“The U.S. government is insolvent. That’s not hyperbole — it’s the conclusion drawn directly from the Treasury Department’s own consolidated financial statements.”

A recent Facebook memory notice reminded me of when I was young and naïve and full of political hope. Okay, maybe I wasn’t full of political hope but at least I wasn’t as old at the end of the last century.

Two monetary and currency paradoxes emerge as the war rages.

First, there is likely an immediate episode of some monetary disinflation, never mind the widespread concern about a looming jump in consumer prices. 

According to much popular economics, the current monetary system amplifies the initial monetary injections of money. Thus, if the central bank injects $1 billion into the economy, and banks hold 10 percent in reserves against deposits, this will allow the first bank to lend 90 percent of the $1 billion. The $900 million, in turn, will end up with the second bank, which will lend 90 percent of the $900 million. The $810 million will end up with a third bank, which, in turn, will lend out 90 percent of $810 million, and so on.

AI is everywhere now—woven into our workplaces, our devices, and our daily routines—and with its spread comes a rising fear: what happens when there’s no meaningful work left for humans? AI is becoming the silent collaborator behind almost everything we make. Yet its presence creates a new kind of tension: not whether we can use it, but how we should. Regardless of the advancements in AI, the central question does not change: given scarcity, what should you do with your time, and what should you let the tools do?

You have probably heard of the widely believed myth that Napoleon was very short. Evidence proved after his death, however, that he had a completely normal height. Historians, interestingly, have mentioned that this narrative could have spread so thoroughly due to British painters drawing him short almost in a sarcastic way. Myths such as this, however irrelevant, do not alter the truth. Some myths, however, are so powerful that they make truth appear like a myth.