Tag: finance

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less Part 11: Who Profits?

    ,

    Part 11 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. The ten installments before this one traced where the money goes — the categories where household spending has grown, the mechanisms by which it has grown, and the structural reasons for the growth. This one is about who…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make LessPart 10: The Compound Effect

    ,

    Part 10 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. This series has spent nine installments going category by category through the structural changes that have shifted costs from corporate balance sheets onto American households over the last fifty years. Each installment looked at one slice of the…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make LessPart 5: The Auto Trap

    ,

    Part 5 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. The first four installments traced cost shifts inside relatively well-defined transactions — wages versus productivity, employer-to-worker benefit transfers, overdraft fees, credit card interest. This one is harder, because the cost being passed to households is built into the…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Pay More But Make Less. Part 4: Credit Cards

    ,

    Part 4 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. Part 3 looked at the overdraft side of consumer banking. This one looks at the other side of the same relationship — the credit card. Most of the largest credit card issuers in the United States are also…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 3: Banking Fees

    ,

    Part 3 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. In Parts 1 and 2 I walked through the picture: the math on a typical American household has tightened over fifty years even as productivity has climbed, and several specific costs — housing, healthcare, higher education, transportation, retirement…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 2: The Baseline Shift

    ,

    Part 2 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. In Part 1 I walked through the math on one specific case — a nurse making $77,000 a year, doing everything right, with $625 a month left after mandatory expenses. The argument was that the math has gotten…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • Passing the Buck: Why We Make Less But Pay More. Part 1: The Impossible Math

    ,

    Part 1 of Passing the Buck, a 15-part series on why we make less but pay more. A few years ago I started keeping a list. It began with a conversation at the field after one of Henry’s games. A guy I have known for a decade — coaches another team, runs a small landscaping…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • BrokeCon by Design Part 19: The Corporate Tax Dodge

    ,

    One morning in late January, Tesla released its annual report, and up where the shareholders look was the number the company wanted them to see. Almost $5.7 billion of income earned in the United States in 2025. Roughly double what it had earned here the year before. A very good year, told the way a…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • BrokeCon by Design Part 18: The Rigged Tax Code

    ,

    On October 22, 1986, Ronald Reagan stood on the South Lawn of the White House and signed a tax bill that did something the United States had not done before and has not done since. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 took the top rate on money you make by owning things — long-term capital…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • BrokeCon by Design Part 17: The Systemic Theft Of Our Retirement

    ,

    On December 9, 1963, the Studebaker Corporation announced it was closing its main automobile plant in South Bend, Indiana. The company had been building things to ride in since before there were engines to put in them — wagons, in the 1850s — and for the people on the line the pension was not a…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • BrokeCon by Design Part 9: Immobility Nightmare: How Three Failed Systems Killed the American Dream

    ,

    The Door Is Already Locked Say you’re thirty-two. You have an idea for a business. Maybe a good one, maybe not, but you want to find out. So you sit down and run the numbers. The first thing that kills it is the healthcare math. Your employer pays most of your premium right now. Walk…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • BrokeCon by Design Part 8: The Education and Childcare Cliff: $1.8 Trillion in Debt + The Childcare Crisis That Starts It All

    ,

    The story we still tell about student debt is wrong. It’s not a young person’s problem. The fastest-growing segment of borrowers is over 60, and roughly 452,000 of them are in default and receiving Social Security checks — checks that can be garnished by up to 15%, leaving a $750 monthly floor that was set…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • BrokeCon by Design Part 3: Follow the Money: How the System is Rigged Against 90% of Us.

    ,

    This is Part 3 in a series. Part 1 ran the numbers — America comes out near the bottom of every developed-world ranking that matters and near the top of every one that doesn’t. Part 2 walked through how language gets weaponized to keep you from noticing. This one is just accounting. Now That You…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd

  • BrokeCon by Design Part 2: The Words That Stop You From Thinking: How Language is Weaponized to Keep Us Fighting Each Other Instead of Those in Power

    ,

    The Words That Switch Off Your Brain BrokeCon by Design, Part 2. Part 1 showed where America actually ranks. This one is the inoculation before we follow the money. How this post came about I was working on the next piece in the series — the one that traces who profits from America’s failures —…

    Written by

    Even that’s Odd