Donald Trump recaptured the White House in part by relentlessly exploiting Joe Biden's failure to heed widespread concerns about the rising cost of living. Now, bizarrely, President Trump is walking himself'and his party'into the same perilous trap by denying the economic reality that working families are living. In the summer of 2023, as he geared up his ill-fated race for reelection, Biden mounted a campaign to convince the public that his policies had delivered the economy and American workers from the depths of the pandemic to renewed prosperity. 'Our plan is working'Bidenomics,' the president declared during a rally at the Philly Shipyard. Biden had some legitimate claims. An impressive 13 million jobs had been created on his watch, and growth was relatively strong. He had pushed through policies that had begun to lift wages. Still, Americans were not nearly as enthusiastic as the president about an economy he had ill-advisedly branded with his name. Inflation spiked as the pandemic waned, fueled by pent-up demand and exacerbated by the massive stimulus program that Biden had enacted during the COVID crisis. Americans now felt a cost-of-living crisis. The day that Biden spoke to shipyard workers in Philadelphia, the cost of goods was about 17 percent higher than when he had entered office; it would rise to 21 percent by the end of his term. In polls, Americans consistently listed the economy and inflation as their top concerns and gave Biden dismal grades for his handling of them....
The proposed valuation equates to roughly ten times Golden Goose's expected year-end core profit, including debt. The Venice-based brand, known for its '500-plus distressed sneakers, recorded '655m in revenue and '227m in adjusted core earnings in 2024. HongShan has asked former Gucci chief executive Marco Bizzarri to become Golden Goose's future chairman. The Chinese private equity group plans to expand the company's directly operated retail network, with a particular focus on Asia, and is targeting a medium-term stock market listing once conditions improve. Golden Goose abandoned an IPO in Milan last year, citing volatility linked to European political uncertainty. A sale to HongShan would represent one of the largest luxury fashion transactions of the year and a major exit for Permira, which has backed the brand during a period of rapid global growth. Subscribe to our Newsletter to increase your edge. Don't worry about the news anymore, through our newsletter you'll receive weekly access to what is happening. Join 120,000 other PE professionals today....
The region's 500-year transformation into a Catholic stronghold seemed capped in 2013, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected as the first Latin American pope. Once a missionary outpost, Latin America is now the heart of the Catholic Church. It is home to over 575 million adherents ' over 40% of all Catholics worldwide. The next-largest regions are Europe and Africa, each home to 20% of the world's Catholics. But even as Protestant ranks swelled, another trend was quietly gaining ground: a growing share of Latin Americans abandoning institutional faith altogether. And, as my research shows, the region's religious decline shows a surprising difference from patterns elsewhere. While fewer Latin Americans are identifying with a religion or attending services, personal faith remains strong. In 2014, 8% of Latin Americans claimed no religion at all. This number is twice as high as the percentage of people who were raised without a religion, indicating that the growth is recent, coming from people who left the church as adults....
ChatGPT's growth is starting to taper off, according to new data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Today, the OpenAI-owned AI chatbot remains the leader in the space, accounting for 50% of global downloads on mobile devices and 55% of the global monthly active users. However, Google's Gemini has begun to outpace ChatGPT in terms of download growth, growth of monthly active users, and growth of time spent in app, the firm found. Over time, that increased pace of adoption could help Gemini narrow the gap with ChatGPT. That's something OpenAI is now worried about, as its recent 'code red' memo indicated. The missive, penned by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, instructed staff to focus on improving the company's AI products, particularly in areas like personalization, reliability, image generation, and more. But the new data indicates that ChatGPT's global monthly active users only grew by around 6% from August to November, to reach roughly 810 million. (The monthly active user numbers in the above chart are rounded, the firm notes.) This figure could suggest the AI chatbot is nearing market saturation, Sensor Tower says....
