Dave Hopton

If the only means of holding money is in the form of electronic bank deposits, a central bank can do something it cannot do with cash. It can set negative interest rates to erode people’s money in times of recession, making it costly to hoard it, and thereby theoretically stimulating economic activity.

The Myth of Quality Time

I was thunderstruck when I heard mention of a “bonus” over coffee. Later I overheard someone who didn’t work say she would buy a table at an event once her bonus was set. A woman with a business degree but no job mentioned waiting for her “year-end” to shop for clothing. Further probing revealed that the annual wife bonus was not an uncommon practice in this tribe. A wife bonus, I was told, might be hammered out in a pre-nup or post-nup, and distributed on the basis of not only how well her husband’s fund had done but her own performance — how well she managed the home budget, whether the kids got into a “good” school — the same way their husbands were rewarded at investment banks. In turn these bonuses were a ticket to a modicum of financial independence and participation in a social sphere where you don’t just go to lunch, you buy a $10,000 table at the benefit luncheon a friend is hosting.

With their capital and this dangerous narrative, we’re not unicorn hunting; rather, we’re becoming the subprime lenders of the internet economy funding digital McMansions built on increasingly questionable foundations.