Author: Charles Gasparino

Semafor’s Liz Hoffman published a juicy little tale about Adam Aron, the voluble CEO of AMC Theatres, the nation’s largest theater chain and a meme stock that recently crashed in spectacular style. The meme stocks craze began in 2021 and has seen better days. Shares of AMC traded at nosebleed levels, pushed by an oddly dedicated base of retail investors named the “AMC Apes,” who thought a money-losing theater chain company would make them rich. They became obsessed with conspiracy theories about the stock, such as an evil cabal of hedge funds wanting to destroy the company. They thought they…

The political organization No Labels preaches bipartisan compromise and is seeking a third-party ticket for the 2024 presidential election. But the group also appears to be at war with itself. The fissures in the organization boiled over Wednesday night during a conference call after the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The speaker’s removal came when eight renegade Republicans found common ground with all 208 Democrats to get the necessary votes for his dismissal. As many as four Democrats affiliated with No Labels voted for McCarthy to get the ax, which led to an intense conference call that night attended…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday is scheduled to meet in New York City with a who’s who of the nation’s top finance people, business leaders, diplomats and even a chef to discuss how private sector money can be used to help rebuild his war-torn country, FOX Business has learned. Watch the latest video at foxbusiness.com The meeting was put together by JPMorgan, the big bank serving as Zelenskyy’s financial adviser to attract private capital for a new investment fund to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure destroyed in its war with Russia, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Earlier in the afternoon,…

When you think of a ­“banana republic,” you think of corrupt dictators someplace distant, where the people in power control the economy and jail their political opponents. Places like this still exist in the world — and believe it or not, right here in the good ’ol US of A. Don’t believe me? Consider the absurd campaign-finance fraud case that partisan Democrat Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg brought against Don­ald Trump. Bragg twisted logic and law to indict the former president because he was a Republican, even if the stated premise was that Trump paid hush money to an ­alleged paramour. That Trump, as…

Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein says the friction between him and David Solomon is “so overplayed” and that he is planning to have dinner with Goldman’s current and embattled chief executive this weekend to further bury the hatchet, The Post has learned. His remarks to The Post come amid persistent speculation that Blankfein, who anointed Solomon as head of the prestigious investment bank back in 2018, now wants his former protege out amid a long and unusual dispute between two of Wall Street’s biggest names. Blankfein, in private conversations, has been critical of Solomon’s management of the firm and its declining share price…

It was December of 2021. I had COVID and was on the verge of being officially diagnosed with prostate cancer. Things were pretty bad and suddenly got worse: I noticed “Fire Gasparino” trending on Twitter — not because I had made up a story, or defamed someone. My “sin” was reporting, continuously and accurately, that an investment cult had formed around the stock of the troubled movie theater chain known as AMC, pushing its shares well above where they should be. And like most cults, this one wouldn’t end well. The abuse lasted through Christmas. I guess I could have…

Sean O’Brien just might be the worst labor leader in America. If you don’t believe me, just consider his horrible performance last week culminating in the unemployment of thousands of his working-class members, and a sweet payday for Wall Street fat cats. As the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, O’Brien styles himself as a fighter, an in-your-face kind of guy in public and on social media, daring big corporations to mess with him and his members under the handle ­@TeamsterSOB. He recently negotiated a deal with UPS that averted a strike and won some concessions, so he must be doing…

SANTA MARIA DI CASTELLABATE, Italy — I’ve been reading a lot that it’s hot out, but there aren’t many places as smoldering as southern Italy in summer. It’s the so-called Mezzogiorno region that I just happened to pick as a vacation destination during what’s being billed as the deadliest heat wave since Vesuvius exploded and covered the area just a little north with molten lava. For the past two weeks, I’ve been hanging in and around Naples and met with family in the hills far south of that tourist trap known as the Amalfi Coast. For the unacquainted, these destinations are pretty…

Joe Biden recently tried to explain the meaning of “Biden­omics,” but the word salad offered by our half-coherent president on his economic philosophy was hard to decipher. Good thing you don’t have to listen to Sleepy Joe to understand the concept; you can just talk to some average Americans. They see Bidenomics as something more sinister — taxes, spending, business-strangulating regulations; stuff that causes sticky inflation. Despite Fed rate hikes, it won’t go away and it makes seemingly strong top-line economic numbers feel recessionary. Biden polls terribly on economic issues for the simple reason that people hate the fact that they have to work…

If you want to know why a transgender media influencer in a bubble bath appears in a Bud Light ad; why big companies shell out money for radical, Marxist charities like Black Lives Matter; or why de-facto racial hiring quotas exist under the euphemism of “diversity,” you need to know something about the business of “DEI.” It’s the acronym for the nearly $10 billion Diversity, Equity and Inclusion industry. It’s part of every large company’s ecosystem these days, enforced through increasingly progressive corporate HR departments that have distorted the term diversity to mean endless pride celebrations at the office, and…