October 13, 2026

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Morning, sunshine. In today’s small business news, singer and talk show host Kelly Clarkson is beefing with a Brooklyn boutique she claims gave her the Pretty Woman treatment when she inquired about the price of a $15,000 bird automaton. After Clarkson put the store on social media blast, it responded that the item simply wasn’t for sale (though the singer claims there was a price tag). We’ve been on Team Clarkson since From Justin to Kelly, so in solidarity we plan to walk into a Rainforest Cafe and try to buy all the animatronic animals.

—Abby Rubenstein, Brendan Cosgrove, Dave Lozo, Matty Merritt, Neal Freyman

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

The wealthiest age group in America
The winners of the Nobel Prize in economics
The only thing worse than getting a real calendar invite for a meeting

Markets

Nasdaq

27,245.9

-0.44%

S&P

7,807.24

-0.06%

Dow

51,850.55

+0.38%

10-Year

5.240%

-- bps

Bitcoin

$82,831.73

-0.73%

Why the Boomers are OK

The affluence of the 75+ set is a marked change from the earlier dynamic in the US in which older people had less money as they began spending their savings. “This is totally reversed now,” NYU economics professor Edward Wolff told the Wall Street Journal.

With the Fed measuring wealth by assets such as stocks and home equity, minus liabilities like mortgages and debt, Wolff explained that many older people bought homes and stocks years ago that have since skyrocketed in value, so they’re reaping the benefits.

But the economy is not working out so well for everybody. Inflation is biting into the spending power of those on the other end of the wealth spectrum. Plus, the survey showed that many families are struggling with debt: almost 20% of families reported making a late loan payment over the last year, up from 12.2% in 2022. Recent research also shows that older Americans could be propping up consumer spending.—AR

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World

Tour de headlines

Allison Robbert/Getty Images

💰 Elon Musk is the largest known donor to the midterms. While the world’s richest man hasn’t been as vocal about his political donations lately as he was when he was wielding a chainsaw or hanging out with President Trump in the Oval Office, Musk quietly donated $276 million to Republican groups to help the party try to retain control of Congress in November’s election, the New York Times reported yesterday. That includes giving $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC backing GOP Senate candidates, over the summer—a donation the NYT says is more than a rival Democratic group raised from all its donors during the same period. There was also a $76 million donation to his own Republican turnout-boosting super PAC. These donations came after Musk said in May he’d do less political spending.

☕🌯 Starbucks says it’s not buying Chipotle. It looks like you won’t be able to add guac to your macchiato any time soon. Following reports last week that the coffee chain was mulling a takeover of the burrito spot in what would have been the largest restaurant buyout ever, Starbucks stated that it’s not buying Chipotle (“Starbucks is not buying Chipotle,” a Starbucks spokesperson said). Starbucks, which is currently led by former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol, is in the midst of a major turnaround effort.

🏠 Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security searched the Minnesota Democrat’s home as part of a criminal investigation, reportedly related to immigration. On X, Omar described the search as an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” vowing, “I will not be silenced.” Top Democrats in Congress also spoke out against the search, which was carried out within 60 days of the upcoming midterm elections, a period when the Department of Justice typically refrains from actions involving candidates.—AR

MAKING WAVES…SMALLER

Nobel awarded for work to tame booms and busts

Nobel officials announce the winners of the economics award.

Jonathan Nackstrand/Getty Images

A couple of smooth operators just won the Nobel Prize in economics: Stanford University’s Robert E. Hall and Columbia University’s Michael Woodford. According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the two Americans’ work has helped policymakers smooth out the intensity of economic booms and busts, making financial shocks and crises easier to deal with.

Nobel-minded: After the 1970s energy crisis exposed inadequacies in 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes’s policy prescriptions, Hall and Woodford each set about revising them through a microeconomic lens.

Basically, they figured macroeconomics is important, but households and businesses are the ones actually making financial decisions that can drive booms and busts. They make those decisions based on what’s happening now and what they think is going to happen next.
Hall focused on how households make purchasing decisions (demand), while Woodward looked at how businesses set prices (supply).

The resulting research and economic models helped central banks, including the Federal Reserve, understand that forward guidance on interest rates can be useful to households—kind of like how a pilot’s midair announcements help passengers know whether to stretch their legs or buckle up and hold on to their ginger ales.

Put into practice: The laureates’ work on forward guidance and emphasis on the credibility of central banks were put to the test during the Covid pandemic, the 2008 financial crisis, and their aftermaths, as policymakers worked to file down the economy’s sharp peaks and troughs.—BC

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THIS COULD'VE BEEN AN E-MAIL

The latest phishing scam is targeting your calendar

photo of a calendar app icon on a smartphone screen

Stockcam/Getty Images

Have a meeting on your calendar you don’t recognize? It might not be because you’re a bad employee who can’t keep track of your responsibilities—a scammer may have booked some time in hopes of acquiring your sensitive information.

Incidents of what’s known as ICS phishing—because calendar files are .ics—were up ~33,000% between May and September, according to the cybersecurity firm Sublime (not to be confused with the band behind the 1990s hit “What I Got”). Calendar invites can sneak malicious links past your spam filter and don’t require you to open an attachment, making them attractive to scammers. Professionals who often meet with strangers, like salespeople and recruiters, are common targets.

The scam mostly uses three methods, meaning a link inside the meeting on your calendar will either:

Take you to a form asking for login credentials.
Serve as a prompt to download malware onto your laptop.
Or be to a meeting with a scammer posing as someone you don’t know but have reason to trust, like an employee at another company or a potential client.

Talk to your agent: One way these invites are showing up on calendars is when AI agents accept invitations on the worker’s behalf, per Sublime.

It’s also a human problem: Consumer Affairs suggests checking your settings to make sure you’re not automatically adding every invite to your calendar willy-nilly.—DL

Reader Poll

Have you received a calendar phishing attempt?

Yes, and unfortunately I clicked.
Yup, but I could tell it was suspicious.
Maybe, I don’t keep track of my calendar invites.
Nope, but I will be careful from now on.

Matty’s work-life balance

Your coworker might be faking it

A man in a suit with his fingers crossed behind his back

PointImages/Getty Images

On Tuesdays, the Brew’s Matty Merritt brings you the news you need to make life a little easier during your 9–5, 5–9, or OOO.

There’s a good chance that at least some of your coworkers bragging about their AI capabilities would crack under the pressure of a follow-up question. In a survey of 1,000 full-time workers in the US, 48% said they exaggerate their AI usage or expertise at work at least some of the time, according to AI workplace software company Visier.

Fake it until you make it. Companies are making massive investments in AI platforms in an effort to increase productivity and instituting AI requirements, but workers might not be using the technology particularly well. Instead, many are opting for “performative AI” to protect their jobs, Visier found.

Companies may be faking it too. The survey also found that 59% of workers don’t believe or are unsure whether their employers had a plan for AI’s impact on the company.—MM

News

What else is brewing

Apple is expected to debut new smart home products at its “Welcome Home” event today.
Delta pushed the start of its non-stop service between Atlanta and Saudi Arabia to March following deadly attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on Riyadh’s airport this weekend.
Albertson’s is demanding that Kroger pay $9+ billion over the failed merger between the two supermarket chains as a trial looms over who is responsible for the deal getting scuttled over antitrust concerns.
One person died and several others were injured in an incident involving a Six Flags roller coaster in Georgia.
Russell Brand is facing a criminal trial in London that begins this week on three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault. Brand has denied the allegations.
Selma Blair was arrested after being accused of injuring flight attendants on a plane to New York City.
RJ Mitte, who played Walter White’s son on Breaking Bad and became a disability-rights activist, has died at age 34.

recs

Feel like a world-traveling superspy with this game that asks you to locate James Bond filming locations.
Recommendations for satirical books from a co-founder of The Onion.
Get inspired to go retro by the most popular Halloween costume from the year you were born.
It’s not too late to get this big skeleton for your yard.**

Whether you’re picking the perfect tailgate playlist or heading to the post-game party, AT&T Connected Car™ makes sure you don’t miss a moment. Get game-day ready.*

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Nutritional facts

The following ingredients form a popular Halloween candy. Can you name it?

Sugar, Wheat Flour, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Vegetable Oil (Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil), Lactose (Milk), Skim Milk, Milk Fat, Contains 2% Or Less Of: Lecithin (Soy), Pgpr, Vanillin, Artificial Flavor, Salt, Yeast, Baking Soda

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Answer

Kit Kat

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: automaton, meaning “a mechanism that is relatively self-operating, especially of robots.” Thanks to Lilah from Cleveland for a suggestion that speaks for itself. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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Written by Abigail Rubenstein, Brendan Cosgrove, Dave Lozo, Matty Merritt, and Neal Freyman

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