Business
Dollar Doubts Dominate Gathering of Global Economic Leaders
On the sidelines of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to convey an important message about the United States dollar.
Speaking to a crowd of global policymakers, regulators and investors, Mr. Bessent sought to allay fears that had ballooned in recent weeks about the dollar’s global standing and the country’s role as the safest haven during times of stress. He reiterated that the administration would continue to have a “strong-dollar policy” and affirmed that it would remain the currency that the rest of the world wanted to hold, even though it had weakened against most major currencies.
For participants at the event, Mr. Bessent’s comments were a needed salve after a bruising couple of weeks in financial markets as a result of President Trump’s trade war. Violent swings in stocks, coinciding with the weakening of the dollar as investors fled U.S. government bonds, had incited panic.
The fact that Mr. Bessent found it necessary to emphasize that message in front of such a big crowd underscored how precarious the situation had become since Mr. Trump returned to the White House less than 100 days ago. What now looms large are uncomfortable questions about what happens if the international community starts to lose faith in the dollar and other U.S. assets, something that economists warn would be costly for Americans.
“People are playing through scenarios that previously had been judged unthinkable, and they’re playing them through in a very serious kind of way in the spirit of contingency planning,” said Nathan Sheets, the chief economist at Citigroup and a Treasury official in the Obama administration.
“If the United States is going to pursue aggressive economic policies, it’s natural for the rest of the world to step back and say, ‘Well, do we want to buy U.S. assets as we have in the past?’”
‘New World Order’
At a similar gathering hosted by the I.M.F. and World Bank six months ago, attendees were preparing for an entirely different economic backdrop. Convening less than two weeks before the presidential election, they still had in their sights a rare soft landing in which the major central banks finished their fight against high inflation while managing to avoid a recession.
The tariffs Mr. Trump had been talking about on the campaign trail were top of mind, but for the most part, they were viewed as a negotiating tactic. Any turn toward protectionism was widely expected to push up the value of the dollar compared with other currencies. The rationale was that tariffs would lower demand for imported goods, since they would make them more expensive for American consumers, and over time result in fewer dollars being exchanged for foreign currencies.
But since Inauguration Day, the opposite has occurred. An index that tracks the dollar against a basket of major trading partners has fallen nearly 10 percent in the last three months. It now hovers near a three-year low. The sharpest slide came after Mr. Trump announced large tariffs on nearly all imports in April. While he temporarily reversed course, the dollar has yet to recoup its losses.
There are reasons not to read too much into its recent weakening. The U.S. economic outlook has fundamentally changed. Businesses are “frozen” by tariffs, Christopher J. Waller, a governor at the Federal Reserve, said this week as he warned about layoffs stemming from the uncertainty.
Economists have sharply scaled back their estimates for growth while raising their estimates for inflation, a combination that carries a whiff of stagflation. In that environment, it is not surprising that the dollar and other U.S. assets appear less appealing.
Dollar depreciation — even if extreme — also does not necessarily translate to a loss of stature in the global financial system. There have been previous big drops in the value of the dollar that have not incited a wholesale shift away from the currency’s primacy, said Jonas Goltermann, the deputy chief markets economist at Capital Economics.
But at this year’s spring meetings, there was a palpable sense that something more ominous could be taking place. Joyce Chang, JPMorgan’s chair of global research, noted a disconnect between domestic and international participants at the conference that the Wall Street bank hosted during the week of the meetings.
U.S.-based investors appeared less concerned about a structural shift away from the country’s assets and more focused on the ways in which Mr. Trump could course-correct on his economic policies. International investors were consumed by the prospects of a “regime change” in the financial system and a “new world order,” Ms. Chang said.
Mr. Trump had recently escalated his attacks on Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, fanning fears about how much the administration would encroach on the central bank’s independence. That longstanding separation from the White House is broadly seen as essential to the smooth functioning of the financial system.
“The dollar’s role in the system was not ordained from above,” said Mark Sobel, a former Treasury official who is the U.S. chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. “It’s a reflection of the properties of the United States.”
Those include a large economy that transacts with the world; the financial system’s deepest, most liquid capital markets; a credible central bank; and the rule of law.
“I do believe that Trump is doing permanent damage,” Mr. Sobel said.
Few Alternatives
It is hard to overstate the dominance of the dollar globally, meaning there are real limitations to how significantly private and public investors can diversify away from it, even if they want to.
Most trade is invoiced in dollars. It is the leading currency for international borrowing. Central banks also prefer to hold dollar assets more than anything else, and by a wide margin.
“Anybody who’s looking for diversification has to be realistic,” said Isabelle Mateos y Lago, the chief economist at BNP Paribas. “Reserve assets, by definition, have to be liquid.”
Alternatives do exist, but they are hobbled by their own weaknesses. China lacks open, deep and liquid capital markets, and its currency does not float freely, tarnishing its appeal globally. Top European leaders — including Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank — have talked more readily about bolstering the prominence of the euro, something that is considered more plausible now that countries like Germany are stepping up their spending. But the amount of available euro-denominated safe assets pales in comparison with that of U.S. capital markets.
Still, in the recent period of volatility, investors have found a number of places to take cover. The euro, Swiss franc and Japanese yen have been clear beneficiaries. Gold has rallied sharply, too.
“You don’t need to have the role of the dollar as a reserve asset go to zero,” said Ms. Mateos y Lago. “A multipolar system can totally work.”
Burden or Privilege?
When asked at Wednesday’s event, which was hosted by the Institute for International Finance, whether the dollar’s reserve currency status was a burden or a privilege, Mr. Bessent said: “I actually am not sure that anyone else wants it.”
But economists warn that Americans would be losing clear benefits if the government was too cavalier about the dollar’s shedding its special status.
The country’s exporters would reap rewards, as a weaker dollar would make their products more competitive. However, that advantage could come at the expense of reduced spending power for Americans abroad and higher borrowing costs at a time when the government has huge financing needs.
Despite the pain that Americans may have to bear, the global financial system would be far more “resilient” if other currencies shared the dollar’s global role over time, said Barry Eichengreen, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. During times of stress, that would mean multiple sources of liquidity.
However, three months into Mr. Trump’s second term, Mr. Eichengreen warned that a “dire scenario is now on the table” — a sharp sell-off of dollar-denominated assets into cash.
“A chaotic rush out of the dollar would be a crisis,” he said. “All of a sudden, the world would not have the international liquidity that 21st-century globalization depends on.”
The sale of Warner Bros. — whether in pieces to Netflix or in its entirety to Paramount — is stirring mounting worries among Hollywood union leaders about the possible fallout for their members.
Unions representing writers, directors, actors and crew workers have voiced growing concerns that further consolidation in the media industry will reduce competition, potentially causing studios to pay less for content, and make it more difficult for people to find work.
“We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends,” said Michele Mulroney, president of the Writers Guild of America West. “There are lots of promises made that one plus one is going to equal three. But it’s very hard to envision how two behemoths, for example, Warner Bros. and Netflix … can keep up the level of output they currently have.”
Last week, Netflix announced it agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s film and TV studio, Burbank lot, HBO and HBO Max for $27.75 a share, or $72 billion. It also agreed to take on more than $10 billion of Warner Bros.’ debt. But Paramount, whose previous offers were rebuffed by Warner Bros., has appealed directly to shareholders with an alternative bid to buy all of the company for about $78 billion.
Paramount said it will have more than $6 billion in cuts over three years, while also saying the combined companies will release at least 30 movies a year. Netflix said it expects its deal will have $2 billion to $3 billion in cost cuts.
Those cuts are expected to trigger thousands of layoffs across Hollywood, which has already been squeezed by the flight of production overseas and a contraction in the once booming TV business.
Mulroney said that employment for WGA writers in episodic television is down as much as 40% when comparing the 2023-2024 writing season to 2022-2023.
Executives from both companies have said their deals would benefit creative talent and consumers.
But Hollywood union leaders are skeptical.
“We can hear the generalizations all day long, but it doesn’t really mean anything unless it’s on paper, and we just don’t know if these companies are even prepared to make promises in writing,” said Lindsay Dougherty, Teamsters at-large vice president and principal officer for Local 399, which represents drivers, location managers and casting directors.
Dougherty said the Teamsters have been engaged with both Netflix and Paramount, seeking commitments to keep filming in Los Angeles.
“We have a lot of members that are struggling to find work, or haven’t really worked in the last year or so,” Dougherty said.
Mulroney said her union has concerns about both bids, either by Netflix or Paramount.
“We don’t think the merger is inevitable,” Mulroney said. “We think there’s an opportunity to push back here.”
If Netflix were to buy Warner Bros.’ TV and film businesses, Mulroney said that could further undermine the theatrical business.
“It’s hard to imagine them fully embracing theatrical exhibition,” Mulroney said. “The exhibition business has been struggling to get back on its feet ever since the pandemic, so a move like this could really be existential.”
But the Writers Guild also has issues with Paramount’s bid, Mulroney said, noting that it would put Paramount-owned CBS News and CNN under the same parent company.
“We have censorship concerns,” Mulroney said. “We saw issues around [Stephen] Colbert and [Jimmy] Kimmel. We’re concerned about what the news would look like under single ownership here.”
That question was made more salient this week after President Trump, who has for years harshly criticized CNN’s hosts and news coverage, said he believes CNN should be sold.
The worries come as some unions’ major studio contracts, including the DGA, WGA and performers guild SAG-AFTRA, are set to expire next year. Two years ago, writers and actors went on a prolonged strike to push for more AI protections and better wages and benefits.
The Directors Guild of America and performers union SAG-AFTRA have voiced similar objections to the pending media consolidation.
“A deal that is in the interest of SAG-AFTRA members and all other workers in the entertainment industry must result in more creation and more production, not less,” the union said.
SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said the union has been in discussions with both Paramount and Netflix.
“It is as yet unclear what path forward is going to best protect the legacy that Warner Brothers presents, and that’s something that we’re very actively investigating right now,” he said.
It’s not clear, however, how much influence the unions will have in the outcome.
“They just don’t have a seat at the ultimate decision making table,” said David Smith, a professor of economics at the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School. “I expect their primary involvement could be through creating more awareness of potential challenges with a merger and potentially more regulatory scrutiny … I think that’s what they’re attempting to do.”
Businessman Brian Kahn has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud in a case that brought down a hedge fund, helped lead to the bankruptcy of a retailer and damaged West Los Angeles investment bank B. Riley Financial.
Kahn, 52, admitted in a Trenton, N.J., federal court Wednesday to hiding trading losses that brought down Prophecy Asset Management in 2020. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged the losses exceeded $400 million.
An investor lawsuit has accused Kahn of funneling some of the fund’s money to Franchise Group, a Delaware retail holding company assembled by the investor that owned Vitamin Shoppe, Pet Supplies Plus and other chains.
B. Riley provided $600 million through debt it raised to finance a $2.8-billion management buyout led by Kahn in 2023. It also took a 31% stake in the company and lent Kahn’s investment fund $201 million, largely secured with shares of Franchise Group.
Kahn had done deals with B. Riley co-founder Bryant Riley before partnering with the L.A. businessman on Franchise Group.
However, the buyout didn’t work out amid fallout from the hedge fund scandal and slowing sales at the retailers. Franchise Group filed for bankruptcy in November 2024. A slimmed-down version of the company emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
B. Riley has disclosed in regulatory filings that the firm and Riley have received SEC subpoenas regarding its dealings with Kahn, Franchise group and other matters.
Riley, 58, the firm’s chairman and co-chief executive, has denied knowledge of wrongdoing, and an outside law firm reached the same conclusion.
The failed deal led to huge losses at the financial services firm that pummeled B. Riley’s stock, which had approached $90 in 2021. Shares were trading Friday at $3.98.
The company has marked down its Franchise Group investment, and has spent the last year or so paring debt through refinancing, selling off parts of its business and other steps, including closing offices.
The company announced last month it is changing its name to BRC Group Holdings in January. It did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
At Wednesday’s plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kelly Lyons said that Kahn conspired to “defraud dozens of investors who had invested approximately $360 million” through “lies, deception, misleading statements and material omissions.”
U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp released Kahn on a $100,000 bond and set an April 2 sentencing date. He faces up to five years in prison. Kahn, his lawyer and Lyons declined to comment after the hearing.
Kahn is the third Prophecy official charged over the hedge fund’s collapse. Two other executives, John Hughes and Jeffrey Spotts, have also been charged.
Hughes pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors. Spotts pleaded not guilty and faces trial next year. The two men and Kahn also have been sued by the SEC over the Prophecy collapse.
Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
Chatty bots are sharing their hot takes through hundreds of thousands of AI-generated podcasts. And the invasion has just begun.
Though their banter can be a bit banal, the AI podcasters’ confidence and research are now arguably better than most people’s.
“We’ve just begun to cross the threshold of voice AI being pretty much indistinguishable from human,” said Alan Cowen, chief executive of Hume AI, a startup specializing in voice technology. “We’re seeing creators use it in all kinds of ways.”
AI can make podcasts sound better and cost less, industry insiders say, but the growing swarm of new competitors entering an already crowded market is disrupting the industry.
Some podcasters are pushing back, requesting restrictions. Others are already cloning their voices and handing over their podcasts to AI bots.
Popular podcast host Steven Bartlett has used an AI clone to launch a new kind of content aimed at the 13 million followers of his podcast “Diary of a CEO.” On YouTube, his clone narrates “100 CEOs With Steven Bartlett,” which adds AI-generated animation to Bartlett’s cloned voice to tell the life stories of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Richard Branson.
Erica Mandy, the Redondo Beach-based host of the daily news podcast called “The Newsworthy,” let an AI voice fill in for her earlier this year after she lost her voice from laryngitis and her backup host bailed out.
She fed her script into a text-to-speech model and selected a female AI voice from ElevenLabs to speak for her.
“I still recorded the show with my very hoarse voice, but then put the AI voice over that, telling the audience from the very beginning, I’m sick,” Mandy said.
Mandy had previously used ElevenLabs for its voice isolation feature, which uses AI to remove ambient noise from interviews.
Her chatbot host elicited mixed responses from listeners. Some asked if she was OK. One fan said she should never do it again. Most weren’t sure what to think.
“A lot of people were like, ‘That was weird,’” Mandy said.
In podcasting, many listeners feel strong bonds to hosts they listen to regularly. The slow encroachment of AI voices for one-off episodes, canned ad reads, sentence replacement in postproduction or translation into multiple languages has sparked anger as well as curiosity from both creators and consumers of the content.
Augmenting or replacing host reads with AI is perceived by many as a breach of trust and as trivializing the human connection listeners have with hosts, said Megan Lazovick, vice president of Edison Research, a podcast research company.
Jason Saldanha of PRX, a podcast network that represents human creators such as Ezra Klein, said the tsunami of AI podcasts won’t attract premium ad rates.
“Adding more podcasts in a tyranny of choice environment is not great,” he said. “I’m not interested in devaluing premium.”
Still, platforms such as YouTube and Spotify have introduced features for creators to clone their voice and translate their content into multiple languages to increase reach and revenue. A new generation of voice cloning companies, many with operations in California, offers better emotion, tone, pacing and overall voice quality.
Hume AI, which is based in New York but has a big research team in California, raised $50 million last year and has tens of thousands of creators using its software to generate audiobooks, podcasts, films, voice-overs for videos and dialogue generation in video games.
“We focus our platform on being able to edit content so that you can take in postproduction an existing podcast and regenerate a sentence in the same voice, with the same prosody or emotional intonation using instant cloning,” said company CEO Cowen.
Some are using the tech to carpet-bomb the market with content.
Los Angeles podcasting studio Inception Point AI has produced its 200,000 podcast episodes, accounting for 1% of all podcasts published on the internet, according to CEO Jeanine Wright.
The podcasts are so cheap to make that they can focus on tiny topics, like local weather, small sports teams, gardening and other niche subjects.
Instead of a studio searching for a specific “hit” podcast idea, it takes just $1 to produce an episode so that they can be profitable with just 25 people listening.
“That means most of the stuff that we make, we have really an unlimited amount of experimentation and creative freedom for what we want to do,” Wright said.
One of its popular synthetic hosts is Vivian Steele, an AI celebrity gossip columnist with a sassy voice and a sharp tongue. “I am indeed AI-powered — which means I’ve got receipts older than your grandmother’s jewelry box, and a memory sharper than a stiletto heel on marble. No forgetting, no forgiving, and definitely no filter,” the AI discloses itself at the start of the podcast.
“We’ve kind of molded her more towards what the audience wants,” said Katie Brown, chief content officer at Inception Point, who helps design the personalities of the AI podcasters.
Inception Point has built a roster of more than 100 AI personalities whose characteristics, voices and likenesses are crafted for podcast audiences. Its AI hosts include Clare Delish, a cooking guidance expert, and garden enthusiast Nigel Thistledown.
The technology also makes it easy to get podcasts up quickly. Inception has found some success with flash biographies posted promptly in connection to people in the news. It uses AI software to spot a trending personality and create two episodes, complete with promo art and a trailer.
When Charlie Kirk was shot, its AI immediately created two shows called “Charlie Kirk Death” and “Charlie Kirk Manhunt” as a part of the biography series.
“We were able to create all of that content, each with different angles, pulling from different news sources, and we were able to get that content up within an hour,” Wright said.
Speed is key when it comes to breaking news, so its AI podcasts reached the top of some charts.
“Our content was coming up, really dominating the list of what people were searching for,” she said.
Across Apple and Spotify, Inception Point podcasts have now garnered 400,000 subscribers.
It’s Christmastime —– and if you live in the Alps, watch out! Krampus is coming
Parents call for New York governor to sign landmark AI safety bill
Venezuelan dissident Machado credits Trump for advancing freedom movement, dedicates Nobel to him
Inside Minnesota’s $1B fraud: fake offices, phony firms and a scandal hiding in plain sight
Hundreds quarantined due to measles outbreak in southern state, officials say
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Inside Minnesota’s $1B fraud: fake offices, phony firms and a scandal hiding in plain sight
Residents emerge in DR Congo’s tense Uvira after M23 rebel takeover
What to know about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release from immigration custody
Republican House leader signals plan to begin contempt proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton
Three years on, former MEP Kaili remains in limbo still awaiting trial
-
Alaska7 days agoHowling Mat-Su winds leave thousands without power
-
Texas7 days agoTexas Tech football vs BYU live updates, start time, TV channel for Big 12 title
-
Ohio1 week agoWho do the Ohio State Buckeyes hire as the next offensive coordinator?
-
Washington4 days agoLIVE UPDATES: Mudslide, road closures across Western Washington
-
Iowa6 days agoMatt Campbell reportedly bringing longtime Iowa State staffer to Penn State as 1st hire
-
Miami, FL6 days agoUrban Meyer, Brady Quinn get in heated exchange during Alabama, Notre Dame, Miami CFP discussion
-
Cleveland, OH6 days agoMan shot, killed at downtown Cleveland nightclub: EMS
-
World6 days ago
Chiefs’ offensive line woes deepen as Wanya Morris exits with knee injury against Texans
