Author Archives: Felix

A world of continuously variable price is unstable and uncertain, even when overall inflation is low.

Slate Money on the information spectrum, from Wikipedia and academic journals to Zuckerberg’s pivot to privacy.

Wanna buy a minotaur? On the current list of VC-backed private companies that have raised more than $1 billion in equity capital: Lyft, Uber, Airbnb, Slack and Pinterest, all of which could go public this year.

Slate Money on Teslas finally being cheaper, Kraft and 3G, Facebook’s content-moderation failures, and the political scene in France.

American banks are minting money. In 2018, they made $237 billion in profits, bringing their average return on assets to an extremely healthy 1.35%.

Slate Money on black banks and the racial wealth gap.

Being a unicorn — a private company worth a billion dollars — isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Raising a billion dollars. The 55 minotaur companies

The U.S. tax system does one thing right: It collects taxes in a very smart way.

Slate Money on lower tax refunds, Finland’s income experiment, and labor’s current strengths.

The Green New Deal resolution came out this week.

Slate Money on Spotify and Gimlet, the women’s labor force in Japan, and savings rates.

America is back. Donald Trump’s White House is pushing his international agenda aggressively, with the rest of the world allowing the Trump administration to take the lead.

Slate Money on OFAC sanctions against Venezuela, Fed rates, and PG&E officially filing for bankruptcy.

When billionaires gather in Davos, the world increasingly assumes that their prescriptions are entirely self-serving.

Slate Money on AOC’s tax ideas at Davos, currency colonization, and Microsoft and housing.

1 big thing: Jack Bogle’s misunderstood legacy

Slate Money remembers Jack Bogle, discusses constant Brexit drama, and looks at bad deal-making.

Historically, companies were proud to name themselves after brands they had managed to elevate to a place of global name recognition.

Slate Money on millennial burnout, odd rebranding efforts, and the World Bank.

The presidency of the World Bank — the most powerful job in international development — is up for grabs, in the wake of the surprise resignation of Jim Yong Kim.

What we learned this week is that Apple looms unrealistically large in investors’ imaginations.

Slate Money talks Texas: tech and entrepreneurship, affordable housing and zoning, and the long history of oil in the state.

Here’s to a great 2019 for all of us, including Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos, who will earn a base salary of $18 million next year.

Slate Money on an oral history of Silicon Valley; from outrageous VC funding and juvenile bros to society-altering tech and billion-dollar business decisions.

We seem to have come to the end of one of the most astonishing bull runs in stock-market history, and there’s very little indication that Fed chair Jay Powell particularly cares.