TV News LIES

The board game Monopoly has always taught some important economic lessons: The benefits of owning real estate. The profit potential of railroad mergers. The value of a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Now a special edition of the board game is teaching a new lesson—about how hard it is to make things in the USA.

The game is being marketed by the WS Game Company, which produces most of its high-end board games in China, just like almost every other toy maker.

After getting hit with a seven-figure tariff bill last year, CEO Jonathan Silva decided to see if it was possible to produce a profitable board game in the United States.

He opted for a custom version of Monopoly, pegged to the country's 250th birthday. But the experiment almost didn't pass go. One big problem: No dice.

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For his work chairing the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who has died aged 100, was regularly hailed by financiers, politicians and journalists for his handling of the economy. He was variously dubbed the Oracle, the Wizard and the Maestro.

As head of the central bank of the US from 1987 to 2006, tasked with setting interest rates and supervising and regulating banks and other financial institutions, he easily ranked as one of the most powerful individuals in the world. He served under four presidents: Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton – even though Greenspan was a lifelong Republican – and George W Bush.

His reputation rested on a series of smart interventions that included averting a global economic meltdown after the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash and again in the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and restoring confidence in the wake of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. His biggest triumph was to preside over one of the longest economic booms in US history, between 1991 and 2001.

“By the dawn of the new millennium, it was nearly impossible to find anyone in America who was not gaga over Greenspan. Democrats and Republicans, Wall Street and Main Street, dogs and cats – all were high on the Fed chairman,” the economic journalist Justin Martin wrote in Greenspan: The Man Behind Money (2000).

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Before Sayuri Tsuchitani became an entrepreneur, she spent two decades on her feet: cutting, coloring and styling hair. A hairdresser's work is physically tough, and Tsuchitani often wondered how she'd manage as she grew older.

When the pandemic shut the Los Angeles salon where she worked, she recognized a chance to make a change: She applied for a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration, or the SBA, for a business of her own.

"The SBA led me to my success of the American dream," said Tsuchitani, who took advantage of a pandemic-era funding program to open a Japanese head spa: a salon offering blood-flow massages, ayurvedic oil treatments and deep scalp cleanses. She launched one location, then two more; hired one worker, then nine more.

But today, the SBA would disqualify Tsuchitani from its loan program because of a new policy. Tsuchitani is a green-card holder, also known as a lawful permanent resident; she moved from Japan 28 years ago. And in March, the U.S. small-business agency, for the first time in its history, stopped approving loans to firms that are not fully owned by U.S. citizens — and only citizens.

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Soaring gasoline prices, triggered by the U.S. war with Iran, have pushed inflation to its highest level in more than three years.

A report from the Labor Department on Wednesday showed consumer prices in May were up 4.2% from a year ago. That's the biggest annual increase since April of 2023. By contrast, the Labor Department says average wages have risen only 3.4% over the last year, so workers' real spending power has declined.

Prices rose 0.5% between April and May, with higher energy costs accounting for more than 60% of that monthly increase. Gas prices have jumped by well over a dollar a gallon since the war began, strangling shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — a critical pathway for much of the world's oil supply.

Higher fuel costs also pushed up airfares in May. Airline tickets cost about 27% more than they did a year ago.

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David West raised four kids in Los Angeles working as a Hollywood cinematographer — no mean feat in such a pricey city. But a few years ago, his life took a hard turn.

"Everything went south. Divorce. My brother died," he said. "My dog died." On top of that, a string of clients who'd hired him for decades also passed away.

Before long, he'd burned through cash and damaged his credit. He moved to Fresno, Calif., and now, at 72, West is in a situation he never imagined at this stage of life but one that more and more older people are facing: renting a room in the home of a complete stranger.

"I tried to move, like, an apartment's worth of stuff into a room," he said with a laugh at how impossible it seemed. "You know, how do you do that? I still haven't figured it out."

West looked into a housing subsidy, but his income is just over the limit, so he's grateful for the cost savings of a house share. His roommate, also an older man, covers Wi-Fi, utilities and cable. West volunteers his photography skills at the church where the man is involved and shares his Costco membership.

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Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires from 24 countries are calling on global leaders to increase taxes on the super-rich, amid growing concern that the wealthiest in society are buying political influence.

An open letter, released to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, calls on global leaders attending this week’s conference to close the widening gap between the super-rich and everyone else.

The letter, signed by luminaries including the actor and film-maker Mark Ruffalo, the musician Brian Eno and the film producer and philanthropist Abigail Disney, says extreme wealth is polluting politics, driving social exclusion and fuelling the climate emergency.

"A handful of global oligarchs with extreme wealth have bought up our democracies; taken over our governments; gagged the freedom of our media; placed a stranglehold on technology and innovation; deepened poverty and social exclusion; and accelerated the breakdown of our planet,” it reads. “What we treasure, rich and poor alike, is being eaten away by those intent on growing the gulf between their vast power and everyone else.

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