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Economy
Report Shows How IMF-Imposed Austerity Hurts Poor Countries Already Reeling From Iran War
"Instead of helping countries withstand another major shock," Oxfam's executive director said, the IMF "is forcing them to cut back on the very spending that can help protect people and recover."
Oct 13, 2026
The US-Israeli war with Iran has exacerbated economic hardship across the world. It's especially bad for the developing nations currently being forced to implement austerity programs by the International Monetary Fund.
Under IMF loan programs, countries struggling with debt are required to reduce government budget deficits by introducing spending cuts and tax increases that tend to hurt their poorest citizens. They often include cuts to public services and welfare programs, caps on government workers' salaries, and the elimination of subsidies that keep basic needs affordable.
According to a report out Monday from Oxfam—amid the IMF's annual meeting in Bangkok this week—24 of the 28 nations currently receiving IMF loans have been forced to implement austerity measures. Some of them, like Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau, are among the poorest nations in the world.
Even before the war—which has caused oil prices to soar and driven inflation worldwide—people in many of these countries were struggling to meet their basic needs and facing severe economic pressure: 51% were food insecure, and 57% lacked access to clean cooking fuel.
Emergency government programs have been able to backstop the worst effects for up to 130 million of the world's poorest people, according to a report published before the meeting by the United Nations Development Program.
But as those countries run out of resources, many are being forced to pivot, and the stiff requirements imposed by the IMF may exacerbate the hardship.
In Ecuador and Guinea-Bissau, the IMF is requiring governments to cut spending, raise taxes, or both to the equivalent of roughly 4% of the nations' annual gross domestic product (GDP).
The terms are even harsher for Sierra Leone, where the government is required to cut spending or raise costs equivalent to more than five times its annual healthcare budget.
A loan approved last week for Bolivia requires the government to slash as much as 8.5% of its GDP from the deficit—about twice its annual healthcare spending. The country has already been forced to eliminate a diesel subsidy that drove high prices down for consumers and businesses.
The IMF has acknowledged that these cuts are likely to make the strain worse for many low-income countries already suffering from the war, but said they had "no choice" but to cut spending or restructure their debts.
Oxfam International executive director Amitabh Behar noted that during previous crises like the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the IMF has enacted tools to ease the burden on nations in debt by providing emergency loans and access to foreign currency without requiring additional borrowing.
"But this time, the fund is taking a very different path," he said. "Instead of helping countries withstand another major shock, it is doubling down on austerity—forcing them to cut back on the very spending that can help protect people and recover—and leaving them even more vulnerable to the next crisis."
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IMF Warns of Debt-Fueled AI Spending as Fears of Massive Financial Bubble Grow
"If we don’t see the massive gains in productivity promised by the AI enthusiasts, then we will almost certainly see a collapse in the stock market," said one economist.
Oct 13, 2026
The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the global economy faces serious risks from Big Tech firms taking on massive debt to fund the buildout of artificial intelligence data centers worldwide.
The IMF's latest Global Financial Stability Report outlines a number of risks to economic growth in the coming years, including a reliance on AI industry spending that it warns could lead to a new financial crisis.
The report points to the methods the world's largest data center operators, known as hyperscalers, are using to fund new construction as particularly troubling.
"Hyperscalers have strong earnings from their core businesses," the report states. "Yet, free cash flows are rapidly declining as hyperscalers try to sustain large AI investment needs, leaving debt financing increasingly necessary."
The analysis also details the role played by so-called circular financing agreements, in which one company agrees to fund another company's AI project in exchange for the firm receiving the money buying the investing firm's products.
These arrangements could create dangerous interdependence within the industry that could spark a financial contagion if one of the firms goes belly up, according to the report.
"While investors... are generally financially sound, distress at key investee firms could present significant 'wrong-way risk' to the AI ecosystem," the report states. "Equity and debt investments in the firms depreciate in value precisely when future revenue streams tied to them are impaired."
Investment expert Bret Jensen, in an analysis published by Seeking Alpha on Tuesday, examined projected capital expenditures from the five biggest hyperscalers—Oracle, Microsoft, Facebook parent company Meta, Amazon, and Google parent company Alphabet—and highlighted how they have increasingly moved financing off their corporate balance sheets.
"Over the past 12-18 months, there has been a huge increase in debt and equity issuance," Jensen explained. "The five hyperscalers now have a combined over $1.3 trillion of debt on their balance sheets and roughly $3 trillion in off-balance-sheet allocations."
Because of this, Jensen continued, "debt markets are starting to groan" by "signaling a substantial chance of default over the next half-decade on the debt of Oracle."
Jensen also pointed out that half of this infrastructure was being built for the benefit of frontier AI labs OpenAI and Anthropic, which he described as "unprofitable" and "bleeding cash."
Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research argued in an analysis published on Friday that AI is completely propping up the US economy at the moment, as investors are holding out hope that it delivers an unprecedented boom in productivity.
The problem, Baker pointed out, is there is little sign that AI is going to deliver anywhere near the increased productivity needed to make these historic investments pay off.
"If we believe the hype, we are about to see an incredible surge in productivity that will make us ridiculously wealthy," Baker explained. "To date, there is no evidence to support this view. Productivity growth has been at best on its trend pace the last couple of years."
"If we don’t see the massive gains in productivity promised by the AI enthusiasts," Baker added, "then we will almost certainly see a collapse in the stock market, with a serious recession almost guaranteed."
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From Healthcare and Fuel Costs to Tariffs, Trump GOP's Policies 'Crushing' Small Businesses
"Costs are hitting Main Street from every direction at once and Washington doesn't seem to care about the needs of small business owners," said the head of a national coalition.
Oct 13, 2026
Arizona-based Gabe Hagen said Tuesday that "to keep my business afloat, I invested my 401(k) savings and leveraged my home equity as collateral for additional capital, putting my family's financial security on the line to sustain my business and employees."
"I raised my prices, but sales have just flattened out because customers are ordering less," explained Hagen, who founded the Tempe coffee roasting company Brick Road Community Corporation. He's among over 1,000 US small business owners polled by the national coalition Small Business for America's Future from mid-August to early October.
Among those surveyed, 77% have seen customers spend less, delay purchases, or trade down recently, with 46% saying that shoppers are spending "significantly less." Meanwhile, owners like Hagen are increasingly enduring more financial stress, with many cutting their own pay or pulling money from personal savings to keep their companies operating.
The survey exposes how "a combination of factors is crushing small business," the coalition said in a statement announcing its resulting report—which highlights soaring costs for everything from fuel to healthcare, and was released just weeks away from the US midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the latter half of Trump's second term.
"Costs are hitting Main Street from every direction at once and Washington doesn't seem to care about the needs of small business owners," said Walt Rowen, the coalition's co-chair and president of Susquehanna Glass Co., a family-owned glass manufacturer in Columbia, Pennsylvania that's been around for over a century.
Rowen—whose company is located in a key swing state—noted that "my business is a good example of what is happening. We've been navigating erratic tariff policies that have disrupted our supply chains, and now my heating oil costs $4,000 to $6,000 a month."
"We've lived through the Depression, wars, and recessions," he said. "Heating my factory in this current economy is some of the hardest math I've ever had to do, and I'm expecting the bill to jump 30% to 40% this winter. This survey shows us that I am far from alone. Small business owners everywhere are comparing this economy to some of the worst moments we've had this century."
The survey shows that 83% of small business owners are concerned about their company's financial health over the next year, including 44% who are very concerned. Three-quarters called this one of the hardest economies of their careers, with over half drawing comparisons to the Covid-19 pandemic, and nearly a third pointing to the Great Recession.
A similar share (78%) accused decision-makers in Washington, DC of putting large corporations first, and 72% said running their business is harder than it was a year ago—with 85% citing inflation and rising prices as the source of strain. Majorities saw increases for utilities (72%); fuel (68%); transportation, shipping, or supplies (64%); business services (64%); healthcare and health insurance (54%); and employee wages and benefits (53%).
Those soaring costs have had consequences. Two-thirds of surveyed owners said they canceled, delayed, or scaled back investments in equipment, facilities, or technology. Over half did the same for hiring and expansion to new markets. Nearly two-thirds skipped or reduced their own pay, and 52% said their personal debt has increased in the past year.
Rising costs can be clearly connected to decisions by Trump and congressional Republicans—many of whom are up for reelection next month, as the GOP tries to hang on to its slim majorities in both chambers.
The president returned to power early last year having campaigned on a mass detention and deportation agenda, despite arguments from economists and elected Democrats that his approach was not only inhumane but economically risky. A clear majority of surveyed owners (61%) said that immigration enforcement has hurt the small business economy.
Trump and Republican lawmakers also enacted a 2025 budget package that cut federal healthcare spending and did not extend Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits. Among surveyed business owners who buy their own insurance coverage through an ACA marketplace, 90% saw their premiums rise after the subsidies expired. Nearly three-quarters also said they fear rising health insurance costs will make it harder to hire and keep needed employees.
The administration's shifting tariff policy and refund process have caused further stress: 59% of owners said trade-related cost increases have made it harder to run their business, and only 3% have filed refund claims since the US Supreme Court's February ruling against many of Trump's tariffs.
Trump's illegal war on Iran continues to drive up fuel prices. The construction of artificial intelligence data centers—which the president has encouraged—is also increasing energy costs. Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed are worried about the impact of electricity demand from new AI facilities. Around the same share is concerned about the consequences of the new armed conflict in the Middle East, which the GOP-controlled Congress never authorized, but has refused to end.
In a social media post about all the findings, Small Business for America's Future urged, "Lawmakers, make your next decision with Main Street in mind."
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Up to 12 Million Americans Have Lost Health Coverage During Trump’s Second Term: Analysis
Republicans' cuts to Medicaid and their refusal to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies are key factors in the coverage drop.
Oct 09, 2026
Independent healthcare analyst Charles Gaba on Thursday published an updated analysis estimating that up to 12 million Americans have lost their insurance coverage since the start of President Donald Trump's second term.
Gaba based his new estimate on updated data he compiled from recent reports for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), as well as some state enrollment data for Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance exchanges.
In total, Gaba found that enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP has dropped by 6.2 million people since the start of Trump's second term, while enrollment in ACA exchanges is down by anywhere from 4.6 million to 6.1 million people, and enrollment in Basic Health Plans (BHP) is down by nearly 275,000 people over the same period.
While there are around 1.8 million more people enrolled in Medicare now than there were at the start of Trump's term, Gaba noted that this isn't nearly enough to make up for the loss of enrollment in other programs.
Adding everything up, Gaba estimated that "between 10.88 million and 12.40 million fewer Americans enrolled in a public healthcare coverage program as of June 2026 than in were as of January 2025."
As in prior analyses, Gaba examined the possibility that some of the people who lost coverage through these programs transitioned to employer-sponsored insurance, but deemed it "extremely unlikely... since unemployment is higher than it was in January 2025."
Over the last two years, Trump and congressional Republicans have taken a number of actions that have made healthcare less affordable and pushed people off coverage.
First, they cut spending on Medicaid by an estimated $900 billion over a 10-year period when they enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025. The Congressional Budget Office projects these cuts will leave more than 10 million fewer people enrolled in the program by 2034.
GOP lawmakers last year also refused to extend enhanced subsidies for insurance plans purchased through the ACA, even as insurers raised premiums on those plans by an average of 26% this year, according to an analysis published by KFF.
In a Thursday article published by Time, scholars Neale Mahoney and Abigail Sanchez of the Stanford Institute for Economic Research warned that the costs of private health insurance are set to spike even further in 2027.
"Employer health plan costs are projected to rise 8 to 10% next year," Mahoney and Sanchez explained, "the largest increase in more than 20 years and double the average increase of the 2010s."
The two researchers said there are three major reasons for the surge in insurance costs: The expiration of the enhanced ACA subsidies, an increase in premiums and out-of-pocket costs for employer-based insurance plans, and the upcoming Medicaid work requirements projected to push millions of people off the program.
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Warren's Trump Inflation Tracker Reveals Pain Caused by 'Failed Economic Agenda' of GOP
"Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Instead, he has spent his presidency creating an affordability crisis, and now he's calling his self-made crisis a hoax."
Oct 07, 2026
With the US midterm elections just weeks away and control of Congress up for grabs, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee on Wednesday released a tool tracking inflation under Republican President Donald Trump.
"Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Instead, he has spent his presidency creating an affordability crisis, and now he's calling his self-made crisis a hoax," said Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a statement. "The Trumpflation Tracker will show families across the country exactly how much of a price they are paying for Trump's and Republicans' failed economic agenda."
The tracker shows not only cumulative inflation since December 2024, the month before Trump returned to office—it's up 5.2%— but also limited job growth during his second term, the impact of his broken promise to cap credit card interest rates, falling wages since he launched an illegal war on Iran in February, mortgage rate increases, and rising household debt.
The tool also highlights the country's affordability crisis, detailing how costs have skyrocketed for childcare, electricity, gasoline, groceries, healthcare, and rent, with the average US household paying over $3,000 more.
As Trump rallies behind efforts to build more energy-sucking artificial intelligence data centers, Warren's tracker shows that residential electricity prices are up 12.7% during this term, with the average US household paying $222 more.
Last year, congressional Republicans passed and Trump signed a budget package that cut government healthcare programs and did not extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Now, per the new tool, healthcare costs are up 14.6%.
Prices for gas and diesel have skyrocketed since Trump and the Israeli military started bombing Iran, but the US president has dismissed concerns, claiming that paying $4 at the pump is "not very high" and is worthwhile to prevent the Middle Eastern nation from building a nuclear weapon—which the US intelligence community concluded, before the war, that Tehran wasn't trying to do.
Warren's tracker puts the gas surge at 43.7% since December 2024, with an average cost of over $750 per household. The senator plans to have the panel's economic experts update the figures on a monthly basis, as more data becomes available.
The Century Foundation's president, Julie Margetta Morgan, applauded the committee "for doing the math on this," writing on social media that "the Trump administration continues to claim that the economy is strong, but this tracker shows clearly just how much families are being squeezed."
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As Walmart Denies Accusations of Predatory Tactics, Watchdog Reveals Patents for Price-Gouging Tech
"Walmart has amassed the most intimate information about its customers and is developing the technology that can be used to put that data to work at checkout," said Lindsay Owens of Groundwork Collaborative.
Oct 06, 2026
As Walmart attempted to debunk research into its pricing practices by watchdog group Groundwork Collaborative on Monday, the organization released a new report detailing more than a dozen patents the $833 billion corporation holds or has applied for—all aimed at monitoring customers' behavior to determine what products to market to them, deceiving them about an item's price, and upcharging them.
“Corporations don’t spend years building high-tech pricing tools, hiring experts, and filing patents just to let them collect dust. They do it because they see a path to higher profit—one that runs right through everyday consumers’ budgets," said Lindsay Owens, president and CEO of Groundwork and the author of the book Gouged: The End of a Fair Price—And What That Means for Your Wallet.
On Monday, Owens and Elizabeth Pancotti, Groundwork's vice president of policy, advocacy, and research, released “The Walmart Watchtower: Patents Speak Louder Than Pledges,” noting that Walmart CEO John Furner just recently attempted to do damage control on Owens' reporting in Gouged regarding the company's artificial intelligence-enabled pricing tactics.
While Walmart executives have "openly touted" the ability of "Sparky," the AI shopping assistant the company launched last year, to push customers to spend an average of 40% more during a shopping trip, Furner insisted last month that Walmart will "price the product, not the person.”
But Groundwork said that beyond its deployment of Sparky, "Walmart’s own investments and patents suggest that the retail giant is building a vast arsenal of tools that can be used to track shoppers and even potentially determine what they pay."
The report reveals that technology patented by Walmart can:
- Estimate a child's age through past purchases and steer families toward certain products and price points as they grow;
- Run pricing experiments on shoppers to determine how much they are willing to pay, by pushing prices higher and higher over a period of time;
- Withhold coupons from customers the store believes will be willing to pay full price;
- Change prices of items based on what is already in a customer's cart; and
- Set the price a customer sees in search results on Walmart's website based on their purchase history, where they live, and other identifying characteristics, with one customer being charged $90 while another sees a $110 price tag.
The company has also filed applications for technology that could:
- Use facial recognition, in-store cameras, Wi-Fi signals, and heart-rate or glucose data to measure how shoppers react to any given product;
- Monitor customers' social media activity to determine whether they should be offered a coupon or be expected to pay full price; and
- Monitor customers' daily routines, including kids' sports practices, exercise classes, work, and visits to friends and relatives.
"Walmart has amassed the most intimate information about its customers and is developing the technology that can be used to put that data to work at checkout," said Owens. "Shoppers will have to decide whether to believe Walmart’s patent applications or its PR statements.”
As the report was released, Dan Bartlett, Walmart's executive vice president of corporate affairs, released a public letter accusing Owens of "mischaracterizations" regarding the company's pricing practices.
"Walmart does not and will not use an individual customer’s personal information, income, shopping history, urgency, or willingness to pay to set an individualized price," said Barlett. "We do not engage in dynamic pricing, raising prices in response to a hot afternoon or an approaching snowstorm, for example."
He also said Groundwork has wrongly taken Walmart's patents "as evidence that we will pursue individualized or dynamic pricing," and said the company has "committed not to."
Although Bartlett denied that the company uses AI to upcharge customers, Walmart US CEO Dave Guggina told investors just last month that “when customers engage with Sparky, their average order value jumps 40%.”
Owens responded to Bartlett's letter by saying that any "confusion around Walmart’s pricing practices is of its own making."
"Walmart says one thing in its damage-control letters to customers, another to its investors behind closed doors, and a different thing entirely to the United States Patent and Trademark Office," said Owens.
She called on Walmart to publicly release information about "what data Sparky can see, how that information shapes the recommendations and purchases it makes, and whether sensitive consumer information could be exposed, misused, or used against shoppers," especially considering recent hacking incidents by AI models.
"The arsenal of technologies the company is building that can be used to profile and track us should worry every American who is concerned about their privacy and pocketbooks," Owens said. "This personal data, according to Walmart’s own patents, is a critical element of the new pricing strategies the company is developing."
The report on Walmart's patents released by Groundwork on Monday, said Owens, will allow Americans to "decide for themselves" whether to believe executives' denials.
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'Freaking Insane': Sam Altman Sparks Horror by Saying We Should 'Accept Some Bad Things Happening' for Sake of AI
"We have to crush these sociopaths," said one critic.
Oct 05, 2026
Critics of the artificial intelligence industry expressed horror after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the world needs to "accept some bad things happening" as the price to pay for technological advancement.
In a Sunday interview with Politico, Altman was asked where his company differs from rival Anthropic, whose CEO, Dario Amodei, has called for guardrails that will slow the pace of AI development.
"We have always been a big believer that this technology has to be democratized and put into people's hands," said Altman. "One of the biggest differences between us and some of the stricter... AI safety people is that we believe the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology."
“We believe the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology.”In a conversation for the first edition of Decoded, a new daily newsletter and podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman talked with POLITICO’s @BrendanBordelon about trade-offs, AI safety, and how his company is different from Anthropic.Subscribe to Decoded for the full conversation with Sam Altman: https://t.co/YHJJsDOQVh
— POLITICO (@politico) October 4, 2026
Altman went on to say that one reason he's called for "lighter touch" regulation "comes with an accepting of the fact that some bad things are going to happen as society figures out the resilience."
Critics reacted furiously to Altman's blithe dismissal of "bad things" his own company's technology could cause, especially because many AI developers have warned that it could potentially wipe out human life.
Patrick Gaspard, distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, called Altman's statement "freaking insane" and said politicians cannot let the AI industry continue without any regulations.
"Our elected leaders need to move past the polling safe territory of data center resistance to the real work of regulating these narcissistic freaks," Gaspard wrote in a Sunday social media post, "who gleefully tell us that we 'need to accept some bad things' from AI for their massive profits. And they don’t even know the limits of what they’re unleashing."
Joshua Topolsky, co-founder of tech news website The Verge, completely rejected the premise of Altman's argument.
"No, I don't think this is a reasonable answer or position," Topolsky wrote, "and no one should accept it or acquiesce to it."
Commentator Wajahat Ali said Altman's statement showed the need for a political movement against the AI industry.
"We have to crush these sociopaths," Ali wrote. "The problem is that many Democrats take money from them, which means they will get bailed out at our expense in the next two to four years."
Ali's comments were echoed by Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall.
"A whole political movement should be stood up against this arrogant and sociopathic bullshit," Marshall wrote.
Adam Carlson, founder of Zenith Polls, said Altman's remarks were symbolic of how completely out of touch Silicon Valley executives are with ordinary people.
"To any normal, rational person who doesn’t stand to materially benefit from AI acceleration or buy their whole schtick hook line and sinker," wrote Carlson, "you genuinely just sound insane talking about 'accepting bad things' without specifying exactly what you mean."
The social media account for The Tennessee Holler offered up a satirical summary of Atlman's argument.
"Sociopath elitist tech fascists who think they’re creating God and believe democracy is the enemy," The Tennessee Holler wrote, "want us to finance our own demise to let them take over the world."
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US Added Just 29,000 Jobs, Wage Growth Hit New 5-Year Low Last Month as Trump Economy Teeters
"It’s a stalled economy—and working families are stuck in it," said one economist.
Oct 02, 2026
A Friday report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the American job market is running on fumes.
According to the BLS, the US economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, which was well below economists' forecasts of 90,000 jobs added on the month.
Additionally, employment numbers for previous months were revised downward by a total of 60,000 jobs, and BLS now estimates that the economy posted a net loss of 10,000 jobs in July and a net gain of 133,000 jobs in August.
In a Friday social media post, economist Bill McBride noted that the economy over the last year has only created 496,000 jobs, which averages to roughly 41,000 jobs per month. For comparison, the economy created an average of 186,000 jobs per month in the last year of former President Joe Biden's term.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, called the latest jobs numbers "mediocre," and pointed out that wage growth in September posted just a 3% yearly gain.
"That’s a new five-year low," Long remarked, "and it’s wiped out entirely by ~3.4% inflation."
Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress, also pointed to wage growth failing to keep up with inflation, which she said "gives credibility to the negative consumer sentiment" expressed in recent surveys.
Kyle Moore, chief economist at The Century Foundation, said that the weak wage growth on the month doesn't tell the full story of the stresses working-class Americans are facing because the numbers "leave out debt, all the bills families have to pay before they can spend any of their paycheck."
"A worker with debt often can’t afford to miss a paycheck, and therefore can’t afford to quit a bad job or push for a raise," Moore explained. "That is exactly what we see in today’s job market, with hiring stalled, the quit rate stuck at 1.9%, and wage growth falling as prices climb. Mounting debt, sluggish hiring and real wage growth, and weak social support all disempower workers."
Moore criticized President Donald Trump and his administration for trying to spin their economic policies as successes given the current numbers.
"Until the Trump administration confronts the reality that debt is eating into workers’ gains—wage gains that are now non-existent, in real terms, for the typical worker," said Moore, "the gulf between how this administration spins the economy and how working families actually experience it will continue to widen."
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett didn't heed Moore's advice on this matter, and continued boasting about the state of the economy during a Friday interview.
"If you look at the data from this week, it's proving that Trumponomics is really working," said Hassett, "and this is one reason why markets are celebrating so much."
Kevin Hassett responds to a bad September jobs report: "If you look at the data from this week, it's proving that Trumponomics is really working ... we're very very happy"
The Fox News host responds by saying "you're bullish and I expected that" pic.twitter.com/bVdTFnteHc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 2, 2026
Breyon Williams, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, called the weak jobs report emblematic of how the economy as a whole has performed during Trump's second term.
"There’s a clear pattern in the Trump economy," Williams explained. "One sector is creating most of the new jobs, unemployed workers can’t find new jobs, and Americans are seeing their paychecks eaten up by the president’s high prices. When businesses are barely hiring and raises aren’t keeping up with rising prices, it’s a stalled economy—and working families are stuck in it."
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Under Jayapal Bill, Every AI Company Would Need a Public Charter to Operate in the US
"For too long, we’ve allowed a few Big Tech companies to dominate the market."
Oct 01, 2026
Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Thursday unveiled a bill aimed at reining in the artificial intelligence industry that would force every AI company operating in the US to obtain a public charter.
According to Jayapal (D-Wash.), the charter system will be similar to the one long used in the US to regulate banks, which must submit to certain regulatory obligations before being allowed to operate.
"The crux of this bill is simple," said Jayapal. "If you want to be an AI company in this country, you have to obtain a public charter that has a broad set of terms and conditions to operate and ensure public benefit without the harms."
The Washington Democrat said the charter approach was needed given the broad reach large technology companies already have over every aspect of life in the US, and she argued it would be a more proactive alternative to the piecemeal approach US lawmakers have taken to regulating Big Tech.
"For too long, we’ve allowed a few Big Tech companies to dominate the market," she said. "They have used mass surveillance to steal private information, labor, and creative work, building trillion-dollar empires on our tracked personal lives. AI corporations and Big Tech are now following that same playbook."
Under the charter system, tech companies would be banned from practices such as surveillance pricing to charge individual consumers different prices based on their personal data and financial histories.
The system would also establish stronger liabilities for AI companies that commit harmful acts, and particularly egregious actions could be punished by removal of firms' charters, which would essentially be a corporate death penalty.
Jayapal's proposal would also put the government in charge of every step of the AI safety review process and would include "round-the-clock federal oversight, testing in government facilities and approval to release, adversarial stress tests, and a government-controlled kill switch," according to her office.
The proposed framework earned praise from former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who argued that American voters have already "paid an extraordinary price for Big Tech's self-regulation."
"For generations we have required banks, drug makers, and nuclear operators to meet public terms before they do business," Khan added, "and AI companies should be no different."
Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, also gave the Jayapal plan kudos, saying it would "establish desperately needed rules of the road, punish AI companies that release dangerous products, and create the clear public benefit that the American people are calling for."
"Companies have continually pulled the rug out from under families, workers, and small businesses to build powerful and unaccountable Big Tech monopolies that dictate to us how we should live our own lives," Haworth emphasized. "Enough is enough."
Although President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have publicly opposed legislative restrictions on the AI industry, the bill comes as Democrats are aiming to win congressional majorities in the November midterm elections.
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'I Know Where I Want to Live': Ex-Venture Capitalist Explains Why He'd Be Happy to Pay California Billionaire Tax
"I believe it's a patriotic duty to pay taxes, and I do so with pride. Our tax system favors wealthy people, and the least we can do is pay up rather than try to avoid it."
Oct 01, 2026
As some of California's richest residents pour tens of millions of dollars into defeating a proposed billionaire tax, one former venture capitalist is making a remarkably different argument: He is perfectly happy to pay it—and he's not alone.
John O'Farrell, a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, explained Wednesday in a 12-post thread on the social media platform X why he supports the California Billionaire Tax Act, commonly known as Proposition 40, which is on the state's November midterm ballot.
O'Farrell's argument contradicts the chorus of Silicon Valley billionaires and their allies who warn that taxing billionaire wealth would drive the ultra-rich out of California.
"I know where I want to live," he wrote.
"I've been fortunate to benefit from tech wealth. I'm not even close to being a billionaire, but I could easily afford to pay the wealth tax—and any billionaire certainly can—without the slightest effect on my lifestyle," O'Farrell said. "I support a wealth tax at my wealth level also."
Introduced by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, Prop 40 would impose a one-time 5% levy on people worth $1 billion or more, with an option to pay the tax in annual installments of 1% over five years.
The proposal would require the state to spend 90% of revenue from the tax on healthcare and the rest on food assistance and public education. Proponents say the tax would raise roughly $100 billion in revenue. Critics argue that it could drive wealthy residents and investment from California and stall economic growth.
"I find the knee-jerk opposition of some ultra-wealthy people to the idea of paying any new tax deeply disappointing," O'Farrell said in his thread. "To be honest, I can't understand it. They have so much money they couldn't spend it in multiple lifetimes."
Inequality.org, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies—a Washington, DC-based progressive think tank—exposed 22 California billionaires who have poured more than $150 million into defeating Prop 40, "with more rolling in every day," as Chuck Collins wrote for the group.
"These 22 include a prince, several private jet-flying chums of Jeffrey Epstein, and a bunch of crypto and tech bros designing the [artificial intelligence] future for the rest of us," Collins noted. "On January 1, 2025, these 22 billionaires had a combined wealth of $439.8 billion. By September 1, 2026, their wealth had grown to $722.1 billion. In a little under 20 months, their combined wealth increased $282.6 billion, a gain of over 64%."
O'Farrell's social media thread pointed out how "our tax system favors wealthy people."
"I believe it's a patriotic duty to pay taxes, and I do so with pride," he wrote, adding, "the least we can do is pay up rather than try to avoid it."
"Paying taxes is ultimately a matter of self-interest," he contended. "What kind of society do we want to live in? One that rewards achievement but also emphasizes fairness and opportunity for all—or one in which you have to cower in a bunker and live in fear of the pitchforks?"
"One enables the pursuit of happiness for all," he concluded. "The other, just the pursuit of endless wealth."
Prop 40 is backed by numerous progressive groups including the Teamsters union, California Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Our Revolution, as well as individual progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Democratic congressional candidate Connie Chan, who is running to replace retiring longtime San Francisco congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
Sanders, Khanna, and others—including Congresswoman Aisha Wahab (D-Calif.), Democratic congressional candidate Randy Villegas, and California insurance commissioner candidate Jane Kim—are set to speak at a series of rallies for Prop 40 starting Saturday in San Francisco.
O'Farrell isn't the only wealthy Californian who supports Prop 40. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose fortune has soared into the hundreds of billions of dollars, has said he is “perfectly fine” with the proposed tax, telling Bloomberg that he and his family “chose to live in Silicon Valley” and that whatever taxes California applies, “so be it.”
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Ahead of High-Stakes Election, Analysis Details Economic Gains of Brazil Under Lula
"The past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living."
Sep 30, 2026
An analysis released Wednesday documents some of the major economic gains that Brazil has made over the past four years during the third term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently in a close battle for reelection against rival Flávio Bolsonaro.
The analysis, published by the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), finds that, between 2022 and 2025, the Brazilian economy grew by a cumulative 8.9%, easily outpacing the average rate of growth in other South American countries.
This growth has been coupled with a drop in the unemployment rate, which has fallen from more than 9% in the second quarter of 2022 to just 5.4% in the second quarter of 2026.
Both poverty and food insecurity fell dramatically in the first two year's of Lula's term, the analysis finds, and in 2025, "Brazil was removed from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map after chronic undernourishment fell below 2.5%."
CEPR's report also gives credit to Lula's policies for improved economic conditions, including a new minimum wage law, an expanded maternity leave program, and increased average payments to low-income families given through the Bolsa Família program.
The economy during Lula's term is far from perfect, however, and the report flags high interest rates set by Brazil's central bank as a key factor in raising consumers' borrowing costs and increasing the rate of household delinquency.
CEPR also noted the negative impact of online betting apps, which Lula has pledged to ban starting next month, on Brazilian workers.
"Brazilian households lost an estimated R$62.5 billion (US$11.2 billion) to online betting in 2025," the report says, "while some 802,000 Bolsa Família households spent more than 2% of their income on betting in January 2025."
Jake Johnston, CEPR's director of international research, said that "the past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living."
"This was done," Johnston added, "despite the lingering impact of the Covid pandemic, external economic shocks that affected the global economy, and excessively high interest rates."
The first round of Brazil's presidential election is set to take place on Sunday, and recent polls show Lula with a narrow lead over Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is still serving a criminal sentence for efforts to instigate a coup after his loss in the 2022 election.
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