When the stock market rises, headlines often declare that the economy is strong. When it falls, commentators warn of a looming recession. The two are […]
The Stock Market Is Not the Economy
When the stock market rises, headlines often declare that the economy is strong. When it falls, commentators warn of a looming recession. The two are treated as interchangeable signals, as if a rising index automatically means rising prosperity and a falling one means broad decline. This framing is convenient, but it is misleading. The stock market reflects the valuation of publicly traded corporations. The economy reflects the lived reality of households, workers, small businesses, and communities. These spheres overlap, but they are not the same. Confusing them obscures inequality, distorts policy debates, and narrows our understanding of what economic health…
Women’s Hockey Champions Reduced to a Joke
Team USA’s women just pulled off the thing we claim to love most in American sport: They stared down their toughest rival, took Canada’s best shot, and still found a way to win when it mattered most. On February 19th in Milan, the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team beat Canada 2–1 in overtime for gold, completing a comeback and sealing it with an extra-time winner. Within days, though, the public conversation drifted from what the athletes did on the ice to what the US President said on a phone call. The controversy is not that a president invited champions to…
Lead Exposure Never Went Away
For many Americans, lead poisoning feels like a solved problem. It belongs to the past, alongside leaded gasoline and peeling paint in abandoned buildings. The narrative is comforting. We identified the danger, removed lead from consumer products, and moved on. That story is incomplete. Lead exposure never disappeared. It receded from middle-class visibility while remaining embedded in aging infrastructure, deteriorating housing, contaminated soil, and underregulated industrial sites. Today, millions of people are still exposed, often without knowing it. The damage is not abstract. It shows up in children’s brains, adult cardiovascular systems, pregnancy outcomes, and long-term cognitive health. Lead poisoning…
Voter ID Is a Solution Without a Problem
Claims of widespread voter fraud have become a familiar feature of American politics. They surface before elections, spike after close results, and are often used…
The Myths of U.S. Immigration and What the Evidence Actually Shows
Immigration debates in the United States rarely fail for lack of passion. They fail because a handful of persistent myths flatten a complex reality into…
The Economics Behind “Free” Apps
Open your phone, and almost everything feels free. Messaging, maps, social media, photo storage, news, fitness tracking, and even sophisticated creative tools often cost nothing…
The Internet Isn’t Decentralized Anymore
The Internet was built to route around failure. That origin story is not just nostalgia. It describes a set of architectural instincts that shaped how…
Lead Exposure Never Went Away
For many Americans, lead poisoning feels like a solved problem. It belongs to the past, alongside leaded gasoline and peeling paint in abandoned buildings. The…
The Difference Between Scientific Evidence and Scientific Headlines
If you follow science through news coverage alone, it can feel like reality changes every week. Coffee is bad, then good. Eggs are dangerous, then…
The Stock Market Is Not the Economy
When the stock market rises, headlines often declare that the economy is strong. When it falls, commentators warn of a looming recession. The two are…
The Fantasy of the Free Market
Few ideas in modern economics are as powerful, or as misleading, as the notion of the “free market.” In popular imagination, an unregulated market is…
Why Medicine Is Losing Its Workforce
For years, headlines have warned about clinician shortages as if the problem were purely demographic. Too many older doctors are retiring. Too few nurses are…
Why Healthcare in the U.S. Is Designed Around Billing, Not Healing
American healthcare does not feel like a single system because it is not one. It is a dense web of payers, contracts, benefit designs, coding…
Women’s Hockey Champions Reduced to a Joke
Team USA’s women just pulled off the thing we claim to love most in American sport: They stared down their toughest rival, took Canada’s best […]
Lead Exposure Never Went Away
For many Americans, lead poisoning feels like a solved problem. It belongs to the past, alongside leaded gasoline and peeling paint in abandoned buildings. The […]
The Economics Behind “Free” Apps
Open your phone, and almost everything feels free. Messaging, maps, social media, photo storage, news, fitness tracking, and even sophisticated creative tools often cost nothing […]
Voter ID Is a Solution Without a Problem
Claims of widespread voter fraud have become a familiar feature of American politics. They surface before elections, spike after close results, and are often used […]
Why Medicine Is Losing Its Workforce
For years, headlines have warned about clinician shortages as if the problem were purely demographic. Too many older doctors are retiring. Too few nurses are […]
The Fantasy of the Free Market
Few ideas in modern economics are as powerful, or as misleading, as the notion of the “free market.” In popular imagination, an unregulated market is […]
The Difference Between Scientific Evidence and Scientific Headlines
If you follow science through news coverage alone, it can feel like reality changes every week. Coffee is bad, then good. Eggs are dangerous, then […]
The Internet Isn’t Decentralized Anymore
The Internet was built to route around failure. That origin story is not just nostalgia. It describes a set of architectural instincts that shaped how […]
The Myths of U.S. Immigration and What the Evidence Actually Shows
Immigration debates in the United States rarely fail for lack of passion. They fail because a handful of persistent myths flatten a complex reality into […]