Reading Time: 4 minutes After a 68 percent drop in deposits at the end of 2022, and a 48 percent workforce layoff in January, Silvergate Capital, a major lender in the crypto industry, announced on Wednesday that it would be liquidating and winding down operations. Its stock dropped 36 percent in after-hours trading. On Thursday, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) […]
economics
Posted inThe Future
A deluge of artificial stories: The chatbot crisis at Clarkesworld
Reading Time: 5 minutes Two days ago, Clarkesworld shut its doors to tackle a rising tide of story submissions that had all the hallmarks of being generated by chatbots. The surge happened especially as ChatGPT functionality became more widely accessible in the last few months. Solutions have not yet emerged to this problem, but my industry of speculative writers, […]
Posted inEconomics
Oil sanctions at last—and maybe too late
Reading Time: 4 minutes On February 5, the second in a staggered run of petroleum product sanctions against Russia came into full force, such as it is. The European Union set a ban on imports of Russian diesel, gasoline, and other refined petroleum products, while the G7, the EU, and other allies established global price caps on seaborne refined […]
Posted inLaw
New year, new laws: The US poverty and precarity crisis in 2023
Reading Time: 4 minutes As of January 1, 2023, the state of Missouri requires cities and counties to enforce a ban on sleeping on public property: under bridges, in parks, and of course along public walkways. Offenders face up to 15 days in jail, or a $750 fine. The same law also redirects state and federal funding away from […]
Posted inDeep Dive
2022: The year in global review, Part I
Reading Time: 8 minutes All end-of-year lists are suspect. One must embrace futility when trying to summarize what happened on a planet of eight billion for one spin around the sun. So why do we do write them? At best, to break up our routines of knee-jerk outrage at the latest inane news item, and to think more systematically […]
Posted inEconomics
Bankman-Fried arrested—Now what’s to be done about Ponzinomics?
Reading Time: 5 minutes On December 12, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested at his apartment complex in the Albany resort in the Bahamas, after US prosecutors sent formal notice to local officials that they had filed criminal charges against him. The founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which Bankman-Fried announced was filing for bankruptcy on November 11, had been scheduled […]
Posted inEnvironment
EU takes world-first step, banning products linked to deforestation
Reading Time: 3 minutes Change comes fast and slow, as the latest green deal out of the European Union (EU) amply illustrates. On December 6, the European Commission welcomed news of an agreement reached between EU’s parliament and a specific council established for the purposes of reducing Europe’s impact on global deforestation and forest degradation. Companies will now be […]
Posted inEconomics
Low-income workers get a little raise! Big whoop.
Reading Time: 4 minutes We’re all, at least to some degree, deluded. Whether we believe fervently in deities that—let’s be honest—seem not to exist anywhere. Whether we believe someone we love deeply loves us back when they actually don’t. Or whether we believe we understand what being poor really means. The problem is, we often blithely believe we aren’t […]
Posted inFree Expression
This week in protests and strikes: China, Iran, and the US
Reading Time: 5 minutes On Tuesday, November 29, the US and Iran played at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. It was a tense match, but not necessarily for reasons related to the game. The US Soccer Federation had originally flown an Iranian flag on social media platforms that omitted the emblem of the Islamic Republic. That was its […]
Posted inHuman Story
Inflation isn’t what’s making Americans unhappy
Reading Time: 4 minutes “It’s the economy, stupid.” It was a memorable 1992 quip that quickly went viral—and it’s still popular today—after being uttered by then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s political guru, James Carville, the “ragin’ Cajun.” Turns out, that theory may not necessarily be quite right, though. Carville was saying that the state of the economy, more than any […]