Axios

Americans desperately want day-to-day life to be more affordable. Right now, they aren't getting it.

The big picture: The pinch of high prices for food, energy, housing and more has driven seismic shifts in public opinion over the last four years. Since the onset of the Iran war, the cost of living looks likely to get worse, not better, at least in the near term.

A cultural shift toward downsizing fueled by a GLP-1 drug boom and slimming celebrities is destabilizing for people trying to achieve acceptance, mental health experts and body positivity advocates tell Axios.

Why it matters: Still, the body positivity movement, advocates say, is an ongoing fight that won't shrink with the trends.

OpenAI spent the last year trying to be everything — a video platform, a shopping portal, even a purveyor of AI erotica.

• Now it's racing to become a thing that makes money.

Why it matters: OpenAI is retreating from risky consumer features like adult content while prioritizing business tools and revenue growth — just as competition from Anthropic intensifies.

President Trump's signature is set to appear on U.S. currency — a first for a sitting president — as Americans use physical cash less than ever.

Why it matters: Cash still carries outsized symbolic power — even as its role in everyday payments shrinks.

A bipartisan panel of House Ethics Committee members found Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) guilty of financial misconduct and other charges on summary judgment following a testy, hourslong hearing.

Why it matters: The Ethics Committee will meet in mid-April to decide on appropriate punitive action, which could include fines, censure or even expulsion.

In Austin, rising mortgage rates are complicating a housing market that had been cooling after pandemic-era price surges.

Why it matters: Higher borrowing costs could slow a shift toward more buyer-friendly conditions, even as prices fall and inventory improves.

The big picture: The average 30-year mortgage rate climbed to 6.43% last week from 6.3%, while applications fell 10.5%, per the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Zoom in: Refinance applications dropped 14.6%.

What they're saying: "Higher mortgage rates… pushed some potential homebuyers to the sidelines," MBA economist Joel Kan said in a statement.

When the Iran war started, market analysts issued reassuring notes: Short-lived geopolitical shocks don't typically rattle the stock market, they said.

Why it matters: We're now into month two of conflict. Equities are wobbling, and investors are growing increasingly skeptical of President Trump's assurances.

Where it stands: The tech-heavy Nasdaq index is now down 11% from its record-high close on Oct. 29 — officially entering correction territory.

• The Russell 2000, an index tracking smaller companies, landed in correctionville last week.
• The S&P 500 has held up a bit better, but it's down 7.2% from its closing high.

Catch up quick: Minutes after the market closed Thursday, Trump posted that he was extending the deadline for Iran negotiations.

• "As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 days." That would bring his latest deadline to Monday, April 6.

The latest: That statement didn't calm the markets for long. Oil prices spiked to around $110 a barrel when the market reopened.

• "While the delay might reduce some of the immediate escalation risk, it offers no new visibility on the path toward resolution," Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a note this morning.

The big picture: If the market does take a another leg down, the effects on American households would be more pronounced than in previous oil price shock moments.

• Nearly 40% of household wealth in the U.S. is tied up in stocks — compared with about 10% during the 1990 oil price shock, UBS economist Arend Kapteyn said in a note yesterday.
• That means Americans would be hit with a double whammy from the geopolitical conflict: higher energy prices and lower brokerage account balances. That in turn would be a drag on overall economic growth, as households cut back on spending.
• It would also be another downer to the consumer mood.

Zoom out: The stock market doesn't typically take kindly to long periods of high oil prices stemming from Middle East Conflict.

• Over the past 50 years, there were nine oil price shocks, where prices rose 20% or more, according to an analysis from Joe Seydl, a senior markets economist at JPMorgan Private Bank.

Zoom in: Four of those shocks led to a selloff in stocks — an S&P decline greater than 10%:

• The 1973 oil embargo, the Iranian hostage crisis, the 1990 Gulf war and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• In each case, oil prices rose more than 50%.

Stunning stat: The price of Brent crude is up nearly 40% from the beginning of the war.

Yes, but: It's not just the oil price that triggered the selloff, Seydl writes. Each of those selloffs coincided with either a recession in the six months after the shock or Federal Reserve interest rate increases.

• The past doesn't predict the future.

What to watch: Weekend postings by Trump. The president has had a tendency to escalate the conflict with Iran with social media posts on Saturdays and Sundays that in turn has driven a lot of market volatility.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom told Axios he doesn't believe artificial intelligence will lead to an apocalypse for humanity.

• "I'm not a 'doomer.' I can't live like that," he said during an interview for "The Axios Show."

Why it matters: Newsom, a potential contender for president in 2028, has a more optimistic view of AI than many in the Democratic Party's left wing, but wants to shape the future of tech through regulation rather than trying to halt the development of AI — or let it run amok.

Following the Senate's push to ban institutional investors from owning single-family homes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is now pressing the corporate landlords that hold multifamily apartments and manufactured homes.

Why it matters: These companies, including private equity and publicly traded real estate firms, are taking heat from lawmakers and the president over a housing affordability crisis that's gripped the country in recent years.

Where it stands: This week, Warren sent letters to 14 corporate landlords, including Blackstone, Starwood and Invitation Homes, seeking more information on:

• The number of properties they or their affiliates own or have sold, rents charged, evictions conducted and more. The letter asks for a detailed accounting of complaints by renters across their properties.
• The letter to Starwood, viewed by Axios, also requests information on any communications the company has had with the Trump administration.

Catch up quick: Earlier this month, the Senate passed the ROAD to Housing Act by a 89-10 vote. The product of negotiations between Warren and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the bill would ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes.

• The provision is getting big pushback from House conservatives who are calling it "socialism." The big housing companies also say they're being unfairly targeted.
• Institutional investors hold just 3% of single-family homes in the U.S., Warren notes.

Yes, but: Blackstone has said that the number is even smaller — with investors owning 0.5% of single-family homes and it holding just 0.06%. "Far too immaterial to impact rents or markets," it said in an earlier release.

• The firm argues that single-family rental homes enhance housing affordability.

Zoom in: These companies play a bigger role in manufactured housing and multifamily rentals.

• In her letter, Warren says they are responsible for higher rents and eviction rates.

What they're saying: "America is facing a housing crisis with skyrocketing costs and a severe shortage of affordable housing supply," she writes.

• "Wall Street and giant corporate landlords are making the crisis worse by gobbling up homes and apartment complexes, jacking up housing costs across the country, and using aggressive and discriminatory tactics to push up profits at the expense of families."

The other side: "Our members offer quality homes to hardworking families who prefer the flexibility of renting or who are not yet positioned to buy," said the National Rental Home Council, a trade association that represents Invitation Homes and other big institutional landlords.