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finance



  • Dickens Would Have Had Bankman-Fried's Number

    The novelist targeted the absurdities and self-congratulation of utilitarian philosophers, the forerunners of the tech industry's "effective altruism," in his 1854 "Hard Times." 



  • The Fall of the American Fraudster?

    From Sam Bankman-Fried to Dr. Oz, are the latest wave of American scam artists going to get what's coming to them? Stephen Mihm puts the lastest round of hucksters into the longer history of American fraud, official indifference, and public credulousness.



  • Indentured Students: Elizabeth Tandy Shermer on Student Debt (Monday, October 4)

    Elizabeth Tandy Shermer shows that Democrats and Republicans intentionally wanted to create a student loan industry instead of generously funding colleges and universities, which eventually left millions of Americans drowning in student debt. Zoom, Monday, Oct. 4, 4:00 PM EDT.


  • Why Does Speculation Persist in the Age of Predictive Data?

    by Gayle Rogers

    "During this pandemic, all of us have studied many data points to assess our risks and predict how safe our futures will be under X or Y scenarios. Even when there has been no shortage of data, even when the data have overwhelmed us, the future has never been made certain and clear for us by them. Instead, we have had to become speculators to some degree."



  • When University Leaders Fail

    by François Furstenberg

    A university governed by long timelines and long-term thinking grows conservatively and cautiously and prepares itself prudently for potential crises. If you turn a university into a giant corporation, on the other hand, it will rise and fall with the business cycle.



  • The Death of the Central Bank Myth

    by Adam Tooze

    A financial historian argues that it's time to see institutions like the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve as political actors and question how and why they act.



  • The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back

    by Adam Tooze

    The latest U.S. data proves the world is in its steepest freefall ever—and the old economic and political playbooks don’t apply.