The bottom line

FEMA is spending $1.2 billion to repair up to 120,000 homes in Puerto Rico damaged by Hurricane Maria.

But more than 60 percent of that goes to overhead and markups by FEMA contractors instead of repairs. The markups have left FEMA paying $3,700 for $800 generators. Homeowners approved for up to $20,000 each in aid have routinely received less than half that amount, with the rest paid to middlemen.

The New York Times

Under President Trump, antitrust enforcement has fallen to its lowest level since 1972. The Justice Department publicly filed fewer than 20 criminal antitrust cases during the most recent fiscal year. By comparison, the Obama administration brought 72 antitrust prosecutions in its first year; the George W. Bush administration filed 44 cases.

Financial Times

Farm bankruptcies have doubled in the Upper Midwest since hitting a post-recession low in 2014, with at least 84 farms filing for bankruptcy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, and North and South Dakota from June

2017 to June 2018. Analysts fear things could get worse, because of falling commodity prices and trade conflicts

TheHill.com

Stock derivatives traders on Wall Street this year will see big pay raises, averaging 9.5 percent and bringing pay for top traders to $3 million. Turbulent markets have made complicated bets on ups and downs more lucrative.

The Wall Street Journal

With more big companies merging and tech firms waiting longer to go public, the number of publicly listed companies has fallen to 3,618. That’s down 52 percent since a peak in the late 1990s.

The New York Times