Good morning.

It’s Tuesday, December 30, and honestly, we’re not sure if anybody is reading this or if we’re all just auto-replies at this point.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: New Year’s resolutions. Suddenly everyone is waking up at 5 a.m., drinking chlorophyll, starting a company, and “being intentional.” Sure.

So here’s the realistic wish for the new year:

May your money make sense.
May your work actually work for you.
May your ideas stop living in Notes app drafts.
May freedom stop being a buzzword and start being your schedule.

We’ll be here next year, and until then — disappear respectfully, avoid anyone with a vision board, and if someone asks what you’re doing this week, say “transitioning” and don’t explain.

Today’s stories:

• Rents drop as apartment supply finally wins

• Student loan wage garnishment is back

• Airports reopen gates to non-travelers

• Google finally lets you rename Gmail

• Weight-loss drugs ditch the needle

• Beyoncé joins the billionaire elite

• Google buys power to feed AI

• Nvidia drops $20B on AI chips

• NYC finally kills the MetroCard

  and more…

Silver’s hot streak snapped on Monday — hard. After ripping higher, the metal logged its worst single-day drop in more than four years, plunging 8.7% as the CME jacked up margin requirements on silver, gold, platinum, and palladium futures to cool the recent chaos. Translation: trading just got more expensive, leverage dried up, and speculators headed for the exits. Gold slid too, but silver took the full hit, marking its sharpest one-day fall since February 2021.

Stocks didn’t escape the mood shift. Big tech led the pullback, with Oracle, Nvidia, and Tesla dragging indexes lower. The Nasdaq and Dow each fell about 0.5%, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% — a comedown after the Dow and S&P both tagged fresh all-time highs on Christmas Eve.

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Rent Prices Are Falling (No, Really)

Good news for renters: rents are finally coming down. Slowly. Calmly. Almost suspiciously. Across the 50 biggest U.S. cities, median rent dipped again in November. That’s the 28th straight month of year-over-year declines, according to Realtor.com. National median rent is now lower too, per Apartment List. Not cheap. Just… less unhinged. November is usually the dead season for rentals, but this year prices fell more than last year. Why? Too many apartments. In 2024 alone, over 600,000 new units hit the market — the most since the 1980s. Supply showed up. Demand calmed down. Math happened.

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Alphabet decides to make its own electricity. Alphabet is buying Intersect Power for $4.75 billion in cash, plus its debt. The deal lets Google power its data centers directly, without relying on local utilities that are already overwhelmed by AI demand. AI models need massive energy. The grid said “best I can do.” Google said “we’ll handle it.” Alphabet already owned a minority stake in Intersect. This is just commitment with paperwork. Their long-term goal: $20 billion in energy and data infrastructure by 2030. Intersect builds “data parks” — basically AI campuses parked right next to wind, solar, and battery power. Less waiting. More training models. Very efficient. Very billionaire. Google will be the main user, but other companies can plug in too. Think industrial park, but for AI chips instead of forklifts. Deal closes next year. Data parks should be up by 2027. The grid remains stressed.

Beyoncé entered the billionaire chat. Beyoncé is now a billionaire. For most artists, a $600 million world tour would be a career peak. For Beyoncé, that was just Act One. The Renaissance World Tour dominated 2023, broke records, and reminded everyone who runs pop culture, alongside Taylor Swift. Then 2024 happened. Beyoncé casually dropped a country album, Cowboy Carter, expanded her audience again, grabbed new deals, did a Christmas NFL halftime show, and rolled straight into the biggest concert tour of 2025. Normal behavior. All of that pushed her into billionaire territory — making her one of only five musicians to ever do it. The list includes her husband Jay-Z, plus Rihanna and Bruce Springsteen. Small group. Loud impact.

The collection era has returned. The U.S. Department of Education is restarting student loan collections in January, and yes, that includes taking money straight from paychecks. Under the Donald Trump administration, wage garnishment for defaulted student loans kicks off the week of January 7. First wave: about 1,000 borrowers. Then more. And more. This hasn’t happened since Covid, when collections were paused and everyone briefly felt peace. The government can legally grab wages, tax refunds, and even Social Security benefits. Up to 15% of after-tax income can be taken. Notices are coming. The system is warming up.

Nvidia’s biggest deal ever. Nvidia just dropped $20 billion in cash to buy most of the assets of AI chip startup Groq. Groq was valued at under $7 billion three months ago. Nvidia said “cute” and bought the whole toolbox. Groq designs high-speed AI chips focused on inference — aka making AI models run faster and cheaper. Nvidia wants that. Immediately. Groq’s top execs are joining Nvidia to scale the tech. The company itself will technically stay “independent,” which in tech usually means “don’t worry about it.” Investors in Groq included BlackRock, Samsung, Cisco, and a fund linked to Donald Trump Jr.. Very bipartisan portfolio. This is Nvidia’s largest acquisition ever. For context: its previous biggest deal was $7B. Nvidia currently has over $60B in cash, so this barely hurt. AI needs chips. Nvidia is buying everything that moves.

You Can Finally Escape Your 2009 Gmail Address

After 20+ years of commitment issues, Google is finally letting users change their @gmail address without losing everything attached to it. Until now, if you made your email at 14 and chose something like [email protected], that was your identity forever. Email, Drive, YouTube, documents, receipts from 2013 — all chained to the same questionable username. Now, Google is slowly rolling out a feature that lets users change their Gmail address and keep all their data. Old emails stay. Services stay. Your dignity improves. Your old address doesn’t even disappear. It becomes an alias and still receives emails, like a forwarding ghost of your former self.

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Ozempic, but make it a pill. The FDA just approved the first GLP-1 weight-loss pill from Novo Nordisk, the same company behind Wegovy. Yes, it’s basically Wegovy, but in pill form, for people who hate needles and commitment. The pill launches in early 2026. Starting in January, the lowest dose will be available for $149 a month through pharmacies and some telehealth platforms. Affordable-ish. For now. Same price if you buy it through TrumpRx, a new direct-to-consumer site backed by Donald Trump. Because of course weight loss needed a political subplot. Novo Nordisk stock jumped about 10% after the news, because Wall Street loves anything that suppresses appetite and prints money. Bonus: the pill is also approved to lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes in people with obesity. Same ingredient, same effect, fewer injections, more demand.

Gate Goodbyes Are Back

Airports are slowly letting non-travelers past security again. Yes, actually past TSA. Like it’s 1998 and someone’s about to run through the terminal yelling a name. After 20+ years of “gate access is forbidden,” U.S. airports are rolling out Guest Pass programs. No, NYC isn’t invited yet. JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark are still acting brand new. But elsewhere, gates are opening. Before you sprint to security: relax. You still need approval. You apply online, usually up to a week ahead. Sometimes same day if the airport is feeling generous.

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The MetroCard is finally retiring. New York is officially retiring the MetroCard. The swipe. The bend. The prayer. Gone. The last day to buy or refill a MetroCard is December 31, 2025. After that, it’s fully tap-and-go with OMNY — tap your card, phone, or device and move on with your life. The MetroCard replaced subway tokens back in 1994 and instantly felt futuristic. Fast-forward 30 years, and its magnetic strip has been fighting for its life every morning since. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, over 90% of rides already use tap-to-pay. The rest of us were just emotionally attached. Cities like London and Singapore figured this out years ago. In the U.S., San Francisco, Chicago, and others are already there. New York is late. Again. But at least it showed up.

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TikTok of the day:  watch here

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