Consumers were significantly more optimistic about the U.S. economy in June than in May, according to the University of Michigan’s monthly survey of consumer sentiment.
Category: 1 July 2025
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FED BOARD REDUCES BANKS’ CASH RESERVE REQUIREMENT
The largest U.S. banks will be allowed to keep less cash on hand as a reserve against bad loans after a five-to-two ruling last week by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
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CASH-STRAPPED GENERATION Z CUTS SPENDING
During this year’s first quarter, spending by Americans grew at a slower pace. However, spending by Gen Z’ers—young adults ages 18 through 24—actually fell, dropping 13 percent year on year.
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U.S. EXPORTS SLUMP IN MAY
U.S. exports fell 5.2 percent in May to $179.2 billion, reversing a 3.5-percent rise in April, according to census bureau data.
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META PREVAILS IN COPYRIGHT SUIT BROUGHT BY AUTHORS
Using the text of millions of online books to train its AI models without compensating or acknowledging the books’ authors is “fair use” under U.S. copyright law, according to a 25 June federal court ruling.
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400,000 U.S. FACTORY JOBS ARE BEGGING FOR WORKERS
Donald Trump’s dream of a U.S. manufacturing renaissance is running into a demographic wall: relatively few young workers are interested in taking a place on the factory floor.
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OPENAI SNAGS $200-MILLION DEFENSE CONTRACT
OpenAI, founded as a nonprofit to develop AI “for the benefit of humanity,” has signed a one-year, $200-million contract with the U.S. defense department to “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the department said in a press announcement.
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DOLLAR FALLS TO LOWEST VALUE IN THREE YEARS
On 26 June, the dollar touched its lowest value in three years against an assortment of the world’s other major currencies.
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SOFTBANK PROPOSES $1-TRILLION AI HUB IN ARIZONA
Softbank Group, Japan’s tech megafunder, is exploring the prospect of a trillion-dollar investment to create an industrial complex in Arizona for building robots and developing advanced AI models.
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U.S. HOME PRICES KEEP RISING
In April, U.S. home prices rose at an annual rate of 2.7 percent, down from 3.4 percent in March to mark their slowest annualized gain since mid-2023, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Schiller National Home Price Index.