-7 industrial nations announced a plan to release 100 million barrels and oil and diesel fuel into global markets over the next four months. And there’s an expectation oil prices should go down this week and perhaps this fall.

Oil prices were modestly higher in trading late on Oct. 4. Stock index futures indicated a positive open for Oct. 5.

If nothing crazy happens, technology appears to have momentum on its side.

But the risks to markets remain, even if investors went into the weekend feeling fairly cheery. Mostly, the risks will be to energy markets, first, and bond markets, which have pushed global interest rates sharply in 2026.

The 10-year Treasury yield ended the week at 5.28%, up slightly from Oct 1’s close but lower than its 52-week high of 5.35% reached a day earlier. A 30-year mortgage would run you 7.57%, according to Mortgage News Daily, but that was down slightly from its Sept. 30 high of 7.6%.

Energy and interest rates are bound together by the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran. And no one has much of a clue what may happen this coming week, let alone how it will end.

The concern is that, after maybe a week of evidence that tanker passage through the Strait of Hormuz was practically at pre-war levels, suddenly it wasn’t. Since Sept. 28, there have been at least seven Iranian strikes on vessels around the Strait, which links the Persian Gulf to the Indian ocean and beyond, The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 4.

Plus, the Defense Department is sending another aircraft carrier into the Middle East to go with two carriers already there. And it also adding an amphibious ship with 2,000 soldiers as well.

Complicating matters, on Sept. 4, Yemen’s government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, declared war on Houthi rebels. This group is backed by Iran. U.S. military staff are providing intelligence and targeting planning assistance, the New York Times reported.

Here’s what else to watch.

ISM services and Fed minutes top economic reports

These can move market but not like the Oct. 2 jobs report, which reported surprisingly light employment gains in September.

The Institute for Supply Management’s Services Managers Report, due Oct. 5, is expected to report an index reading of 55, down slightly from its August reading.That will suggest the domestic economy is stable.

The Federal Reserve will release the minutes from its Sept. 15-16 meeting, where its Federal Open Market Committee boosted its key interest rate slightly to try to force U.S. inflation lower. What investors and others want to know is how gung-ho the Fed may be to raise rather further.

There will be attention paid to the University of Michigan’s October survey on consumer sentiment, due on Oct. 9. So far this year, the survey has suggested consumers are not particularly bullish on the domestic economy. But non-bullishness has not translated into lower spending patterns.

More oil, gas and the economy

• Inflation frustration boils over as consumer confidence takes an unexpected turn ahead of the holidays
• September Payrolls Miss Every Estimate, Wage Growth Slowest Since 2021
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PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines offer biggest earnings reports

Frankly, this is not a big week for earnings report. The real flood will start on Oct. 13 when the nation’s biggest banks release their numbers.

Earnings from four consumer companies will dominate the week’s reports. The two most important: PepsiCo (PEP), due Oct. 8, and Delta Air Lines (DAL), due Oct. 9. Both companies are consumer-facing companies and will have much to say about consumer spending and travel demand.

A third report to consider: Constellation Brands (STZ), maker and distributor of beer, wine and spirits. Due Oct. 6, Constellation and its competitors have struggled in the last few years because many people have stopped or sharply reduced their consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Lastly, Levi Strauss (LEVI), due Oct. 7, will offer a look at how its business has fared under Trump administration tariffs. In July, the company boosted its full-sales and revenue guidance. The shares jumped 62% between March and the end of July but are down 23% since.

Related: Nvidia’s AI boom revives a Warren Buffett warning for investors

According to a Business Insider report, Amazon (AMZN) AWS CEO Matt Garman is warning of efforts to halt new projects and how that could potentially weaken U.S. economic competitiveness, leaving the country behind in the global AI race, with consequences he says could last for generations. 

In his words, “The U.S. could be writing its own losing ticket to this race.”

That, in turn, feeds negatively into AI stocks, which have essentially driven the stock market’s gains over the past two to three years.

Moreover, that warning comes at a point when 100 data-center moratoriums are under consideration nationwide, while the opposition has already delayed or blocked over 120 proposed projects worth $198 billion during the first half of 2026.

Amazon is responding with over $1 billion over five years for education, job training, energy affordability and other programs in communities hosting its facilities, as reported by Reuters.

The conflict exposes a growing trade-off: 

America wants the economic benefits of AI, but the infrastructure powering it increasingly competes for local resources. Whether Amazon can ease that resistance may help determine how quickly the next phase of the AI boom gets built.

Amazon is trying to keep the AI buildout politically viable

Perhaps the biggest risk for Amazon is no longer whether demand for AI infrastructure exists. It is more about if communities will continue allowing the company to build enough of it.

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That resistance is already material. More than 120 proposed data-center projects worth roughly $198 billion were delayed or blocked in the first half of 2026, while about 6 in 10 Americans support limiting new data-center construction. 

Concerns center on electricity prices, grid upgrades, water use, noise and land impacts.

For Amazon, those objections threaten a core part of its growth strategy. The company invested $276 billion in data centers from 2011 through 2025 and expects about $220 billion in capital spending this year, which includes major technology and infrastructure investments. Slower permitting or broader moratoriums could therefore constrain the physical capacity AWS needs to support AI demand.

Amazon’s response suggests it recognizes that community acceptance has become a business requirement. 

AWS is committing over $1 billion over five years to host communities, while promising greater disclosure on energy and water use, an end to certain government nondisclosure agreements, and utility arrangements designed to prevent local customers from absorbing its infrastructure costs.

The company also says it will fund efficiency upgrades for 30,000 homes and 300 public buildings and expand workforce programs.

Those concessions may ease some pressure, but they do not settle the bigger question, which is  whether Amazon can expand AI infrastructure without intensifying the very local costs driving the backlash.

Data center resistance could ripple across the AI trade

The risk extends well beyond Amazon, as the AI investment boom depends on hyperscalers being able to convert enormous capital budgets into actual computing capacity.

Goldman Sachs estimates five major hyperscalers will spend more than $800 billion this year and about $1.1 trillion next year, as reported by Reuters.

That money supports demand not only for cloud infrastructure, but also for chips, servers, networking gear, power equipment, construction and other businesses tied to the AI buildout.

If community opposition or regulation slows new data-center projects, that spending may not disappear, but deployment could be delayed. For companies whose growth forecasts assume continued rapid infrastructure expansion, it matters immensely. 

There is another pressure point underneath that risk. Bain estimates AI infrastructure builders would need to generate more than $4.2 trillion in additional revenue within five years to justify the current scale of investment.

The AI boom is still strong, but the bar is getting higher

For now, investors are still rewarding the AI trade. 

The Nasdaq is up about 17% this year, the S&P 500 is near a record, Nvidia (NVDA) is back near all-time highs, and Amazon has already joined the $3 trillion market-cap club after strong AWS growth helped reinforce confidence in its AI strategy.

But the market is becoming more selective about what comes next. The median AI-infrastructure stock now trades at roughly 22 times forward earnings, down from 32 times in April, while the broader technology sector has also seen valuation multiples compress.

That suggests investors are no longer willing to rely on spending alone as proof of future returns. They increasingly want evidence that massive AI capital outlays can translate into durable revenue and earnings growth.

Garman’s warning adds another layer to that test. Even if demand for AI remains strong, local opposition could slow the infrastructure needed to support it.

The takeaway is that the AI boom now faces two linked questions: whether companies can build enough capacity and whether that capacity can generate returns fast enough to justify what they are spending.

Related: Jim Cramer spots overlooked AI stock after $11.6 billion deal 

Warren Buffett saw this coming. He said it out loud at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, and the numbers since then have only made his point harder to argue with.

Buffett told shareholders the market does not reward teachers and nurses the way it rewards entertainers, athletes, or investors who can spot a valuable business, MoneyWise noted. At the time, the pay gap between teachers and similarly educated workers in other fields was 6.1%.

It is now 25.2%, according to the Economic Policy Institute, after hitting a record high in 2024. That gap has not closed since he spoke. It has gotten four times wider.

His point was not that capitalism is broken. It was that capitalism does not measure usefulness, and people should stop expecting it to. Three decades of data have not changed that.

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What has happened to teacher pay since Buffett spoke

Economists have a name for this: the teacher pay penalty. It measures how far teacher salaries have fallen behind what workers with the same level of education earn in other fields.

In 2025, it stands at 25.2%. Put another way, a teacher and a marketing manager who graduated the same year with the same degree are not earning the same thing — not even close. Factor in pensions and benefits, and the gap narrows, but doesn’t disappear.

The gap falls harder on male teachers than female teachers, and it varies considerably by state, but more than half of states carry a penalty that puts teachers more than a quarter behind their peers.

Since the mid-1990s, teacher wages have dropped 6.2% in real terms. Over the same period, wages for other college graduates rose 28.8%. Same starting point, opposite directions for 30 years.

Nurses are dealing with a similar picture

A 2026 Nurse.org survey found that 55% of nurses got a raise last year, and 44% of those raises were 5% or less, which, in most cases, did not outpace rising costs.

The same survey found more than a third of nurses could not cover a $1,000 emergency without borrowing money. A significant share said they barely make it through the month on what they earn.

Some nurses picked up second jobs to close the gap. It did not help much. More than half of those workers still could not handle an unexpected $1,000 expense.

Just over three-quarters (76%) of survey respondents carried student debt on top of all that. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows registered nurse wages growing more slowly than wages for other healthcare support roles, even as many hospitals have been asking nurses to carry heavier patient loads than before.

What makes those numbers harder to absorb is the context. Nursing requires years of education, licensing, clinical hours, and ongoing certification. The emotional and physical demands of the work are well documented.

A profession that asks that much of its workers and still leaves more than a third of them unable to cover a modest emergency has a problem that data alone cannot fully capture.

Why markets keep producing this result

Think about what the market actually pays for. A software company can go from one million users to ten million without much change in costs. A musician records one album and it sells globally for years.

That kind of reach is rare. The ceiling on what it can earn is high, and the market prices it that way.

Teaching does not work that way. A teacher serves maybe 30 students a year. A nurse cares for a fixed number of patients each shift. The work does not scale, does not reach a global market, and does not generate profit that can be measured easily.

So the market pays less, no matter how much the people receiving the service depend on it. That is not a flaw in the system. That is how the system works.

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As technology expanded the earning potential of work that can reach global audiences, the distance between those roles and essential service work grew wider.

The entertainers, athletes and investors Buffett named as examples have seen their incomes rise sharply over the past three decades. Teacher wages, in real terms, went in the other direction.

The divergence was not random. It followed the logic of the market, exactly as Buffett described it.

What Buffett said workers and the system should both do

Buffett’s answer was not to tear the system down. It was to tax the winners. People who do well under capitalism, he said, have a responsibility to contribute in a way that takes care of those the market leaves behind.

“I do think that it’s incumbent on the people that do very well under that system to be taxed in a manner that takes reasonable care of anybody that is not well adapted to that system,” he told shareholders.

Buffett has held that view consistently. His argument is that public investment in education, healthcare, and retirement programs can redirect some of the gains from market-rewarded work toward people doing essential jobs the market undervalues.

The market is not wrong, in his view. It just does not fix itself.

But Buffett and Charlie Munger were also clear at that same meeting: waiting for the system to change is not a plan. Acting with the income you have is. Spending less than you earn, paying down high-interest debt, and investing consistently over time are available to most workers, regardless of salary.

Buffett has long recommended low-cost index funds for everyday investors. He has returned to that advice many times over the years. In his 2013 letter to Berkshire shareholders, he said 90% of the money set aside for his wife after his death should go into a low-cost S&P 500 index fund, because it is a practical way to build wealth over time without needing to pick stocks.

An investment of $500 a month in a broad index fund, held for 30 years at a hypothetical 7% annual return, grows to roughly $610,000 before taxes and fees. No year is guaranteed, and markets fall.

But a teacher or nurse who starts early and does not stop can still end up somewhere very different from where their paycheck suggested they would. The difference is mostly a function of time.

Related: Warren Buffett has a stark message for stock market investors

The global market for the sale of recreational vehicles (RV) and camper vans is currently projected to expand from $8.20 billion in 2025 to $17.60 billion by 2035. Along with the United States, countries with some of the biggest camper van sales and rentals include Canada, Spain, Portugal and Australia.

But despite the market seeing overall growth, many of the individual companies producing them have faced multiple challenges as orders soared during the covid-19 pandemic and rise of people working remotely while global supply issues restrained what the manufacturers were able to produce.

High interest rates and rising manufacturing costs have, in some cases, created situations in which individual camper companies got into a financial hole that only got deeper when post-pandemic orders ebbed.

Maverick Campers and Caravans collapses in liquidation, no refunds

Australian camper van manufacturer Maverick Campers and Caravans was the most recent player in this space to collapse and go into full liquidation after efforts to renegotiate a $500,000 AUD debt with its financiers collapsed at the eleventh hour.

A judge granted the creditors a winding-up order and, as of Oct. 1, the company has been ordered to liquidate. The legal process in Australia is the equivalent closest to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the U.S. Yulia Petrenko and Malcolm Kimbal Howell of Adelaide-based Jirsch Sutherland were assigned as liquidators overseeing the process; according to Petrenko, the camper van manufacturer was approximately $6 million AUD in debt.

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In an emotional video posted to the company’s Facebook page, Maverick CEO Matthew Winen classified the situation as a “nightmare” that left it with “no choice but to go into liquidation.”

“As you can imagine the bombshell hit when we thought we were all good,” Winen said in an address to customers. “We were absolutely blown away.”

“The other retailers in the industry must be nervous”: Maverick Campers and Caravans CEO

Winen went on to say that they had approximately 72 orders for its vehicles currently on the books. As the company is now in the process of liquidating its assets, it is unable to provide refunds for uncompleted orders.

While Winen encouraged affected customers to contact the liquidators, individual customers are considered unsecured creditors who are last on the list behind major banks and lenders to get compensation through a court-ordered liquidation.

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“The other retailers in the industry must be nervous because they are all going through financial stress and they see a financier do this,” Winen said further. “We will be reaching out to customers, particularly those who have paid more than 30 to 40 percent deposits.”

In September 2026, another Australian camper van manufacturer, Australian Off Road, also entered voluntary administration with more than $9 million AUD in debt. Both companies struggled with similar issues around rising costs and supply issues alongside high competition.

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New Jersey assemblyman and Civil War veteran Theodore B. Gibbs and his sons built what would grow into the longstanding amusement and water park in 1907 to drive tourist dollars toward the Philadelphia suburb of Clementon.

Switching hands and going through multiple iterations over the last century, the theme park eventually ran into financial troubles common to many smaller theme parks that struggle with operating costs and the need to continuously invest in ride infrastructure while also drawing in enough traffic. In 2019, Clementon Lake Park closed down to the public for two years after the company defaulted on a $4.5 billion loan from TD Bank.

Clementon Lake Park and Splash World hits auction block in New Jersey

While the park reopened in 2021 after being bought by current owners IB Parks & Entertainment, its finances eventually reached a point where keeping it open became unsustainable. The park closed down permanently on September 7 and, this week, appeared on a local auction marketplace to be sold to the highest bidder.

The bidding will begin on Oct. 19 and start at $1.5 million. Matthew Reis of RealINSIGHT Marketplace is the broker representing the amusement park in the auction.

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“Clementon Park & Splash World is a 45+ acre operating amusement and water park fronting Berlin Road in Camden County, the most populous county in Southern New Jersey,” the description of the auction item reads. “Clementon Park & Splash World has more than 110 years of operating history and has been a staple of the local community for generations. The site includes the approximately 23-acre private Clementon Lake and has received numerous upgrades throughout its ownership history.”

The amusement park was expanded significantly in the 1920s with what were then state-of-the-art rides. A fire nearly destroyed the entire site in 1931 while the Splash World water park section was added in July 1993 following a $5 million renovation to modernize the park for the 1990s.

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The description goes on to say that the buyer could buy the lot as a business opportunity and keep the park operating or tear it down and use the lot for new development such as a hotel or housing tower.

The current owners previously expressed hope that, given the park’s historical significance to the region, a buyer who wants to keep Clementon Lake Park open will surface.

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“It has been a privilege to care for a place that has meant so much to generations of families,” park management wrote in a farewell Facebook post at the end of last summer. “We are hopeful that we will find a buyer who shares our love for Clementon Park and will carry its history and legacy forward.”

Clementon Lake Park is among a string of regional theme and amusement parks that are closing this year due to a double whammy of high operating costs and dropping attendance.

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His prediction is something much bigger: universal high income.

Musk said that an “age of abundance,” when employment change but general living standards improve significantly, is the most probable result of highly powerful AI and robots, during a White House meeting with technology CEOs on Sept. 29. Musk also said that AI and more powerful robots might ultimately make high-quality healthcare widely accessible, CNBC reported.

This is one example of what can happen if robots are able to do more tasks than humans.

Bill Gates, a cofounder of Microsoft (MSFT), is concentrating on a different aspect of the problem. He is worried about what will happen to government income and labor during that transition.

Two of the most well-known billionaires in technology are at odds about how the AI economy may really operate because Gates wants businesses that replace human labor with robots to perhaps pay taxes on that automated job.

Elon Musk expects jobs to evolve rather than disappear

While acknowledging that occupations would alter as AI develops, Musk contended that technology has consistently destroyed certain forms of labor without completely abolishing them.

He cited human “computers,” who were previously hired to do computations before a large portion of the labor was mechanized by electronic computers. Musk said that when robots and artificial intelligence permeate the industry, he anticipates a similar change in jobs.

Investors at Tesla are interested in the projection since robots is now a part of the company’s long-term goals.

Optimus is a general-purpose autonomous humanoid robot designed to do tedious, repetitive, or dangerous activities, according to Tesla. The business is creating the AI, vision, navigation, and control technologies needed to enable the robot to function in the real world.

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In other words, Tesla is trying to commercialize some of the technologies that Musk believes could change the nature of work.

Musk has gone farther in other recent remarks, claiming that if commodities and services become much more plentiful, developments in AI and robots may someday make money itself less significant. However, there is currently no well-established economic mechanism that would automatically convert such productivity into the “universal high income” that Musk envisions.

Gates’ argument becomes significant at this point.

Bill Gates thinks replacing workers creates a tax problem

According to Gates, automated technologies that replace human labor have the potential to alter more than just a company’s wage costs.

Payroll tax income is produced by human workers. In general, robots don’t.

Gates suggested creating a unit of labor so that labor, whether done by a computer or a human, would be subject to the same Federal Insurance Contributions Act taxes, Business Insider reported.

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His worry is explained by the existing system. According to the IRS, companies often pay an employer portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes in addition to deducting them from employees’ income. Medicare is typically 1.45% for both employers and employees in 2026, while Social Security is 6.2% for both.

In the same way that displaced workers need additional retraining and assistance, Gates contends that governments may ultimately get less employment-tax revenue if technology lowers the amount of money paid as salaries.

For him, this is not a new role.

In a piece penned in August, Gates made the case for taxing both robots and AI tokens, claiming that the current tax system might financially incentivize businesses to replace workers with machines. He said that despite raising funds for retraining and a more robust social safety net, such a levy may considerably hinder that shift.

Gates is not saying that automation ought to cease. His suggestion is to alter the distribution of certain economic benefits and expenses in the event that robots start to replace significant amounts of human work.

Workers are increasingly worried about the AI transition

Musk’s upbeat perspective also contrasts sharply with how many Americans now view AI’s impact on jobs.

A June survey from Pew Research Center found that 71% of U.S. adults expect artificial intelligence to result in fewer jobs over the next 20 years. That was up from 64% in 2024. Just 5% expected AI to create more jobs.

That doesn’t establish what AI will ultimately do to employment. Long-term forecasts about technological disruption carry substantial uncertainty, and AI could eliminate some types of work while creating entirely new occupations.

However, it highlights the financial challenge that businesses and governments face as they increase their investment in automation.

Businesses may boost production and save expenses by using AI to replace costly or repetitive labor. The same change may result in fewer chances for people in jobs that formerly paid well. Reduced wage income may ultimately put strain on tax systems that depend on human employment for governments.

Regarding the fundamental technology, Musk and Gates aren’t inherently at odds. Both anticipate significant advancements in robotics and AI.

The focus is where they vary.

Musk envisions a future with exceptional productivity, an abundance of products and services, improved healthcare, and perhaps much higher earnings.

Gates is focusing on the shift needed to get there, namely what happens to workers and the tax base if robots start to replace human labor at lower costs.

That difference is important to investors.

The next stage of AI isn’t only about whether business creates the best robot or model. The economic regulations pertaining to labor, taxes, and the distribution of productivity gains may become as significant as the technology itself if automation spreads enough to significantly change employment.

Related: Elon Musk sends strong message to SpaceX and Tesla investors

This year, it costs something. Regular gasoline averaged $4.465 a gallon in the week ending Sept. 28, up $1.347 from a year earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Consumer confidence just fell to its weakest reading since 2014. That puts a hole in one of the most repeated rules in personal finance, and the hole is worth more than a percentage point.

Dave Ramsey tells investors to skip bonds

Personal finance expert Dave Ramsey offers guidance on the Ramsey Solutions webpage.

“We don’t recommend betting your retirement on bonds. You’re better off investing your money in a mix of growth stock mutual funds,” reads the page explaining bonds, published in November 2021 and last updated in September 2023.

The page gives two reasons. Bonds “barely outpace inflation,” and if “interest rates are low and inflation increases, inflation could outpace the return.”

Related: Dave Ramsey has surprising advice for homebuyers

The guidance also carries two links to SmartVestor Pro, the advisor-referral network Ramsey Solutions discloses it promotes for a fee, which is worth knowing when a rule steers you out of an asset class.

His broader philosophy, last updated on his site in April 2026, puts 15% of income into four types of growth stock mutual funds and assumes stocks return 10% to 12% a year.

On the median household income of $87,460, that 15% works out to $13,119 a year, or $1,093.25 a month. TheStreet has examined the 8% withdrawal rate he pairs with those returns.

Why one Treasury breaks Ramsey’s bonds rule

The Treasury sells two kinds of notes. One pays a fixed number, and the other pays a fixed number on top of whatever inflation turns out to be, because its principal moves with the consumer price index.

Ramsey’s page does not separate them, and the difference is the whole story. On Sept. 28, the 10-year Treasury note yielded 5.24%, while the 10-year inflation-linked note yielded 2.90% above inflation, according to the Treasury Department‘s own daily yield curves.

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Subtract one from the other, and you get the inflation rate the bond market is pricing over the next decade, which is 2.34%.

That 2.90% real yield stood at 2.44% on Aug. 31, so it climbed 46 basis points in four weeks.

A $19 billion reopening on Sept. 17 cleared at a 2.653% real yield, the highest for that term since October 2008, TipsWatch publisher David Enna reported that day. TheStreet covered real yields climbing past 2% in July, and they have gone higher since.

Households and the market disagree sharply

Consumers put 12-month inflation at 6.1% on average and 5.1% at the median in September, both up three tenths of a point, the Conference Board reported Sept. 29.

Its Consumer Confidence Index fell 6.7 points to 81.9, against a consensus near 89.2. The Expectations Index dropped to 63.6, a third straight monthly decline and well under the 80 level that has historically flagged recession risk.

“References to prices, the high cost of goods and services, and oil and gas prices in particular, rose to new heights, reflecting September’s surge in fuel costs,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board.

Take the household number at face value, and the arithmetic turns hostile quickly. A 10-year Treasury at 5.24% loses 0.81% a year in purchasing power at 6.1% inflation, so $10,000 comes back worth $9,218 in today’s money.

The inflation-linked note earns 2.90% above inflation whatever inflation does, turning that same $10,000 into $13,309 in today’s money. The spread is $4,091 on a single $10,000 decision.

At a glance

• 10-year Treasury note, Sept. 28: 5.24%
• 10-year inflation-linked note, Sept. 28: 2.90% above inflation
• Implied 10-year inflation rate: 2.34%
• Consumer 12-month inflation expectation: 6.1% average, 5.1% median
• Consumer Confidence Index, September: 81.9, down from 88.6
• Expectations Index, September: 63.6
• Regular gasoline, week ending Sept. 28: $4.465 a gallon
• Top national savings rate: 4.20% APY against a 0.65% average
  • Sources: Treasury Department daily yield curves; The Conference Board; Energy Information Administration; Bankrate. The implied inflation rate is TheStreet’s calculation.

The number that squeezes Ramsey’s case

Run the comparison the way an investor actually faces it. A 2.90% real yield is worth the same as a 9.18% nominal return if inflation runs at the 6.1% households expect.

Ramsey’s own page claims stocks return 10% to 12%. At the top of the household expectation, his advantage over a government note carrying no market risk narrows to 0.82 percentage points.

At the Fed’s own projection of 3.4% core inflation for 2026, that same 2.90% real yield is worth only 6.40% nominal, and his advantage widens back to between 3.60 and 5.60 points.

The distance between those two outcomes is the entire argument, and it turns on an inflation number nobody has yet.

Why households may be wrong anyway

Consumers have badly overshot before. Their inflation expectations were more unanchored in early 2025 than at the late 1970s peak, once you account for how widely their forecasts disagreed.

That finding comes from Robert Rich and Alexander Cline of the Cleveland Fed‘s Center for Inflation Research, in work published Feb. 2. One-year-ahead expectations peaked above 9%.

The same bank reported in March that anchoring “deteriorated notably for consumers in 2025,” while professional forecasters showed no such weakening. So 6.1% reads as a fear number more than a forecast.

Inflation is still doing real damage at far lower rates. Real home values fell for a 14th consecutive month in July, even as nominal prices rose 1.9%, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller index released Sept. 29.

What it means for you

Inflation-linked notes sell in $100 multiples in 5-, 10-, and 30-year terms, and at maturity, you collect the greater of your original or inflation-adjusted principal, according to NerdWallet.

Hold them inside a 401(k) or IRA where you can. The inflation adjustment counts as federal taxable income in the year it accrues, even though no cash reaches you. It does, however, escape state and local tax.

Ramsey’s 15% savings rate holds up, and so does his warning about concentrating in single stocks. The line to check is the one treating every government bond as the same instrument.

If you already follow his allocation, the useful question is whether the fixed-income slice you were told to skip now pays enough to fund a few years of retirement spending without market risk attached. His stance on holding stocks deep into retirement makes that question sharper, not softer.

The next reading of household inflation expectations lands Oct. 27, and the Fed meets before that. Both will move the number this decision turns on.

Related: Dave Ramsey warns Americans on 401(k)s, Roth 401(k)s

Happy Friday. Stocks were rising, with the Nasdaq reaching an intraday high, as Wall Street digested a key jobs report.

September’s nonfarm payrolls report showed U.S. employers added 29,000 jobs, less than expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2%. The Dow Jones consensus called for job growth of 84,000 and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 4.1%.

“The unemployment rate edged up as more people entered the labor force, but the unemployment-and-underemployment rate edged lower, taking some sting out of the headline,” said Bill Adams, chief U.S. economist at Fifth Third Commercial Bank.

Adams said evidence of AI’s impact on the job market is mixed. Employment is falling in industries that are aggressively adopting AI technology, but at the same time, employment of the technical workers who make the AI widgets spin is rising.

“For the Fed, the mediocre September jobs report isn’t bad enough to shift the focus away from inflation,” he said. “Their next decision in late October is live, in our view, and will probably be swayed by the September CPI and PPI reports, geopolitical developments, and prices at the pump between now and then.”

Treasury yields tumbled Friday after the weaker-than-expected jobs report, as investors reassessed the outlook for a Federal Reserve rate hike this month.

Nvidia (NVDA) reached a new all-time intraday high of $237.88, pushing its market capitalization past $5.7 trillion as investors continued to pile into AI.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has sent 9,000 U.S. troops to the Middle East after warning that new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon.

Markets finished slightly higher Thursday, kicking off the new month with modest gains.

Markets finished slightly higher Thursday, kicking off the new month with modest gains.

“Wall Street closed flat following a see-sawing session driven by bond market volatility and another jump in oil prices,” Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst with Capital.com, said.

Rodda said the move in long-term yields to fresh multidecade highs was compounded by ISM Manufacturing data showing building cost pressures in the U.S. economy. The rise in yields was short-lived, he said, as a retracement in rates took pressure off the market.

The grocery chain has seen its share of customer backlash this year, with several of its policies drawing complaints. When it discontinued Publix Pay, its contactless in-app payment option, in March, some customers called the move a step backward. 

Publix later faced boycott calls after updating its open-carry policy in May, asking that firearms be carried openly only by law enforcement. 

More recently, it began removing the 10-items-or-less limit from its express checkout lanes in its Florida stores in August, a move that drew mixed reactions from shoppers. 

Publix draws backlash over different BOGO rules

Now, the grocery chain’s buy-one-get-one-free (BOGO) deals are facing scrutiny. Publix recently confirmed that BOGO deals in its Florida stores differ from those in other states, according to a Daytona Beach News-Journal report.

In Florida, to get the BOGO deal, Publix shoppers must purchase one item to get the second one of the same qualifying item for free. 

However, in other states, Publix customers who purchase a BOGO item can either get it at half price, or pay full price and get the second item for free. 

In a statement to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Hannah Herring, a spokesperson for Publix, confirmed that these rules have been the company’s approach since it first introduced BOGO promotions. 

“In states outside Florida, customers may either get a second item for free or purchase a single item at half price,” said Herring. “We adopted this approach to align with customer expectations in markets where similar promotions are commonly offered that way.”

These rules, however, aren’t sitting well with some customers. According to a new survey conducted by the Daytona Beach News-Journal, 88% of consumers want Publix to change its BOGO rules in Florida to match other states, while only 12% want the rules to remain unchanged. 

“Having just read that those who shop at a Publix store outside of Florida are receiving more favorable treatment, it feels discriminatory,” one reader wrote to The Daytona Beach News-Journal. “It would also be helpful to those with lower income to not have to squander money/food or go without a product they would otherwise use.” 

“Add my name to the list of Publix customers who thinks 50% discounts are far more fair and equitable than BOGO,” wrote another reader. “It takes nothing away from the BOGO supporters but extends savings to the rest of us.”

Why Publix’s BOGO rules matter more right now

The BOGO backlash comes as many U.S. consumers are relying more on discounts and promotions to shop for groceries amid rising prices. 

According to Consumer Price Index data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for goods and services increased 3.4% year over year in August, while food at home prices rose 2.2%. Food-at-home prices are forecast to increase 2.4% this year. 

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That pressure on grocery budgets is also being compounded by recent SNAP changes. SNAP provides food assistance to low-income individuals and families with monthly funds to help them purchase groceries.

In July 2025, President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” was signed into law, reducing SNAP funding and expanding work requirements and eligibility restrictions. 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the new law reduces federal SNAP spending by nearly $187 billion through 2034, the largest cut to the program in history.

In a recent Grocery News App report, Sujeet Naik, an analyst at Coresight Research, said that because of recent changes to the SNAP program, retailers this year will likely see “lower SNAP-funded basket size and weaker traffic from lower-income households, particularly in stores and regions with higher SNAP exposure.”

Naik expects U.S. consumers to continue to double down on value during this year’s holiday season.

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“Grocery is already a highly price-competitive category, and with food inflation, higher fuel costs and SNAP cuts putting more pressure on household budgets, shoppers are likely to be even more focused on value heading into the holidays,” said Naik.

Amid this pressure, a new survey from Navigator Research found that 83% of Americans said the cost of groceries is a key pain point, and 78% said groceries have the greatest impact on their monthly expenses. 

Meanwhile, 45% have switched to cheaper brands in the past year, while 34% are using coupons and discount apps more frequently. Also, 30% are even visiting multiple grocery retailers to hunt for lower prices. 

Related: Publix makes significant checkout policy change for customers

The large number of visitors who come from all over is in large part due to the many different types of animals native to the South Appalachian region that call the 522,427 acres of mountainous rainforest home: everyone from black bears and white-tailed deer to wild turkeys, raccoons and mountain goats.

The Great Smoky Mountains are also home to approximately 2,200 different species of plants, which makes it one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world.

2 Great Smoky Mountains visitors accused of illegally poaching hundreds of ginseng roots

One of these plants species is a native ginseng species and, according to a social media post that the national park put on Sept. 30, two visitors to the park were recently caught with a combined 588 roots that they were harvesting illegally.

One of the park visitors was caught with 167 poached ginseng roots while the other had 521 poached roots weighing a total of eight pounds. Ginseng can sell for up to $500 per dry pound on the black market.

“Wild ginseng is often taken illegally due to its use in traditional medicine,” the National Park Service (NPS) wrote in the post. “This illegal harvesting harms delicate habitats, takes away food that animals need, and reduces genetic diversity.”

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Poaching ginseng in the park can result in fines of up to $5,000 and as long as six months in prison. The NPS did not elaborate on the specific charges that are faced by the two suspects or whether they were also hit with a park ban.

The plants that were seized by the park authorities will be replanted in the park. According to the park authorities, this will help undo some of the damage but only one-third of pulled-out ginseng survives when it is replanted quickly.

The average ginseng plant takes between seven to 10 years to reach maturity from a seed while some plants can live up to 75 years.

NPS: ‘Everything in Great Smoke Mountains National Park is protected’

“Everything in Great Smoky Mountains National Park — from wildlife to plants to rocks — is protected,” the NPS wrote further. “Illegal ginseng harvesting causes harm to the environment.”

The NPS urged anyone who observes illegal poaching or harvesting in the park to alert park authorities immediately. As ginseng grows in specific environments in the eastern and midwestern U.S., this is the first high-profile case of someone being arrested for harvesting ginseng in a national park this year.

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In August 2026, three men visiting the ecological Galt Preserve on Florida’s Pine Island were arrested for harvesting palmetto berries without a permit.

In California, local police made several arrests after catching poachers cutting redwood trees at Humboldt Redwoods State Park over the last few months.

Related: National park closes camping and tent locations until 2027

That possibility is massive, as more economic output could potentially mean more tax revenue, making a daunting budget problem more manageable.

Speaking on the Inside Economics podcast, in remarks highlighted in Moneywise’s Sept. 29 coverage, Zandi expressed optimism that technology could deliver substantially stronger productivity gains.

There is precedent for technology helping accelerate growth. Whether this boom can repeat that performance is another matter.

Nevertheless, even a stronger economy might leave Washington facing uncomfortable choices about taxes and major spending programs.

Zandi’s AI hope hinges on making America’s debt easier to carry

Mark Zandi’s argument is based on a simple idea: America’s debt becomes easier to manage when the economy supporting it grows faster.

“There is a lot of optimism around that we could see potentially much stronger productivity gains,” he said on Moody’s Inside Economics podcast, according to the Moneywise article.

Productivity means producing more per hour worked. If AI helps businesses accomplish that, profits and taxable income could rise, giving Washington more revenue without necessarily increasing tax rates.

Zandi pointed to Goldman Sachs’ scenario in which productivity growth approaches 3%, versus roughly 2% after the pandemic.

“That would be consistent with what Goldman thinks is going to happen here in terms of AI,” he said.

Read more economy news from TheStreet.

Recent data provide context, though they do not establish an AI breakthrough. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Sept. 3 that nonfarm business productivity rose 2.2% from a year earlier in the second quarter. Since late 2019, annualized growth has averaged 2.1%.

The fiscal opportunity could be substantial. A July Brookings paper estimated that a major productivity boom could reduce annual deficits from roughly 6% to 2% of economic output.

But smaller deficits still mean borrowing. The paper also warned that job displacement, higher interest costs, and other effects could erase more than half the potential benefit.

That makes Zandi’s qualification essential: stronger productivity might, “if not bail us out of our fiscal problems, certainly make them a lot easier.”

AI could buy breathing room. Washington would still need to confront tax and spending choices.

Musk’s abundance promise faces a productivity reality check

Zandi’s cautious optimism shares a foundation with Elon Musk’s sweeping promise.

According to the Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX (SPCX) CEO, AI could expand economic output enough to change what governments and households can afford.

At President Donald Trump’s Sept. 29 White House gathering on Super Intelligence, Musk said, “The most likely outcome is an age of abundance,” adding, “We have universal high income,” as reported by USAToday.

But a richer future remains a forecast. Evidence that AI has already delivered a broad productivity breakthrough is considerably less convincing.

A study summarized by the National Bureau of Economic Research surveyed nearly 6,000 executives across the United States, Britain, Germany, and Australia. Some 89% reported no impact from AI on labor productivity over the preceding three years as reported by Fortune.

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That is self-reported evidence, rather than proof that AI produces no benefits. Nevertheless, it challenges the assumption that widespread adoption automatically translates into greater output.

A narrower experiment from research nonprofit METR found experienced developers took 19% longer to complete tasks using early-2025 AI tools. The finding applied to particular developers and established projects, not the entire economy.

Crucially, METR said in February 2026 that newer tools likely improved performance, while selection problems prevented a reliable updated estimate.

Together, these findings expose the gap between impressive technology and measurable economic returns. Companies must turn individual tasks into more valuable output more quickly while absorbing implementation and verification costs.

For Zandi’s debt argument, the test is sustained growth in taxable income. Musk’s abundance vision supplies the ambition; Washington cannot treat those hoped-for revenues as money already in the bank.

Invest in measurable gains, and keep protection against disappointment

Zandi’s optimism supports diversification, not an all-in bet that AI will rescue America’s finances. 

Investors need to distinguish companies converting technology spending into cash from those selling distant promises.

For stocks, favor evidence of improving margins, revenue per employee, and free cash flow. A productivity boom can lift profits, but an expensive purchase price can still undermine returns.

Treasury investors face a different calculation. Reuters reported that the 10-year yield touched 5.34% on Oct. 1, its highest since 2002, before easing to 5.27%. Those yields offer income, but longer bonds remain vulnerable if inflation or borrowing pressures push rates higher. Consider staggering maturities instead of betting everything on falling yields.

Gold also needs realistic expectations. Reuters reported bullion near $4,183 an ounce after a 6% September decline, while silver traded around $61.11. Fiscal anxiety does not guarantee immediate gains when interest-bearing assets become more competitive.

Treat gold as portfolio insurance and size silver more cautiously, as industrial demand adds economic sensitivity.

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According to the local tourism board, occupancy at luxury and upper-upscale hotels in the territory rose by 14% between 2025 and 2026, W Journal reported. The 262,779 hotel nights that visitors to Puerto Rico booked last year represented an 18% increase, Facilities & Destinations noted.

Amid this growing interest and demand, several hotel chains have sought to build on the island.

The new Hyatt Centric San Juan Isla Verde opened in December 2025 in the northeastern coastal resort town, following a $30 million renovation of the former Verdanza Hotel. Hilton is also currently building new properties in San Juan, Ponce, and Dorado.

Nobu Hotel and Restaurant San Juan coming to Puerto Rico by 2028

This week, high-end hotel and restaurant chain Nobu revealed plans to bring the Japanese-fusion brand launched by celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa, actor Robert De Niro, and film producer Meir Teper in the 1990s to the Puerto Rican capital by 2028.

The 50-room luxury hotel will be built through a partnership with real estate firm KTT and feature a signature Nobu restaurant and bar at street level, alongside a rooftop bar and lounge.

Both will serve signature Nobu dishes and cocktails, such as the black miso cod and lychee martini, that helped propel the original restaurant in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood to fame in the 1990s.

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As the Nobu brand grew to dozens of restaurants both across the U.S. and internationally, the first Nobu Hotel, designed in the brand’s signature Japanese minimalist style, opened in Las Vegas in 2013.

As of 2026, there are 20 operating Nobu hotels around the world and an additional 28 in the pipeline slated to open in the coming decade. A few of the upcoming openings include properties in Barbuda, New York, and Rutland in the English countryside.

Set across 185 acres of rural English lands, the Rutland property is the brand’s first foray into creating a full countryside resort rather than a stand-alone city hotel.

“Puerto Rico has long been one of the Caribbean’s most compelling destinations”

“Puerto Rico has long been one of the Caribbean’s most compelling destinations, celebrated for its rich history, vibrant culture, and exceptional hospitality,” Trevor Horwell, chief executive of Nobu Hospitality, said in a press release confirming plans for the new location.

“Bringing the Nobu Hotel and Restaurant to San Juan allows us to become part of one of the region’s most storied neighborhoods while introducing our distinctive approach to hospitality in a destination that continues to attract discerning travelers from around the world.”

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Beyond the location and projected opening date, the company has released few details about the newest Nobu property in Puerto Rico.

Nobu said in the press release that the new location will be designed with Puerto Rican flair to give guests “an opportunity to experience the culture and character of the island.”

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It was not a bad idea on paper. The problem was that many of the people it was designed to help owed little or nothing in federal income taxes. A nonrefundable credit does not do much for someone who has no tax bill to reduce.

Congress decided to replace it. The new program, Saver’s Match, works differently, and the IRS has started reaching out to taxpayers who might benefit when it launches.

Why the IRS is mailing retirement notices right now

The agency mailed CP321J notices to taxpayers who either claimed the existing saver’s credit on their 2025 tax returns or whose income that year fell within the potential eligibility range for the new program, CNBC reported.

The notices are not a confirmation of eligibility. They are a heads-up that the program exists and that the recipient may qualify once it takes effect.

The IRS has not said how many notices it sent. Taxpayers who receive one still need to meet the program’s income, age, filing-status and retirement-contribution requirements when the benefit becomes available for the 2027 tax year.

Read more retirement news on TheStreet.

How the government will deposit money into your retirement account

The program was authorized under the 2022 Secure 2.0 retirement legislation and will replace the existing saver’s credit after the 2026 tax year.

The mechanics are straightforward. The government matches 50% of qualifying retirement contributions, up to $2,000 in contributions per eligible person. That produces a maximum federal contribution of $1,000 for a qualifying single filer.

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For married couples filing jointly where both spouses meet the eligibility requirements, the match doubles. A couple in which each spouse contributes $2,000 to a qualifying retirement account could receive a total of $2,000 from the government.

Contributions can be made through a workplace plan such as a 401(k) or through an individual retirement account. Eligible taxpayers will claim the benefit on a new form, Form 8880-A, when filing their 2027 returns in 2028.

Other eligibility requirements include being at least 18 years old, not being enrolled as a full-time student, not being claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return and being a U.S. resident for tax purposes.

How much you can earn and still qualify

Single filers with modified adjusted gross income of up to $20,500 can qualify for the full match.

The benefit does not cut off sharply after that. Single filers with income between $20,501 and $35,499 remain eligible for a partial match. Above $35,499, single filers do not qualify.

For married couples filing jointly, the full match is available with income up to $41,000. Partial eligibility extends through $70,999. The income ranges listed in the IRS guidance are subject to the final rules governing the program before it launches.

Why the old program failed the people it was meant to help

The existing saver’s credit can reduce a taxpayer’s federal income tax bill by up to $1,000 for single filers and $2,000 for joint filers.

But because the credit is nonrefundable, it can only bring a tax liability down to zero. Taxpayers who owe less than the credit is worth lose the remainder. For households with very low incomes, that often means collecting far less than the stated maximum.

The Saver’s Match sidesteps that problem entirely. Rather than reducing a tax bill, the government deposits money directly into the taxpayer’s retirement account. The benefit does not depend on how much the person owes in taxes.

Stephen Roll, assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis’ Brown School and research director at its Center for Social Development, said the structural change could reach more households than the credit it replaces, according to CNBC.

Many people in the target income range owe little or no federal income tax, which means the current credit often delivers far less than advertised. A direct deposit into a retirement account gets around that gap.

The catch that could leave Roth IRA savers empty-handed

Roth IRA contributions count toward determining eligibility for the Saver’s Match. But the government cannot deposit the match directly into a Roth IRA under the current framework. Taxpayers who save exclusively in a Roth account may need to open a traditional IRA or another qualifying account to receive the federal money.

The Treasury Department and IRS are considering a workaround. Under one proposal, a traditional IRA could serve as a conduit account, receiving the match first before the funds transfer into a Roth. That transfer would generally be treated as a taxable Roth conversion.

The agencies are accepting public comments on the proposal through Oct. 5.

Most plan administrators say they will not accept the deposits

Workplace retirement plans and IRA providers are not required to accept Saver’s Match deposits. The Plan Sponsor Council of America surveyed 125 plan administrators and found that only three said they would accept the federal contributions.

Forty-five were still weighing the decision. Fifty-seven said they would not participate. Twenty were not familiar with the program at all.

If plan providers do not sign up, eligible workers may need to find a separate account or take additional steps to collect the match. The federal government is planning to launch a website, TrumpIRA.gov, on Jan. 1 to help workers compare and enroll in IRAs and, where eligible, claim the Saver’s Match.

Taxpayers who received a CP321J notice should treat it as a prompt to review their retirement accounts, not as confirmation that the benefit is guaranteed.

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In Spain, low-cost airline Volotea filed for preliminary creditor protection at the Commercial Court of Barcelona on Sept. 29, in an attempt to restructure its debts and the €200 million loan it owes to Spanish creditors.

Earlier in the month, Latvian national airline and flag carrier AirBaltic also filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in New York, Reuters reported. This came after local bondholders with more than 70% of its $583 million in debt refused the airline additional loans to maintain its day-to-day operations.

Animawings cancels certain routes after entering insolvency proceedings

The latest low-cost airline to enter insolvency proceedings is Bucharest-based Animawings. The Romanian carrier launched in 2020 with two Airbus A320 planes. It quickly expanded to fly to dozens of destinations in Europe and the Middle East from Henri Coandă International Airport (OTP) in Bucharest.

The aging aircraft began to require extensive maintenance, which, coupled with the spike in jet fuel, increasingly weighed on Animawings’ financial situation over the last year.

Related: Another budget airline files for bankruptcy

“It is a difficult but necessary decision to protect what we have built over the past years and, above all, to enable us to continue,” Animawings said in a statement. “The repeated technical problems affecting our fleet have generated a chain reaction across our entire business in a relatively short period of time, against an economic backdrop that has further intensified this pressure.”

While the airline said that its ultimate goal is to “maintain as many scheduled flights as possible,” it has already begun trimming its flying schedule to minimize unprofitable routes. Flights to Frankfurt and Vienna from the smaller Cluj-Napoca International Airport (CLF) were canceled throughout October.

Those who already booked seats on these flights will, according to the airline, be contacted with alternative travel and refund options.

Animawings says “priority is to maintain as many scheduled flights as possible”

The airline has previously already suspended its routes to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Tel Aviv amid the security situation in the Middle East.

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“Animawings will continue its activities and flight operations with its current fleet,” the statement said further. “In the immediate period ahead, the company’s priority is to maintain as many scheduled flights as possible and limit the impact on passengers.”

Other airlines that shut down or filed for bankruptcy in 2026:

• Flamingo Air and Aerodiana: The regional airlines with large client bases among tourists to the Bahamas and Peru, respectively, currently have suspended AOCs after fatal accidents in their home countries in July 2026.
• Spirit Airlines: The largest airline shutdown of the year occurred when Spirit Airlines canceled all remaining flights on May 2. Although the airline had filed for Chapter 11 protection twice before, the skyrocketing price of jet fuel dealt the final blow.
• Magnicharters: The Mexican low-cost airline ended up canceling all flights and filing for bankruptcy in a shutdown that left thousands stranded.
• Starflite Aviation: The Houston-based carrier had its AOC license revoked in March 2026, amid FAA claims that owners falsified pilot training records to bypass safety audits.
• AlpAvia: The Slovenian charter airline also shut down in March 2026 due to financial problems.

Related: Another airline shuts down after losing license, cancels flights

Happy Thursday. Stocks were mixed as Treasury yields surged to their highest levels in more than two decades.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose 4 basis points to 5.3338% on Thursday, according to LSEG data, reaching its highest level since April 2002. The 30-year yield rose 3 basis points to 5.6702%, its highest level since July 2002.

Nike (NKE) is scheduled to report earnings today after the bell. The sports apparel and equipment giant is in the midst of a turnaround under CEO Elliott Hill, who returned to Nike after more than three decades with the company.

Shares were down 0.42% in early trading and the stock is down 44% year-to-date.

Markets finished mixed on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 ending lower even after new U.S. economic data showed inflation slowed last month.

“Wall Street traded in a mixed fashion again as highly anticipated US PCE Index data proved more noise than signal, with methodological changes leading to a drop in measured core inflation last month,” said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com.

“There was the typical knee-jerk reaction in markets in response to an annual core PCE Index read of 3% – a number that undershot significantly the 3.3% forecast,” he added.

“But it proved to be all technical in nature, arguably leaving the markets in a greater state of uncertainty than before the release.”

Rodda said the data leaves policymakers in a position of having to navigate a complex macroeconomic environment with increasingly unreliable data, as market signals point to inflation that’s very slightly slipping from central banker control.

Maybe the fourth quarter will bring prices down. Wall Street thinks it’s possible, but hard forecasts on diesel and gasoline prices are hard to come by. Meanwhile, the war between Israel, the United States and Iran is seven months old — and counting.

Related: Crude oil is falling, but when will pump relief arrive?

U.S. diesel prices jumped 14.5% to $6.414 a gallon in JUST one month, according to AAA Fuel Prices. Gasoline prices rose 8.7% to $4.433.

We can answer the question listed just above: Gas prices are down from their May peaks, maybe about 3%. But you’re allowed to mutter, “Big whoop.”

Meanwhile, light sweet crude, the benchmark U.S. oil, settled at $90.53 per 42-gallon barrel, up 1.3% on the day and up 5.6% for September and 30% for the third quarter. For the year, it was up 58%.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 2% to $98.03, an 8% gain for the month . It was up 34% in the third quarter and is up 61% in 2026.

If there was any solace to be had, it’s two, maybe three things:

• At least it wasn’t May when gas prices peaked at $4.566 a gallon, according to both AAA and GasBuddy.com.
• At least it wasn’t June 2022 when post-Covid inflation pushed AAA’s and GasBuddy’s national averages above $5.20 a gallon.
• Lastly, autumn is upon us, when oil prices typically come down and pull retail gas and diesel prices lower as well. In 2025, AAA’s retail gas price fell 12% between its June peak and the end of the year. Diesel fell a more modest 6.2% between its November 2025 peak and Dec. 31.

A path to $4 gasoline?

Wall Street analysts do see crude prices coming down a bit in the fourth quarter, which should make a visit to a gas pump a touch less painful. Maybe to $4 a gallon or lower.

Analysts at JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman see light sweet crude averaging $85 a barrel, with Brent averaging $90.22.

Commodity trader John Kilduff of Again Capital in New York thinks those estimates are a little rich. He’s betting on $82 a barrel on light sweet crude and $85 a barrel on Brent.

Reason: The U.S.-imposed economic sanctions are having a real effect on the Iranian economy, Kilduff told theStreet. These include telling any country supplying goods and services such as jet fuel will be cut off from the global payment system, which is in dollars.

Iran’s economy is getting squeezed badly, he said.

Plus more non-Iranian crude oil is getting out of the Persian Gulf and then transferred to tankers in the Indian Ocean. And Saudi Arabia has repaired its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea so crude exports can resume.

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There are just so many uncertainties

But the complexity of politics in the Persian GuIf is making the process of achieving a real settlement difficult.

Iran’s government has not shown much interest in a deal, despite the war damage and economic sanctions. The Trump Administration’s agenda is basically for Iran somehow to surrender.

And there are other wild cards at work. A pilot stabbed his co-pilot aboard a plane headed to Israel on Sept. 30 and may have tried to crash the aircraft with 174 people onboard, reports said.

Saudi Arabia has had to struggle with attempts by Houthi rebels to close off the Red Sea, and drones fired by rebels based in Iraq shut down the Saudi’s pipeline from the Persian Gulf to its oil port at Yanbu.

The U.S. economy is having to cope with the stresses of the war and higher energy prices. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.29%, its highest level since May 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. stocks mostly slumped in response. Technology and tech-related stocks showed some strength, but nine of the 11 sectors in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were lower.

And, of course, the U.S. midterm elections are just 34 days away.

Related: Middle East, Ukraine just dealt another blow to your wallet

The Boeing 737 Max 8 plane carrying 174 passengers took off from Dubai International (DXB) at 6:50 a.m. local time. It had been in the air for approximately two hours when a fight between the two pilots in the cockpit broke out and caused the plane to plunge more than 17,000 feet in the air in two minutes, the BBC reported.

Images from the attack and descriptions from passengers aboard the plane revealed that a co-pilot likely attempted to stab the captain as several passengers on the plane rushed to the front to subdue him.

Two off-duty pilots traveling as passengers on the flight were able to safely land at Tabuk Airport (TUU) in northwestern Saudi Arabia, with no injuries aside from the cockpit pilot.

Cockpit stabbing on Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv sets off hijacking code

The crew on FZ1073 sent both general emergency and hijacking codes to ground staff, while Flydubai dispatched emergency teams and two replacement aircraft to return passengers to Tel Aviv from a country rarely visited by Israelis, due to the lack of formal diplomatic ties between the two nations.

Local news outlets reported that 166 of the 174 passengers aboard were Israeli, and the two pilots were Omani and Emirati nationals.

A Flydubai statement said the flight was “successfully secured by on-duty Flydubai crew travelling on the flight” while “the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation.”

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The pilot who stabbed the captain has reportedly been arrested and brought in for questioning by Saudi authorities.

Zvika Manes, one of the passengers traveling home to Israel, told Israeli news outlet Calcalist that he heard “shouting” and “screams,” adding that he ended up “covered in blood” after entering the cockpit to help subdue the attacker.

Other witnesses also reported seeing a knife in the hands of the co-pilot.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu classified the attack as an attempt by one of the pilots to crash the plane. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon praised the “heroic” pilot who “showed extraordinary determination and resourcefulness, helping prevent a major disaster.”

Footage taken by a passenger aboard the flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv after the plane took a rapid plunge. pic.twitter.com/O3vd5644pL

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 30, 2026

“We urge all parties to refrain from premature speculation”: Flydubai

The attack came just under a month before Israel’s presidential election, which has been dominated by issues around national security and the global response to the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s main political opponents issued statements that his classification did not resemble what actually occurred onboard. They accused the current Israeli leader of using the incident to try to gain “political capital.”

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“We urge all parties to refrain from premature speculation while authorities gather the facts,” Flydubai said in a statement.

The replacement plane registered as A6-FKR left Saudi Arabia at 5:20 p.m. with all of the passengers on the original flight aboard.

Lives updates on Flight FZ1073 can be tracked on BBC as more details become known.

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In February 2026, small-ship expedition cruise line Alaskan Dream Cruise Lines shut down permanently after parent company Allen Marine Tours chose to redirect its business to day sailings amid the rising cost of fuel and port fees for running overnight cruises.

This week, a social media post from Florida-based Victory Casino Cruises told its passengers it was shutting down operations indefinitely as its only ship, the 202-passenger Victory I, remains in dry dock needing extensive repairs.

Victory Casino Cruises lays off staff and cancels trips

“While we had hoped to resume sailing sooner, additional necessary work has extended our time out of service,” a Sept. 24 Facebook post signed by Captain Tim Levensaler reads.

The cruise line that launched from Port Canaveral in 2011 has also furloughed several hundred of its staff and canceled all sailings into 2026. Victory marketed itself as offering a Las Vegas-style gambling experience on the sea. It offered more than 600 slot machines and table games while running exclusively day cruises around the east coast of Florida.

The Victory I sailed twice a day for five hours Tuesday through Sunday. The cruise line’s last “Bon Voyage” sailing took place on Sept. 28.

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“Last week, due to the extension of the ship’s dry dock, Victory was forced to furlough all of its employees, myself included,” Pete Lynch, an employee who oversaw bookings and events at the cruise line for the last 15 years, wrote in a public Facebook post cited by The Space Coast Rocket.

Lynch expressed hope that the cruise line could one day return “possibly even with a new ship,” but for the time being, all of its casino hosts and reservation agents have been let go, and the cruise line is not accepting any new reservations.

Victory Casino Cruises says it will provide refunds on canceled trip bookings and deposits

The captain’s post said that anyone who has an upcoming booking or made a deposit will be refunded to the original method of payment, although a timeline has not been provided.

Any casino points or prepaid dining will likely be lost. Victory Casino Cruises further said that any potential sailing restart will be announced on its website and Facebook page.

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Along with not elaborating on the scope of the needed repairs for Victory I, the company has not named a specific shipyard or facility handling the ship while it is in dry dock.

The term refers to a basin where cruise ships are kept without water so engineers and other maintenance workers can inspect and repair the underwater hull.

The Victory I had previously been in dry dock during the summer and returned for a few sailings at the end of September, only to be shut down again not long after.

Related: Another budget airline files for bankruptcy

But the rate picture is shifting. The Federal Reserve kept raising rates into the fall, the dollar strengthened, and the argument for holding a zero-yield asset got harder to make. Wall Street is starting to update its math.

What Wells Fargo changed and why

Wells Fargo Investment Institute trimmed its 2027 year-end gold price target to between $5,200 and $5,400 per troy ounce, according to Investing.com. The previous range was $5,400 to $5,600.

The bank still sees gold moving higher over the period. It just no longer sees it moving as high as it previously did.

Two things drove the revision. The Federal Reserve is expected to keep raising rates, and the U.S. dollar is growing stronger. Neither development is good for gold.

Gold pays no interest and no dividends. When rates go up, investors can get real returns from cash or Treasuries without taking on commodity risk. That makes gold harder to justify holding, especially at elevated prices. The Fed raised rates in September and signaled more increases are coming, CNBC reported.

The dollar is important for a different reason. Gold trades in dollars globally, and a stronger dollar makes the metal more expensive for buyers in other currencies.

That cuts into demand from outside the United States, which is a large piece of the overall market. Countries that buy gold in their own currencies, including India, China, and Turkey, feel that squeeze directly. When the dollar runs, gold demand in those markets tends to soften.

Wells Fargo is not turning bearish on gold

Cutting a target is not the same as calling a top. Wells Fargo still expects gold to be higher in 2027 than it is today. The bank just thinks the climb will be harder than it previously expected.

A few things support that view. Central bank buying slowed in the first quarter of 2026 but has since picked back up. Gold ETF flows turned positive in July and got stronger through August, according to the World Gold Council.

That is a signal that retail investors are returning to the market after stepping back earlier in the year.

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Central banks have been treating gold more seriously as a reserve asset. Several have been reducing dollar exposure and adding gold instead.

That shift did not happen overnight, and it is unlikely to reverse quickly. If the pattern holds, it provides a floor under prices, even when rates are working against the metal.

There is also the question of what central banks are moving away from. The dollar has been the dominant reserve currency for decades. But a growing number of countries are looking to reduce that dependence.

Gold is one of the few alternatives that does not carry counterparty risk. That gives it a structural argument that goes beyond what the Fed does in any given quarter.

Geopolitical risk is still part of the calculation

Wells Fargo flagged a list of factors that could keep gold supported regardless of what the Fed does. Geopolitical tensions. Concerns about government debt and deficits. The risk that currencies lose purchasing power over time. General market uncertainty. Persistent inflation.

Gold gets bought in bad times. That has been true across a lot of different rate environments.

The problem is that safe-haven demand is not reliable. Gold dropped sharply during the early weeks of the Covid pandemic before recovering. It has sold off during past rate cycles when investors needed liquidity quickly. The safe-haven story depends on the stress being the right kind of stress.

What tends to work for gold is slow-burn anxiety, the kind that builds over months and not the kind that triggers a sudden rush to cash.

When investors are broadly unsettled but not yet in full panic mode, gold holds up. When a crisis hits fast and people need to raise money immediately, it often gets sold alongside everything else.

Slower growth adds another complication

Wells Fargo sees U.S. economic growth slowing. Higher borrowing costs are starting to bite. Consumer purchasing power is under pressure. Fuel costs remain elevated. The fiscal support that propped up spending in earlier years is fading.

The bank also expects geopolitical disruptions and continued business investment in technology to keep inflation from cooling quickly. That is the setup for a difficult macro environment heading into 2027.

For gold, slower growth can be a positive. Uncertainty tends to push investors toward the metal. But if rates stay high at the same time, the two forces work against each other and the outcome is harder to call.

Wells Fargo’s revised forecast is essentially an acknowledgment of that tension. The bank is not saying that gold falls. It’s saying that the easy part of the trade may already be over.

What the target cut signals for investors

A $200 reduction in a price target that still sits above $5,000 is not a dramatic shift. But it is a signal worth paying attention to.

Gold does not generate income. The longer rates stay elevated, the more that matters. Holding gold means giving up whatever yield investors could be earning elsewhere.

At current rate levels, that is not a small amount. A six-month Treasury bill is paying well above 5%. That is real competition for a metal that pays nothing.

Investors who hold gold through ETFs or funds also absorb management fees and may not track spot prices exactly. Physical gold comes with storage and insurance costs.

None of that changes the case for holding some gold as part of a diversified portfolio. But Wells Fargo’s revision is a reminder that the conditions that drove gold to current levels are not as favorable as they were, and that betting on a one-way rally from here carries more risk than it did 12 months ago.

Related: Top Wall Street firm resets gold price target for 2030

Spirit Airlines was the biggest name to, after years of poor balance sheets and earlier attempts to restructure, be dealt the final blow by jet fuel prices and permanently shut down all operations in May 2026.

Mexican budget airline Magnicharters and Latvian flag carrier AirBaltic are among the other airline names to file for bankruptcy bankruptcy protection in recent months. In the latter case, flights are continuing uninterrupted as the national carrier seeks to restructure its debt and reduce its fleet of 50 Airbus A220-300 planes.

Volotea enters preliminary bankruptcy protection, looks to restructure debts

Over in Spain, Barcelona-based budget airline Volotea was established in 2011 at the height of the low-cost airline model bonanza in Europe.

Amid an explosion of new airline launches, the model of luring customers with a low base fare and then making up for it with ancillary charges gradually became less and less lucrative over the subsequent decade as operating costs rose and mainstream airlines started playing the same game with basic economy.

Related: Airline grounded, cancels all flights after bankruptcy

As first reported by local Spanish press, Volotea has filed for preliminary creditor protection at the Commercial Court of Barcelona on Sept. 29.

While Spanish law differentiates between the preliminary move and a full bankruptcy, this is the first step in seeking insolvency protection from creditors. It is the closest equivalent to a Chapter 11 filing in the U.S. in that it allows the airline to restructure its debts and reach an agreement with creditors independently before having to go through a court-assigned administrator. Volotea hopes to complete this process by December 2026.

Volotea CEO Carlos Muñoz named jet fuel prices as the primary reason for having to seek creditor protection in order to ensure the “long-term continuity” of the airline.

As part of the restructuring, Volotea is planning to shrink its fleet of 44 leased Airbus A319 and A320 jets to approximately 30 and seek a capital increase from shareholders like the Greek airline Aegean and U.S.-based hedge fund PAR Capital.

What is happening with Volotea flights in 2026

Flights to the more than 110 destinations across Europe and North Africa to which Volotea flies are currently not expected to be affected as the carrier goes through insolvency proceedings.

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These other airlines filed for bankruptcy or shut down in 2026:

• Flamingo Air and Aerodiana: The regional airlines with large client bases among tourists to the Bahamas and Peru, respectively, currently have suspended AOCs after fatal accidents in their home countries in July 2026.
• Spirit Airlines: The largest airline shutdown of the year occurred when Spirit Airlines canceled all remaining flights on May 2. Although the airline had filed for Chapter 11 protection twice before, the skyrocketing price of jet fuel dealt the final blow.
• Magnicharters: The Mexican low-cost airline ended up canceling all flights and filing for bankruptcy in a shutdown that left thousands stranded.
• Starflite Aviation: Houston-based Starflite Aviation had its AOC license revoked in March 2026, amid FAA claims that owners falsified pilot training records to bypass safety audits.
• AlpAvia: Slovenian charter airline AlpAvia also shut down in March 2026 due to financial problems.

Related: Another national airline files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Between the ongoing war with Iran that was only supposed to last a few weeks, fluctuating oil prices that are driven by social media posts from the President, and stubborn inflation that the government just can’t seem to get under control, consumers are feeling the effects of it all.

While the Consumer Confidence Index published by The Conference Board showed that Americans remained resilient despite softening confidence, the narrative shifted significantly in September, leading researchers to call it a deterioration in confidence.

U.S. consumers turn negative on the economy

September marked the third consecutive month of declining confidence, but the fall from August was more pronounced than in the previous months.

“The Consumer Confidence Index deteriorated notably in September, following two prior months of softening,” said Dana M Peterson, Chief Economist, The Conference Board. “The Present Situation Index fell sharply, while the Expectations Index slipped further into negative territory. Consumer appraisals of current business conditions became negative for the first time since September 2024.¨

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The Consumer Confidence Index fell by 6.7 points to 81.9 in September, down from 88.6 in August.

The Present Situation Index — which measures consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions — dropped by 7.9 points to 109.3.

The Expectations Index — which measures consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions — fell by 5.9 points to 63.3.

What is driving economic confidence levels lower?

According to the survey, while perceptions of the labor market remain positive, perceptions of the current labor market have worsened.

But that’s just one of the factors leading to the loss of confidence.

“Consumers’ write-in responses regarding factors affecting the economy were mostly pessimistic in September,¨Peterson said. ¨References to prices, the high cost of goods and services, and oil and gas prices in particular, rose to new heights, reflecting September’s surge in fuel costs. Comments about war/conflict eased this month but remained elevated. Consumers also frequently cited politics, trade, and employment in their write-in responses, though to a lesser extent.”

Pulling out to a wider view on a six-month moving-average basis, confidence across all age groups and nearly all income groups declined in September. Consumers with a household income between $125,000 and $149,000 reported the greatest decline in confidence over the last six months.

Meanwhile, Gen Z, followed by Millennials, maintained the highest confidence on a six-month moving average, while the three oldest generations continued to show weakness.

Confidence fell among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike.

Consumer confidence by the numbers

According to the survey, 18.5% of consumers said that business conditions were good, down from 18.8% in August, while 20.4% said business conditions were bad, up from 17.3%.

Nearly 24% of consumers said that jobs were “plentiful,” down nearly 1 percentage point from the 24.5% who felt that way in August. About 22% said jobs were “hard to get,” up from 20.3% prior.

Looking to the future, 15.9% of those surveyed said they expect business conditions to improve, down from 17% in August, while 25.4% expected them to worsen, up from 23.3%.

They were also more negative about the labor market outlook, with 14% expecting more jobs to be available, down from 14.8% in August, while 28.4% expected fewer jobs, up from 26.1%.

Lower confidence leads to less spending

Consumers increasingly worried about the labor market and business conditions will naturally want to spend less on things they can go without.

Expected spending on services over the next six months fell in September. The top 5 planned services consumers expect to spend money on were: restaurants/bars/takeout, streaming/internet/mobile services, beauty and personal care, utilities, and healthcare. Meanwhile, the anticipated spending for discretionary activities like hotels, movies, airfare and amusement parks moderated.

The six-month average on plans to purchase autos and homes also declined slightly. Among durable goods, furniture and smartphones remained priorities, while spending plans on refrigerators and TV sets fell the most on a six-month moving-average basis.

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Still, individual parks can face pressures ranging from rising operating costs to heavy regional competition and snowballing corporate debt from repairs and renovations that keep rides appealing to visitors.

Theme park giant Six Flags closed six “underperforming” locations in its amusement and water park portfolio in 2026. Wild Waves Theme and Water Park in Washington State, Adventure Landing in North Carolina, and Fun Spot America in the Atlanta suburbs are also among the smaller parks that have shut down since the start of the year.

The latest name to join that list is Ryze Adventure Park in Missouri.

Standing out from more traditional amusement parks as an “aerial adventure park” with ziplines and elevated bike and ropes courses, the park was opened by locals Greg Hoffman and Tony Holt in 2021 after years of development based on a concept more popular in several European countries.

Ryze Adventure Park shuts down 4 years after opening

As first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ryze Adventure Park is now set to close after just four years in operation, as operating costs rose faster than the owners could build out a visitor base and reach profitability.

Built across four stories on a lot next to a former church, the adventure park was designed to offer more than 100 aerial challenges, such as an observation deck, swaying bridges, a zipline jungle gym, and a 50-foot free-fall tower.

Tickets started at $39 for adults, and the staff was made up primarily of several dozen seasonal workers during the summer months.

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Ryze’s owners promoted it as having “something for everyone” — both thrill seekers and those who would come to the park with kids and spend their time walking around and seeing the views from the different observation decks.

Amid falling revenue, Hoffman and Holt had tried to seek external management help from Applied Adventure Consulting Co., a Colorado-based management firm behind other similar adventure parks.

But ultimately the business model set out at the time of Ryze’s launch anticipated it growing its revenue by 20% within five years. According to the owners, the adventure park saw its profits drop by more than 40%.

“A whole year of expenses without revenue”: Ryze Adventure Park owners on closure

“It kind of softly closed,” Hoffman described to a local outlet. “We had a whole year of expenses without revenue.”

The owners are still looking for a last-minute partner to step in and see potential in an adventure park in the St. Louis suburb. Despite the falling profits, the park quickly found a strong community of regional fans that would return summer after summer over the last five years.

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It was also a popular booking for local corporate retreats and school field trips.

“Ryze is a confidence builder and a collaborative activity,” Hoffmann said to The Dispatch. “Otherwise, it will have to be taken down.”

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While the chicken category in fast food still rose by 5.3% in 2025, this segment of the fast-food market is hard to differentiate oneself in given that there are only so many dishes one can make with fried chicken before straying away from what makes it a favorite and the high number of competitors in this space.

Yum! Brands-owned giant KFC has closed more than 300 of its stores across the U.S. in 2026, including 44 in California alone, while Miami-based Southern chicken chain Yardbird filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the start of September after having already made cost-cutting restaurant closures earlier in the year.

Bojangles Cajun fried chicken chain closes last two remaining Tallahassee stores

This week, Charlotte-based regional chain Bojangles has also been reported to close the last two remaining restaurants in the Florida capital of Tallahassee. The chain was founded in 1977 and specialized in chicken marinated in Cajun spices as well as buttermilk biscuits that it describes as being made through an intricate 49-step process.

While once operating a peak 900 stores across the U.S. and in countries including China and Honduras, Bojangles has followed the trend of its competitors by shedding underperforming locations over the last few years.

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The chicken chain exited Maryland entirely in 2024 and, more recently, closed stores in Kentucky and South Carolina. The bulk of the chain’s business is concentrated in the southeastern U.S. where it began, with over 600 of the stores spread across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

What is happening with Bojangles in 2026

Locals in Tallahassee reported seeing “permanently closed” when they searched for the Bojangles stores in Park Avenue and North Monroe on Google. Both locations have also been removed from the Bojangles website.

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The chain itself could not be reached for comment on why it exited Tallahassee or its plans for the future. Without the Tallahassee stores, there are currently 13 Bojangles locations listed as operating across Florida.

Even with the closures, the chain is in a period of general expansion. Since the start of 2026, Bojangles has also opened new locations in Arizona, Michigan, New York, and New Jersey while also signaling that it could come to Iowa as a new market by 2028.

While its brand power and recognition is highly region-dependent, Bojangles has a strong base of diners who are loyal to it.

“When we initially launched this, we looked at some midsize markets like Tampa and Oklahoma City, then bigger cities like Houston and Dallas,” Brooks Speirs, the vice president of franchise sales at Bojangles, said to a news outlet earlier in the year. “While we’re happy with the results, we’ve definitely been more successful in those midsize markets because it’s easier to become more of a household name. It’s a lot cheaper to advertise in Des Moines than it is in Houston.”

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This came alongside raising the price of the America the Beautiful annual pass for multiple national parks to $250 for visitors from outside the U.S., up from the $80 it now costs for only U.S. residents.

Put in place by the Making America Beautiful Again by Improving Our National Parks executive order that President Donald Trump signed in July 2025, the policy was controversial from the beginning, due to what many see as unfair targeting of those who come to spend money in the U.S. as tourists.

Across Arizona Tours sues over international visitor fees for national parks

On Sept. 29, Across Arizona Tours, a tour group selling organized van trips to Grand Canyon National Park, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Arizona. It claimed that between 80 and 90 of its potential clients in recent months ultimately “decided not to reserve a tour with the company, most of whom indicated that their decision was related to the increased fees.”

The Across Arizona Tours complaint against the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and the National Park Service further claims that the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, signed into law in 2004 under the Bush administration, allows government agencies to implement new fees, but not through a tiered structure that discriminates against some visitors based on where they come from.

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The lawsuit claims that the Department of Interior and Secretary Doug Burgum overstepped their authority in instituting them and is asking the Arizona district court to block the fees from being charged at Grand Canyon.

“Federal agencies cannot make up fees as they please”: lawsuit

“Federal agencies cannot make up fees as they please,” Jacob Haas, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation libertarian public interest nonprofit representing Across Arizona Tours in the lawsuit, said in a written statement, according to The Hill.

“Only Congress can authorize federal fees. And Congress has never authorized higher fees for nonresidents — not least because such a policy would discourage international tourism and hurt companies like Across Arizona Tours.”

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Over the last year, tourism-industry representatives and organizations, including the National Parks Conservation Association, have criticized the nonresident fee. They see it as poorly envisioned and hastily implemented, giving the impression that the Trump administration is “putting Americans first” while causing millions in lost international tourist dollars among local businesses.

The $22.5 million that Burgum said was generated from the fees in the first six months of 2026 also ended up being approximately 50% less than the “more than $90 million” that the Trump administration diverted away from national parks to various beautification projects around Washington, D.C., according to SFGate. This is despite the administration saying the fees would make up for the diverted funds.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior told The Hill that American visitors are already subsidizing national parks through their taxes, “while foreign tourists are paying higher entrance fees to help maintain our parks and improve visitor experiences.”

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Happy Tuesday. Stocks were falling Tuesday as technology shares gave back early gains and elevated Treasury yields continued to pressure equities.

Markets finished lower Monday as rising crude oil prices and surging Treasury yields renewed concerns about inflation and borrowing costs after the U.S. rejected Iran’s terms for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Treasury yields eased early Tuesday after reaching fresh highs during the previous session amid persistent concerns over inflationary pressures, CNBC reported. Oil prices were also retreating.

U.S. and Iranian officials held separate indirect talks with mediators on Monday, according to Reuters.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who remained in New York after attending the United Nations General Assembly, said Iran expected to receive the U.S. response to its latest ceasefire proposals and its conditions for restoring the passage of maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, state news agency IRNA reported.

U.S. officials separately spoke with mediators on Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House, without providing further details.

“Geopolitical developments remain very headline driven and revolve around the prospect of a peace deal,” said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst with Capital.com.

“The Iranians seem to be increasingly losing leverage as they lose control of the Strait of Hormuz and as isolation tactics by the U.S. put a squeeze on the Iranian economy.”

“Some energy analysts suggest oil flows out of the Persian Gulf have reverted to more than 90% of their pre-war levels, potentially explaining Iran’s stronger motivation to make a deal and the Trump administration’s stubbornness and reluctance to compromise.”

Since the airline is, for some, also the first introduction to a new country, the in-flight menu is a way for the carrier to showcase its nation through cuisine.

Air France serves guests in different fare classes French classics such as macarons and foie gras, while Korean Air and Japan Airlines are well-known for serving dishes like the bibimbap and bento boxes with sushi, sashimi, and soba noodles, respectively.

Singapore Airlines, the flag carrier of the Southeast Asian city-state running what is currently the longest flight in the world with its 19-hour JFK-Singapore route, just announced a menu overhaul that will see it add more than 100 new and reworked dishes across fare classes on its flights.

Singapore Airlines bringing more than 100 new and reworked dishes to its flights

The carrier’s new menu is meant to spotlight Singapore’s vibrant food cuisine influenced by the blend of Chinese, Malay, and Indian cultures of its citizens.

The new dishes include a poached Maine lobster with champagne sauce served in the suites and first class on its long-haul flights and slow-cooked jackfruit in a rendang coconut and lemongrass paste in business class flights.

For travelers across fare classes, a tandoori roasted paneer with velvet gravy will be offered in two different versions. Passengers in Suites, First, and Business will be served a special version with pasanda gravy, smoked eggplant, and a five-lentil curry, while those in premium and regular economy will get the curry dish alone served over basmati rice.

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For more international versions, an Irish lamb stew and chicken stroganoff will be served as the premium economy main course, while the vegetarian option is a roasted cauliflower steak with chimichurri sauce and parsnip mushroom purée.

For the highest fare classes, Singapore Airlines is also partnering with French luxury tableware and silverware brand Christofle to provide the dishes on which the food will be served.

“Evolving preference and emerging dining trends”: Singapore Airlines on new in-flight dishes

The new food menu will be paired with a selection of premium wines, champagnes, and liquors from countries such as France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S.

Some of the new offerings include Krug Grande Cuvée and Louis Roederer Cristal in first class and Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve NV and Piper-Heidsieck Vintage in business class.

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The new drink offerings will be available on flights beginning in November 2026, and the dishes will be rolled out progressively through the fall and into 2027 following an unveiling event in Singapore.

“Guided by customer feedback, evolving preferences and emerging dining trends, we have reviewed every aspect of the experience […],” Yeoh Phee Teik, senior vice president of the customer experience at Singapore Airlines, said in a statement on the new menu.

“The result is a combination of thoughtfully crafted dishes, carefully curated beverages, elegant serviceware, and thoughtful touches that make dining on board more memorable for our customers.”

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The erosion did not happen all at once. It built over five decades of federal spending that consistently outpaced revenue, two financial crises that required large-scale government intervention, and several rounds of monetary expansion that followed each one.

The federal government ran a $1.97 trillion deficit in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2026, and the national debt passed $40 trillion.

Both have drawn renewed attention to a question investors have been weighing for years: whether a portfolio built around dollar-denominated assets is as durable a long-term strategy as it once seemed.

What Buffett said about the dollar and currencies

Warren Buffett stepped down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway in 2025, ending a tenure of more than five decades at the company’s top. He used his final shareholder meeting in Omaha to address currency risk directly.

“We wouldn’t want to be owning anything that we thought was in a currency that was really going to hell,” he said, as Yahoo Finance reported. Management of Berkshire passed to Greg Abel, his long-designated successor.

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“The natural course of government is to make the currency worth less over time,” he said.

The United States has run a deficit in all but four years since 1970. Interest payments on the existing debt have now crossed $1 trillion a year, making debt service one of the largest single line items in the federal budget and a cost that grows as the debt itself does.

How much purchasing power the dollar has already lost

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis tracks cumulative inflation using Consumer Price Index data going back to 1800. On that measure, the dollar has lost 88.4% of its value since 1970.

Consumer prices rose roughly 17% between 2020 and 2023, the steepest stretch of inflation the country had seen since the 1970s, with annual inflation hitting 8% in 2022 alone. Most Americans felt it in grocery bills, rent payments, and car prices.

The national debt crossed $10 trillion for the first time in 2008 and doubled to $20 trillion by 2017. It passed $30 trillion in 2022 and $40 trillion in 2026. Each threshold came faster than the one before it.

The annual deficit in fiscal year 2026 is tracking close to $2 trillion, with no period of surplus on the near-term horizon.

Where investors have moved money

Gold climbed 149% over the past five years, drawing capital from investors who treat it as a store of value when paper currencies come under pressure.

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, has publicly argued for years that gold deserves a fixed allocation in any diversified portfolio as protection against long-term currency risk and sovereign debt accumulation. Central banks in China, India, Poland, and several other countries have added to their gold reserves at a pace not seen in decades.

Home prices rose approximately 87% over the past decade, Yahoo Finance reported, citing S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index data.

Housing supply has not kept pace with demand in most major U.S. markets. That gap pushed prices well above what general inflation alone would have produced and turned residential real estate into one of the better-performing inflation hedges of the past decade, even after the sharp rise in mortgage rates that started in 2022.

What Buffett recommends individual investors do now

The investment advice Buffett has given individual investors for years has remained the same: Buy a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and hold it.

He has said this in annual shareholder letters and public interviews spanning several decades. The S&P 500 has returned an average of roughly 10% per year over the past century, a figure that accounts for recessions, financial crises, wars, and periods of sustained inflation.

American companies generate real revenue from real customers, raise prices when their input costs go up, and distribute those returns to shareholders over time.

The warning Buffett delivered in Omaha had a specific target: cash and short-term dollar-denominated instruments.

A savings account paying 4% in a year when inflation runs at 5% loses ground in real terms. Treasury bills, certificates of deposit, and money market funds face the same arithmetic. He has argued that the risk in those instruments is not obvious enough, because the loss shows up slowly and the account balance never goes down.

Buffett named equities, real estate, and other productive assets as the better long-term alternative. Owning a business that can raise its prices is a different position from owning dollars that cannot.

At the Omaha meeting, he told shareholders that Berkshire would continue holding American equities and reiterated that view on behalf of individual investors who lack the capital to buy whole companies outright.

A low-cost index fund, in his framework, gets ordinary investors into that same position at minimal cost.

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