Wannabe Gordon Gekkos
Are you missing the point by idolizing them?
19420 Articles by: Yi San
Yi San is a freelance writer based in New York.
Minecraft Scorsese
A Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg satire of mainstream film’s IP problem — in which everything is an adaptation of something else — fails to excuse or address their own extensive IP crimes.
In Carbon We Trust
In Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a global currency backed by carbon removal turns speculation into salvation.
Five Books on Speculation
As history and literature are quick to remind us, many a get-rich-quick scheme has ended in sorrow.
Fruit of the Union
Union assets have skyrocketed while membership remains largely stagnant.
DJ D-Sol’s Double Life
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon knows how to drop a beat. But could he handle a drop in the markets?
Heavy Metals Music
Zamrock emerged from the optimism of postindependence Zambia, fusing psychedelic rock with nationalist ambition. Its rise and fall mirror the promise — and the exhaustion — of a country built on copper.
Money for Nothing
Why the modern financial sector is better at extracting rents than funding the future.
Elon’s Slash-and-Burn Operation
DOGE has cut millions of dollars’ worth of grants in every state.
A Socialism That Invents
Why Nordic countries out-innovate the United States.
Making Plagues Investable
The World Bank’s pandemic bonds tried to turn public health crises into speculative opportunities.
State of the Art
At the height of the NFT craze, the cost of some digital art surpassed that of the great masters’.
Attacks on Undocumented Workers Are Attacks on Unions
Contrary to popular belief, many undocumented workers are organized in unions across the US. But ICE’s mass arrests will target these unionized immigrants disproportionately and weaken the hand of labor.
Zohran Mamdani Is Right on Public Safety
In last night’s New York City mayoral debate, socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani warded off attacks about “defunding the police” by articulating a principled and compelling message on public safety.
For All That Is Good About Humankind, Ban Smartphones
Smartphones are making us unhealthy, miserable, antisocial, and less free. If we can’t yet nationalize the attention economy, maybe it’s time to abolish its primary tool — before it finishes abolishing us.
The Danish Government’s Awful Stance on Gaza
Some European leaders have started to rhetorically distance themselves from Israel — but Denmark’s government hasn’t even gone that far. For all its boasting about its role championing human rights, it turns a blind eye toward Israeli crimes.
Designing a Wealth Tax for Today’s Robber Barons
A proposed wealth tax on Canada’s richest 0.6% could raise hundreds of billions of dollars — enough to tackle housing, transit, and care. The sheer scale of what a tiny slice of billionaire wealth could fund is staggering.
How the First Black Bank Was Looted
In the early days of the Gilded Age’s rush for profit, freed people’s savings were siphoned off by politically connected financiers. Justene Hill Edwards’s Savings and Trust uncovers how finance cloaked dispossession in the language of uplift.