‘Cadillac Desert’ Reconsidered
Marc Reisner’s 1986 book demonstrates how a hypertrophic judiciary combines with America’s deadlocked legislature to make vast swaths of Western water policy dependent on 19th-century legal norms.
The Hit Hollywood Didn’t Want
Ryan Coogler’s bloodsucker blockbuster is all about Black creative freedom. No wonder the industry saw it as a threat.
The Internet’s Tollbooth Operators
Tim Wu’s The Age of Extraction chronicles the way Big Tech platforms have turned against their users.
Artifice in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
To understand the tech mindset is to see that the ultimate goal is domination. Silicon Valley elites apply a different standard to themselves because, quite simply, they believe that they deserve a different set of rules and expectations.
Meet the Connectors
Middlemen, our economy’s most shadowy characters, sit in between buyers and sellers and get rich in the process. It can even be a matter of life or death.
Trapped at the Concession Stand
Captive pricing follows when customers have no choices. Policymakers can do something about it.
A Breakup Letter to Capitalism
I’m just not that into you.
The Cost of Climate
Extreme weather and changes in seasonal patterns are fundamentally altering the landscape, in cities and in farming communities. You’re going to pay for it.
To Be Black, Female, and Unemployed
How unemployment in the Trump era shapes Black women’s lives when maternal care and food choices are in the mix
Lightning in a Bottle
Regulatory capture is at the root of the affordability crisis in electricity. Public power could offer a way out.
The $79 Trillion Heist
We’re in an affordability crisis because workers aren’t being paid at the same levels they earned in the past.
Prices in the Machine
AI’s real contribution to humanity could be maximizing corporate profit by preying on personal data to raise prices. In fact, it’s already happening.
Sources of America’s Hidden Inflation
How market power jacks up prices, and how Trump’s policies add to the pressure
Selling the Poor on Spending Like They’re Rich
How plutonomy, premiumization, and social media squeeze the middle class
The Historic Reversal of Cultural Affordability
America used to be a pioneer in democratizing culture.
