“the Energy Department announced that it will offer $625 million in funding to “reinvigorate and expand America’s coal industry.” The funding includes $350 million to modernize outdated coal power plants or recommission closed ones, and up to $175 million for coal power projects in rural communities. This announcement was coupled with an Interior Department directive to open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal mining at lower royalty rates. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, announced on Monday it would roll back several Joe Biden-era regulations on coal plants
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In May, the Energy Department issued an order to prevent a Michigan coal plant from closing in order to prevent blackouts. The order failed to keep the lights on and cost the utility $29 million over five weeks, which is expected to be, at least in part, paid for by ratepayers
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These cost hikes are likely to escalate if the federal government continues to force power plants to stay open. An August report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, estimates that ratepayers could pay more than $3 billion per year through 2028 if the Energy Department “mandates that the large fossil power plants scheduled to retire between now and the end of 2028 remain open.” This figure could soar to $6 billion per year through 2028 if additional power plants move up their retirement dates to secure government subsidies.
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the federal government has opened up millions of dollars in funding for coal projects and passed several measures to benefit coal, including subsidizing coal production overseas. The cost of those actions won’t necessarily show up in monthly utility bills—but it will force the federal government to borrow more heavily in the future, at a time when the national debt is already unsustainably large
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Ben King, director of the Rhodium Group’s energy program, told Semafor “the price of coal would need to fall by at least half,” to “change the calculus” and make coal more attractive to investors than natural gas or renewables. Brendan Pierpont, director of electricity modeling at the think tank Energy Innovation, told the outlet, “this funding is essentially cash for clunkers, but without trading in the clunkers.”
Trump’s latest coal maneuver will benefit utilities and coal companies, but it will come at the expense of taxpayers, who will be forced to finance yet another wasteful government spending account, and ratepayers who will likely see their utility bills continue to climb.”
“Inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred price index, remained at 2.6 percent in July, the most recent month in which data are available. The Fed’s target is 2 percent. Moreover, in August, the consumer price index, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to measure inflation, increased by 0.4 percent—the greatest monthly increase in inflation since January…
The FOMC acknowledged in its own announcement that “inflation has moved up and remains somewhat elevated” while the unemployment rate “remains low.” Increasing the fed funds rate is one of the Fed’s primary tools to combat inflationary pressures; lowering it is the opposite of what the Fed should do if it’s seriously concerned about inflation. Apparently, it’s not.”
“Americans who enjoy German lagers, Belgian saisons, and Czech pilsners will get no relief from the higher tariffs that President Donald Trump has poured on their favorite brews.
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The deal locks in the 15 percent tariffs that Trump has imposed on most European goods imported into the U.S., but it also serves as a promise from the Trump administration not to target European goods with product-specific tariffs that could be announced in the coming weeks or months—including potentially huge new tariffs on pharmaceuticals, something the White House has been teasing for months. The deal also creates a pathway for the United States to reduce its tariffs on European cars to the 15 percent threshold, once the E.U. reduces some of its own tariffs on American industrial goods.”
“As President Donald Trump’s tariffs make life less affordable and predictable for Americans, they’re also threatening to make it less creative. American craft stores are struggling to keep up with ever-changing trade policies, which are making the foreign-made products they stock more expensive and difficult to access. Many foreign craft supply companies are now unable to ship to American consumers at all.”
“President Donald Trump’s tariff regime is making everything from American-made steel weights, imported yarn, and Amazon’s “everyday essentials” more expensive while his immigration crackdown is causing worker shortages in key industries. These policies will work in tandem to slow down already expensive deliveries of your favorite goods.
“Denver’s high minimum wage, especially its low tip credit, has unintentionally undermined the financial viability of full-service, labor-intensive restaurants. As costs outpace revenue and margins evaporate, once-thriving independent establishments are closing in droves, eroding the city’s cultural fabric and economic diversity.
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Restaurant operators and advocacy groups agree that Covid sparked the decline, but rising costs since have continued to cripple the industry. Property taxes, utilities, insurance, food and drink prices, rent, and one of the highest minimum wages in the country — higher than in Los Angeles or New York — are straining already razor-thin margins.
The city’s low tip credit, which results in a high minimum wage for tipped workers, is a particular pain point.
Denver City Council unanimously passed a minimum wage increase in November 2019 — just four months before the pandemic hit — and it was fully implemented citywide by 2022. Today, the base minimum wage is $18.81 an hour and the tipped wage is $15.79 — increases of about 70 percent and 95 percent, respectively.
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Per 2019 legislation, wage increases are uncapped and rise annually with the Consumer Price Index. In 2026, the base wage will be $19.29. For operators like Ms. Tronco and Mr. Seidel, who said that labor now consumes more than half his revenue, the math no longer works.
“When you force an operator to give raises every January 1 to the group of people who’s already making the most money, it chokes our ability to give a salaried person or an hourly cook a raise,”
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To keep her business alive, Ms. Tronco has cut the hosts and bussers she hired when opening and reduced weeknight server shifts. She raises her menu prices every six months to keep up with costs. Her numbers have taken a hit: Sales are down an average of 10 percent this year.
“It just feels like whack-a-mole,” Ms. Tronco said. “Inflation has affected everyone … Now we’ve got a tariff situation and all my wine importers are telling me that everything is going to go up $3, $4 a bottle.”
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Mr. Padró said the small tip credit is the industry’s biggest burden. He supports a higher base wage, even up to $25, because most of his employees already earn above that. He said that his servers and bartenders average $38 and $44, respectively. Expanding the tip credit would alleviate some of the burden faced by operators.
“I have 17-year-old kids pouring coffee for their teachers, making more than them,” he said.”
“Senate Republicans have already said they plan to move quickly to confirm Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran to fill one current vacancy. If Cook loses a pending legal challenge and is dismissed — and her replacement is confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate —Trump-appointed Fed governors would hold four of the seven seats on the central bank’s board.
That majority, in turn, would be enough to control the reappointment of the 12 regional bank presidents throughout the country who also have a say on rates and whose five-year terms are scheduled to expire in February.
And that, in effect, could give Trump control of the Fed’s policy-making Federal Open Market Committee, whose refusal to lower interest rates throughout his second term has put the president on the warpath with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Any exertion of White House control over the reappointment process for regional bank presidents would represent an extraordinary break in precedent.”
“Overall, the producer price index (PPI), which measures the prices paid to domestic producers for their output, climbed by 0.9 percent last month (well above expectations) and 3.3 percent on an annualized basis. A few categories saw particularly large increases. Wholesale prices for food, for example, rose by 1.4 percent, while wholesale prices for consumer electronics increased by over 3 percent.
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Lots of domestic products rely on imports of raw materials and intermediate goods. You can’t make a chocolate bar without cocoa beans, for example, and over half of all imports are things that domestic businesses use as inputs.
Economists have warned that tariffs would increase the cost of importing component parts and force domestic firms to increase the prices they charge for their outputs. That seems to be exactly what today’s PPI report shows.
Second, the PPI is often seen as an advance warning system for higher inflation at the consumer level—because higher prices at the wholesale level will likely be passed along at the retail level.”
“Even as some Republicans mocked economists for predicting prices would rise as a result of tariffs, there was a whistling-past-the-graveyard quality to the snickering. Yes, tariffs that had been threatened, delayed, and only partially implemented hadn’t yet much increased costs for consumers, but there were clear signs that importers were rushing to beat high customs duties, and that trouble was on the way. Now we’ve had a weak jobs report and a higher-than-expected producer price index (PPI), and it’s clear that tariffs perform just as we were warned: They raise prices for domestic businesses and consumers.”