Forbes Daily Briefing

Talk of a “K-shaped economy” took off during the pandemic recovery. Economist Peter Atwater popularized the term in the spring of 2020 to describe an economy in which higher-income households and asset owners bounced back while lower-paid workers and struggling businesses fell further behind.

Six years later, Ed Yardeni, president and chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research, sees another split, this one by age. Older people are richer than younger people. Of course they are. They’ve had more time to earn, save and buy things. What’s unusual now is how much the economy rewards having already done those things. Stocks are expensive, homes are expensive and the job market is getting tougher for people just entering it.

Yardeni calls it the “gen-shaped economy.” Baby boomers have amassed a record $85.4 trillion in net worth, about half of all household wealth. Some of that is just what happens when people get old. But not all of it. The typical boomer household had $432,200 in wealth in 2022, nearly 30% more than a same-aged Silent Generation household had in 2001, even after adjusting for inflation according to the Pew Research Center.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonkochkodin/2026/09/19/why-the-economy-looks-great-to-boomers-but--miserable-to-gen-z/
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President Donald Trump said he has told “people” he supports a ban on diesel exports as the country faces record prices for the fuel used for trucking and agricultural equipment amid the ongoing war with Iran and the Russia-Ukraine war, aligning himself with Republicans largely representing agricultural states hoping to ease prices for farmers.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2026/09/22/trump-wants-diesel-export-ban-as-prices-hit-record-high/
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Over just five days earlier this month, a Chinese-speaking hacker deployed AI agents to launch cyberattacks on as many as 100 organizations, stealing hundreds of thousands of credit card details. The hacker used Chinese models DeepSeek and Kimi as well as an older version of Anthropic’s Claude to automate their attacks, which cost just $8,000 in total.

It’s one of “the most severe abuses of AI for exploitation seen so far,” says Eyal Sela, a cybersecurity researcher and director of threat intelligence at Gambit Security, who discovered the attack.

“The human being is directing almost fully autonomous AI models, which are strong enough by now to do very sophisticated cyberattacks quickly with close to zero preparation and very high rate of success,” Sela says. Though the number of successful breaches out of the 100 companies is unclear, the hacker gained access to at least 30 websites between September 10 and 15, according to Gambit’s research.
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The long-feared college enrollment cliff—a product of the decline in U.S. births that began in 2008—is finally arriving. Yet many of America’s top public universities face a different challenge: The number of students who want to attend them is rising.

Last spring, undergraduate enrollment at four-year public colleges was up 1.5% from a year earlier, to 5.4 million, while undergraduate enrollment at private not-for-profit colleges was a hair down at 2.4 million. Total applications to public colleges are also growing faster.

It’s no mystery why. Over the past decade, adjusted for inflation, in-state tuition at four-year public universities has declined by 7%, compared to a 2% increase at private non-profit ones, according to the College Board. It calculates that tuition and fees for four-year public colleges last year averaged $11,950 for in-state students and $31,880 for those coming from out of state, versus $45,000 at private nonprofit colleges. (Keep in mind, those are list prices, which is why certain elite private colleges offering generous financial aid can end up being cheaper for middle-class students than out-of-state public schools.)

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2026/09/10/forbes-top-25-public-colleges/
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The White House launched “Trump TV” on Monday, revealing a 24/7 platform streaming old Trump administration events after President Donald Trump revoked White House press credentials from reporters with CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2026/09/21/white-house-launches-trump-tv-after-presidents-press-ban/
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