Forget inflation. This billionaire investor worries about democracy
CNN
David Rubenstein is shrugging off fears of runaway inflation and concerns about looming tax hikes. The private equity billionaire is far more worried these days about the state of American democracy.
"We don't have bipartisanship. We have enormous amounts of tension between the two parties," Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group (CG), told CNN in an exclusive interview. "It's not a good situation. I hope that we can fix it, but I don't think it's going to be fixed anytime soon."
Price hikes picked up speed for US-based businesses toward the end of last year, a potential signal that inflation has yet to peak and prices could soon rise faster for consumers.
Trump is threatening to take “strong action” against Iran just after capturing the leader of Venezuela. His administration is criminally investigating the chair of the Federal Reserve and is taking a scorched-earth approach on affordability by threatening key profit drivers for banks and institutional investors.
Perhaps no data point better encapsulates the American economy right now than this nugget from Delta’s quarterly earnings:
China recorded the world’s biggest ever trade surplus in 2025, as well as a 20% jump from 2024, capping off a year in which the world’s largest manufacturer defied US trade pressure by ramping up exports to other global markets.
Saks Global, the parent company of luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue, filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday, according to court documents filed in US Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Texas.
China on Wednesday reported a strong export run in 2025 with a record surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion, as producers braced for three more years of a Trump administration set on slowing the production powerhouse by shifting US orders to other markets.
Microsoft says it will ask to pay higher electricity bills in areas where it’s building data centers, in an effort to prevent electricity prices for local residents from rising in those areas. The move is part of a broader plan to address rising prices and other concerns sparked by the tech industry’s massive buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure across the United States.
US consumer prices rose 2.7% annually in December, closing out a year that saw slight progress on inflation but continued affordability concerns for many Americans.
The BBC is taking steps to have Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against it dismissed, a court document showed.
Amazon executives laid out their vision for Alexa’s future in an interview with CNN at the CES tech convention, where the company launched a new Alexa website and updates to other Amazon products.
After cutting interest rates three times in a row last year, the Federal Reserve indicated last month it probably won’t lower interest rates again for a while. A months-long pause, cemented by key economic data released Friday, may indeed be the best-case scenario for the world’s largest economy.
What is Corporate America so afraid of?
President Donald Trump wants to juice the economy with dramatically lower interest rates, to take credit for a booming stock market and, perhaps most of all, for his handpicked Fed chair to get off the stage.