The alleged scam, organized by a 24-year-old from Philadelphia, offered athletes ownership of bogus websites as a place to park cash from their lucrative careers.
The Unanswered Questions Driving the Stock Market Drop
The biggest problems aren’t caused by what you don’t know, but what, as Mark Twain put it, “you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And that’s a massive problem for the stock market right now.
Hegel turned the world onto its head and Marx turned it back on its feet, and now finance is turning the world on its head again. In the early 19th century, Hegel proposed that human history was shaped by consciousness, by human spirit, by the head. Marx argued, in turn, that history was actually determined by practical social conditions, by the way people make their means of living, standing on their feet. It was capitalism that made it seem like heads, owners of industry and leaders of states and their apologists, intellectuals, made history happen, and not workers. The feet were the source of power while the heads claimed all the power for themselves. It is harder to believe this is true now. Industry does not matter much to finance, and labor even less. Finance packages up the productive economy to resell it according to its own rules. A few prescient people have been studying the way the new rules ruin living conditions, pervert political possibilities, and increasingly dominate the global order. Yet, there is still no field dedicated to theorising the ill effects of the newly upside-down world. We need, in short, a critical theory of finance.
In ‘Money,’ Stefan Eich exposes a paradox. Money needs everyone’s trust to operate, and yet economists and politicians claim that only they can decide on its uses. In ‘What is Monetary Policy,’ Leah Downey explains how the technocratic apparatus of policy prevents democratic decision-making. Melinda Cooper considers the challenge supposedly presented by Schumpeter’s view of the relation between family, capitalism, and democracy. Radhika Desai demonstrates a tradition in Marxist thought that already predicts financialisation and has a strong theory of it. Finally, Paul North briefly evaluates four very general positions from which to critique finance, as a preparation for a critical theory of finance.
Also in this issue, Peter West explores how Plato continues to speak to our present moment, with Angie Hobbs’ recent book offering a timely defence of dialogue against the rise of censorship, polarisation, and performative debate. Meanwhile, Marie Snyder reflects on The End Doesn’t Happen All at Once, a pandemic memoir in letters that traces how friendship, literature, and mutual care sustained lives through the disorientation and inequalities of Covid.
Kristie Miller puzzles over our preference for how our well-being is distributed over time; Alison Stone delves into Victorian philosophy as a distinct tradition in which women philosophers played a significant role; Matthew Sharpe makes the case for reclaiming Stoicism from the manosphere and the far right; Mary Peterson continues a conversation started in her 2024 article in The Philosopher, on restorative justice and sexual misconduct; and Adrian K. Yee asks what ethical issues are raised by the use of machine learning in counterterrorism.
From Delta’s Bastian to Exxon Mobil’s Woods, these 25 leaders have positioned their companies for long-term success.
SpaceX Shares Are Hot. This Looming Event Could Derail Them.
The aftermath of SpaceX’s public offering saw the shares soar, in part because of demand outstripping supply. But that could soon end as a staggered release of lockups makes more shares available.
General Motors Is a Cash-Compounding Machine. Buy the Stock.
Share repurchases have boosted the stock. There are other reasons to buy.
Regulators, lawmakers, and consumer groups are fighting over what it means to be a community bank. The debate has implications for lenders and borrowers everywhere.
Boomers Daily 