The biggest commission opportunities this cycle may not sit at renewal. For some borrowers who locked in near peak rates, the math is starting to change.
It looks like Barclays is updating the card art for Arrival+ card, /r/creditcard users are seeing the new card in app and via e-mails sent to them. This card isn’t available to apply for directly and hasn’t been for sometime. Barclays did launch an Arrival Premier before admitting defeat and pulling that card too. The card art was last updated in 2018.
Given how basic this card is, I wouldn’t expect a relaunch or anything like that.
In days gone by, asking a friend about their salary or a colleague about their political stance was once a social death wish.
But for the younger generation, keeping these secrets is no longer viewed as a mark of sophistication. Instead, they see silence as a strategic disadvantage in a world that feels increasingly tilted against them.
Recent data shows a massive shift in what we are willing to discuss over a meal. Research from the Investment Association found that Gen Z and millennials are nearly twice as likely to discuss money and finances at the dinner table as baby boomers. While only a third of older adults grew up in homes where money was discussed, younger cohorts are normalized to it.
For older generations, money was a private matter, often considered vulgar when discussed openly. Today, that stigma has evaporated.
Younger people view these conversations as essential for survival in a volatile economy. If you aren’t talking about your investments or your rent, you aren’t learning how to navigate them. This radical honesty is a survival mechanism born from economic necessity.
Perhaps the most radical change is happening in the workplace. What was once a strictly guarded topic among employees is now a primary tool in negotiations. A Robert Half survey revealed that 86% of Gen Z workers have openly discussed their salaries with colleagues.
This isn’t just idle gossip. Younger professionals view salary transparency as a way to close wage gaps and ensure fairness. They argue that keeping pay secret only benefits the employer, not the worker. By sharing their numbers, they are effectively unionizing the information, making it impossible for companies to underpay individuals without it coming to light.
Furthermore, discussing pay is actually a legally protected right under federal law, a fact younger workers are quick to leverage.
In the past, keeping your political leanings private was a way to maintain social harmony and professional neutrality. For younger generations, that firewall has collapsed.
They are far less likely to view politics as a private conviction and more likely to see it as a baseline for compatibility. Because they recognize that government policy directly dictates their ability to buy a home or fund a retirement, they treat political alignment as a critical data point when vetting their social and professional circles.
A study from Johns Hopkins University suggests that while older generations are more likely to rely on traditional news, younger people navigate fragmented, digital spaces where politics and daily life are constantly intertwined.
They are more likely to engage in conversations across political differences than their elders, who often prefer to avoid the topic entirely to maintain social harmony. For them, silence on political matters isn’t polite — it’s a lack of transparency.
Younger people are turning to each other rather than traditional institutions. Nearly one-third of Gen Z investors now turn to social media for investment information and retirement advice. This cohort often feels pessimistic about the future of Social Security, expecting it to provide only a small fraction of their retirement income.
This openness has led to a boom in finfluencers and community-led wealth building. While this carries risks of misinformation, it has successfully demystified complex financial products that were previously the domain of wealthy professionals.
To a 25-year-old, retirement is a topic for a group chat or a TikTok thread. They are swapping investment strategies with the same casual energy their parents use to discuss the weather.
Interestingly, the definition of success is also becoming more public. Younger generations often set much higher benchmarks for success than their predecessors, with Gen Z aspiring to salaries nearly nine times the national average. By speaking openly about these goals, they are holding themselves and their employers to a higher standard of achievement.
This transparency extends to the value of time. Many younger workers are now openly discussing taking pay cuts in exchange for more free time, a conversation that would have been seen as a lack of ambition in previous decades.
By making these preferences public, they are shifting the cultural narrative around what a successful career actually looks like.
The shift from private to open book is more than a change in manners; it is a change in power dynamics. By refusing to keep their finances and politics private, younger generations are forcing a level of accountability that didn’t exist 30 years ago. They are trading the comfort of polite silence for the utility of shared knowledge.
They are operating on the belief that information is the only way to level a playing field that feels increasingly tilted against them. Whether it is a salary spreadsheet shared among co-workers or a blunt conversation about the state of the economy, the new rule is simple: If you want to get ahead, you have to speak up.
The age of the financial secret is over, and for those willing to talk, the rewards are finally becoming visible.
Whatever your age, if you have over $100,000 in savings, TikTok and Facebook are not your friends. Consider advice from a pro bound to act in your best interests. SmartAsset offers a free service that matches you to a vetted, fiduciary advisor in less than five minutes.
This video covers all the key concepts you need to know as part of Unit 1: Introduction to Business Management as part of the IB Business Management syllabus. At the end of the video, we will share with you the next steps you can take as part of your study routine depending on your familiarity with the content. Looking for more help with BM? Check out diplomaly.org for practice case studies, videos on response structures and more!
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:21 Unit 1.1: Intro to business
2:47 Unit 1.2: Types of business entities
5:04 Unit 1.3: Aims and objectives
6:24 Unit 1.4: Stakeholders
7:02 Unit 1.5: Growth and evolution
10:03 Unit 1.6: Multinational companies
10:32 Exam Strategy
11:01 What’s next?
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LLMs ask questions differently than humans—and that affects how executives use these tools to make decisions.
The United States is now paying nearly $970 billion a year just to service the interest on its $38.8 trillion national debt—a figure that has nearly tripled since 2020 and already exceeds what the federal government spends on national defense or Medicaid, according to a February analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).
For many Americans, the number barely registers. But budget experts warn it represents one of the most consequential—and least discussed—fiscal emergencies in the country’s history.
The rapid climb didn’t happen overnight. Interest costs have surged owing to a one-two punch: The federal debt load has ballooned by trillions, while interest rates climbed sharply from near-zero post-pandemic lows. As a share of the economy, interest costs have doubled from 1.6% of GDP in 2021 to a record 3.2% in 2025. Today, the government already spends more on debt interest than on Medicaid or the entire national defense budget, programs Americans viscerally feel and politically fight over. Yet the interest line item draws comparatively little outrage.
The numbers ahead are even more staggering. According to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest baseline, net interest costs are projected to more than double again, from $970 billion in fiscal year 2025 to $2.1 trillion by 2036.
Between now and 2036, debt held by the public is expected to grow by 86%, adding roughly $26 trillion, while the average interest rate on that debt will tick up another half a percentage point. Together, they will drive interest costs up by 121%.
By 2036, interest payments will consume one-quarter of all federal revenue, up from roughly one-fifth today and just one-tenth back in 2021. Put another way: For every four dollars the U.S. collects in taxes, one will go entirely toward paying creditors—not roads, not veterans, not schools.
Right now, interest spending sits roughly neck and neck with Medicare, one of the most popular and politically untouchable programs in the federal budget. The CBO projects that by 2029, net interest costs will officially surpass Medicare, making it the second-largest government program, trailing only Social Security. That milestone is less than four years away.
The trajectory doesn’t stop there. By 2047, CBO projects interest costs will exceed even Social Security spending, ascending to become the single largest line item in the entire federal budget—larger than retirement income, larger than health care for seniors, larger than the military.
The consequences extend beyond accounting. As interest costs swell, they crowd out virtually every other national priority. The CRFB projects that rising interest costs will account for 28% of all nominal spending growth over the next decade and 120% of all spending growth as a share of GDP, meaning other programs will effectively shrink in relative terms just to make room.
The national debt currently stands at approximately $38.77 trillion as of February, growing at roughly $6.43 billion per day. At that pace, the U.S. is projected to hit $39 trillion by approximately April.
CRFB and other fiscal watchdogs argue that a credible deficit reduction plan remains the only viable off-ramp—one that would put debt on a sustainable path, ease pressure on interest rates, and prevent the interest bill from ultimately devouring the budget entirely. So far, Washington has not produced one.
For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
Key Points
When the SAVE plan was effectively sidelined and borrowers were placed into forbearance, it provided over 8 million borrowers with instant relief – no payment due, and no interest accruing.
But then, in August 2025, interest started accruing again. And time in this forbearance doesn’t count towards IDR forgiveness, nor does it directly count for PSLF forgiveness (you have to do PSLF buyback – which is a big problem right now).
With these known issues – understanding your own goals for your student loans can help make your next decision easier. And that’s where the SAVE Forbearance Decision Square becomes helpful.
The square is simple. It asks two questions:
Then it compares two choices:
When you lay those out in a 2×2 grid, the math becomes much clearer.
If your goal is forgiveness (especially through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program) staying in SAVE forbearance is almost always the worst outcome.
Under the rules of PSLF, only qualifying payments count toward forgiveness. Months spent in forbearance generally do not count. That means your forgiveness clock is paused.
For PSLF specifically, you can “buyback” these months. But the math of PSLF buyback is not going to give you any savings for these current months as the payment would be identical to what you should be paying anyway. Plus, when you do finally apply, you may experience up to a 3 year waitlist.
For borrowers pursuing 20- or 25-year IDR forgiveness, the same principle applies. If time does not count, you are extending your repayment period.
Some borrowers assume that because the SAVE plan is in flux, staying put is safer. But all you’re actually doing is delaying your future.
Switching into an active repayment plan, even if the payment is modestly higher, keeps your forgiveness clock moving. Every qualifying month gets you closer to completion. You are buying certainty and momentum.
If forgiveness is your strategy, every month matters.
Not everyone is pursuing student loan forgiveness. Many borrowers intend to repay their loans entirely.
For this group, the analysis is different but the conclusion is similar.
Remaining in forbearance means:
Even if no payment is required today, the balance is still growing in the background.
Some borrowers think that staying in forbearance and making extra payments is helpful. And while it’s not harmful, it’s also not optimal. Payments are always applied to fees first, the accrued interest, then principal. So in many circumstances you’re simply treading water instead of making forward progress.
Switching into a standard repayment plan restores amortization. Payments begin reducing principal rather than allowing interest to stack up.
This does not mean every borrower should immediately switch. If you are facing financial hardship, job instability, or other pressing needs, short-term cash flow protection may be the smart move.
But for borrowers with stable income, remaining idle can be more expensive than it appears.
Behavioral finance plays a large role here.
When borrowers hear “no payment required,” the immediate reaction is usually relief. It frees up money for rent, groceries, or other priorities. That is understandable.
But loans cost money, and have specific rules you need to follow to get forgiveness. Decisions made during temporary disruptions can ripple for years.
The SAVE Forbearance Decision Square forces you to zoom out. It replaces emotion with structure:
In both cases, forward motion is usually better than standing still.
The square does not say that forbearance is always wrong. It says that for most borrowers, it is simply not optimal to remain in forbearance.
The borrowers who benefit most from staying in forbearance are those who genuinely need short-term relief and cannot afford monthly payments right now. In that scenario, protecting stability may outweigh long-term optimization.
But that is a financial hardship decision — not a strategy decision.
Instead of blindly leaving your loans in the SAVE forbearance, you need to get clear on your goals, then do some math on which outcome gets you there:
If your goal is forgiveness, you know you have a set number of payments and your goal is to ensure those payments are made at the lowest amount possible.
If your goal is repayment, ensuring you lower the total cost of repayment is what your focus should be.
SAVE forbearance can feel like protection. For many borrowers, it is simply delay. And the delay can have significant costs.
Before remaining in forbearance, decide which box you are in on the square. Then act in alignment with your long-term objective.
Don’t Miss These Other Stories:
Editor: Colin Graves
The post Why Staying In SAVE Forbearance Could Cost You Thousands appeared first on The College Investor.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has deepened its collaboration with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. The partnership now incorporates Chainalysis’s advanced AI tool, Alterya, designed to intercept fraudulent activities at their source. This initiative allows OKX to halt suspicious transfers to identified scam addresses right before they occur, marking a proactive stance against financial crimes in digital assets.
Alterya represents a solution in fraud prevention, effectively leveraging artificial intelligence to spot emerging scam networks across the internet.
By linking various indicators to specific financial elements like cryptocurrency wallets and traditional bank accounts, it enables instantaneous blocking of risky transactions.
Unlike reactive measures that address issues after the fact, Alterya emphasizes risks on the receiving end, including the identification of money mules involved in authorized push payment (APP) scams.
It merges with Chainalysis’s Know Your Transaction (KYT) system for thorough pre-withdrawal checks, offering detailed alerts supported by evidence such as captured domain images and reconstructed conversation logs.
Additional features like webhooks and intuitive dashboards make it suitable for handling large-scale operations.
This adoption builds upon OKX’s prior integration of Chainalysis tools for regulatory compliance and aiding law enforcement.
Together, the companies have supported notable efforts, such as assisting the U.S. Department of Justice in reclaiming stolen cryptocurrencies and helping Asia-Pacific authorities freeze approximately $50 million in USDT tied to fraudulent schemes.
Alterya’s scope is significant, overseeing more than $23 billion in monthly transactions and safeguarding hundreds of millions of users in both crypto and traditional payment systems.
The benefits for OKX are said to be multifaceted.
By curbing APP fraud, the platform anticipates substantial reductions in monetary losses, fewer user complaints, and improved customer loyalty.
Reports from other major exchanges using similar Chainalysis technologies indicate fraud drops of up to 60 percent.
In the broader context, scams remain a persistent threat in crypto.
Chainalysis data reveals that fraudsters siphoned off $17 billion in digital assets in 2025 alone, with AI-assisted tactics—like voice deepfakes and impersonation schemes—proving 4.5 times more lucrative than conventional methods.
Over the last year, Alterya has thwarted over $300 million in potential damages, underscoring its effectiveness.
Haider Rafique, OKX’s Global Managing Partner, emphasized the industry’s duty:
“We must create secure environments for digital asset ownership and trading. This involves strengthening defenses to prevent scams from leaving our system. Crypto’s unregulated era is behind us; we’re fostering trust, openness, and user empowerment on a massive scale.”
Jonathan Levin, Chainalysis’s Co-Founder and CEO, added:
“A top exchange embracing Alterya shows that after-the-fact fixes fall short. True protection comes from stopping scams upfront—it’s ethical and strategically smart. OKX is setting a new standard for the sector.”
This development signals a pivotal shift in cryptocurrency toward preventive strategies, enhancing overall trust and transparency.
As scams evolve with technology, tools like Alterya could become essential, potentially inspiring widespread adoption and minimizing harms to consumers.
By prioritizing user safety, OKX not only protects its user-base but also elevates benchmarks for the web3 industry, paving the way for a more resilient digital economy.
Even if he was so-inclined to do so, President Trump might not be able to unilaterally release the government-sponsored enterprises from conservatorship because of the U.S. Supreme Court tariff ruling, a BTIG analyst report postulates.
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Since Feb. 13, with the exception of Feb.18, mortgage rates have been under 6%, reaching 5.9% on Feb. 27, the Optimal Blue website said. This is the last date Optimal Blue publicizes data for.
But the attack on Iran has driven the 10-year Treasury higher by 9 basis points ending March 2 trading at 4.05%.
“On Friday, we saw US Treasury yields drop to multi-month lows on the prospects of the Iran situation breaking out,” Louis Navellier, an investment banker, said in a commentary on Monday. “Today, it’s moving back the other way on the inflation threat of the much higher energy prices.”
Lender Price data listed on the National Mortgage News website on Monday morning had the 30-year FRM at the 6.04% mark at 11 a.m. Three hours later, it was up to 6.12%.
Freddie Mac closed on March 2 at $6.27, similar with levels seen nearly a year ago. Meanwhile Fannie Mae was at $7.11 per share, a point last seen in May 2025. Hagen’s report came out before the market opened Monday morning.
“Stock valuations for the GSEs have almost fully retraced to their 52-week low seen just shortly after Trump assumed office, and the stocks are down 40% since the MBS directive was announced,” Hagen said. “Speculation surrounding recap and release steadily gained momentum last year after Trump onboarded Bessent and Pulte, which culminated in a 52-week high of $14/share in September.”
Accounts on X have been consistently imploring the Administration to at least follow Bill Ackman’s suggestion
Hagen says the consensus (without identifying where the consensus comes from) is a near-term release is “more remote, we think mainly on the belief that Trump could desire even more control around mortgage rates, which could weaken the earnings trajectory and attractiveness of the stocks in a relisting scenario.
“Plus, we think the
The 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court said the president cannot act unilaterally under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Whether this could apply to other actions is an open question.
At
“So before anybody could consider maybe doing something and raising money from the public, aren’t there some other decisions that we have to take into account?” Hill asked industry panelists at the hearing. “Like, wouldn’t the Treasury Department have to make a concrete decision about how much money they’re still owed from the financial crisis or not owed?”
The
Fannie Mae added $8.5 billion of agency MBS and Freddie Mac, $4 billion, to their respective retained portfolios following Pres. Trump’s Jan. 8 directive, Hagen noted. Data shows both companies’
The impact of those purchases first affects lenders in the mortgage-to-Treasury/SOFR spread, said Mike Vough, Optimal Blue’s senior vice president of corporate strategy.
“As current coupon spreads compress, we typically see it translate into sharper borrower pricing and more predictable hedge performance, even if it’s not a perfect one-for-one move.” Vough said, noting those contracted by 12.5 basis points immediately after the President made his announcement.
“As broader macroeconomic factors took center stage, however, spreads widened 7.5 to 10 basis points, suggesting the impact was more fleeting alongside Treasury movement,” Vough said. “Even so, spreads remain well above the ultra-wide levels of 2024, so disciplined execution and risk management still matter. In a market where policy can influence spreads, lenders need pricing, hedging and analytics working in lockstep.”
Another benefit of the spreads initially tightening was that it
“For depositories, it’s not a shunned asset anymore,” he said, especially as the market moves further away from the 2021-2022 lending environment. The reasons are independent from recent talk by Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman about changes to the Basel III framework.
“They had a duration and a concentration risk issue with the asset for a while,” Toohig said. “Now that we have more current coupons and they’re able to originate loans at much higher yields, it’s an asset that they’re more comfortable with.”
The gain in adjustable rate mortgage market share, another product primarily done by depositories, also has contributed, he continued.
What might move a release of the GSEs is the upcoming mid-term elections. Those typically go against the party in power, and as long as the ducks are in a row with the White House and Congress in Republican control, ending the conservatorships are a possibility.
After both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported
“Given our view that either the status quo of conservatorship will persist or a meaningful dilution of the common shares is likely to occur if GSE privatization does get over the finish line, we remain underperform on both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” George said.
Generating meaningful supplemental income does not always require a high-tech lab, an advanced degree, or a massive upfront investment.
Many successful American inventors built profitable businesses by solving minor annoyances or simply creating a product that captured the public’s imagination. They took ordinary materials, applied a twist of creativity, and turned small initial bets into real income.
In the mid-1970s, freelance copywriter Gary Dahl listened to his friends complain about the endless chores of pet ownership. He joked that the perfect pet would be a rock. It required no food, no grooming, and no early morning walks.
Instead of letting the joke die at the bar, Dahl treated it like a serious product launch. He purchased smooth stones from a builder’s supply store for pennies apiece. He then designed custom cardboard carriers with air holes and wrote a highly detailed, satirical training manual instructing owners on how to teach their stones to sit and stay.
Dahl sold the rocks for a few dollars each. Within months, he moved millions of units. The novelty was not the stone itself, but the clever packaging and the shared social experience. Dahl recognized that consumers were willing to pay for a laugh. By the time the fad faded a year later, the brief surge in sales likely set him up comfortably for years to come.
Roni Di Lullo was playing fetch with her border collie in 1997 when she noticed the dog constantly missing the toy. The late afternoon sun was blinding him. She wondered why her dog could not wear protective eyewear just like she did.
She experimented with sports goggles and human sunglasses before designing a custom pair specifically shaped to accommodate a canine head and snout. Di Lullo invested her own savings into a computer-aided design program and manufactured the first batch of specialized goggles.
What started as a quirky side project to help her pet quickly gained commercial traction. The company expanded into a global brand, generating millions in sales as pet owners realized the practical benefits of protecting their dogs’ eyes from ultraviolet light, debris, and wind. The U.S. military even deployed the eyewear to protect working dogs during harsh desert operations.
A high school shop teacher named Stuart Anders was playing with a piece of steel ribbon in his father’s workshop in 1983. He noticed that the flexible metal coiled around his wrist abruptly when tapped.
Anders covered the sharp steel with colorful, patterned fabric, creating a wearable accessory. Initially, major toy companies rejected the concept. They viewed it as a cheap trinket with low profit margins that lacked long-term play value. Anders persisted, eventually partnering with a smaller toy manufacturer willing to take a risk.
The bracelets debuted at a New York toy fair and became an immediate sensation. Retailers placed massive orders, and the flexible bands dominated schoolyards across the country. The fad generated millions of dollars before competitors flooded the market with cheaper, unauthorized imitations.
Thanksgiving dinner often ends with a minor dispute over who gets to snap the turkey’s wishbone. In 1999, Seattle resident Ken Ahroni decided everyone at the table deserved a chance to make a wish, regardless of how many birds were cooked.
Ahroni spent years developing a synthetic wishbone that looked realistic, snapped unpredictably, and sounded just like the real thing. He launched his company and began manufacturing the plastic bones in a local factory, ensuring strict quality control over his invention.
The concept sounded ludicrous to critics, but party stores and major retailers quickly stocked the item. Ahroni built a profitable niche business, selling millions of wishbones globally.
He later successfully defended his patent in federal court against a major corporate retailer, securing a $1.7 million judgment and proving the value of his unique intellectual property.
Robert Croak attended a trade show in China and noticed a vendor handing out poorly shaped silicone bands. He brought the samples back to his Ohio office and pitched a new idea: Refine the shapes, market them as collectible bracelets for children, and sell them in themed packs.
His team was highly skeptical, but Croak moved forward with manufacturing. The initial rollout was intentionally slow. He focused on direct-to-consumer online sales and targeted smaller local retailers rather than fighting for shelf space in national big-box stores right away.
The strategy worked, resulting in Silly Bandz. The colorful silicone bands came in hundreds of shapes that became popular with kids. At the peak of the craze, Croak’s company scaled from a dozen employees to hundreds to keep up with demand. Silly Bandz drove hundreds of millions of dollars in retail sales.
These quirky success stories offer practical lessons about generating income that go beyond just getting lucky. The most successful creators start with relatively low-cost prototypes and test their ideas before committing to expensive manufacturing.
Protecting your intellectual property is equally critical. Securing a patent ensures that even a simple novelty item holds its financial value, protecting your profits from inevitable copycats.
Finally, it helps to recognize the reality of market trends. Fads often fade quickly, but a well-timed product can generate meaningful revenue in a short period if you strike when demand is high. These stories show that income opportunities do not always come from complex businesses. Sometimes they come from recognizing a niche and acting quickly.
If you don’t think you’re the creative type, let someone else do the heavy lifting. Get some advice from a pro if you have over $100,000 in savings. SmartAsset offers a free service that matches you to a vetted, fiduciary advisor in less than five minutes.
