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Trump: US to be number-one leader in digital assets

United States President Donald Trump hailed on Tuesday that the House Committee on Rules decided to open a debate on a series of acts proposing the creation of a federal legal framework for digital assets, insisting that, when passed, the bill will make his country "the undisputed, number one leader" in that area.

"The GENIUS Act is going to put our Great Nation lightyears ahead of China, Europe, and all others, who are trying endlessly to catch up, but they just can't do it. Digital Assets are the FUTURE, and we are leading by a lot!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. He also urged the Republicans to vote in favor of the bills.

Previously, House Committee on Financial Services Chairman French Hill declared the week of July 14 as the "Crypto Week" amid the lower congressional chamber's focus on the related CLARITY Act, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, and the GENIUS Act.

China Home Prices Drop at Faster Pace as Stimulus Calls Mount

China’s home prices fell at a faster pace in June, underscoring growing speculation for additional measures to revive the property market.

New-home prices in 70 cities, excluding state-subsidized housing, dropped 0.27% from May, the most in eight months, National Bureau of Statistics figures showed Tuesday. Values of second-hand homes fell 0.61%, the biggest decline since September.

China’s prolonged housing downturn is stifling efforts to boost consumer demand and shore up the economy as exports remain under pressure from trade tensions with the US. Calls for further policy support for the residential market have grown as the effects of a stimulus blitz last September wear off.



Preliminary figures for June show “a clear trend of market weakening,” UOB Kay Hian analysts Jieqi Liu and Damon Shen wrote in a report last week. “We see a higher likelihood of policy support being announced during the July Politburo meeting.”

Investors are closely watching for further signs of policy support. A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of Chinese developer stocks jumped late last week on speculation that more stimulus is in the works.
Premier Li Qiang pledged to end the real estate decline at a State Council meeting last month. When China’s top leaders voiced such a policy target last September, a stimulus package ensued.

Still, some economists expect Beijing to hold off on major support measures for now, to preserve policy flexibility in case tensions with Washington resurface after a temporary deal expires in mid-August.

Xi Urges ‘New Model’ for China Urban Development in Rare Meeting


Xi Jinping Photographer: Nhac Nguyen/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the acceleration of a “new model” for property development, advocating a more measured approach to urban planning and upgrades, while falling short of investor expectations for more aggressive policies.

China will “steadily advance renovation of urban villages and dilapidated houses,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported

Tuesday, citing the Central Urban Work Conference held on Monday and Tuesday. The announcement follows a pledge by the government last October to renovate 1 million homes in older, rundown dwellings in large cities.

Ahead of the official readout, there has been growing speculation of a meeting reminiscent of a 2015 campaign that was then used to boost home-buying demand and galvanize domestic investment.

That year, China held the Central Urban Work Conference, which was the first of its kind in decades and attended by Xi and top Politburo members.

The country’s prolonged housing downturn is stifling efforts to boost consumer demand and shore up the economy as exports remain at risk from trade tensions with the US. Official data Tuesday showed a weakening home market in June, with new-home prices falling the most in eight months.

Donald Trump threatens 100% secondary tariffs on Russia

US president seeks to step up pressure on Moscow to reach a peace deal with Ukraine


US President Donald Trump announced a deal on weapons for Ukraine with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte © REUTERS

The US president has threatened Russia with 100 per cent secondary tariffs if the war in Ukraine does not end soon, as he announced an agreement with Nato allies to send more weapons to Kyiv.

During a meeting in the Oval Office with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte on Monday, the US president said he was “very unhappy” with Moscow over the lack of progress towards a deal to end the conflict.

“We are very unhappy — I am — with Russia,” Trump said. “I’m disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago.”

“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100 per cent, you’d call them secondary tariffs,” he added. The tariffs would be “biting” and “very, very powerful”, he said.

Trump has previously raised the prospect of applying so-called secondary tariffs, which would apply a charge on countries that trade with Moscow, as he has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin’s intransigence in peace talks.

During Monday’s White House meeting, Trump also confirmed plans to send weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot missile systems.

The US president said that “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment” would be purchased by Nato allies from the US, and that it would “be quickly distributed to the battlefield” in Ukraine.

Rutte said Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada all want to be part of the weapons deal.

Trump said that Nato would co-ordinate getting the weaponry to Ukraine. Nato countries “will move equipment fast into Ukraine” and then the US would backfill allies’ weapons, Rutte said.

Investment banking set to extend worst run in over a decade

Big US banks have relied on traders for at least 75% of their Wall Street revenues for more than three years


Trading revenues at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are expected to be almost 10% higher than a year ago © FT montage/Dreamstime

Investment banking is on course to extend a record streak of underperformance, supplying less than a quarter of Wall Street revenues at the biggest US banks for the 14th quarter in a row.

Traders are due to come to the rescue of their advisory colleagues once again when the banks report second-quarter results this week, with total trading revenues at the five largest Wall Street banks forecast to be $31bn — more than four times the figure for investment banking.

Analysts expect trading revenues at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will be almost 10 per cent higher than a year ago.

They forecast that revenues from investment banking, the other part of the banks’ Wall Street operations, will fall almost 10 per cent to $7.5bn, according to consensus data compiled by Bloomberg.

If the earnings match estimates when the groups report results on Tuesday and Wednesday, investment bankers will have contributed less than 25 per cent of Wall Street revenues — distinct from money earned from retail banking and money management activities — since the start of 2022.

This would be the longest period in which they have failed to breach that threshold since at least 2014.



Although trading and investment banking are both volatile businesses, the length of the latter’s downturn highlights how quiet dealmaking and equity capital markets have been since the bursting of the 2021 pandemic-era bubble.

It also underlines how strong the trading business has been following a moribund period in the 2010s, when low interest rates and muted volatility held down revenues.

Banks facilitate and finance trades. They benefit when activity levels are high and prices are volatile.

“This is a normal environment, whereas the low [volatility] environment of the 2010s was the abnormal part,” said Chris Kotowski, research analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.

In the past three years, financial markets have grappled with rising interest rates, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and protectionist policies after Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

These same trends have damped the ability of company leaders and investment firms to do deals, despite continued optimism from bankers about the potential pipeline.

“I think 2025 is more or less done [for investment banking],” Kotowski said. “Yes you could get a strong quarter of equity issuance in the fall, and that would help numbers. The M&A is going to be more a function of what’s been announced already for the back half of the year.”

Investors tend to value revenues from investment banking more highly than trading because it can be higher margin and less capital-intensive.

Investors are still betting that the long-anticipated recovery in investment banking will materialise, with Goldman’s stock price recently surpassing $700 for the first time.

“The first half of the quarter was rough for obvious reasons. But there’s obviously a lot more optimism about the outlook here,” said HSBC banking analyst Saul Martinez.

The same political and economic stability that investors hope will grease the wheels for deals could ease the market volatility that has buoyed banks’ trading revenues.

Revenue from trading “has been really elevated and I don’t know that you can make the case convincingly that you’re going to see a lot of growth from here”, said Martinez.

JPMorgan and Citi report results on July 15, with BofA, Goldman and Morgan Stanley reporting the following day.

Along with Wells Fargo, the group represents the six largest US banks by assets. Net income for the six banks overall is expected to fall about 13 per cent from the same quarter last year.

The steepest drop is likely to be at JPMorgan, with analysts predicting a decline of 30 per cent from a year ago, when the bank recorded a one-off gain of almost $8bn from its stake in the credit card company Visa.

Trump says US to send Patriots to Ukraine via NATO

United States President Donald Trump announced Monday from the White House that the United States will manufacture and deliver Patriot missile systems to Ukraine through NATO, clarifying that allied countries will cover the cost.

"You want Ukraine [to have] what it needs ... but you want the Europeans to pay for it — which is totally logical," Trump said. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, standing alongside Trump, confirmed the plan, stating that the move enables Ukraine "to defend itself against Russia."

Rutte highlighted a broad coalition, including Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Canada, supporting the effort. He added that equipment will be delivered to Ukraine more quickly through this coordinated mechanism.

Nursing homes struggle with Trump's immigration crackdown

(...) Blumberg got less than 24 hours’ notice when her employees lost their work authorization, setting off a scramble to fill shifts. She has already boosted salaries and referral bonuses but says it will be difficult to replace not just aides, but maintenance workers, dishwashers and servers.

“Unfortunately, Americans are not drawn to applying and working in the positions that we have available,” she says.

Adiós a los pisos de 100.000 euros: Sareb retira del mercado de venta 40.000 viviendas baratas que pasarán a Sepes para alquiler

Se trata de la mayor bolsa de pisos asequibles para la venta
Esta cartera será el gérmen de la nueva empresa pública de vivienda


Edificios de viviendas

El traspaso de las viviendas y suelo de Sareb a Sepes para dar forma a la nueva empresa estatal de vivienda supondrá la retirada de la mayor bolsa de pisos asequibles del mercado libre, además de un impacto en la facturación del conocido como banco malo de, al menos, 5.900 millones de euros.

Concretamente, la compañía va a transmitir a la nueva empresa estatal de suelo y vivienda 40.000 unidades residenciales y alrededor de 2.400 suelos con capacidad para construir unas 55.000 viviendas. Así lo anunció Isabel Rodríguez, ministra de Vivienda y Agenda Urbana, que destacó que el traspaso de estos inmuebles se realizará de forma progresiva.

Del monto total, la mayor partida de facturación, unos 4.000 millones de euros de ingresos, procederían de la venta de las viviendas, que ahora pasarán a formar parte del parque público residencial y se inyectarán en el mercado del alquiler asequible.

Si bien, estos pisos desaparecen de la bolsa libre de compraventa. Esto implica que de golpe han salido del mercado 40.000 unidades de venta asequible, ya que el precio medio al que se comercializaban los pisos de Sareb es de unos 100.000 euros por vivienda, lo que las convierte en las más accesibles para el comprador.

Concretamente, en el primer semestre de 2024, siendo estos los últimos datos disponibles, Sareb logró cerrar la venta de 4.353 unidades, lo que supuso unos ingresos de 443 millones, por lo que el precio medio de este segmento de viviendas se situó en torno a 102.000 euros. Adicionalmente, la compañía ha vendido 877 viviendas a través de ventas de colaterales, lo que supone un precio medio de 71.500 euros.

Estas viviendas transaccionadas se encuentran además en mercados con alto nivel de actividad y precios en constante crecimiento, como son la Comunidad Valenciana, donde corresponden el 28,1% de las compraventas, Cataluña, con el 18,9% de las ventas, seguida de Castilla y León (9%) y Andalucía (8%).

La retirada del grueso de las viviendas de Sareb para su traspaso a Sepes menguará de forma importante el volumen de ingresos futuros para la sociedad, ya que suponen la principal vía de facturación. Concretamente, en el primer semestre, las ventas residenciales representaron el 58% sobre el total de ingresos de la cartera para desinversión.

Esto supone que Sareb tendrá a partir de ahora menor capacidad para repagar la deuda que está avalada por el Tesoro y que pasará a manos del Estado una vez la empresa inicie su proceso de liquidación, a partir de 2027.

Devolver el pasivo

De hecho, uno de los objetivos principales de Sareb, tal y como la propia compañía lo indica en su última presentación de resultados, "consiste en generar ingresos mediante la gestión y venta de sus préstamos e inmuebles para cancelar el mayor importe posible de la deuda emitida en el momento de su constitución y avalada por el Estado".

Desde su creación y hasta final de junio de 2024, Sareb ha reducido su deuda en 21.370 millones de euros, un 42,1 % del total. La compañía arrancó su actividad en 2012 con una deuda total de 50.781 millones y al cierre de junio se sitúa en 29.411 millones.

El pasado año, el entonces consejero delegado de la compañía y ahora presidente, Leopoldo Puig, ya reconoció de forma pública que Sareb recogía en sus cuentas al cierre de 2023 un patrimonio negativo de 14.600 millones. "Esto da un indicio de por dónde van las cosas y por tanto, es previsible que va a haber una parte de la deuda que no se va a poder amortizar", explicó en una rueda de prensa. Con el ajuste de la facturación, ese objetivo queda todavía más lejos.

Dentro de los al menos 5.900 millones que Sareb dejará de ingresar en los próximos años se encuentran los 800 millones que la compañía tenía previsto percibir por la venta de su promotora Árqura. Esta desinversión estaba llamada a convertirse en una de las operaciones más relevantes en el sector residencial y de hecho, había despertado el apetito de los grandes players inmobiliarios.

Esta operación, que iba a suponer el traspaso de una cartera de suelos con capacidad para levantar unas 16.000 viviendas, se paralizó en diciembre del pasado año. La transacción, que estaba encargada a Deloitte, había despertado el interés de una veintena de grandes fondos internacionales y promotoras, entre las que se encontraban las firmas más grandes del sector como Aedas, Neinor y la propia Aelca, entre otras.

Desde el lanzamiento de Árqura en junio de 2019, la promotora ha puesto en comercialización 9.550 viviendas, de las cuales 3.912 figuran como entregadas a cierre del primer semestre de 2024.

EU pauses trade retaliation against US after Trump’s 30% tariff threat

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen calls for negotiated solution to dispute


Senior EU officials said they did not expect Trump to go through with his new threat © Olivier Matthys/EPA/Shutterstock

The EU will delay its plan to hit the US with tariffs on €21bn of its annual exports to Europe on Tuesday in the hope of coming to an agreement after Donald Trump announced that he would hit the bloc with 30 per cent tariffs from August 1.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday that the application of tariffs to €21bn of annual US exports to the EU, including chicken, motorcycles and clothes, that were due to come into effect after midnight on July 14 would be suspended until “early August”.

“We have always been clear that we prefer a negotiated solution with the US. This remains the case,” she said.

Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would hit the EU and Mexico, two of the US’s closest trading partners, with 30 per cent tariffs from August 1.

European leaders have been split on whether the bloc should press for a quick framework trade deal similar to the UK’s or keep negotiating in the hope of achieving a better outcome.

Senior EU officials told the FT that they did not expect Trump to ultimately go through with his new threat of 30 per cent tariffs, which is being widely interpreted by Brussels as a bid by the US President to increase pressure on the bloc in the remaining time left for negotiations.

One EU official pointed to the likelihood of a very negative US investor reaction to such steep measures on a key trading partner.

“We trust in the markets,” the official said.


Lars Klingbeil speaks to MPs in the Bundestag on Friday © Katharina Kausche/dpa

German finance minister Lars Klingbeil called for the EU to continue “serious” talks. “Nobody needs new threats or provocations right now. What we need is for the EU to continue serious and targeted negotiations with the US,” he told Süddeutsche Zeitung.

However Klingbeil warned that “if a fair negotiated solution cannot be reached, then we must take decisive countermeasures to protect jobs and companies in Europe.”

As well as the initial list of counter-tariffs, the European Commission, which runs trade policy, is consulting on a package of tariffs on a further €95bn of imports from the US, including aircraft, alcohol and food, which would need member states’ approval. This has already been reduced to €72bn, according to two diplomats, after governments lobbied to remove some sensitive products from the target list.

The US is applying tariffs on around €380bn of annual imports from the EU.

Von der Leyen said that the commission would “continue to prepare” the second list of countermeasures but she said that the bloc would not invoke its anti-coercion instrument, which would allow it to take measures against US service exports, for example by blocking companies from
public procurement contracts.

The instrument “is created for extraordinary situations — we are not there yet,” the commission president said, adding that “the time is for negotiations”.

Her comments came as she announced a “political agreement” on a free trade deal with Indonesia after nine years of talks.

The deal, expected to be finalised in September, will need to be ratified by a weighted majority of member states and by the European parliament. Officials are confident it will pass as Indonesia does not export sensitive agricultural products such as beef.

Bilateral trade in goods between the EU and Indonesia was €27.3bn in 2024, with EU exports worth €9.7bn and EU imports worth €17.5bn.

“I am very happy that in this era of instability and confusion we are setting a right example,” Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto said.

Von der Leyen said that diversifying its trade agreements was a central part of the EU’s strategy to counter Trump’s trade war.

Some business groups and politicians, however, have criticised Von der Leyen’s approach.


Matteo Salvini blamed Brussels for mishandling the trade negotiations. © Riccardo Antimiani/EPA/Shutterstock

Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party who had enthusiastically rooted for Trump’s re-election, lashed out at Brussels for mishandling the negotiations.

“Trump has no reason to attack our country but once again we are paying the price for a German-led Europe,” said the League in a statement.

Coldiretti, the influential Italian agribusiness association, has also criticised Brussels’s handling of the negotiations, warning that Trump’s threatened 30 per cent tariff rate would be a “deathblow” to Italy’s food exports, and cause an estimated €2.3bn in direct damages to Italian producers.

“If the tariffs were to be confirmed on August 1, we cannot help but note the complete failure of von der Leyen’s policy,” said Ettore Prandini, Coldiretti president.

Housing a Basic Right or Playground for Global Capital? – Paul Jay

(...) The Case for Full Public Ownership

But even these measures are just a start. While a minimum objective should be to bring Canada and the U.S. at least up to the levels of Europe’s most advanced models, where countries like Austria and the Netherlands provide 20 to 30% of housing as social or cooperative stock, even that would fall short of true equity. To address the systemic failures of financialized housing, we must think bigger.

All large-scale rental housing should eventually be publicly owned and managed. Small family homes and modest private investments can coexist. But the era of corporate landlords treating entire apartment blocks as speculative assets must end. A system where large rental properties are treated as public infrastructure, like schools, libraries, or transit systems, would ensure housing stability and affordability over generations. It’s the only way to end the extractive business models that have gutted communities for decades.

Homes Before Hedge Funds

The financialization of housing has enriched a small class of investors while impoverishing millions of renters. It’s not inevitable. It’s the result of decades of policy choices. It’s the result of the financialization of our whole economy. The power of big banks and the financial sector has never been greater, the concentration of ownership has never been greater, and the concentration of political power has never been greater. But it can be reversed.

The question isn’t whether Canada and the U.S. can afford to build public housing. The question is, how much longer can we afford the alternative? Housing is a fundamental human right, not just another commodity.

Andrew Kassoy, 55, Dies; Saw Capitalism as a Force for Social Good

He was a founder of B Lab, a nonprofit network whose lofty mission is “transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities and the planet.”


Andrew Kassoy in 2019. “I think one of the things that makes capitalism not work as a system,” he said, was that “it was built on the idea of carelessness.” Credit...Calla Kessler/The New York Times

Andrew Kassoy, who left a career in private equity to help start an international movement to reconsider capitalism as a force for social good and not merely for profit, died on June 22 at his home in Brooklyn. He was 55.

His death came after two and a half years of treatment for metastatic prostate cancer, said his wife, Margot Brandenburg, a senior program officer at the Ford Foundation.

Shortly before he died, Mr. Kassoy said in a videotaped conversation with Jay Coen Gilbert and Bart Houlahan, two business partners and longtime friends from their fraternity days at Stanford University: “I think one of the things that makes capitalism not work as a system is, it was built on the idea of carelessness. Like, literally, the entire purpose of it was that people should build wealth for themselves and that other people didn’t matter, you couldn’t care about them.”

His contradictory philosophy, Mr. Kassoy continued, was that “you’re here to care, to care for your workers, your community, the planet, the other people that you do business with in your supply chain.”


Mr. Kassoy and two colleagues left the corporate world to found the nonprofit network B Lab in 2006. Credit...B Lab

In 2006, Mr. Kassoy, Mr. Coen Gilbert and Mr. Houlahan left the corporate world and jointly founded B Lab, a nonprofit network whose lofty mission is “transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities and the planet.”

To accomplish its goal, B Lab certifies companies, known as B Corps, that meet verified standards of social and environmental performance. These include pay and working conditions for employees; ethical marketing and data privacy for customers; hiring practices and charitable causes in neighborhoods where businesses are situated; the sourcing of raw materials; and the impact of energy use on the air and water in those communities.


B Lab certifies companies, known as B Corps, that meet verified standards of social and environmental performance. Among the certified B Corps companies that employ more than one million people are Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s.Credit...Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press; Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Among the 9,979 certified B Corps companies that employ more than one million people in 103 countries, according to B Lab, are Patagonia, the outdoor apparel maker; Danone Yogurt; and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Advocacy by Mr. Kassoy and others also led to the creation over the last 15 years of so-called public benefit corporations — required to consider the public good in their business decisions, not just the interests of shareholders as in a standard corporation — through legislation in 42 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Those states include Delaware, where most public companies are incorporated.

While business language can rife with jargon, Mr. Kassoy spoke plainly about wanting to “put purpose and profit on a level playing field.”

In a 2020 Q&A with the Shared Future Fund, which finances projects that address climate change, Mr. Kassoy noted that it was the 50th anniversary of an influential article by the economist Milton Friedman, published in The New York Times on Sept. 13, 1970, with the headline “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.”

That view had been baked into corporate law in Delaware and the teachings of Harvard Business School, Mr. Kassoy said, but it failed to make companies as sustainable as possible. “I think the opportunity is to reverse all that,” he said.

Many young people, he said, “don’t believe in capitalism. They feel like they don’t have the same kinds of opportunities, that companies don’t look at them as anything other than a resource to be exploited.”

Countering such cynicism, he said, required reimagining capitalism.

To convey his message, Mr. Kassoy didn’t always quote Mr. Friedman’s doctrine, or “The Great Gatsby” and its portrayal of the irresponsibility of elite wealth. As a father of four, he also found incisive meaning in animated feature films and was fond of an aphorism from the “Kung Fu Panda” movies: “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.”

Andrew Renard Kassoy was born on July 8, 1969, in the La Jolla area of San Diego and grew up in Boulder, Colo., where his father, David Kassoy, is an emeritus professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado. His mother, Carol (Fuchs) Kassoy, a former music teacher, is a board member of the Colorado Music Festival.

In a 2019 series in The Times about visionaries, Mr. Kassoy said that by the time he was in fourth or fifth grade he wanted to be an elected official or a policymaker. An early influence on the need for social justice and opportunity for all was his maternal grandfather, Reuben Fuchs, known as Ruby, who was then the principal at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn and started public-private partnerships to train vocational students.

“Ruby instilled in Andrew a view that the world and its systems could always be improved,” Mr. Kassoy’s sister, Erin Falquier, a clean energy consultant, said in a text message. “Like Ruby, Andrew saw challenges as exciting opportunities rather than barriers.”

While on a grant from Stanford, he worked on his senior thesis on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where he was mentored by an elder named Basil Brave Heart. It is one of the poorest communities in the United States, and Ms. Brandenburg, Mr. Kassoy’s wife, said the challenges of extreme poverty that Mr. Kassoy witnessed “really drove home the stark inequalities in this country” and were “eye-opening in a way previous experiences hadn’t been.”

He also served an internship with David Skaggs, then a congressman from Colorado. When Mr. Kassoy sought to return to work for him after graduating with a degree in political science in 1991, he recalled to The Times, Mr. Skaggs’s response was “Maybe, but I think not yet.”

Mr. Skaggs advised him to do something in the world, like exploring the workings of the economy. Mr. Kassoy ended up working in private equity for 16 years and realized that he could create change without being a politician.

But he began to re-evaluate his career path after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and, he said, ultimately found Wall Street too focused on “how quickly you could leverage something up and sell it with little interest” in the underlying business “or the humans involved.”

There had to be a better way, he thought, of running capitalism to “benefit society and not just a few shareholders.”

He was driven in his work, in the way he cooked — his motto, his wife said, was “Go big or order pizza” — and in the way he exercised. He rode a bicycle up Mont Ventoux, a famously steep climb on the Tour de France course. Numerous times he climbed Longs Peak in Colorado, at 14,259 feet the tallest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, Ms. Brandenburg said, though on occasion his ambition overcame his endurance.


Mr. Kassoy was driven not just in his work but in the way he cooked. His motto, his wife said, was “Go big or order pizza.” Credit...via Kassoy family

After Mr. Kassoy underwent his first round of chemotherapy in 2023, she said, he and friends hiked Colorado’s Arapaho Pass to 11,906 feet before his stamina waned. He had to be helped down and was taken to an emergency room.

“He never shied away from a challenge,” Ms. Brandenburg said. “Shoot for the moon, and sometimes you get there and sometimes you don’t. You flame out. He wasn’t afraid of that.”

Mr. Kassoy left his daily involvement in B Lab in 2022. Over the past year, he wrote a critique of OpenAI and served as a senior adviser to a holding company, started last month, called Nine Dean, whose aim is to acquire midlevel businesses and hold them for the long term, relieving the immediate pressure to maximize profits.

In addition to his wife, whom he married in 2013, and his sister, Mr. Kassoy is survived by his parents; a daughter, Etta, and a son, Xavier, from his marriage to Ms. Brandenburg; and two sons, Max and Jed, from his marriage to the writer and therapist Kamy Wicoff, which ended in divorce.

“I think the problems we face as a society, they’re enormous and they can be totally overwhelming,” Mr. Kassoy said in a 2021 video. He often awoke in the middle of the night, he said, thinking, “Climate change, we’re screwed.”

What is there to do? he asked in the video. Do something, he answered.

“At a minimum, just by taking action, it gives you a sense of meaning in your life.”

Trump: Money from tariffs 'pouring in'

United States President Donald Trump stated that "hundreds of billions of dollars" were coming into the country as a result of his numerous tariffs on other countries.

During an interview on Fox News, Trump stated that his administration has made trade deals "with various countries," adding that tariffs were bringing in a "tremendous amount of money to" the US.

Additionally, the president said that "some of the countries are very upset now because they've been taking advantage of us for 30, 40 years and I had it stopped."

Seoul’s runaway property market puts Korean central bank in a bind

Policymakers fear cutting borrowing costs to boost economic growth could drive capital’s real estate prices higher


Property prices in Seoul, led by the upscale southern districts in Gangnam, have persistently climbed © Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images

South Korean policymakers are struggling to stimulate economic growth in the face of an escalating global trade war, as they fear cutting interest rates could boost property prices in some of the most desirable parts of Seoul and inflame an already overheated market.

The Bank of Korea on Thursday held rates at 2.5 per cent, defying pressure to boost an economy that contracted in the first quarter as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs squeezed the country’s crucial exports of cars, steel and electronics.

“The BoK wants to cut rates to boost the economy, but it is concerned that lower rates will create bubbles in the property market, hurting financial stability,” said Park Chong-hoon, head of research at Standard Chartered in Seoul. “The runaway property market in Seoul and high household debt are limiting their policy options.”

South Korea’s new leftwing President Lee Jae Myung has pledged to revive the economy following a prolonged period of slowing growth. The economy also faces US tariffs, competition from low-cost Chinese exporters and political turmoil following the impeachment of his conservative predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol.

Factory activity contracted in June for a fifth consecutive month, prompting the government to warn of persistent economic risks due to uncertainties around US tariffs. This week, Trump reiterated that South Korea would face a blanket 25 per cent tariff on its exports if it failed to reach a trade deal by August 1.

Last week, Lee’s ruling Democratic party passed a $23bn fiscal stimulus package, including the distribution of cash vouchers ranging in value from $110-$410 to all South Koreans.

But economists warn that deeper structural reforms will be required to address slowing productivity and a looming demographic crisis. The OECD this month forecast a potential growth rate for 2025 of less than 2 per cent for the first time since 2001.

BoK governor Rhee Chang-yong last month acknowledged the difficulty of stimulating growth without overheating the property market.

He said the BoK would maintain an “accommodative monetary policy stance for the time being” but warned that “excessively lowering the base rate would likely fuel housing price hikes in the Seoul metropolitan area, rather than support a recovery in the real economy”.

Last month, Nomura warned that the looser financial conditions driving the housing market rally were contributing to rising household debt, which at Won1,927.3tn ($1.3tn) last year was 92 per cent of GDP, one of the highest in the developed world.

“With overheated housing markets in Seoul and rising household leverage testing the BoK’s tolerance for financial imbalances, we expect the BoK to quickly shift its policy focus back towards financial stability,” Park Jeong-woo, an economist at Nomura, said in the report.

Led by the upscale southern districts in Gangnam, prices surged last month at their highest weekly rate in nearly seven years, matching the pace of growth during a previous boom in 2018, even as the market remains stagnant in areas outside Seoul.

The BoK said on Wednesday that housing loans in June had risen by $4.5bn — the biggest jump in nine months — with lending growing by more than 4 per cent year on year in each of the past four months.

Lee wants to encourage Koreans to invest in the stock market instead of property, telling reporters he was “determined to reverse the speculative forces that are distorting the housing market”. His government has already rolled out measures aimed at cooling prices, including a Won600mn mortgage cap and tightened lending rules.

But Park of Standard Chartered cautioned that any gains from the stock market would flow back into property, “as Koreans have strong faith that property investments are much safer than stock investments”.

Stabilising the property market is critical for the new government. Runaway prices in metropolitan Seoul are widely seen as having contributed to the Democratic party’s loss in previous presidential elections in 2022.

One of the biggest failures of that administration “was its inability to rein in the skyrocketing property market in Seoul”, said Shin Yul, a professor of politics at Myongji University. “You can’t stabilise the property market by just trying to curb demand without increasing supply.”

Many South Koreans remain determined to put their money in housing.

“People believe that property prices will go up again because they have always done so under the previous liberal governments,” said Nomura’s Park. “There is fear that this may be their last chance to buy a house, given the current supply shortages in Seoul. Many of them are still convinced that property investments never fail.”

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Trump: Fed rate is at least 3 points too high

United States President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that the interest rates are "AT LEAST 3 points too high." He also repeated the allegation that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is "costing the US 360 Billion Dollars a Point" per year in refinancing costs. Trump also argued that there is "no inflation" and that businesses are "POURING INTO AMERICA" and urged the Fed to "LOWER THE RATE!!!"

Earlier today, Trump said he would pick "anybody" but Powell as the Fed chair. He has been critical of Powell since taking office, pressuring him to cut rates by at least 1 percentage point. The Fed held the rates steady at 4.25%-4.50%.