state

A VICE News report on the 2017 protests at Evergreen State College, including the confrontation involving professor Bret Weinstein.

Weird Al's whiteboard-animated music video parodying corporate buzzword culture, from the album Mandatory Fun. The lyrics are packed with business jargon.

A recapture in 50fps HD of Spaceballs' 'State of the Art', an Amiga demo released at The Party 1992. It showcases the Amiga's real-time animation, graphics and music in a few minutes.

An extended Fifth Estate interview with Pierre Sprey, designer of the A-10 and a key figure behind the F-16, arguing the F-35 is an over-engineered, expensive failure.

A leaked 2014 phone call between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt discussing a political transition in Ukraine. It includes a crude remark about the European Union.

A short video by Steve Pieczenik claiming the Clintons are carrying out a coup d'etat to take over the United States. It is political conspiracy commentary from the 2016 election period.

2swap explains how he solved the Klotski sliding-block puzzle by mapping its full state space as a graph and visualizing it. The video includes footage of the Guinness world-record solve and links to an interactive graph.

Ben Felix explains how to compare renting and buying a home by looking at unrecoverable costs, and distills it into the 5% rule of thumb. It is framed for a Canadian audience but broadly applicable.

A mini-documentary by a Canadian living in Japan explaining how an average family can afford a new detached house in Tokyo. It covers how houses are treated as depreciating assets and how Japanese zoning and building practices keep prices low.

PolyMatter explains China's housing bubble and why around 50 million homes sit empty. It covers cultural and economic reasons behind the overbuilding and the government's bind.

Louis Rossmann explains why NYC commercial landlords keep storefronts vacant rather than lowering rents. He points to commercial mortgage-backed security loan terms and inflated property valuations.

ADVChina tours Chinese ghost cities and discusses the housing bubble, with speculative buyers purchasing empty apartments as investments.

NYT Opinion video essay arguing that Democrat-controlled states like California, New York and Illinois often fall short of their egalitarian values. It focuses on housing costs, homelessness, regressive taxes and school segregation as drivers of inequality.

GreatScott! tests ProLogium lithium ceramic batteries, a solid-state design. He measures their volumetric and gravimetric energy density, compares them to Li-ion and LiPo, and runs durability tests at the end.

A short clip from the film The Gambler in which John Goodman's character gives a monologue about the 'position of fuck you': building enough financial security that you owe nobody anything. The scene is a compact statement of financial independence as freedom.

The shareholder speech by Larry the Liquidator, played by Danny DeVito, from the film Other People's Money. He argues that a dying company should be liquidated rather than kept alive.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on state lotteries. It argues that the claim that lotteries fund education is misleading, because the money is fungible and often diverted to general funds.

Sociologist and comedian Harald Eia argues in a TEDxOslo talk that Nordic social democracies produce more rich people per capita than the US or UK. He credits high taxes, welfare and strong unions for creating a safety net that enables risk taking.

CGP Grey explains what it means that a third of the United States is federally owned land. It describes the agencies that manage it and why so much of it is in the western states.

The ADVChina hosts tour a villa neighborhood in southern China that was built only three years earlier and is already empty and deteriorating. They use it to discuss ghost cities, building quality and the real estate bubble.

A short clip of economist Milton Friedman discussing the dynamics of illegal immigration and its relationship with the welfare state. It is part one of two.

A short CGP Grey explainer about how countries are defined, why recognition by others matters, and the oddities of places like Taiwan and Vatican City. It shows that statehood is partly a matter of diplomacy rather than fact.

VICE News reporter Elle Reeve investigates China's rollout of facial recognition and mass surveillance technology and what it means for citizens. The report originally aired on VICE on HBO.

A Vox Borders explainer on Hong Kong's housing crisis, the least affordable market in the world, and the tiny cage homes and subdivided flats people squeeze into. It looks at why prices keep climbing and how land policy contributes.

A clip from the 2011 film Margin Call in which senior partners hold an emergency meeting and decide to sell off toxic assets immediately. It is set at the start of the 2008 financial crisis.

An Economics Explained video on the different kinds of billionaires, from founders to oligarchs. It explains how wealth is held in illiquid stock and why diversification is a problem for some.

Ben Felix explains how central bank money creation and quantitative easing actually work, and what they do and do not imply for asset prices and currency. He addresses the common belief that the Fed prints unlimited money and props up markets.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on payday loans and predatory lending, covering how they trap borrowers and target the elderly and military. It features Sarah Silverman.

Milton Friedman explains why the US tax code is enormously complex and why meaningful reform is unlikely. He argues that politicians profit from the complexity, since tax breaks are products they sell and the code works as a tool of reward and punishment. The clip is about 14 minutes from his lecture series.

Comedian Dominic Frisby gives a ten-minute explanation of land value tax. He argues it would fix problems of rent-seeking and the economics of land ownership.

A Wendover Productions explainer arguing that major airlines make much of their profit from loyalty programs and co-branded credit cards rather than flying. It frames airlines as quasi-banks that sell points in bulk, using United's pandemic-era loan as a hook.

Ben Felix argues that common beliefs about renting versus buying are wrong: homes are not great investments, mortgages are not a wealth hack, and ownership does not reliably bring happiness.

A short Globe and Mail animated explainer on why renting can leave you as well off as buying a home. It walks through a rent-versus-buy comparison using Toronto numbers and the opportunity cost of a down payment. The video notes it dates from 2015 and the housing market has changed since.

The climactic orange juice futures trading scene from the film Trading Places, in which the heroes corner the market on the trading floor.

A Last Week Tonight segment on mobile homes, showing how large investment companies are making this affordable housing option less affordable. It covers residents who rent land and cannot move their homes.

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.

Ben Felix explains how to decide between renting and buying a home, weighing financial and non-financial factors. He argues that renting is often as good or better than owning, both financially and for well-being.

Andreas Antonopoulos answers a question about how to secure your Bitcoin. He covers holding your own keys, backing up the 12 to 24 word seed phrase, and the tradeoffs of custodial accounts, phone wallets and hardware wallets.

Coffeezilla reacts to Sam Bankman-Fried's explanation of yield farming on the Odd Lots podcast, arguing he effectively described a Ponzi scheme. The video was made well before FTX collapsed.

Ben Felix rebuts common arguments for holding only US stocks, such as past outperformance and international revenue exposure. He supports the case for international diversification with cited academic research.