


Earners vs Owners
It’s tax season in the U.S. Sixty-million-plus Americans’ taxes are so simple, the IRS could process them automatically and just send a bill or refund check. Instead, the average American spends $270 and 13 hours filing their taxes each year. Spoiler alert: The IRS is…

Project 2028: Wages
Democrats need to be the party of ideas, not indignation. Our “Project 2028” series addresses critical issues facing America through a No Mercy / No Malice lens. Today, we shift from housing to wages. Maximizing Wages Before he was sworn in as Treasury secretary in…

Porn
Pornography is the McDonald’s of sex — fast, convenient, and utterly divorced from nutrition. —Anonymous I was at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this month. A young man, married with two kids, who founded a tech firm, approached me and asked if I’d mentor…

Europe Becomes a Union
The president is pulling back the security blanket that’s protected Europe since 1945 and imposing 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, claiming the European Union was formed to “screw” the United States. As the U.S. upends transatlantic ties, the EU is awakening to the…

Project 2028: Housing
Democrats need to be the party of ideas, not indignation. Our “Project 2028” series will address critical issues facing American society through a No Mercy / No Malice lens. We begin with housing. The Rent Is Too Damn High The U.S. doesn’t have a housing…

Marrying Up and Marrying Down
The most important decision we make is who we partner with, who we marry. However, for many, marriage isn’t an essential life choice … it’s a luxury item. I asked my friend, the social scientist Richard Reeves, to pen a post on the subject. A…

DOGE: What Can Be Done?
I’ve struggled my entire career to discern the difference between being right and being effective. A recent poll shows many moderates favor effective (move fast, break things) over right (checks and balances). Autocracies are seductive — in the short-term, they seem effective. A third of…

Elon Musk, Welfare Queen
This past weekend, Elon Musk called me cruel, mean and deceitful. Two and half years ago I called him a welfare queen. You decide. This post was published August 19, 2022. What’s the most successful venture capital firm in history? Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital…

A New AI World
A hat tip here to Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong, who said on the Prof G Markets Podcast on Jan. 30: “There is a new vision where [AI] is much more competitive, and profits are shared, and much of the value may be captured by…
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Every Monday, get our insights on Markets. On Wednesdays, we'll answer your questions in Office Hours. And Thursdays we'll share a Conversation - last week, a conversation with Ezra Klein, New York Times columnist and host of The Ezra Klein Show, and Derek Thompson, Atlantic staff writer, author, and host of the Plain English podcast.