Greetings, On The Money readers!

I am on vacation at the beach with my family, so I’ll keep this edition short and sweet.

I also celebrated a birthday (!) this week. As I take another turn around the sun, I’m especially grateful for your loyal readership. 

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Our youngest son is heading to graduate school for an engineering degree, so I am especially interested in U.S. President Donald Trump’s new tax and spending bill, which was signed into law on Friday. 

The law will affect the amount students and their families can borrow for federal financial aid, as well as eligibility for Pell Grants, designed to help low-income undergraduate students. It also impacts graduate school funding –  Grad PLUS loans will be eliminated. 

Grad PLUS loans were created in 2006 to help graduate students cover the cost of attendance that exceeded the maximum $20,500 a year graduate students could receive through unsubsidized Stafford loans. (The tuition for my son’s graduate program is about $37,000 a year – that’s not including living expenses or other incidentals.)

As of this year's second quarter, there were 1.8 million Grad PLUS borrowers and they borrowed a total of $117.2 billion to pay for graduate school attendance, according to Federal Student Loan Portfolio data.

Under the new legislation, unsubsidized graduate borrowing for master's programs will be capped at $20,500 per year ($100,000 lifetime) and $50,000/year for professional programs such as law and medicine ($200,000 lifetime). Right now, borrowers can apply for a Grad PLUS loan up to the cost of program attendance if they need more to cover tuition or living expenses.

That will leave families scrambling to fill the gap. And private loans often have higher interest rates, which may deter some from attending graduate school in the first place. 

Are there any fans of the television show Succession in the house? Who would you cast to play Federal Reserve chair Jeremy Powell?

The Fed is at the center of its own succession drama right now. Should Powell stay or go? 

Listen to our journalists discuss what’s at stake, and let me know what you think (and who you would cast in the movie version!) at onthemoney@thomsonreuters.com.

In addition, check out this article on why Fed officials say they are paying particular attention to surveys, interviews with business leaders, and other "soft" data to provide a real-time sense of how decision makers are responding to White House policy.

Pockets of opportunity. Traders are starting to look beyond the euro when shorting the dollar as they look to capitalize on expectations for further weakness in the U.S. currency. Watch here.

How stable are Stablecoins? REUTERS/Marcelo Del Pozo

Top central bankers aren’t impressed with the global stablecoin craze. Experts argue that stablecoins are no substitute for money. Frankly, I am skeptical.

Stablecoins, which are pegged to a stable asset like the U.S. dollar or gold, are a type of cryptocurrency designed to minimize price volatility. 

By contrast, the most popular cybercurrency is Bitcoin – its price fluctuates based on market demand. And Bitcoin just hit a new high of $112,000. 

So what do you think? Is the dollar dead? Are Stablecoins the currency of the future or will other digital currencies triumph?

Write to me at onthemoney@thomsonreuters.com. I read every email.

I'd love to be in a bed with my dog right now. Yukinori Kinoshita/Handout via REUTERS

Now that the tax bill is wrapped up, tariffs are dominating headlines again.

The duo behind Plufl are among tens of thousands of American small and midsize manufacturers facing the choice between paying steep tariffs on Chinese imports or taking on significantly higher domestic production costs.

Even those willing to pay more to make goods in the United States are confronting another reality: retailers set prices for consumers and have been largely unwilling to budge in the face of tariffs.

Here is how several business owners are trying to avoid higher prices.