Economy

No one thinks the Cracker Barrel rebrand is a particularly good idea. The entire charm of Cracker Barrel lay in the farmhouse attic vibe, the nana’s candy dish assortment in the gift shop and the menu, which served up the best chicken and dumplings or biscuits and gravy and sweet tea possible from a fast-casual chain with horrible wooden chairs. Still, the melodrama surrounding this story, the rising and falling stock prices, the online mocking and gloating, seems a little overblown. Not everything has to be political. Cracker Barrel certainly doesn’t. For those of you who’ve been wandering around the fields with a bucket on your head this week, Cracker Barrel has streamlined.

Can tariffs replace income taxes paid by Americans earning an income under $200,000 annually, as President Trump has suggested? We seem to have entered a new world in 2025, or rather, reincarnated an older America whose tax receipts were heavily built on tariff payments. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick recently stated that tariffs could replace income taxes paid by Americans making up to $150,000 per year. And certain economic nationalists have urged that there is a vital causal connection here worth recalling in an “American system” of tariffs and protectionism, and the growth of American industry. They argue that America’s Gilded Age wasn’t regressive economically; in fact, the country exploded in growth, commerce and inventions.

Who really thought Donald Trump’s America was about to join the stampede of first-world powers promising to recognize Palestine at the United Nations?  "Wow!" He exclaimed this morning on Truth Social. "Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them."  All over the world, commentators convinced themselves that Trump’s expression of concern on Monday about "real starvation" in Gaza meant he was pivoting with global opinion and against Israel.  It turns out, however, that Team Trump is not for turning when it comes to the Middle East. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, has accused the countries now embracing Palestinian statehood of falling for "Hamas propaganda".

Trump has got almost everything he wanted in the trade deal between the United States and the European Union. Goods imported into the US from the EU will now be subject to tariffs of 15 percent - half the rate that Trump had threatened but far higher than existed prior to "Liberation Day" on April 2.  What has Ursula von der Leyen got in return? Nothing at all, other than the punitive tariffs being dropped. She has agreed to lowering tariffs on imports from the EU, in some cases to zero. She has also agreed to the EU buying more products from the US, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), making a mockery of the EU's net zero policy.

They say three times makes a pattern. So what should we make of the President’s trade agreements, three of which he confirmed this week, as the August 1 deadline for "reciprocal tariffs” looms?  If there remained any confusion about his agenda, he helpfully laid it out in all caps. “I WILL ONLY LOWER TARIFFS IF A COUNTRY AGREES TO OPEN ITS MARKET. IF NOT, MUCH HIGHER TARIFFS!” he wrote on Truth Social. “USA BUSINESSES WILL BOOM!” Given the size of the lettering, and the similarities to the deals secured with Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan this week, we should take Donald Trump at his word on this one. Put simply: so long as other countries cut taxes for their businesses, he will hike taxes on American businesses ever so slightly less.

The reaction of markets to the US trade deal with Japan shows yet again that if you presage bad news with even worse news you can make people pathetically grateful at the outcome. Shares in Toyota surged by 14 percent at the news. Yet why, when the deal will see imports of Japanese cars to the US slapped with tariffs of 15 percent? Because back on "Liberation Day" in April,  Donald Trump announced that Japanese imports would be subject to 24 percent tariffs. Reactions to Trump’s reset in trade relations with the rest of the world have undergone wild swings in recent months. First, markets plunged.

You just graduated college – time to find a job, buck-o. Print out those resumes, and hit the streets hungry. Pass them out to everyone and anyone. Be willing to do what others won’t. Landed your first gig? Show up each morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, no matter how humiliating, and consistently go above and beyond. But most importantly, stay true to yourself. This is the bumper sticker “job advice” boomers have been giving to successive generations for the last 50 years. It’s arguable how useful it ever was, even in their own time. But it’s not until LinkedIn that this contrived work ethic became formalized and permanentized in the digital square – so much so that we’re forced to ask, will we ever have a normal job culture again?

President Trump sent out another round of passive-aggressive tariff letters to foreign leaders Wednesay, which he posted to Truth Social so the world could marvel at his negotiating prowess. He worded each letter exactly the same, using Find and Replace to change country names, so Cockburn will just quote the Libya letter here: “It is a Great Honor for me to send you this letter in that it demonstrates the strength and commitment of our Trading Relationship, and the fact that the United States of America has agreed to continue working with Libya, despite having a significant Trade Deficit with your great Country. Nevertheless, we have decided to move forward with you, but only with more balanced, and fair, TRADE.

“TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025,” Donald Trump shared on Truth Social this morning. “There will be no change... No extensions will be granted. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” It’s a rather definitive statement from the President. But we’ve been here before. The original 90-day extension of “reciprocal tariffs” (better described as trade deficit figures with a percentage symbol attached) was also supposed to be a hard deadline. The President suggested only last week that there were no plans to push implementation back again. But here we are: a new date, a new deadline and a mixed market reaction.

Dig into your desk drawers or the recesses of your closet and there’s a decent chance you’ll find an iPod you haven’t powered on since Michael Jackson’s last live tour. With Apple selling over 450 million since their inception in 2001, iPods were once the hottest tech item and fulfilled Steve Jobs’ promise of being able to carry an audio library in your pocket.How times have changed. Today, the average zoomer is likely to draw a blank when you say iPod, probably mishearing the word for the AirPods line of Bluetooth headphones. But, for a plethora of reasons, the iPod is once again becoming desirable. The r/iPod subreddit has over 70,000 readers and retro tech enthusiasts like Australian YouTuber DankPods attract millions of views.

In October 2024, a Montana rancher was sentenced to federal prison time and charged a hefty fine for illegally cloning a giant hybrid sheep, afterwards referred to as the “Montana Mountain King.” Using testicles and other tissues illegally imported to the United States from an argali Marco Polo (Ovis ammon polii) sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan, the rancher contracted a laboratory to create cloned embryos which he then implanted to ewes on his ranch, eventually resulting in an impressive male specimen tailored for the captive trophy hunting industry. He then worked with co-conspirators to use semen from the cloned animal to impregnate various other sheep and create hybrid specimens of large body and horn size for illegal sale to captive hunting facilities in various other states.

Of all the policies proposed by Zohran Mamdani, the socialist winner of last week’s New York’s Next Top Mayor competition, the idea of city-run grocery stores has proved the most divisive. If you want to reduce prices at halal carts by taking away regulations on street vendors, you’re going to get 80-plus percent approval rating. But state-owned groceries are another story. Modern history is strewn with tales of state-owned grocery disasters.

Zohran Mamdani’s surprise win in the race to be the next mayor of New York City is not just a local upset – it’s the moment the progressive fringe officially took the keys from the Democratic establishment. The 33-year-old socialist unexpectedly seized the most first-choice votes in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary. And if symbolism mattered more than substance, he would already be crowned mayor of America's largest city. For years, the Democratic machine in New York managed to contain its most radical flank with centrist figures like Eric Adams and, before him, Michael Bloomberg. But that firewall has crumbled.

For the entirety of June each year, companies and institutions go rainbow for Pride. But this year, social media seems a little less awash with multicoloured flags – and fewer and fewer companies have bothered with their annual logo change. Could it be that we have all, finally, tired of this mandatory rainbow charade? Donald Trump has certainly made his feelings known. World Pride was held in Washington DC this year. An awkward stage for the annual global celebration considering that when asked what his position was on Pride, Trump’s spokesperson said that the president was "fostering a sense of national pride that should be celebrated daily". Eek.

Most cities, especially those whose survival depends on tourism, might welcome the multi-squillion-dollar wedding of the world’s third-richest man. Imagine the $500 million superyacht gliding in like a Bond villain’s aqua-lair. Think of two hundred almost-as-rich guests, spilling vintage Trentodoc. Consider the spectacular press coverage, the endless sparkle, and, not least, the 14,000 Aperol spritzes sold per hour. This event means a thousand cameras trained on the city’s finest hotels and restaurants: providing the kind of advertising that folding money cannot buy. There is probably only one city on earth that would disfavour such an opportunity, and it is, of course, the world’s most exquisite: Venice.

President Trump moved through the G7 Summit in Alberta like a blowsy uncle swinging by the house for a drink on Thanksgiving on his way to Vegas. He didn’t accomplish much, but, as always, he was the perpetual pot-stirrer in his real-life As The World Turns. He began yesterday by criticizing the G7 for tossing Russia out of the group, “even though I wasn’t in politics then. I was very loud about it.” Fact check: true. This expulsion was a “mistake,” Trump said, adding, “Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anyone else.” What was Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni rolling her eyes at in a moment soon to become a GIF? Probably that statement. Almost definitely that statement. But that was just the canapé, with the actual meal yet to come.

Well, well, well. After a week of breathless digital countdown timers and PR emails demanding that every journalist get on a plane to New York City for a 7 a.m. start, the Trump Organization has finally unveiled its earth-shattering announcement. And what world-changing revelation required Eric and Donald Trump Jr. to ceremoniously descend the golden escalator at Trump Tower this Monday morning? A cell phone service. Yes, the future of American telecommunications has arrived, and it's painted gold. Thank God I didn't book a flight to the Big Apple for this momentous occasion. The brothers Trump, clearly having exhausted the family's ventures into steaks, universities and cryptocurrency, have now set their sights on disrupting the mobile phone industry.

Elon Musk rarely bites his tongue. Just ask the Treasury Secretary, who the tech billionaire branded a “Soros agent,” or the UK’s Prime Minister, who Musk accused of going soft on grooming gangs in January this year. But it seems the founder of the Department for Government Efficiency (DoGE) has been holding back a rather explosive opinion – one he could never share while he was popping in and out of the Oval Office, working for President Donald Trump. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote this afternoon on his platform X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.