If you haven’t seen it already, please go into the New York Times archives — that’s right, I’m recommending the Times — for an article by Thomas Edsall entitled “A Working-Class Party Without Many Workers.” Mr. Edsall is a former Washington Post columnist. And he wrote a very important piece. In a nutshell, he uses polling data that non-college educated people do not agree with the Democratic Socialists of America on key issues such as open borders, defunding the police, abolishing ICE, and support for an array of transgender rights.

What’s more, using the DSA’s own surveys, they are 85 percent non-Hispanic whites. Only 9 percent are Hispanics, and only 5 percent are Asian Americans. And 4 percent are blacks. And only 4 percent of the members held blue-collar jobs.

So you have to ask yourself, while comrade Abdul El-Sayed, comrade Francesca Hong, comrade Zohran Mamdani, and comrade Hasan Piker may claim to speak for the working class, the reality is that they don’t speak for the working class. 

Let me say right here there is an important political leader who speaks for the working class and their values, his name is President Trump. If you find this ironic, since the DSA has Trump Derangement Syndrome to the tenth power or more, it’s nonetheless a political fact of life.

Now, Mr. Edsall notes that the Democratic Party writ large has positive views of socialism, and that helps explain why many of the leading Democrats welcome the comrade socialists into their big tent, with the exception of Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senators John Fetterman and Joe Manchin. Yet not many.

In the main, the Democratic party regulars are welcoming the socialists, and the socialists are going to be a big open target of Republicans in the coming midterm elections. At a minimum, the socialists are going to give the GOP the Senate. I can’t yet vouch for the House. Yet Michigan and Maine and perhaps some others are going to go Republican.

It would be great if the GOP had a tax-cutting message to help working folks going into these elections, because yelling at socialism and communism may not be enough, especially to carry the House. The key point, though, is that while the socialists say they speak for the working folks, they don’t really have many working folks behind them at all. And Mr. Trump’s free enterprise policies are doing very well, thank you very much.

This article was written by

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Retail investors’ losses in India’s ​equity derivatives market fell ​nearly 18% year-on-year to 916.85 billion ​rupees ($9.61 billion) in the financial year ended March 2026, according to data provided by the government in Parliament on ‌Tuesday.

The ⁠government said ⁠the number of individual investors trading equity derivatives fell by nearly a fifth to 7.86 million, following a series of regulatory measures introduced by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to curb speculative trading activity in the segment ⁠over the ‌last 18 months.

The world’s most populous ​nation ​is home to more than 130 ⁠million retail traders and the world’s biggest ​equity derivative market by volume, in which ​9 out of 10 retail traders made losses on average, a study by the regulator found.
The data, based on an analysis conducted by SEBI, flagged retail investors have collectively ‌lost money in the derivatives segment in each of the last five financial years. ​Losses ​peaked at 1.12 ⁠trillion rupees in the fiscal year ending March 2025 before easing in FY26.
Total turnover also declined to ​202 trillion rupees from 213 trillion rupees year-on-year, according to a written reply by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary filed with the parliament.

McDonald’s has served billions of customers across nearly seven decades, and while the company does not publicly disclose exact, item-by-item sales figures, a consistent picture has emerged across industry analyses, franchise data and food writers who have studied the chain’s menu over the years: a handful of items account for the overwhelming majority of what customers order.

According to a composite of rankings compiled by food and business publications, French fries sit at the top of that list as McDonald’s single best-selling item of all time. The fries are made from a small number of specific potato varieties, including Russet Burbank, Ranger Russet, Umatilla Russet and Shepody potatoes, and are widely credited with a combination of salt, fat and starch that keeps customers coming back. Reporting has pegged the profit margin on fries at somewhere between 75% and 90%, making them not just the most popular item on the menu but also one of the most profitable, and surveys of McDonald’s Rewards data have found fries rank as the top seller in all 50 U.S. states.

Just behind fries sits the Big Mac, the double-patty burger that has become nearly synonymous with the McDonald’s brand itself since its national rollout in 1968. Built around a sesame-seed bun, two beef patties, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and the chain’s signature special sauce, the Big Mac has remained a global fixture of the menu for more than half a century. Its enduring popularity is often credited as much to marketing as to the sandwich itself, and the item has since spawned size variations, including the larger Grand Big Mac and smaller Mac Jr., extending its reach across different appetite levels and price points.

Chicken McNuggets round out the top tier of the ranking, generating what industry estimates place at more than $10 billion annually across the broader McNuggets category, which also includes the chain’s Spicy McNuggets variety introduced in recent years. Alongside McNuggets, McDonald’s lineup of chicken sandwiches, available in grilled, crispy and buttermilk crispy varieties, has also emerged as a consistent top performer, reflecting the chain’s decades-long expansion beyond its original beef-and-fries identity into a broader protein lineup.

The Happy Meal, McDonald’s child-focused combo featuring a small portion of food alongside a toy, ranks among the top sellers as well, a reflection of both the meal’s affordability and its decades-long role as an entry point for younger customers and their families. First introduced in 1979, the Happy Meal has evolved over the years to include healthier side and drink options while maintaining its core formula of pairing food with a collectible toy.

On the breakfast side of the menu, the Egg McMuffin stands out as one of the chain’s most consistently popular items since its introduction in 1972. Though the sandwich originally launched with jam and honey as suggested condiments, a detail long since dropped from the standard recipe, it quickly became a breakfast staple. By the early 1980s, breakfast items, led by the McMuffin, accounted for roughly 18% of all McDonald’s sales, and the company has reported buying more than 2 billion eggs annually in recent years, or roughly 5% of total U.S. egg production, a figure driven in large part by sustained McMuffin demand.

Rounding out the list of McDonald’s most enduring sellers are several longtime menu staples: the Quarter Pounder with Cheese, developed by franchise owner Al Bernardin in 1973 to fill a gap for a heartier, beef-forward sandwich option; the Filet-O-Fish, which dates back to 1962 and remains one of the most recognizable fish sandwiches in fast food; the classic Apple Pie, a dessert staple since the company’s early expansion; the Double Cheeseburger, valued for its combination of affordability and portion size; and the McGriddles breakfast sandwich, which pairs a sausage, egg and cheese filling between two syrup-infused pancake buns.

Some items that have drawn outsized cultural attention over the years, including the McRib, do not consistently rank among the chain’s top sellers by volume, despite generating intense fan loyalty. First introduced in 1981 as a way to help meet demand during the early days of the Chicken McNuggets rollout, the McRib was initially pulled from the menu due to underwhelming sales before its eventual return sparked what has become one of fast food’s most famous examples of scarcity-driven marketing, with the sandwich periodically reappearing on the menu to renewed fanfare despite never becoming a permanent fixture.

McDonald’s has consistently declined to comment on updated, item-specific sales figures when asked by outlets compiling these rankings, meaning most published lists rely on a combination of franchise-level sales data, regional loyalty program breakdowns, industry analyst estimates and historical reporting rather than official company disclosures. That has occasionally led to some variation in exact ordering between different published rankings, though French fries and the Big Mac consistently appear at or near the top across nearly every version of the list.

McDonald’s overall scale underscores why even modest per-item variations in ranking still represent enormous sales volumes. The company operates more than 40,000 restaurants worldwide, and reporting has indicated that more than 85% of U.S. households visit a McDonald’s location at least once annually, a reach that has helped cement its core menu items as some of the most widely consumed food products in American history.

While new items, limited-time offerings and regional menu variations continue to rotate through McDonald’s lineup regularly, the chain’s core best sellers, led by fries, the Big Mac and Chicken McNuggets, have remained remarkably stable fixtures atop the menu for decades, a testament to the staying power of a formula McDonald’s has largely kept unchanged since establishing these items as menu mainstays generations ago.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said high inflation concerned him more than labour-market weakness, signalling what appears to be his support for Fed rate hike.

“The biggest problem facing our economy right now is not the collapse of industry and the collapse of jobs; it’s that prices have been rising too fast. We got an inflation problem, and people hate inflation,” Goolsbee said in a Wired video published on Tuesday and recorded on June 22.

Citing indicators such as unemployment, hiring and layoffs, he described the labour market as “stable, without being good.”

However, it remains unclear whether he supported the rate increase sought by several colleagues last month.

The Fed kept its policy rate unchanged at 3.50%-3.75% on July 29, with three of its 12 voting policymakers dissenting in favour of an increase.Goolsbee, who does not vote on monetary policy this year, has not said whether he supported the decision. Inflation has exceeded the Fed’s 2% target for more than five years, though many policymakers expect it to resume declining later this year.
Traders scaled back bets on Fed tightening after data released on Friday showed that the US economy unexpectedly lost jobs in July. CME interest-rate futures now indicate nearly even odds of a rate increase or another pause in September.
Economists expect Wednesday’s data to show that consumer inflation accelerated again in July after easing in June.

Unlike his immediate predecessors, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has offered little indication of where he believes interest rates should head. Goolsbee has expressed similar doubts about providing forward guidance.

In Tuesday’s video, Goolsbee did not offer specific views on the appropriate stance of monetary policy. Instead, he answered online questions about the Fed and the economy, including whether AI could destroy the job market and how to identify a counterfeit $100 bill.

“If AI takes some jobs, it will take the tasks in those jobs, but I’m still pretty hopeful and expecting that we’re going to figure out how to keep people employed,” Goolsbee said.

He added that behind the Chicago Fed’s 80,000-pound vault door were “many tens of billions” of dollars being checked for authenticity and wear.

Goolsbee advised using sight and touch to identify counterfeit bills. “Please don’t lick it,” he said.

–With inputs from agencies

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the FutureFuel Second Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce Rose Sparks, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Rose Sparks
CFO, Principal Accounting Officer & Treasurer

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the FutureFuel Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Leading the call today are our Chairman and CEO, Roeland Polet; and I’m Rose Sparks, the company’s Chief Financial Officer.

After the close of U.S. trading yesterday, we issued a press release detailing our second quarter operational and financial results. This release is publicly available in the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at www.futurefuelcorporation.com.

I would like to remind you that management’s commentary and responses to questions on today’s conference call may include forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside the company’s control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs, actual results could differ materially. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the Risk Factors section of our latest reports filed with the SEC.

Additionally, please note that you can find reconciliations of all historical non-GAAP financial measures mentioned on this call in the press release issued this morning. Today’s call will begin with prepared remarks from Roeland Polet, who will provide a business update, followed by my review of our