Finding out that the bacteria that live in your gut, on your skin, and in the back of your nose may be more knowledgeable about your health than your doctor is strangely humble. After reading the results from Stanford Medicine and a parallel international study that came to light in…

There comes a time, usually in early January, when the holiday receipts become problematic rather than joyful. The decorations are taken down, the gifts are distributed, and the credit card statement shows up. For a number of years in a row, millions of Americans have found it more difficult to…

The time for Social Security is running out. In contrast to Washington’s typical approach to fiscal crises, which is abstract, remote, and someone else’s problem, this approach will be concrete and quantifiable within the decade. It is anticipated that the program’s trust fund will become insolvent in 2032, at which…

Johannesburg has a talent for slicing through business jargon. The N1 traffic, the street vendors outside Sandton City, the drivers staring at their phones in anticipation of a ping—it’s a dynamic city, which is partially why Uber has always found South Africa fascinating and partially why the country has never…

AGNC Investment Corp. is closely watched by a certain type of investor, not the growth-chasing type who browses through AI stocks at midnight, but the type who wants a check in the mail every month without much drama. For a very long time, AGNC has been that stock. It was…

Right now, a certain atmosphere is permeating American workplaces; it’s not quite panic, but rather something more subdued and difficult to shake. A sort of low-grade fatigue. You can sense it when you walk into any mid-sized office, browse LinkedIn on a Tuesday afternoon, and speak with someone who has…

When things go wrong in small towns, a certain kind of stubbornness emerges. Quiet and methodical, not boisterous or dramatic. Most people thought it was over when Rite Aid declared bankruptcy, started to withdraw from the western New York area, and closed almost 70 stores. The lights would go out,…

Until something goes wrong, most people don’t consider getting income protection insurance. An unexpected diagnosis. a back injury that prevents you from working for three months. A mental health episode that, for a while, makes it truly impossible to return to the office on a set schedule, with fluorescent lights…

Recall April of 2021. There was no such thing as ChatGPT. The term “large language model” was more appropriate for scholarly articles than casual conversations. Nvidia was undoubtedly a reputable chip manufacturer, but it wasn’t the most valuable company in human history. Quietly, Broadcom was making money. Analysts were genuinely…

If you’re considering buying a car, there’s a certain kind of dread that sets in around budget season. You’ve done your homework, visited a showroom, and perhaps even taken a seat in the desired one. The figures on the sticker suddenly don’t add up the same as they did last…

On a Tuesday afternoon, you’ll notice things in a Dollar Tree that would never be mentioned in a press release. Compared to a year ago, the seasonal aisle seems a little better organized. The signs are more tidy. Once a silent source of annoyance for shoppers, the price tags are…

The American electrical grid has a subtle unsettling quality. You operate dishwashers, flip switches, and charge phones on a daily basis without really considering what’s underneath. And that is, in a sense, the issue. The majority of the nation’s electrical infrastructure was constructed decades ago, some of it even before…