Mounting risks: what's threatening U.S. markets in 2025?
U.S. stocks and bonds are under pressure as shifting market dynamics take hold. Morgan Stanley Asset Management's Jitania Kandhari analyzes the emerging financial risks and evolving macroeconomic conditions reshaping the investment landscape.
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News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
‘Breakdown': Kelly Clarkson left tormented over huge personal decision
Kelly Clarkson has allegedly had a 'breakdown' on the set of her variety talk show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, as she grapples with a huge decision behind the scenes. Clarkson has recently been at the centre of rumours that she's planning to quit the show when her contract with NBC ends next year. The Since U Been Gone singer has reportedly been struggling with the idea that quitting the show would leave hundreds of her employees without a job in the midst of a cost of living crisis. Two staffers on the show told Daily Mail that Clarkson has been 'tormented' by the decision she has to make and it's impacting her behaviour on set. 'She's made it very clear that she doesn't want her decisions to affect all of our livelihoods … but it's a bit late for that now,' said the anonymous staffers. 'I get that she's conflicted, but when she says things publicly, it makes the public feel like she doesn't want to be here. And if she doesn't want to be here, why should they tune in?' They claimed that Clarkson has been sat down with show bosses in a bid to hash out a plan for the show's future, but that the meeting ended with the singer melting down. 'She was emotional. She was worried about the staff and had a bit of a breakdown about it,' they said. The latest reports come weeks after it emerged the show bosses were scrambling to try and keep Clarkson on the show. 'Kelly's number one priority is her children, and they always will be,' one industry insider told Page Six of the Texas native. 'The show is gruelling. It's a whole lot of work and I hear that Kelly would like to spend more time down South.' It's thought Clarkson is hoping to get back to focusing on her family as well as her music career, which has had to take a back seat due to her demanding schedule on the show. While singing at an arena in Atlantic City recently, Clarkson told the audience: 'We haven't done a show in a while, y'all, 'cause I have a talk show. It's like a whole other job.' 'We are bummed 'cause we love doing shows, and it's hard to fit it in, so it's cool when it does work out with the schedule,' she added, 'and it's cool to get to see your faces and feed off y'all. Thank you so much for having so much energy.'
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Elon Musk lashes out as he digests his ‘betrayal' at the hands of Donald Trump's circle
Amid a flurry of furious tweets from Elon Musk, denouncing the current centrepiece of Donald Trump's agenda, came one with particularly telling language. 'In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,' Mr Musk posted, referring to the congressional elections of 2026. Betrayed. There's a loaded word. One that says more about Mr Musk's sorely bruised ego, I suspect, than the American government's long-complacent tax and spending policies. The man is neither talking nor acting like someone offended, on an intellectual level, by the betrayal of faceless voters he doesn't know. Rather he sounds like someone who feels he has been betrayed on a personal level. And you know what? For good reason. As perverse as it feels to offer sympathy for a guy who's never had a jot of it to spare for anyone else, you must concede that Elon's sense of grievance here is understandable. Trump gladly took hundreds of millions of dollars from Elon last year. Gave him a few shoutouts on stage. Threw him a token job in the government. Shoved him out the door after less than five months. And is now spitting on everything he was trying, however clumsily, to achieve in that job. You don't need to be a ten-year-old trapped in the ketamine-addled body of a 53-year-old tech billionaire to empathise with his frustration. At issue here is a piece of legislation called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Yes, that is its real, formal name. And yes, adults with long and, in some cases, even quite serious careers in politics signed off on it. The Trump family's branding instincts remain as subtle as ever. The moniker is at least two-thirds fitting though, because this thing is huge and near all-encompassing. The third element, beauty, remains in the eye of the beholder. It runs to more than a thousand pages, some of which some members of Congress did actually bother to read before passing it through the House of Representatives. It still needs to survive the Republican-controlled Senate before it can be sent to Mr Trump's desk for a final signature which, presumably, shall not be affixed via autopen. What of the contents? There are many. At the topline level: an extension of the sweeping tax cuts from Mr Trump's first term; big cuts to initiatives like Medicaid, the government program that funds health insurance for low-income Americans; and a humungous chunk of funding for immigration enforcement initiatives, like the border wall Mr Trump has been promising to build, quickly, since 2015. Some of us are old enough to remember when Mexico was going to pay for the thing, which would negate the need for any US government funding. Ah well. Empty promises. Elon is not the only person becoming acquainted with them. I digress. The problem with Mr Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, Mr Musk argues, is the effect on America's already drowning federal budget. According to newly released costings from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office – the equivalent of our Parliamentary Budget Office in Australia – the legislation as written will add nearly $US2.5 trillion to the country's debt over the next decade. Not million. Not billion. Trillion. It blows a gaping hole in the nation's budget, which already looked a bit like off Swiss cheese. Another cost, which admittedly concerns Mr Musk far less, is an estimated 10.9 million people being left without health insurance. Not exactly something to celebrate in a country where common injuries and ailments often bankrupt entire families. Now, as you would expect of a mature government, the White House and senior Republicans have offered a thoughtful response to the CBO's analysis: 'Nuh-uh.' They claim the CBO is biased against them, you see, like every other institution in the country. Hence, the assertions we are hearing, from those Republicans that this bill actually won't add a single dollar to America's deficit. Not one! Not a dime. The argument is that Mr Trump's extended tax cuts will spur a sudden, miraculous explosion of economic growth that wipes out any lost revenue. And that, when said growth is combined with the money raised by Mr Trump's on again, off again, on again, off again, on again (but at a lower rate), off again, on again tariffs, the budget will be fine. In politispeak, we might call this position tenuous. In real world speak, we call it obvious, utter crap. The Trump administration is building its tax and spending plans atop a house of cards, atop another house of cards, atop a house of tissue paper, all of it underpinned by assumptions that insult the Trump officials' own intelligence, never mind ours. Which means the Trump administration is, essentially, just continuing business as usual in Washington. Talk a humungous game about the importance of fiscal rectitude while out of office. Wag a finger at the profligate left. Then, once you've gained power yourself, run the nation's finances even more recklessly. It's a proud Republican tradition at this point. Deficit spending on a social safety net? Grossly irresponsible. Ballooning the deficit to provide lower taxes for the wealthy? Something something good economic management. No wonder someone like Elon Musk, the living embodiment of 'move fast and break things', is so frustrated. The poor guy believed he was part of something revolutionary. When Mr Trump tapped him to head the Department of Government Efficiency, he thought he was there to actually achieve something. Putting aside the chaos and stupidity of DOGE's methods – firing people only to rehire them in a scramble, repeatedly revising its savings down after being caught using false numbers, etc – Mr Musk's commitment to the vision, the ultimate end goal of a more fiscally balanced federal government, was at least genuine. Then he showed up for work in the White House, and swiftly learned none of the other acolytes hanging around the place cared about it. On one level, he was preposterously naive. Donald Trump ranted about the federal deficit during his first run for president almost a decade ago, and repeatedly claimed he would fix it easily. He went on to run massive deficits throughout his first term. How on earth did Mr Musk come to believe that guy would actually commit to balancing the budget? His own social media platform's juiced algorithm may have been a contributor. But the rest of Washington must have shocked Mr Musk as well. Consider: even the more principled members of the Republican caucus, the fiscal hawks, the libertarian small government types, are hardly standing athwart history shouting 'no' here. 'While I oppose increasing the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, I enthusiastically support making the tax cuts permanent and could vote for the Big not-yet-Beautiful Bill if the debt ceiling were voted on separately,' Senator Rand Paul, a quasi-libertarian, said today. A position as substantive as one's stool after a night of booze and curry. He's opposed to swelling the debt too much at some point in the future. Think of the carte blanche you might give the Democrats, if the ceiling of potential debt is raised! But at the same time, he's just fine with the tax cuts that are forecast to supersize said debt by trillions right now. Mr Paul probably would have been part of a Senate majority without any intervention, in last year's campaign, from Mr Musk. But you can mount a plausible argument that none of the jokers currently running America's executive branch would have attained this level of power without Elon Musk's money, or his cultural influence, or his platform. And what did he get for it? Barely four months inside the administration, running an ineffective quasi-department, whose work has been undone by a single bill. The implicit mockery of people who pretended to think he was a genius when it suited them, only to consciously uncouple at the first opportunity. So much time was spent, in these early months of the Trump administration, worrying about Mr Musk using the White House to further his own business interests. Not without reason. It turns out the Trump team was using him all along.
SBS Australia
4 hours ago
- SBS Australia
SBS News in Easy English 6 June 2025
Listen to Australian and world news, and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts . Welcome to SBS News in Easy English, I'm Camille Bianchi. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says world leaders should not show weakness to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin has threatened to hit back at Ukraine, after it launched attacks this past week. Mr Zelenskyy has suggested a ceasefire with Russia, until a meeting can be arranged with Mr Putin. At a meeting, he said Europe, Ukraine and the whole world have a chance to end the war. "My proposal, which I believe our partners can support, is that we agree a ceasefire with the Russians until the leaders meet. We offer a meeting any day starting from Monday … if there is no mutual understanding, if there is no desire for de-escalation, if there is no desire and vision how to put an end to it, then ceasefire will be over the same day." Australia is hoping United States President, Donald Trump, will not put a thirty per cent tariff on Australian steel and aluminium imports. Mr Trump has announced every country except the U-K must have a 30 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet with the U-S President soon and will ask. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says trade partners are encouraged to come forward with tailored deals. "Well, each country has unique advantages, unique challenges to it based on their markets and what they export to us and what we export to them. And so that's why the president smartly advised his trade team to engage in tailor-made deal making." Western Australian Greens Party leader, Brad Pettit, says the state is now the climate change capital. Official figures show WA released 89.37 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022 to 2023, almost as high as the record number of 89.64 million tonnes released between 2009 and 2010. WA Greens M-P Sophie McNeill says it is extremely concerning the state's Labor government has just approved decades more emissions from mining. "The Cook Labor Government knows these numbers and they just don't care. They know that West Australia needs to drastically reduce our emissions that we are the worst climate laggard out in the whole country, and yet they are willing to open new gas projects in the face of this." United Nations Security Council members have criticised the United States, after it rejected a vote calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and for charities to have full access to Gaza. Washington's United Nations representative Dorothy Shea says the plan would not be effective. 'Fourteen votes in favour, one against. The draft resolution has not been adopted, owing to the negative vote of a permanent member."] The vote has sparked anger among members of the council. The Hajj Pilgrimage in Mecca has begun, with more than 1.5 million Muslims from around the world travelling to Saudi Arabia to perform their religious duty. Palestinian pilgrims like Rajai Al-Kahlut from Gaza have gathered in Mecca. "By God's grace and mercy, we were able to be among those who came for hajj this season, and this was the greatest gift from God for us. By His grace and mercy, He granted us this hajj. We pray to God for acceptance. Thank God. Our performance of hajj came at the right time so we can pray for our people in Gaza and to ask God to stop the war and end this great calamity that has befallen us." That's the latest SBS News in Easy English.
