Author: News Room

When inflation was too high and the economy was resilient in the aftermath of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve’s decision to sharply raise interest rates beginning in 2022 seemed like a no-brainer. The same was true just over two years later when inflation had fallen sharply from its recent peak and the labor market had started to cool off. That paved the way for the central bank to lower borrowing costs by a percentage point in 2024.What made those decisions relatively straightforward was the fact that the Fed’s goals of achieving low and stable inflation and a healthy labor market…

Britons are bracing for a burst of higher inflation for much of this year as many household bills jump next month, a revival of the cost-of-living pressures that have squeezed household budgets in recent years.Next month, the average annual energy bill is set to rise 6.4 percent as the price cap resets. Water bills, which are also regulated, will climb an average 26 percent. At the same time, prices for services like broadband internet and cellphone, which often reset at the start of a new fiscal year and are linked to inflation, are rising about 6 percent.April is also the…

“Transitory” is back Jay Powell wants businesses and investors to know: The Fed chair shares their concerns about President Trump’s tariff skirmishes as the economic outlook dims.But there is a silver lining, he said Wednesday at a news conference. Tariff-driven inflation is likely to be “transitory” and just for this year. That’s the “base case,” he added, words that seemed to lift stocks. S&P 500 futures were climbing on Thursday as traders price in roughly two to three interest rate cuts this year.But the “transitory” label — one that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has embraced — has set off alarm…

Boeing is the kind of manufacturer — one that exports billions of dollars of goods — that President Trump says he wants to protect and nurture.But his tariffs could have the opposite effect on the company’s suppliers.Mr. Trump has imposed a few tariffs so far, but he says more are coming in just a few weeks. That threat has unnerved the aerospace industry, of which Boeing is one of the largest companies. Duties on aluminum and steel, two of the most important raw materials used in aircraft, are expected to raise manufacturing costs. But the industry is far more concerned…

For office landlords, a bad dream that began in March 2020 seems to finally be nearing an end — but only if you’re in well-located, high-end properties in major U.S. markets.Sales of office buildings across the country totaled $64.3 billion last year, up nearly 21 percent from 2023, according to MSCI Real Assets, a provider of commercial property research. In central business districts, which have suffered from empty buildings and streets long after pandemic stay-at-home orders ended, the pickup was even faster.Leasing activity is also gaining momentum, according to a report by CBRE, a real estate services firm: In 2024,…

Elon Musk declared last month that the federal government was engaged in “utterly insane” activity, claiming without evidence that it had distributed $100 billion to people without Social Security numbers.Two days after Mr. Musk’s comments, one of his key lieutenants, Steve Davis, began pressing the Social Security Administration for information. Mr. Davis called the agency’s leaders to insist they give a young engineer from Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to databases that contained sensitive information about Americans.Mr. Davis’s demand was “unprecedented,” Tiffany Flick, a former Social Security official, said in a sworn statement this month for a…

On March 4, a Trump appointee at the Department of Veterans Affairs circulated a memo to senior leadership. The agency, it said, would “move out aggressively” to improve efficiency, with an “initial objective” of cutting the work force to 2019 levels.The next morning, someone posted a copy of this “reduction in force” memo to a Reddit group called VeteransAffairs, an online community of 19,000 members. The copy was difficult to follow, a sequence of photos taken of the memo on a screen, but the message was clear enough: Some 80,000 jobs would be cut.Questions and comments poured in, some bewildered,…

President Trump has never been shy about criticizing the Federal Reserve, frequently seeking to pressure the nation’s central bank into reducing interest rates more swiftly.“Interest Rates should be lowered, something which would go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!!,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social last month, adding: “Lets Rock and Roll, America!!!”But the Fed is expected to see things differently on Wednesday — choosing to hold rates steady in the face of rising prices and slowing growth — in a move that seems destined to stoke Mr. Trump’s anger.At the heart of the tension are Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which…

President Trump has said that tariffs will bring a flood of revenue for the United States. But corporate executives are having trouble navigating the volume of tariff pronouncements and the president’s on-again, off-again approach to trade policy.Many are turning to the same metaphor: The situation, they say, is “fluid.”“The tariffs are very fluid right now,” Ron Vachris, chief executive of the retail giant Costco, recently told analysts on an earnings call. “It’s hard to really give any predictions on what we can do, but we are prepared.”Others feel the same way about the ebb and flow of tariffs:“It’s very fluid…

The protests against President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia had been growing in intensity and size when an unusual guest showed up in its capital this month to meet with the embattled European leader: Donald Trump Jr., the oldest son of President Trump.The quick visit by Mr. Trump, which included a meeting with Mr. Vucic to talk about U.S. foreign aid to Serbia, came as the Trump family and Jared Kushner, the American president’s son-in-law, were moving ahead with plans to build a Trump International Hotel in Belgrade, the first such property in Europe.The hotel is slated to be built atop…