campaign finance

A Big Think talk in which hedge-fund manager William Ackman goes through the basics of finance and investing in under an hour. It is pitched as a crash course on the most important concepts.

A feature-length documentary on how the City of London and Britain's overseas territories built a global web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions after the empire declined. It traces how this network captured and hid wealth from around the world.

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig argues that US democracy is corrupted by money, since a tiny fraction of the population effectively funds who gets elected. He says fixing this must come before addressing issues like climate change or student debt.

First session of MIT 15.401 Finance Theory I (Fall 2008) taught by Andrew Lo, giving a course overview and introducing core finance concepts. The course ran during the 2007-08 financial crisis.

A short RepresentUs explainer on how money corrupts American politics and what an anti-corruption act could do about it. It covers lobbying, super PACs and campaign finance, and pitches the group's proposed reforms. The video was later superseded by an updated version.

The first lesson of Martin Shkreli's introductory investing and finance course, running about two and a half hours. His related tutorials cover reading 10-K filings and building DCF models.

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms lays out a campaign to stop publishers from permanently shutting down games, using The Crew as the test case. He covers government initiatives and the legal options, and the stopkillinggames.com site.

Lawrence Lessig's Talks at Google presentation based on his book Republic, Lost, arguing that money in politics corrupts Congress and eroded public trust, and outlining what could be done about it. It supports the argument with data on political donations.

Not Just Bikes explains the Strong Towns argument that car-dependent American suburbs cost more to maintain than they generate in taxes. It describes the growth Ponzi scheme that props up municipal finances.

In this TED talk, Lawrence Lessig argues that American politics is corrupted by Congress's dependence on funding from a tiny fraction of citizens. He uses rapid-fire visuals and calls for a bipartisan push to reclaim the Republic.

The first video in Not Just Bikes' Strong Towns series explains the financial instability of North American cities, based on Strong Towns research. It argues that low-density suburban growth costs more to maintain than it brings in.

Lawrence Lessig's 2011 Berkeley book talk based on Republic, Lost, arguing that money in politics creates institutional corruption in Congress. He calls it his favorite version of the talk.

A short RepresentUs explainer arguing that US politics is shaped by money, citing the Gilens and Page Princeton study on how little average citizens influence policy.

Charles Marohn of Strong Towns presents, in a Talks at Google session, the ideas from his book on why many North American towns struggle financially despite decades of growth. He argues for incremental, bottom-up city building as a path to local prosperity.

Not Just Bikes contrasts traditional and suburban development in North America. It looks at the financials behind each pattern and argues that suburban development leaves cities unable to pay for their own infrastructure.

Strong Towns explains the Growth Ponzi Scheme, in which post-war suburban growth takes on infrastructure costs that new development must keep funding. It describes why municipal finances become insolvent.

The viral Dumb Ways to Die music video, a cheerful animated song created for a Melbourne rail safety campaign. It lists absurd ways to die and ends with warnings about trains.

A Last Week Tonight segment on how much of a member of Congress's job is now fundraising. John Oliver interviews Congressman Steve Israel about the costs of political spending.

A one-minute 2007 clip of Barack Obama, during his campaign, opposing warrantless wiretaps. It was later reposted with a campaign call to action.

A look at AT&T's 1993 You Will ad campaign, which showed technologies such as video calls and telemedicine that were then under development. It explains the story behind ads that anticipated much of today's technology.

CNN clip of Howard Dean's loud yell at a 2004 Iowa campaign event, which gained wide notoriety.

A one-minute clip of Donald Trump at a 2015 Iowa event saying he would bomb ISIS. The uploader's description is openly supportive.

CGP Grey explains that the City of London is a tiny, separate entity with its own governance, history and privileges, distinct from the city called London. He covers its financial role and how it is run.

Not Just Bikes explains how many American suburbs, built all at once rather than incrementally, cannot cover their infrastructure costs and survive on growing debt. It draws on Strong Towns' work on the growth Ponzi scheme.

An animated account of Day 1 of the Desert Storm air war on 17 January 1991, covering the 2,775 sorties flown against Iraqi strategic targets in the first 24 hours.

The Tokyo Llama channel details how the creators found and bought an abandoned akiya minka house in Japan. It covers process, costs, taxes, financing and risks of renovation.

A Last Week Tonight segment on retirement plans, high fees and bad financial advice, with comedic sketches. It explains how fees eat into retirement savings and favors low-cost passive investing.

A video essay arguing that the next major real-time strategy game will fail unless it gets the fundamentals right. It covers the playerbase and demographics, what older RTS games did well, and the roles of the engine, spectacle, development tools and player-generated content.

A VPRO documentary on quantitative analysts who designed the mathematical models and high-speed trading systems behind modern finance. It features figures such as Paul Wilmott and asks what risks come from treating markets as a machine.

Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns explains how a land value tax differs from an ordinary property tax, why it makes economic sense, and why it is rarely used. It is a short six-minute explainer.

Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix keynotes the OMR 2017 marketing festival on big data and personality-based targeting in political campaigns. It was given before the company's scandal broke.

Tom Scott visits Yale's archives to look at a 367-year-old bond from a Dutch water authority that is still paying interest. Finance professor Geert Rouwenhorst explains how it works.

Louis Rossmann reacts to lobbyist ads in the Massachusetts right-to-repair ballot fight that suggest repair access would enable domestic abuse and discrimination, and urges support for the campaign.

A Belgian bank-safety campaign video in which a supposed clairvoyant stuns people by revealing personal financial details, then shows he found them all online. It warns viewers to be careful about what they share and about online banking security.

An AP clip from October 2008 of John McCain correcting a town hall questioner who called Barack Obama an Arab, telling her Obama is a decent family man. It is a brief campaign trail moment.

A one-minute Yahoo Finance clip of President Biden saying he would shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia further invaded Ukraine.

The full-length Numberphile interview with mathematician and hedge fund founder Jim Simons. He discusses his path from mathematics and codebreaking to founding Renaissance Technologies, his use of algorithms in markets, and his philanthropy.

Elizabeth Warren's 2007 Berkeley lecture, when she was a Harvard law professor, on why middle-class families are under growing financial strain. She draws on bankruptcy research to examine rising costs of housing, health care and education.

Author JL Collins discusses his book The Simple Path to Wealth at Google, covering avoiding debt, simple index fund investing, and retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs. It is an hour-long interview in plain language.

Not Just Bikes explains, using Urban3's property-tax analysis, why car-dependent suburbs generate less tax revenue than they cost to maintain, so dense urban cores effectively subsidize them. It is part of a Strong Towns series.