The government has said that Australia faces an illegal tobacco “crisis.” But it has refused to back down from the tax hikes or acknowledge the role they may have had in fanning the illicit trade, even as it loses billions in tax revenue. The World Health Organization advises that taxation is “the most cost-effective way to reduce tobacco use.

Australian officials have instead been pouring resources into toughening laws and enforcement efforts — which critics say is a Whac-a-Mole approach that will not address the underlying profit motive driving the problem.

Rob said:

Ford is like hey do you want a 90 thousand dollar ev and the market was like absolutely not

And what of Trump’s vague claim from a speech on the economy Thursday in Georgia, that “our country was dead” a year ago under former President Joe Biden, but “now we have the hottest country”? The US economy grew at just 2.2% in 2025, new full-year figures showed — lower than in every year of the Biden administration and every year of the first Trump administration other than 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Cities across the U.S. are grappling with two parallel problems: too much empty office space and not enough housing. Nationally, office vacancy rates reached roughly 20% in 2024, after years of employees working from home. At the same time, the national housing shortage is in the millions. Cities like Washington, D.C., are now betting that by turning vacant offices into homes, one crisis can help solve the other.

The Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now slated to be entirely exhausted by 2040, even though the balance generally increases through 2031, as spending will begin to outstrip income in the following year.

myusername said:

From cubicles to kitchens: How empty offices are becoming homes
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/21/g-s1-110595/from-cubicles-to-kitchens-how-empty-offices-are-becoming-homes

Cities across the U.S. are grappling with two parallel problems: too much empty office space and not enough housing. Nationally, office vacancy rates reached roughly 20% in 2024, after years of employees working from home. At the same time, the national housing shortage is in the millions. Cities like Washington, D.C., are now betting that by turning vacant offices into homes, one crisis can help solve the other.

Dubbed the U.S. Dollar Payment Token, or USDPT, the stablecoin will be built on the Solana blockchain and issued by Anchorage Digital Bank. The digital token is expected to launch in the first half of 2026, and customers will be able to access it through Western Union’s partner exchanges.

“The Strait of Hormuz is essential for global food production,” CEO of Norwegian chemical company Yara International, Svein Tore Holsether, told CNN Thursday.

About one-third of the world’s exports of urea, a widely used fertilizer, move through the strait, as do large supplies of other raw materials needed to make fertilizer, he noted. “Fertilizers are not just another commodity – nearly half of global food production depends on them.”

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employers shed 92,000 jobs last month as the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3%, continuing a painful stretch of sputtering job growth. Meanwhile, all three major stock indexes fell during morning trading, as President Donald Trump said that he will not end his war on Iran unless the Middle East adversary agrees to an “unconditional surrender.”

Corporate BS seems to be ubiquitous – but Littrell wondered if it is actually harmful. To test this, he created a “corporate bullshit generator” that churns out meaningless but impressive-sounding sentences like, "We will actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing” and “By getting our friends in the tent with our best practices, we will pressure-test a renewed level of adaptive coherence.”

He then asked more than 1,000 office workers to rate the “business savvy” of these computer-generated BS statements alongside real quotes from Fortune 500 leaders. Divided into four distinct studies, the research verified the scale as a statistically reliable measure of individual differences in receptivity to corporate bullshit, then, through use of established cognitive tests, made connections between receptivity to BS and analytic thinking skills known to be essential to workplace performance.

The results revealed a troubling paradox. Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence. Those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making.

The study found that being more receptive to corporate bullshit was also positively linked to job satisfaction and feeling inspired by company mission statements. Moreover, those who were more likely to fall for corporate BS were also more likely to spread it.

Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate

The International Energy Agency's 32 member countries agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil to address the Iran war supply disruption.

Energy analysts warned ahead of the release that even the IEA's maximum drawdown capability would likely not be able to offset the nearly 20 million barrels per day that typically transits through the strait.

The facility went offline on March 2 following drone strikes, removing approximately 30% of global helium supply from the market. QatarEnergy declared force majeure on existing contracts on March 4, freeing it from supply obligations to customers, and industry outlet Gasworld reported on March 7 that no imminent restart is planned.

Helium consultant Phil Kornbluth, speaking at a Gasworld webinar on March 4, said that if the outage extends beyond roughly two weeks, industrial gas distributors could be forced to relocate cryogenic equipment and revalidate supplier relationships, a process that could stretch over months regardless of when Qatari output resumes.

The situation echoes a 2022 shortage of helium and neon, which was triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Yet this time, Trump is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Asked at the Monday press conference whether the war was escalating or “very complete” as Trump had suggested, he replied: “You could say both.”

The result is confusion and significant volatility in oil.

Housing: Mortgage rates had fallen steadily over the past nine months.
with a big assist from the Fed’s three interest rate cuts last year. But investors are now demanding higher Treasury yields over fears of economic damage from the war. Mortgage rates, closely tied to the benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield, rose a couple weeks ago too, back over 6%.

myusername said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/03/13/traders-are-hanging-on-trumps-every-word-can-they-trust-him/

Yet this time, Trump is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Asked at the Monday press conference whether the war was escalating or “very complete” as Trump had suggested, he replied: “You could say both.”

The result is confusion and significant volatility in oil.

Trump draws backlash for comment on Iran war: ‘Maybe we shouldn’t even be there’