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Economists increasingly describe todays economy as K-shaped: Households with higher incomes and assets are pulling ahead, while many middle- and lower-income families struggle to keep up. Prices for housing, healthcare, and everyday necessities have risen faster than paychecks, leaving millions of Americans feeling squeezed, exposed, and uncertain about the future. For many families, affordability is not an abstract concern, it is the daily challenge of covering essentials while trying to stay afloat. You would expect that reality to shape what Congress prioritizes in response to economic anxiety. Instead, affordability is being invoked to justify making crypto market structurethe rules governing how digital assets are regulated and integrated into the broader financial systema legislative priority, rather than addressing the more pressing sources of financial strain facing most families. Crypto offers a story about upside and progress, but it does not answer the underlying problems of unstable incomes, fragile savings, and rising exposure to risk. Affordability is not about access to new financial products. It is about whether households can reliably pay for basics, absorb shocks, and plan for the future without taking on more volatility. Supporters argue that regulation can turn risky markets into engines of opportunity, especially for communities long excluded from traditional finance. But while regulation may promise harm reduction, it cannot turn speculation into a vehicle for broad-based wealth-building. Congresss focus on conferring legitimacy on crypto reflects a troubling substitution of financial speculation for the harder work of rebuilding the real economy. Wealth that lasts The reason becomes clearer when you start with what wealth-building actually requires. Wealth that lasts is built on stability, not volatility. It looks like a paycheck that covers the mortgage, a retirement account that compounds quietly over decades, and savings that remain after a medical bill or a layoff. For most households, its accumulated gradually through retirement savings, pensions, and home equity. These systems are deeply imperfect, and trust in them has eroded for good reason. While wages rose after the pandemic, the cost of housing, healthcare, and other necessities rose faster, leaving many households feeling less secure. But the failure of existing systems does not make volatility a solution. It makes stability more, not less, important. Falling short Measured against those standards, crypto falls short. Crypto markets are organized around speculation rather than value creation. Tokens do not generate cash flows like businesses or bonds; their prices move on hype and momentum rather than economic fundamentals. An economy that already feels precarious does not need more ways for households to absorb financial risk. That speculative structure tends to reward those who can enter early and exit first. When crypto prices surge, new investors rush inoftn drawn by recent gainswhile larger, better-positioned holders are more likely to sell into the rally. Many ordinary households arrive later, buying at elevated prices amid extreme volatility. Research shows that lower-income investors in particular tend to enter later and at worse price points. Over time, this dynamic functions less as a wealth-building system and more as a wealth transfer from late-arriving households to earlier and more sophisticated participantsreinforcing the same uneven gains that already define todays K-shaped economy. The limits of regulation Regulation is often presented as the solution, but not all regulation reduces risk. Strong guardrails can in principle reduce fraud, limit spillovers, and protect the broader financial system. The problem is not regulation itself, but how its being pursued. Much of the current market structure debate is defined less by nonnegotiable safeguards than by pressure to reach a deal quickly, even if key protections are weakened, deferred, or left unresolved. Even strong regulation has limits. It does not change what crypto is or transform speculative assets into a reliable vehicle for long-term wealth-building. Even a well-regulated casino is still a casino. Rules can make gambling safer; they do not make it a retirement strategy. That distinction matters beyond individual investors. When volatile assets are granted legitimacy without firm safeguards, risk migrates into retirement systems, financial institutions, and local economies. And when those risks spread, they do not fall evenly. Communities of color are especially exposed to systemic shocks because they have far less generational wealth to fall back on when credit tightens or savings are hit. Losses are harder to absorb and recovery takes longer, even for households that never touch crypto. At the same time, these communities are often targeted directly by financial marketers and intermediaries promoting high-risk products. We have seen this pattern of predatory inclusion before. In the years leading up to the financial crisis, risky mortgage products were sold to Black and Latino households as pathways to opportunity, only to shift disproportionate risk onto families least able to absorb losses. Today, similar language surrounds crypto. Access is framed as empowerment, but access to volatility is not affordability, and exposure to risk is not safe wealth-building. Stablecoins are the point where these risks become policy. Congresss recent handling of stablecoins offers a case study in prioritizing crypto expansion over the real economy. Less than two weeks after passing sweeping legislation that cut healthcare, food assistance, and student aid, lawmakers moved quickly to advance stablecoin legislation framed as a consumer protection measure. In practice, it prioritized industry growth and speed over downstream consequences for credit, banking, and communities, leaving key safeguards weakened or unresolved. Real consequences Those legislative choices have real economic consequences. If deposits migrate out of banks and into stablecoins, some economists estimate the shift could translate into roughly $250 billion less lending across the economy. If stablecoins function as yield-bearing substitutes for bank deposits, potential credit losses could rise sharply, possibly into the trillions of dollars. Those losses would hit community banks first, along with the small businesses, rural areas, and communities of color that rely on relationship-based lending. Congress should not confuse legislative movement with economic progress. In an economy already split between those who are gaining ground and those struggling to stay afloat, lawmakers should be clear-eyed about what this legislation actually does. It does not make wealth more accessible or everyday life more affordable. It does not make families safer. It normalizes dangerous financial risk while leaving the real economys wealth-building failures unaddressedat a moment when ordinary Americans can least afford to lose.
Category:
E-Commerce
A week is a long time in politics. But in Donald Trumps world, even a day can feel like an eon. On Tuesday last week, the United States approved the export of Nvidias H200 GPUsthe second-most advanced computer chips powering the generative AI revolutionto markets that include China. The decision was granted with caveats. Supplies could be forestalled if the U.S. began running short, for one thing. But it was an approval. Then, 24 hours later, the White House levied a 25% tariff against the same chips at the point theyre imported into the United States. That matters because, under the rules Trump instigated on Tuesday, all those H200 chips that could be exported to mainland China after being fabricated in Taiwan must first make their way to the United States to be tested before being re-exported to customers. That adds up to a bigger bill for Chinese tech companies wanting to import cutting-edge chips into their country. (To avoid this, China is building up its domestic AI chip development and manufacturing capacity, and recently issued its own counterban on the import and use of H200 chips.) But it also causes chaos for the chipmakers themselves. Because AI hardware is now the backbone of national competitiveness, even small shifts in U.S. trade policy ripple across trilliondollar markets and global supply chains. The latest chopping and changing is a total overhaul of the normal way of doing business, says Willy Shih, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. Business, like sports, is conducted on a playing field, where there are rules and regulations, and also norms, he says. These days, with the tariff situation changing almost every day, I tell people to imagine being a coach of a football team, and the rules change every minute, Shih jokes. Thats what it feels like. The impact on markets from such uncertainty can be significant, he adds. When you see people hold up investments waiting for some stability, thats why. Its hard to make long-term investment commitments when the rules could change tomorrow. Because companies dont know the price theyre going to have to pay to bring goods into their factories, theyre often reluctant to splash the cash on new purchases. A series of chip-adjacent companies has previously complained about lower-than-expected orders because of unpredictable tariff policy. European lithography firm ASML missed expectations in the first quarter of 2025 by more than $1 billion thanks to tariff uncertainty, their CEO said at the time. And markets reflected the chaos of Trumps tariff about-turns this year immediately: Nvidia dropped more than 3% after the 25% levy was introduced, suggesting investors were jittery about the repeated policy pivots. The issue is that it isnt just buyers who are making those long-term commitments on spending. Chip manufacturers rely on trying to understand future demand in order to build out their production capacitysomething that can be imperilled with quick-moving changes to tariffs implemented by Trump. My general belief is that most, or frankly all, semiconductor management and actual visibility of what is going on with demand is precisely zero, says Stacy Rasgon, managing director and senior analyst at Bernstein. They have absolutely no idea. All they see are the orders in front of their face. Being able to ramp up or ramp down production capacity in such a geopolitical environment makes things even more challenging. And Nvidias H200 chips are particularly tricky to make, meaning that the companyalongside other manufacturers of major chips affected by the Trump tariff changeshas to think carefully about how it plans the buildout of factories and capacities. Less than a month ago, Nvidia was asking its suppliers if they could step up demand to account for H200 demand totalling 185% of the firms current stock levels. The situation puts more pressure on the people running chip companies, says Srividya Jandhyala, professor of management at ESSEC Business School, and changes the skills they need to navigate the constant changes. As companies find themselves and their products squarely in the midst of geopolitical tensions, the job description of their top managers has changed, he says, pointing to the way that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has had to mutate how he works. His job today is about being an effective corporate diplomat, crisscrossing the world to convince policymakers that his companys products have a place in the vision policymakers have for their countries, Jandhyala says. But that vision may have to contend with rapidly shifting realities in a world where Donald Trumps whims dictate international trade.
Category:
E-Commerce
Gold Zone, NBC Sports whip-around coverage of the Olympics, didnt debut with the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. As far back as the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, the network had experimented with the formatusing multiple screens to cover simultaneous live events, a technique that had been popularized since 2005 by RedZone coverage of the NFL. But Paris did mark the first time that Gold Zone had run on NBCUniversals streaming service Peacock, providing real-time coverage of all 39 sports with zero embargoes. Gold Zone will return on Peacock for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games in February. Molly Solomon: We decided to create a new class of Olympics programming. We wanted to take a format that sports fans were acquainted with, NFL RedZone whip-around coverage, and pitch it to hardcore sports fans to watch the Olympics like that. Wed never given the audience a front-row seat to everything that was happening at once. Amy Rosenfeld: NBC declared, We are not going to hold anything back. Nothing is embargoed. Solomon: Ive never felt as much energy in an Olympics control room as I did in Gold Zone. [Illustrations: Michal Bednarski] Rosenfeld: That control room was not for the faint of heart. Solomon: The first day I walked in there, you could see it was a unique product. It was fast-paced, frenetic. I thought it could appeal to younger viewers. It was almost like FOMO: Youre scrolling your social feed, where you feel like youre catching up with what happened that day. Rosenfeld: A sports producers worst nightmare is when youre trending on Twitter. That is never good news. My sister texted me about two-thirds through day one and said, Hey, #Gold Zone is trending. And I thought, Oh God, Im going to have to go on LinkedIn and get another job and its all over for me and I should have gone to business school. Cohost Scott Hanson is known for his on-camera exuberance. On day three, while tracking several Americans in different sports who were simultaneously going for gold, he got so excited that he began pounding his desk and lacerated a finger on a stray binder clip. Hanson: I was bleeding all the way down to my wrist. It got into my dress shirt, splattered my notes. Sometimes I get carried away. The next day, everybody came to set with a Band-Aid on their right pinkie. Solomon: The secret to the success of Gold Zone is energy. It helps drive the fun. Hanson: I hope all of us have an injury-free Games in Milan. On August 5, 11 days into its Paris Olympics coverage, Peacock delivered the moment fans had begun clamoring for, bringing together on-screen for the first time the two famous RedZone hosts: Andrew Siciliano, afternoon host of the Games coverage, and Hanson, who was covering prime time. Rosenfeld: I didnt realize what cult figures those guys are and that the idea of the two of them kind of passing a baton and cohosting was going to shake the earth. Hanson: I always thought the majority of the sporting public didnt know there were two RedZones. [DirecTVs RedZone channel, with Siciliano, launched in 2005; NFL Networks RedZone, with Hanson, launched in 2009.] Siciliano: I knew it would resonate. My phone started blowing up. Not just with texts from friends and family but from people I hadnt heard from in years. The Spider-Man meme was popular, the two Spider- Men pointing at each other. Conjuring Anchorman, Siciliano tweeted, Ron Burgundy and Wes Mantooth couldnt do it, but Scott and I can. Which of course begs the question: Who is Ron and who is Wes? Siciliano: Ill let you decide whos Ron and whos Wes. Hanson: Im not biting on that. Siciliano: Theres not going to be a fight in the alley, and I dont think anyone is going to kill anyone with a trident. Hanson: I keep a trident in the closet just in case things get out of control.
Category:
E-Commerce
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