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Scale with hundred-dollar bills weighing down one side.

Markets and the Law

Neoliberalism isn’t just a set of economic precepts—it’s also an architecture of laws passed to reinforce those precepts. Those laws must be changed.
The Northern Pacific Railway.

How One Robber Baron's Gamble on Railroads Brought Down His Bank

In 1873, greed, speculation and overinvestment in railroads sparked a financial crisis that sank the U.S. into more than five years of misery.
Block level FHA map of Cincinnati.

Pair HOLC Maps With FHA Maps To Tell A More Complete Story

The Federal Home Loan Bank Board openly admitted to operating as the Johnny Appleseed of redlining, sowing its seeds into the private financial system.
Artwork featuring a backhoe at a residence, a burning hundred dollar bill, and a padlocked storefront.

The Kingdom of Private Equity

The 2007–2008 crisis was an epic clusterfuck. The rise of private equity has only made things worse.
The Federal Reserve building under ominous black clouds.

The Federal Reserve Exists to Protect The Economic Status Quo

What is the Federal Reserve, and who put it in charge? Is there no other way to fight inflation? Just what the hell is going on here?
A First Republic Bank sign.
partner

First Republic and Our Undemocratic Bailout System

Regulators with no democratic accountability keep bailing out banks and big depositors — at the cost of billions to taxpayers.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau on the phone, March 1985.

Calling Bob Morgenthau

The tensions between the Manhattan District Attorney and President George H.W. Bush.
The North American Trust Company building in Havana, Cuba.

The Imperial Fed

Colonial currencies and the pan-American origins of the dollar system.

At the Altar of the Fed

Celebrating the Federal Reserve as a cockpit for economic steering conceals the reality of where power lies today.
Image of Blackbeard the pirate

FTX’s Bahamas Headquarters Was the First Clue

Bankman-Fried is the latest in a long string of notorious characters who moved their business to the island nation.
Redlining map from the 1930s

The Tyranny Of The Map: Rethinking Redlining

In trying to understand one of the key aspects of structural racism, have we constructed a new moralistic story that obscures more than it illuminates?
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in front of a red arrow made of money pointing upwards.

The Messy True Story of the Last Time We Beat Inflation

The usual narrative about the "Volcker shock" leaves a lot out — and policymakers risk learning the wrong lessons.
Vice President Harris at the Freedman’s Bank Forum in Washington on Oct. 4.
partner

The Freedman’s Bank Forum Obscures the Bank’s Real History

The bank’s history highlights flaws in using public-private partnerships to address racial inequality.
Buckingham Palace [photo: flickr.com/lorentey/]

American Higher Education’s Past Was Gilded, Not Golden

A missed opportunity for genuine equity.
A vacant home surrounded by a chain link fence is seen in Los Angeles, February 16, 2010.

Why Obama-Era Economists Are So Mad About Student Debt Relief

It exposes their failed mortgage debt relief policies after the Great Recession.
The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building under construction.

“Supreme Court of Finance:” Democratic Legitimacy and the Development of the Federal Reserve System

What degree of legitimacy by voters does a public institution need in a democracy, and how much independence do experts in such an institution need to do their job?
Reflection on glass of a bitcoin symbol and a downward trending stock market graph.
partner

Digital Currencies Are Repeating the Problems of 19th-Century Paper Money

History’s lessons for the volatile digital currency markets.
Picture of Salmon P. Chase. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The Most Important 19th Century American You've Never Heard Of

A new book chronicles the life of the 19th century political giant of Salmon Chase.
1861 engraving of Slaves for sale, a scene in New Orleans.

An Enduring Legacy: Financial Institutions, the Horrors of Slavery, and the Need for Atonement

Historian Daina Ramey Berry's April 2022 congressional testimony on the role of banks and insurers in US slavery.
Comic-style drawing of a man standing in the doorway with two others standing in the shadows behind him, all facing away from each other.

The Story of Capitalism in One Family

The Lehman Trilogy proposes that the downfall of a financial dynasty is enough to tell the economic and political history of America.
Aerial photograph of San Francisco, 1906.

How Private Capital Strangled Our Cities

By following the money, a new history of urban inequality turns our attention away from federal malfeasance and toward capital markets and financial instruments.
Kristen Clarke, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, speaking at a podium
partner

The Keys to Ensuring a New Anti-Redlining Initiative Succeeds

History offers some pointers for government regulators.
1836 lithograph of a slave trader marching enslaved people to be sold.

Partners in Brutality

New books investigate the brutality of the internal slave trade by focusing on businesses, and examine the role of white women in enslaving Black people.

Neoliberalism Died of COVID. Long Live Neoliberalism!

How the predominant ideology of our time survived the pandemic.
Neoclassical building with "South Dakota" carved on entablature
partner

When South Dakota Became the New Cayman Islands for Banks and Finance

One bank's desperation and a state's economic needs undermined regulations protecting consumers.
Picture of the "Words That Made Us."

Context and Consequences

On Akhil Reed Amar’s “The Words That Made Us,” a new history of America’s constitutional conversation.
Auto workers on strike outside a General Motors plant in Detroit, September 1970.

When Americans Took to the Streets Over Inflation

In the 60s and 70s, spiraling prices for staples like meat and gasoline wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, thanks to political and policy mistakes.
Illustration of separated city buildings surrounding a globe embedded in the ground.

Reconstruction Finance

Popular politics and reconstructing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
A political cartoon of the panic, depicting mobs, drunkards, and class struggles.

Panic of 1837

The panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that triggered a multi-year economic depression.
cartoon drawing of street with for sale signs in front of every house

The Steal of the Century

How banks ripped off Americans, destroyed Black wealth, and got away with it.

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