News / economy
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1 min read
Denied
Read more . . . →Four years of med school, overruled by a rubber stamp. A doctor holds a chest x-ray. You can see ribs, lungs, a whole human being on that film. Behind him a suit is pressing a red rubber stamp into it: NOT MEDICALLY NECESSARY. The suit hasn’t glanced at the film once. The stamp already says what it’s going to say, and it was going to say that before the patient walked in. Insurance as a system where the person making the call has the least medical training in the room, a stamp that has never once said yes, and a...
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Great View
Read more . . . →The evacuation plan has one seat and a selfie stick. Thumbs up, big grin, visor reflecting flames. Behind the helmet, the planet is on fire. Not a wildfire, not a region: the whole visible landmass is lit, and the smoke column is the biggest thing in the photo besides the astronaut’s ego. He is not heading back. The selfie is for the shareholders, or the memoir, or whichever platform still has signal at the edge of the atmosphere. Everyone else is down there, and the escape velocity cost more than their zip code.
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Welcome Mat
Read more . . . →The dollar on the mat is doing a lot of work for 400% APR. Rendered like an old engraving, which is generous. Payday lending has been around long enough to be illustrated in the style of a Victorian warning poster, and the image still undersells the damage. The door is a bear trap. A real one, spring-loaded, teeth out, with a single bill on the welcome mat in front of it. Subtle like a car alarm. The sign says PAYDAY LOAN and the building says the rest. Whoever walks in there for one dollar walks out owing the trap.
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1 min read
Giving Back
Read more . . . →The donation box is load-bearing. Without it, this is just a man eating two lobsters. The tuxedo, the chandelier, the gold watch, the lobster the size of a corgi. And then the cardboard cube, positioned like a garnish. It fits exactly one folded bill, which is the point. Tax-deductible compassion, portioned to fit next to the bread plate.
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Carbon Neutral
Read more . . . →One sapling, one private jet. The math checks out if you skip the math. He drove to the tarmac, put on gloves, and planted a tree that will take forty years to absorb what the jet behind him burns in a single flight. The photo goes straight into the annual report under “environmental stewardship.” The sapling will be dead by the next shareholder meeting because nobody budgeted for watering it. The offset certificate is framed on the wall next to the boarding pass for Davos, and the planet moved zero degrees in either direction. Planting one tree next to a...
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Steering as a Service
Read more . . . →The car still turns. It just wants to know if you’re on the annual plan. You bought the car. You did not, apparently, buy the part of the car that goes left. Heated seats were the warning shot and the wheel was always the plan. Cancel anytime, ideally at a red light.
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Fifty-Three Cents
Read more . . . →The government started tracking how much of the economy goes to workers in 1947. In seventy-nine years of data, it has never been lower than right now. Labor’s share of GDP just hit 52.8 percent. Corporate profits, in the same quarter, hit $4.8 trillion. Both are records. One of them gets celebrated on earnings calls. The other one is you. Twenty years ago, workers took home almost 65 cents of every dollar the economy generated. Now it’s 53 and dropping. Wages since 2019 are up 3 percent adjusted for inflation. Profits are up 50. That’s not a rounding error. That’s...
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The Economy Lost 23,000 Jobs and Unemployment Went Down
Read more . . . →The U.S. economy shed 23,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate went down. Not a typo. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that payrolls went negative and the rate “improved” to 4.1 percent, because 264,000 people left the workforce entirely. Stopped looking, stopped being counted. Labor force participation is at 61.4 percent, lowest in five years. The rate didn’t improve. The pool just got smaller. This is the number they’ll wave around. Four point one. Strong. Meanwhile average monthly job gains this year sit at 34,000. May’s numbers got revised down by 66,000 after the fact. June got...
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Trump's Tariffs Killed More Small Business Jobs Than COVID Did
Read more . . . →The math is in. The smallest American businesses — fewer than 10 employees — lost 4.5 times more jobs in 2025 than they did during the entire pandemic year of 2020. No lockdowns. No virus. Just Trump’s tariffs running for 13 straight months. 292,000 jobs gone from businesses that can’t offshore, can’t lobby, can’t absorb a 145% cost shock and survive it. The Joint Economic Committee broke it down by sector. Leisure and hospitality — restaurants, hotels — down 48,000 jobs and 15% of revenue. Small manufacturers down 38,000 jobs and 11% of revenue. These aren’t abstract numbers. These are...
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Happy Anniversary, Liberation Day
Read more . . . →One year ago this week, Trump stood in the Rose Garden and announced the highest tariffs in nearly a century. Called it “Liberation Day.” Promised it would bring back factory jobs, rebuild American manufacturing, and make other countries pay. Well, here’s your scorecard: factory jobs are down, inflation is up, and the Supreme Court ruled the whole thing was illegal. Liberated from what, exactly? Your own paycheck? The best part is the $2,000 rebate checks he dangled in front of everyone like a carnival prize. Not a single one has hit anyone’s bank account. Meanwhile, over 2,000 companies — including...
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