Business, economics and the calls companies have to make, with several AI models reasoning through each one from different starting points.
Of six large US chip companies, Intel brought in the most revenue every quarter from 2019 through 2022. By early 2026, Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron had all passed it, and Nvidia's quarterly revenue was about six times Intel's.
Mostly because a US flag would bring US shipbuilding and US crewing rules. The flag country is mainly responsible for checking a ship's safety, and other countries' ports inspect it too. Whether a cruise company pays US tax on its shipping income depends mostly on where the parent company is incorporated.
Average hourly pay for most US private-sector workers has more than doubled since January 2000, faster than prices overall. Hospital care, tuition and childcare, car repair, rent, eating out and gasoline all rose faster than pay, while toys got cheaper and clothes barely moved.
Only part is resold nearby. The rest is sorted, sold by the kilo and often shipped abroad in bales, where many clothes are worn again. What those kilos fetch has long helped pay for the bin on your street.
Yes, by 5.9 million. In September 2026 health care counted 18.6 million US jobs to manufacturing's 12.7 million. Health care pulled ahead in September 2008 and has stayed ahead every month since, though in January 1990 factories had more than twice as many jobs.
Both. The company that owns the IKEA name rarely runs the stores. It charges them 3% of their sales, but takes in far more by selling them the goods, and does not say which of the two earns it more profit.
The IOC has the safer income. It sells TV rights and global sponsorships years ahead, while public bodies in the host country pay for venues, transport and security. Paris 2024's organisers ended €75.7 million ahead, and France's auditors counted about €6.65 billion in public spending, most of it by the national government.
Not overall. Airlines still pay the larger share worldwide and across US airports, though not at every airport. Of the 44% that US airports earn from other sources, parking and ground transport come first, far ahead of the shops.
Barely. The Economist recorded a US Big Mac at $4.29 in July 2014 and $6.22 in July 2026; adjusted for consumer prices overall, that is only 3.4% more. The real jump came between 2005 and 2014, and since then the price has roughly kept pace with inflation.
Because money loaded onto a Starbucks card or the app is paid before any coffee is made, and Starbucks books it as a debt it repays in drinks. In June 2026 that debt, counted together with unspent rewards points called Stars, stood at about $1.7 billion. Card balances earn customers no interest and carry no deposit insurance.
Private companies build the scores lenders use. FICO is one, and VantageScore, owned by the three credit bureaus, is the other. Lenders choose which score to use. For many mortgages, a federal agency sets which scores are allowed.
Since July 2009, the federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 an hour, and rising prices have taken away 36% of what it buys. It is the longest the floor has ever gone without a raise, and before 2026 it had not been worth this little since 1949.
No. In September 2026, US workers in a large monthly survey still worked about 27% of their full paid workdays from home, nearly four times the 2019 level. That is far below the 2020 peak, and the decline has slowed to about a point a year since 2022.
Yes. In August 2026 a dozen eggs averaged $2.27 in US cities, which after inflation is less than in any month of 1980. For the average production and nonsupervisory worker, a dozen also took about half as many minutes of hourly pay as in January 1980.
Counted inside city limits, the way the census counts cities, the top ten moved south and west after the Second World War. Part of that, the Census Bureau says, is where city lines are drawn : most of the rising cities took in a lot of land, and counted by whole metro areas, only three of the ten largest are in those states.
Mostly from Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud business. In 2025, AWS brought in 18% of Amazon's sales but 57% of its operating income. In three of the years between 2014 and 2025, the cloud earned more than the whole company, which means everything else at Amazon, taken together, lost money.
Mainly through higher memory prices, Micron says, driven by AI demand it describes as outpacing what the industry can supply. By mid-2026 Micron kept about $85 of gross profit from every $100 of sales, a level Nvidia did not reach in any of its quarters in this data, which starts in 2008. In early 2023, Micron's cost for the chips it sold, swollen by a write-down of chips still in stock, was bigger than its sales.
Yes, by a wide margin. In fiscal 2025, Disney's parks, cruises and merchandise earned $10.0 billion in operating income, more than twice the $4.7 billion from film, TV and streaming combined. Disney does not report a profit figure for movies alone.
Not for the verdict, Guinness says. Individuals chasing a record for themselves can apply free, but brands must pay : for help choosing a record, a judge or the logo. An executive said in 2023 that this work brings in about half its revenue.
By a weighted formula it keeps revising. For national universities, 52 percent is how students fare after enrolling, 20 percent is college leaders rating rival schools, and acceptance rate counts for nothing.
Yes, though not every store or product. A US chain may ask a brand to pay just to stock a new product, and the brand may then fund its discounts and displays. Trader Joe's says it charges no such fee.
For HP, the money is in the refills. Its then chief executive said it loses money on printers and earns it on supplies such as ink and toner, which bring in about two thirds of its printing revenue.
Yes, but only cents : a US industry group puts what a station keeps at 10 to 15 cents a gallon before tax. The store earns most of the gross profit, yet in 2025 fuel kept stores profitable.
Usually it never was. A diamond bought in a shop has long sold back for a fraction of its price, because the shop price carried a retail markup, while anyone buying it back pays wholesale or less. Separately, De Beers, the company that long controlled most of the world's diamond supply, held the price level up. Lab-grown stones have weakened that system, and De Beers is up for sale.
Both. In 2025 McDonald's reported $10.4 billion in rent from franchisees against $6.0 billion in royalties, but that rent is tied to how many burgers its restaurants sell.
Largely from a tiny group of big spenders, plus ads. In a 2016 study of tens of millions of players, 1.9 percent bought anything in a month, and 0.19 percent brought in 48 percent of purchase revenue. Ads earn from many who never pay, and the mix varies by game.
Partly. Under EU rules, 'Made in Italy' names the country where the last substantial stage of manufacture took place, not a mere finishing touch. A shirt sewn in Italy from imported fabric can carry it.
In the US, no government agency does. A committee of eight academic economists at a private nonprofit, the National Bureau of Economic Research, names the month a recession began. It does not use the 'two quarters of falling GDP' rule, and it names the month only after the fact, often many months later.
Mostly not from the free stock trades. In 2025, Robinhood made $302 million from stock trades out of $4,473 million in revenue. Option orders, crypto, and interest on loans and idle cash earned far more.
Mostly by paying almost nothing on your balance. In September 2026 US interest checking averaged 0.07 percent while short-term Treasury debt paid around 3.6 percent. That gap, plus card and penalty fees, is what pays for most free accounts.
A committee of S&P Dow Jones Indices staff decides. Published rules on size, profit and share trading set who may normally be considered. The committee chooses from that pool, can pass over a company that meets every rule, and does not apply the entry rules to companies already inside.
The broad reason is that, over the long run, the screen inside became much cheaper to make. Some brands also earn money after the sale, from home-screen ads and viewing data. In 2024 Vizio's TVs and sound bars made a gross loss, and its profit came from that second business.
Yes, but it is a small share of their profit. At AutoNation, a large US dealer group, new cars brought in almost half of 2025 revenue but only 13.4% of gross profit. Repairs and service made 47.6%, and loans and warranties sold with the car most of the rest.
A low-cost gym sells far more memberships than it has room for at one time, because members come at different hours and some rarely come at all, while the dues arrive either way. At Planet Fitness, the company behind the brand also takes a royalty on franchise clubs' dues and fees, 7% under its current agreement, and sells them their equipment.
Usually not, for a can or bottle. In most countries a separate bottler mixes, fills and delivers it with Coca-Cola's concentrate, and Coca-Cola keeps the more profitable part.
Usually the company bringing the goods in, which pays its own country's customs. In recent US tariffs, foreign sellers barely cut their prices, so the cost stayed at home, split between companies and shoppers.
Usually most of it, but rarely all. In studies of past state gas tax holidays, pump prices fell by a majority of the suspended tax, from about 58 to 87 percent depending on the state and the method. The tax is collected upstream and built into the pump price, so a cut reaches drivers only as far as suppliers and stations pass it on. What happens when the tax returns has varied from one holiday to the next.
Mostly the stores you shop at, through a swipe fee on each card sale, and often shoppers paying cash or debit too, through prices that build the fee in. US card issuers spend nearly nine-tenths of that fee on rewards, and interest from cardholders who carry a balance is the card business's main income.
In the US the film's distributor takes about half of each ticket, while snack supplies cost about 20 cents per dollar. In 2025, before staff and rent, AMC kept nearly as much from snacks as from tickets, and Cinemark kept more.
By sales, an airline. Next to its profit, it can look like the second. American Express paid Delta $8.2 billion in 2025, mostly for SkyMiles it hands to cardholders. Delta's whole operating profit that year was $5.8 billion. How much of that profit rests on the miles cannot be measured from outside.
Because memory for AI servers and memory for your devices come from the same few factories and the same silicon wafers, and AI memory needs about three times the wafer for the same capacity. As wafers shift to AI, ordinary memory gets scarcer and dearer, and device makers pass part of that on.
Sometimes, but it is rarely the name brand in a plainer box. Store brands are made to the store's own specifications, often by firms that also sell their own brands, and who makes which one is seldom disclosed. The research suggests why : keeping the maker's name off the box helps both the store and the brand maker.
Not directly. Your fee joins one pot for your country, divided by share of all plays there. Your plays count, but so do everyone else's, and the heaviest listeners steer the most.
AI models put air sealing and attic insulation first for an older gas-heated house in a cold state. A smart thermostat comes second. A heat pump water heater, an electric heat pump and rooftop solar can trade places depending on local energy prices and on whether old equipment is failing. Replacement windows and a home battery rank last on bill savings.
AI models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google picked Microsoft's Copilot to build Excel models and Anthropic's Claude for Excel to check existing ones for errors, leaving Google's Gemini to Sheets work. It is a workflow choice, not a proven accuracy ranking. Any AI-written formula still needs tests you can check yourself.
In a debate among AI models, the model acting as moderator ranked the enclosed Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2 Combo first. Seen on sale at $369 with a four-color add-on, it keeps a child's hands away from hot moving parts and leaves money for printing plastic. The Bambu Lab P1S, an enclosed printer at $549, came second. The open Bambu A1 Combo, which the models said beginner lists usually put first, came third. One model still ranked it first for homes where adults can supervise every print.
Small companies now pay for several AI tools that quietly overlap, and some bills rise with a busy month. Here is a quarterly audit for finding the spend, deciding what to cut, and spotting the costs that hide below the price.
The Prius sells a fraction of its peak because its hybrid now sits in nearly every Toyota, even as its newest version costs far more.
The FTC won $2.5 billion from Amazon over a Prime sign-up you could tap by accident and a cancellation built to exhaust you. Spot the trick anywhere.
Treat new federal repayment data as a warning to compare programs before you borrow, not proof any student will struggle or a school is to blame.