Category: The Wide Angle
The Wide Angle: The Resurgence of the 70 Percent
by Dave Troy | Jul 5, 2023 | Economy, The Wide AngleThe debt ceiling standoff revealed the presence of an interesting statistic, hiding in plain sight: 70 percent. The House averted financial disaster by passing a debt ceiling compromise with a vote of 314 out of 435—or 72 percent. The Senate passed its measure 63–36. When the chips are down, Americans overwhelmingly choose stability, sanity, and […]
The Wide Angle: Understanding TESCREAL — the Weird Ideologies Behind Silicon Valley’s Rightward Turn
by Dave Troy | May 1, 2023 | Politics, The Wide AngleFor decades, the conventional wisdom about Silicon Valley was that it leaned progressive. And by many measures (like donations by Big Tech employees to political candidates), the industry has been aligned with the Democratic politics that dominate the San Francisco Bay Area. But contrarian alternate worldviews held by prominent voices like Elon Musk and Sam […]
The New Populist Bogeyman: Central Bank Digital Currencies
by Dave Troy | Apr 11, 2023 | Economy, The Wide AngleOnline propagandists and populist candidates have set their sights on a new enemy: Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). These currencies differ from private-sector cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in that they are state-sanctioned and operated. Newly-expressed concerns over CBDCs augment long-running populist disdain for the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Opponents of CBDCs cite the potential […]
The Wide Angle: Financial Unreality and The Cult of Pinochet
by Dave Troy | Mar 27, 2023 | Economy, The Wide AngleThe recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank demonstrated in clear terms that financial reality is a shared hallucination. And financial reality, a useful social construct, goes a long way to shaping our physical reality. For the businesses threatened by a potential meltdown of the bank, a cashflow freeze meant the difference between real people getting […]
The Wide Angle: Crash the Global Economy? It’s Harder than It Sounds.
by Dave Troy | Feb 27, 2023 | Economy, The Wide AngleMany of us are familiar with the phenomenon of “dorm room philosophy” and its derivative field, “dorm room economics.” Often, it is rooted in the clunky prose of Ayn Rand and the simple, common-sense decrees of Austrian economics, along with the limited life experience common to all young people — particularly young men. Rand’s “objectivism” […]