Finance
The New Yorker Documentary
The “Alpha Kings” Practicing Financial Domination Online
Enrique Pedráza-Botero and Faye Tsakas’s short documentary follows a group of friends in suburban Texas who make their living in the world of “findom” on OnlyFans.
Our Columnists
Deregulating Banks Is Dangerous
As First Republic Bank is sold to JPMorgan, the Federal Reserve relearns some important lessons.
A Reporter at Large
How the Biggest Fraud in German History Unravelled
The tech company Wirecard was embraced by the German élite. But a reporter discovered that behind the façade of innovation were lies and links to Russian intelligence.
Daily Comment
Whom Do Credit-Card-Rewards Programs Really Reward?
The Durbin-Marshall bill targets a system of inflated fees that swell the profits of the country’s biggest banks.
Satire from The Borowitz Report
World Shocked That Man Running Business Based On Imaginary Money Might Be Fraud
“Of all of the firms offering big returns on made-up money, this one seemed the most solid,” a resident of London said.
Annals of Inquiry
Sam Bankman-Fried, Effective Altruism, and the Question of Complicity
Leaders of the social movement had no way to know that FTX would collapse. But they also had every incentive to ignore warnings.
Our Columnists
Sam Bankman-Fried and the Long Road to Taking Crypto Mainstream
The disgraced founder of FTX played on the vanities of the establishment, reassuring V.C. firms and the media that smart-guy insiders like him could save the world.
Daily Comment
How to Pay for Climate Justice When Polluters Have All the Money
The COP27 climate conference, in Egypt, was in large part a global search for cash.
Brave New World Dept.
Is Selling Shares in Yourself the Way of the Future?
Two tech-minded brothers are testing the market on themselves.
Q. & A.
Why Elon Musk Bought Twitter
The social network’s freewheeling poster child will pay forty-four billion dollars to take it private. What does he have in store?
Currency
How Significant Is Russia’s Partial Ban from SWIFT?
The move demonstrates the seriousness of the effort to punish Putin’s regime, but the effects may be limited.
Letter from Silicon Valley
The Pied Piper of SPACs
Chamath Palihapitiya says that the investment tool lets ordinary people get rich off startups. It may be hype—but hype can be its own economic engine.
A Reporter at Large
Robinhood’s Big Gamble
In eliminating barriers to investing in the stock market, is the app democratizing finance or encouraging risky behavior?
Daily Comment
The Powerful New Financial Argument for Fossil-Fuel Divestment
A report by BlackRock, the world’s largest investment house, shows that those who divested have profited not only morally but also financially.
Culture Desk
A Brief History of the Hedge Fund
The French dissertation that inspired the strategies that guide many modern investors.
Letter from Silicon Valley
How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism
Even the worst-run startup can beat competitors if investors prop it up. The V.C. firm Benchmark helped enable WeWork to make one wild mistake after another—hoping that its gamble would pay off before disaster struck.
Daily Comment
The Case for a Coronavirus-Vaccine Bond
Is financial engineering the key to ending pandemics?
Annals of a Warming Planet
Will Big Business Finally Reckon with the Climate Crisis?
A new report on how climate risks will affect socioeconomic systems in the coming decades highlights the financial sector’s fundamental misunderstanding of climate change.
Daily Comment
Citing Climate Change, BlackRock Will Start Moving Away from Fossil Fuels
In response to mounting public pressure, the investment company has begun knuckling under to reality.
A Critic at Large
Can Economists and Humanists Ever Be Friends?
One discipline reduces behavior to elegantly simple rules; the other wallows in our full, complex particularity. What can they learn from each other?