Be honest: Have you started holiday shopping yet?

I have not, but by this time next week I may be. Retailers have been running big sales already, and the latest projections have retail spending outpacing inflation for the balance of the year. Much of that spending, like the rest of the economy lately, will likely be K-shaped.

Then there’s President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Virtually all holiday decorations are manufactured overseas, which has some companies warning of shortages well before Christmas. Trump’s trade policy was before the Supreme Court this week, in what may well be the most economically important legal battle of his term.

A few years ago, Zach Hubert noticed a problem. Chinese pea protein was flooding the U.S. market at insanely low prices.

“They were selling it for 30 to 40% the cost to manufacture that same pea protein,” he said.

Hubert is the corporate development manager at Minnesota based PURIS, which manufactures pea protein that goes into shakes, bars, and pet food. PURIS was losing business. So it petitioned the U.S. government for help — and got it.

“The U.S. International Trade Commission imposed duties ranging from 127% to 626% on all imports of pea protein from China,” he said.

These are antidumping and countervailing duties — they’re the most surgical tariffs there are, they can be specific to individual companies or products.

“The next, bigger level is where we generally go after a country,” said Nicole Bivens Collinson, head of international trade and government relations at Sandler Travis and Rosenberg. 

If a whole country has shady trade practices like stealing technology, there’s a tariff for that. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 was used against China in the first Trump administration.

The president can also dust off tariffs from as far back as 1930 that have never or rarely been used. There’s Section 338 tariffs for when countries discriminate against the U.S., Section 122 tariffs if there’s an economic crisis around trade or currency flows. 

But wait, there’s more!

“If the President believes there are certain imports that are entering the United States that threaten our national security, then you can take action as well,” Bivens Collinson said.

National security tariffs apply to a whole industry across all countries, currently on steel and aluminum. They first require an investigation, and there are many on the way.

“We’ve got investigations on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, drones, wind turbines and their parts,” Bivens Collinson said.

That is a very partial list. Most of these ‘plan B’ tariffs require investigations, or have time limits on them, or eventually need authorization from Congress. Which is probably why they were not President Trump’s first choice. But, he’s got options. 

With housing prices skyrocketing in recent years, homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for many Americans. 

David Reiss, a law professor at Cornell University who studies housing policy, said there is a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg question when it comes to homeownership and wealth: Does homeownership build wealth, or do people who build wealth buy homes? 

There is some truth to the latter, but the general consensus among experts is that homeownership does build wealth, he said.

That’s due to a variety of factors: home values appreciate over time, home ownership is like a forced savings account because you’re paying down your mortgage, and homeowners can benefit from tax subsidies, experts told Marketplace. 

Over the past 10 to 15 years, housing prices have increased dramatically across most urban, suburban and even rural areas, said Jose Loya, an assistant professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“So the rate of return or the amount of wealth, depending on when you purchased, has dramatically increased for homeowners,” Loya said. Depending on the metro area, the rate of return is anywhere between 8% and 20% a year, he said. 

Assets like exchange-traded funds generally appreciate around 8% to 12% a year, Loya said. 

And the cost of borrowing, up until two years ago, had been really low, Loya pointed out. During the early years of the pandemic, homeowners were able to secure 30-year mortgage rates below 3%.  

But the majority of the wealth that homeowners accrue actually does not come from house appreciation, it comes through the mortgage interest deduction, Loya said.

“We lower the cost of home ownership dramatically in the U.S. In fact, the mortgage interest deduction is actually the largest subsidy in the U.S. tax code,” Loya said. “Without government subsidies, because that's what they are, homeownership as an asset would not actually be as appealing from a financial and economic standpoint.” 

$2 bills have a long history. The government has been printing them since 1862. They used to have a portrait of the first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton on them but now they have Thomas Jefferson. 

They’re the bill people love to not use. Some people think they’re bad luck, others just find it odd to pay with them. Some people collect the rare bills, even though most are only worth ... $2 dollars.

About 1.7 billion $2 bills are in circulation, way fewer than 14.9 billion $1 bills out there. With demand so low, the Fed didn’t order any for 2026. 

Don’t hate me, it’s not really a Christmas song! This version is instrumental, but of course the lyrics touch on gifts and sleighbells, and we have to talk about this year’s holiday spending.

Americans will be buying a lot of their favorite things this year. The National Retail Federation projects we’ll spend more than $1 trillion in November and December, outpacing the annual rate of inflation. Outlooks from Visa and Bank of America showed a similar rise but, shocker, mostly driven by high-income consumers. Poorer Americans, meanwhile, are planning to shop at more discount stores to keep up.