Financial Mindset

Top economist Nouriel Roubini, who was among the first to predict the 2008 financial crash, earned the nickname “Dr. Doom” for his stark warnings, though he has been more upbeat lately. And when it comes to artificial intelligence, which has stirred all kinds of apocalyptic predictions, he insists he’s looking at the brighter side. In an interview on Bloomberg TV on Friday, Roubini was asked about ways to fix Social Security, as the trust fund that helps fund benefits is due to run out of money by 2032. He replied that a large chunk of the population will be replaced by AI and robots in the next 20-25 years, so raising the retirement age will not be sufficient. “Eventually, we need some form of universal basic income for everybody while they work and once they retire,” Roubini added. “We’re already on the way.” With AI poised to disrupt the labor market, top tech leaders like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have suggested gover...

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it was deferring more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to Minnesota and California because of “suspected fraud and noncompliance,” the latest in  a series of punitive steps  it has linked to  allegations of fraud  in  mostly Democratic-led states . Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the new actions — which come after previously announced Medicaid funding deferrals in those states — are part of the administration’s strategy to “stop the fraud before it happens” rather than claw back problematic spending after bad actors are prosecuted, as previous administrations had done. “We have a duty to stop the payments, demand answers and then follow the evidence wherever it leads,” Kennedy told a news conference. The tactic is part of the administration’s sweeping campaign to show it’s cracking down on fraud and saving taxpayers money when rising healthcare costs and other economic stressors have mad...

Australia banned under-16s from social media in December; the U.K. is now investigating whether TikTok’s age checks even work; and France just finalized its own under-15 ban this week, racing to beat the August recess. Platforms are grappling with how to handle the “age verification trap,” how do you collect information about a user online without infringing on their privacy and being too intrusive. And while these bans are taking place abroad, some states in the country are toying with similar measures, or fully banning users from specific sites if the platforms can’t verify their age accurately. David Inserra, a fellow for free expression and technology at the Cato Institute who also sits on TikTok’s US Content Advisory Council, told Fortune that each of these laws gets sold as a narrow fix for kids, and each one ends up asking something much bigger of everyone else. “It’s not just about verifying the age of kids,” Inserra s...

Moldova’s pro-Western parliament elected businessman and investor Vasile Tofan as prime minister on Tuesday, entrusting a political newcomer with advancing the former Soviet republic’s bid to join the European Union. Tofan, 44, who is backed by President  Maia Sandu  and her Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), was elected by 53 to 21, with 21 abstentions in Moldova’s 101-seat Parliament. A senior partner at the Ukraine-based investment firm Horizon Capital until recently, Tofan gained a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public administration from Erasmus University, in the Netherlands. His election comes three weeks after former Alexandru Munteanu  stepped down  as prime minister after only eight months in a surprise move that automatically triggered the government’s resignation. Munteanu did not give a clear reason for his departure, saying only that ...

President  Donald Trump  on Monday imposed 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods, declaring that Canada has unfairly discriminated against American autos, alcohol and dairy products. The move could unleash a  new wave of economic chaos , with risks of higher inflation and further fraying of relations between two nations that had been closely woven together before Trump’s return to the White House. The administration official previewing the action said that Canada was one of the only nations other than China that retaliated against Trump’s previous tariffs and must be held accountable. The official insisted on anonymity on a call with reporters to preview the president’s actions and said that Trump signed three proclamations to launch the tariffs under Section 338 of the 1930 Trade Act. Several Democratic lawmakers last year proposed repealing the section because they said Trump could use it to destabilize the economy. The new 50% tariffs would ...

In today’s CEO Daily: The agentic economy is starting to take shape. The big leadership story: United Airlines’ ‘premiumization’ strategy is paying off. The markets: Mixed globally as chipmakers continue to slide. Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune . Good morning. How do you plan to move your company’s money when AI agents start doing the buying and selling for you? And how can you make sure that agentic commerce is accurate, compliant, fast, and smart? A year after the GENIUS Act passed , a wave of new stablecoins, platforms, and partnerships point to how the ecosystem is taking shape. The most compelling scenario I’ve seen so far comes from Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, who last week published an 18,500-word treatise called The Agentic Economy . (There are several iterations available, including a 60-second version.) He argues that the “planetary nervous system for information” must now be matched by a “circulatory system for value.” ...

President Donald Trump’s administration sought phone records of several New York Times journalists and even those of some of their relatives, according to a motion unsealed Monday — an unusually aggressive attempt to  unmask the confidential sources  of reporters who wrote about Trump’s Qatari-gifted  Air Force One jet . The efforts by the Republican president’s administration to compel the identity of sources in the form of additional subpoenas come at a time when the executive branch’s relationship with the press is increasingly contentious. The efforts, described in a letter-motion filed by the Times over the weekend, were more expansive than previously known, the newspaper noted. They also covered a time frame that exceeded the news articles in question. “Two of the subpoenas seek records beginning on January 1, 2026, long before the events that are purportedly the basis for the Department’s investigation,” lawyers for the Times wrote in the...