The $300,000 Question Nobody in Washington Can Answer

Hochul Targets NYC's Multimillion-Dollar Second Homes In $268 Billion Budget Framework New York is taking direct aim at the city’s ultra-wealthy absentee owners. In a major policy shift announced Thursday, Governor Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders reached a framework agreement on a $268 billion state budget that includes a new annual tax on multimillion-dollar second homes in New York City - a move designed to generate roughly $500 million a year to help close the city’s projected $5.4 billion budget deficit. The proposal, often called a “pied-à-terre” tax (French for...

DOJ, CTFC Investigating $2.6 Billion In Suspicious Iran War Oil Trades U.S. authorities are investigating more than $2.6 billion in oil futures shorts that landed within minutes of major announcements tied to the 2026 U.S.-Iran conflict. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has joined the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in a widening inquiry into potential misuse of material non-public information in one of the most liquid and geopolitically sensitive commodity markets on earth, ABC News reports. The trades in question involved bets that oil prices would fall shortly before major U.S. or Iranian...

China's Car Sales Slump As Gasoline Demand Craters Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com, Chinese car sales in China fell by 21.5% in April, driven by lower demand for gasoline-powered vehicles amid higher fuel prices. EV demand failed to offset the drop in internal combustion engine vehicle sales, as well. According to Bloomberg data, total car sales in China last month hit 1.4 million. This was the lowest since 2022, when China was still in the grip of Covid lockdowns. Internal combustion engine car sales suffered a decline of over 30%, while EV and...