College football functions as civic ritual as much as sport. The stadiums resemble cathedrals. The rituals resemble holidays. Generations of… Read more
Category: Finance
The Last Train to Somewhere: Chicago Has a Transit Problem. Illinois Has a Math Problem.
Chicago has always had a kinetic pulse. Stand at any Loop corner and you feel it: the steel skeleton of… Read more
The Heartland Pays the Price of Tariffs
On a quiet stretch of Indiana farmland, the combines should be humming. September is harvest season, when grain silos begin… Read more
The New Labor Movement Is in Our Living Rooms
Something remarkable is happening. Across the country, renters are joining together to form tenant unions on a scale we have… Read more
The Future of AI Belongs to All of Us, Not Just Silicon Valley
Here’s what’s happening right now with artificial intelligence: A handful of giant corporations are seizing control of the most transformative… Read more
Tariffs, Turbulence, and a Tumbling Job Market
Eighteen months ago, I wrote about an economy trapped in perpetual limbo, like a plane hovering above the runway, promising… Read more
Build It and They Will Come: Musk Just Bought the Sky
The plumbing of progress is always invisible until it becomes indispensable. When telegraph cables first crossed the Atlantic, they seemed… Read more
What Happens When Your 401(k) Speaks Fluent AI
Margaret Chen has spent thirty-two years teaching fourth grade in San Bernardino. She retired last June with a comfortable pension… Read more
America’s Trillion-Dollar Temptation
Most Americans don’t spend their mornings thinking about sovereign wealth funds. Yet this wonky Washington concept has suddenly entered our… Read more
The House We All Live In
Every once in a while, a problem comes along that is so big, so intertwined with everything else, that we… Read more