Navigating Public Policy, Technology, Health, Data, and Innovation for a Fairer Future
Margaret Chen has spent thirty-two years teaching fourth grade in San Bernardino. She retired last June with a comfortable pension from CalSTRS, California’s teacher retirement system. What she discovered in her first quarterly statement might have surprised her: among her largest investments was a $5.26 billion stake in Nvidia, the chip company whose processors power Read More “What Happens When Your 401(k) Speaks Fluent AI”
Most Americans don’t spend their mornings thinking about sovereign wealth funds. Yet this wonky Washington concept has suddenly entered our national conversation, thanks to recent government moves to buy stakes in companies like Intel and U.S. Steel. President Trump made it official in February with an executive order directing his administration to create a U.S. Read More “America’s Trillion-Dollar Temptation”
Every once in a while, a problem comes along that is so big, so intertwined with everything else, that we stop seeing it. Housing in America is like that. It’s the air we breathe, the floor beneath our feet, the backdrop of our lives, and right now, that foundation is cracking. We have millions of Read More “The House We All Live In”
Most people think of inflation as a four-letter word in economic form. Prices go up, wages struggle to keep pace, and that weekly grocery bill becomes another gut punch to working families. Politicians love to wave inflation around like a bloody shirt, blaming it for every economic anxiety voters feel. The public conversation rarely gets Read More “When Fewer Babies Meet Rising Prices. Rethinking Inflation in an Aging World”
What happens when we stop asking how much people make and start asking how fairly it gets shared? That question drives the new web-based dashboard “Who Shares the Wealth?” at gini.commandos.cloud, a free, public tool that explores global income inequality before and after taxes. Built from this week’s 2025 TidyTuesday dataset, this project combines data Read More “Unequal. Unjust. Unacceptable: A Global Dashboard of Redistribution and Inequality”
A $5 billion war chest. Global investors from Saudi Arabia to Singapore. And LeBron James at the center of it all, potentially plotting the most audacious challenge to the NBA’s dominance in basketball history. James has made no secret of his interest in NBA team ownership, but recent developments suggest his ambitions may extend well Read More “LeBron: Endgame”
There’s an old saying in the semiconductor world: chips are the new oil. That metaphor, like most good ones, has limits. Oil runs downhill. Chips run on demand. And sometimes, as in the case of Samsung’s stunning recent slump, the demand disappears just when everyone thought it would never stop. So, let’s walk this one Read More “Semiconductors and the Art of Missing the Moment”
Not long ago, I sat down with the director of a small nonprofit working on food insecurity in a mid-sized city. The organization was lean, focused, and well-respected in the community. They had strong relationships with local families, a steady roster of volunteers, and real outcomes to show. Still, they were scrambling, again, for summer Read More “What We Get Wrong About Doing Good, Part 1”
Washington debates often revolve around numbers. Trillions in spending. Billions in cuts. A line item here. A policy adjustment there. Out in rural America, the numbers feel less abstract. They signal the difference between a hospital with lights on and one with the doors locked. The Budget Reconciliation Bill, signed into law on July 4, Read More “Small Towns Deserve More Than Empty Promises”
You can walk down any Main Street in America and see the small businesses policymakers so often call the “backbone of the economy.” Storefronts, shops, and local employers remain a visible reminder of entrepreneurial spirit. Yet what remains invisible, both on the street and in Washington, are the millions of businesses with no sign, no Read More “America’s Smallest Businesses, and Its Biggest Policy Blind Spot”