Financial Mindset

As online sports betting surges in popularity and visibility, many Gen Zers are treating what was once a casual pastime as an investment strategy. Research from the Bank of America Institute found that one in five Americans view sports betting as an investment . Among Gen Z, that figure doubles to two in five. A recent Betterment survey of 1,000 U.S. retail investors dug deeper. It found that 52% of Gen Z investors redirected money intended for investing into sports betting in the past year, and 14% said they do so multiple times a month. Meanwhile, 26% of Gen Z investors said they treat sports betting as a deliberate part of their long-term financial strategy. The problem: Online sports betting is largely a losing game. Sportsbooks build a fee into every wager, known as the vig, which makes it difficult for a series of bets to turn a profit. BofA, which tracked payments flowing to and from betting platforms, found that customers across every generation recovered less tha...

New census data over the past week showed Japan’s population shrank more quickly than in the prior tally. Also last week, the government rolled out tougher rules for foreign nationals who want to live in Japan. While foreigners make up just 3.4% of Japan’s population, the share has increased to a record high and a political backlash has been building—even as the country also grapples with rapidly aging demographics and the need to find new workers to sustain economic growth. On Tuesday, the latest five-year population survey detailed how stark Japan’s situation is. As of October 2025, the total population, including foreign residents, was 22.9 million, down 2.5% from five years earlier. The prior census in 2020 showed a dip of 0.7%. The number of Japanese nationals revealed an even steeper decline of 3.5% to 119.1 million, following a 1.4% drop in the 2020 count. Meanwhile, foreign residents jumped 40% to a record high of 3.84 million, and permane...

On the cusp of the studio’s merger with Paramount , Warner Bros.’  “Digger”  flopped in its opening weekend, handing Tom Cruise one of the worst debuts of his career and serving as a bitter final note for Warner Bros. as a standalone studio. No. 1 in North American theaters instead went to Amazon MGM’s  “Verity,” extending the streak for Colleen Hoover adaptations at the box office. It debuted with $32.6 million. The film, directed by Michael Showalter, stars Dakota Johnson as a writer hired to ghostwrite a book series by an incapacitated author (Anne Hathaway). But all eyes were on how “Digger,” one of the year’s biggest gambles, would perform. Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s critically panned satire grossed a paltry $8 million domestically. Cruise is typically a big draw overseas, but international sales, $12 million from 74 markets, were also weak. After reviews so bad that Warner Bros. opted to run “decide for yourself” ads, estimates for “Digger” had been revis...

Go to LinkedIn on any given day and you can read horror stories of hiring managers receiving thousands of AI-generated CVs, or applicants applying unsuccessfully for thousands of roles.  But while hiring is an undoubtedly dysfunctional process (one we are trying to fix, by the way) the main reasons that people don’t get hired existed long before AI.  Before I built an AI recruitment startup for software engineers, I worked in  actual  recruitment, finding the best tech talent for companies like Microsoft , Accenture , Deloitte.  I’ve interviewed thousands of applicants, and it is fair to say I’ve seen a few interview train-wrecks. But my main takeaway is that the reasons people don’t get hired are relatively simple – and avoidable – and that, as an applicant, you really have to do very little to stand out.  The CV is not dead You can’t win on the strength of your CV, but you can lose.   If you send out a docume...

A leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints warned Saturday that an  explosion in gambling  driven by online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed, particularly among youths, while producing “nothing of value.” D. Todd Christofferson, one of the top three leaders of what is known widely as  the Mormon church , said rampant betting among teenagers and young adults is robbing time from their studies and relationships as smartphones make gambling possible anywhere. “For us as Latter-day Saints, overarching all other concerns is the fact that gambling is morally wrong. Gambling is built on the desire to obtain something for nothing,” Christofferson said at the faith’s twice-annual  general conference . The declaration that prediction markets are gambling puts the conservative church at odds with President Donald Trump. The Republican’s administration has argued platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket don’t constitute ...

President  Donald Trump  is promising more payments to voters just ahead of the Nov. 3  midterm elections  — this time, to more than 20 million seniors, giving them $90 each to help pay for Medicare premiums. The announcement, made late Friday night by Trump on social media, comes after the president last month said about 1 million people would get  rebate checks of $500  for Affordable Care Act premiums. He has also promised on the campaign trail to send  every American adult $5,000  if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. That pledge — which would require approval from Congress — would likely cost more than $1 trillion,  adding to the deficit  and worsening inflation. Polls show  Americans increasingly blame Trump  for the  high cost of gasoline  and  groceries  with just 17% approving of his handling of inflation. Trump has sought to shrug off concerns ...

With Iran’s economy in free fall, the country’s currency is getting dragged down too and continues to find new depths with the regime facing a major cash crunch soon. The U.S. naval blockade has sent Iran’s oil exports to virtually zero, while its Persian Gulf neighbors have boosted their own shipments under the protection of the U.S. military, which is eroding Tehran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, Iran didn’t load any oil last month at its export terminals, marking the first time that’s happened since the 1979 Islamic revolution, according to Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler. On top of that, Iran can’t import goods by sea, including fuel, and land-based routes are clogged up . Inflation is now near 90%, GDP is expected to shrink 5.4% this year, unemployment has jumped, energy is being rationed, and even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has expressed concern about “social cohes...