Economics

There are precious few things partisan politicians agree on. One demonstrable exception is their love of the kitchen-table-economics analogy, how average Americans of all stripes struggle to make ends meet. The analogy is always the same, families making the difficult choices and finding common-sense solutions to manage their finances. The…

Corporations are AI and they’ve been fucking up the world for centuries — If you expand your definition of AI to match the legal definition, it’s already here. Corporations have had legal personhood for centuries and used that to run riot over the world. Just because these artificial beings have human components we don’t call them AI, but we’re the ones getting squashed…

Does climate change really not pose a risk? Let’s look at the numbers. — At a recent event, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said that climate change does not pose a serious risk to financial systems, and the large banks don’t need to worry about it. To be clear, he does believe that climate change is real, just that it isn’t a risk, at…

What goes up must come down? A myth that hurts investors — If you’ve ever spent 10 minutes at a roulette table, you’ve probably seen the following scenario play out: A gambler is trying to decide whether to put their money on Red or Black. They look at the electronic sign that shows what numbers have recently hit. They see that the…

BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Almost half of the human population is found in just these 5 nations. In principle, BRICS could be a serious force in world affairs. Over the last 10–15 years, BRICS has become a more coherent geopolitical bloc. One of their…

There are intricate similarities between the way evolution happens in nature and the formation of modern economies. This article nudges you to ponder over the delicate balance of ecosystems, the iterative nature of evolution, and the evolving challenges within human societies. To keep the conversation flowing smoothly, I've put it…

By: Rooz Aliabadi, Ph.D. In the 2008 film “Wall-E,” humans inhabit a society that can be described as a fully automated luxury communism. In various forms, AI-powered robots perform all labor-intensive tasks. At the same time, people lead inactive lifestyles, growing overweight and engrossed in television and computer games. Taking…

A win at any cost (scorched earth) strategy — This is the theory: make it impossible to reach a deal on the debt ceiling, crash the economy, then try to place the blame on the Democrats so the GOP (Trump) can win in 2024. This is the actual plan of the extreme right MAGA House members. Yesterday, one of…

We just call it something else now — Many ancient people practiced human sacrifice. One or more human beings would be thrown into a volcano or off a cliff. The Aztecs practiced heart extraction at the top of their pyramids. There were other ways, all of them awful. The cultures who practiced human sacrifice believed it was necessary…