Money After Monopoly: Power, Trust, and
the Future of Exchange
Posted By: Marc Cohen, 2/5/2026 1:16:59 AM
Every civilization eventually confronts the same problem: how to measure value, settle obligations, and store trust across time. Money is often treated as a technical instrument—an accounting tool, a policy lever—but history reveals something deeper. Money is a political institution first, an economic one second. It encodes power, defines sovereignty, and silently disciplines or enables entire populations. Today’s global monetary order—dominated by dollar-denominated fiat currencies and managed by central banks—did not arise because it was optimal. It arose because it was survivable. The question now confronting the world is whether it remains so.
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Every civilization eventually confronts the same problem: how to measure value, settle obligations, and store trust across time. Money is often treated as a technical instrument—an accounting tool, a policy lever—but history reveals something deeper. Money is a political institution first, an economic one second. It encodes power, defines sovereignty, and silently disciplines or enables entire populations.
Today’s global monetary order—dominated by dollar-denominated fiat currencies and managed by central banks—did not arise because it was optimal. It arose because it was survivable. The question now confronting the world is whether it remains so.
The most dangerous lies in human history are not crude falsehoods or cynical deceptions. They are comforting stories—morally flattering, psychologically soothing, and just plausible enough to survive contact with reality for a time. They endure not because they are true, but because they are useful: they reduce guilt, simplify complexity, and promise redemption without tragedy.
Civilizations do not fall because they lack intelligence. They fall because they organize themselves around false assumptions about human nature, power, and reality—and then build policies, institutions, and moral frameworks as if those assumptions were permanent truths.
Every civilization rests not only on institutions and technologies, but on stories it tells about human nature. Some stories are approximations—useful, partial, and corrigible. Others harden into moral axioms, immunized against evidence. Among the most influential of the latter in the modern West are two closely related myths: the Noble Savage and the Blank Slate.
Money is often described as neutral, technical, or merely instrumental—a passive medium facilitating exchange within an otherwise political society. This view is not only mistaken; it is profoundly misleading. Money is the hidden constitution of every political order. It determines which actions are possible, which institutions survive, which risks are rewarded, and which failures are forgiven. While constitutions proclaim rights and legislatures debate policy, money silently governs outcomes.
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Tempers flare between Dem Rep. Maxine
Waters and Scott Bessent over inflation:
‘Can you shut up?’ 26 replies
Waters and Scott Bessent over inflation:
‘Can you shut up?’ 26 replies
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) lashed out at Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — telling him at one point to “shut up” — after a tense exchange over inflation. Waters suggested that President Trump’s tariffs were inflationary and immigration enforcement was tanking housing affordability during a House Financial Services Committee hearing about the state of the US economy. “Will you be the voice of reason in the administration and urge Trump to stop waging a war on American consumers?” the California Democrat pleaded. “Yes or no?" “You seem confused as to the definition of inflation,” Bessent began before Waters interrupted him to re-ask the question.
The Washington Post is announcing mass layoffs Wednesday morning, dealing another big blow to a storied media company and a newsroom that has reached a breaking point. Executive Director Matt Murray and human resources chief Wayne Connell sent an email to staffers Wednesday morning instructing employees to "stay home today" but attend an 8:30 a.m. ET meeting via Zoom during which the Washington Post's leadership will announce "significant changes across the company." Those actions include shutting down almost the entire Sports section, closing the Books section and cancelling the daily Post Reports podcast, sources at the newspaper said.
Epstein Victim: Bill Barr, Leon Black
“Present” While Jay-Z and Harvey Weinstein
Abused Her 16 replies
“Present” While Jay-Z and Harvey Weinstein
Abused Her 16 replies
Newly unsealed files from the Department of Justice have thrust several high-profile figures back into the spotlight of Jeffrey Epstein’s sordid world. A redacted FBI intake form from July 2019 details harrowing accusations from a woman who says she was repeatedly abducted, drugged, and sexually assaulted in settings tied to the convicted sex offender. Among those named in her account: rapper Jay-Z (Shawn Carter), disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, billionaire financier Leon Black, and former Attorney General William Barr.
(snip). The victim described being snatched from her home in 1996 by an unknown person, only to wake up in what she believed was Epstein’s Florida mansion.
Melinda Gates reacted to the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails involving her ex-husband Bill Gates, including horrific allegations Epstein made such that Bill was attempting to dose her with antibiotics to fight an STD without her knowledge, by saying Bill and other Epstein associates “need to answer to those things.”
I think we’re having a reckoning as a society,” Melinda Gates told NPR’s Wild Card podcast host Rachel Martin on Tuesday. “No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him.”
State Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday she is launching a dedicated team in her office that will keep careful eyes on ICE agent activities around New York.
According to James, the operation — dubbed the Legal Observation Project — will be tasked with gathering information stemming from what she called “significant enforcement actions” throughout the Empire State while also sending personnel to observe and document ICE and protest activity.
The attorney general said these observers will serve as neutral witnesses, recording information that may inform future legal action. Their efforts will help ensure that accurate, real-time information is collected and preserved, and that any violations of law are identified
Netflix users have been left confused after noticing that Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary Becoming appears under the streaming platform’s kids category. The renewed interest in the former first lady's show appears to have been buoyed by Melania Trump’s documentary Melania debuting in theaters. Comments about the movie being in the kids section quickly spread across Threads, with some users encouraging each other to elevate Becoming in the platform’s rankings, while others were frustrated by the movie being included in the kids section. Newsweek reached out to Netflix via email for comment. The discussion around Becoming’s placement on Netflix has sparked
The Left’s fervent anti-ICE rhetoric continues to rain down, even though it’s incited progressives around the nation to commit acts of violence — or get caught in deadly incidents themselves, like Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Each day, you think they can’t get any worse, not after miscreants like Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz continue to liken Trump administration officials to Nazis and compare ICE agents to Third Reich SS forces.
Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY-12), though, wants to get some publicity of his own, and on Tuesday, he laid out a disturbing scenario where it would be totally justified for
The Trump administration is pulling 700 federal agents out of Minnesota, White House border czar Tom Homan announced Wednesday, just over a week after he arrived in the Twin Cities to overhaul an immigration enforcement operation that was facing massive public backlash.
An “unprecedented” number of counties have begun informing Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they have an immigration target in custody, allowing ICE agents to collect the individual in the safety of the jail rather than on the street, Homan said. That change, which Homan said was facilitated by Minnesota’s Democratic leaders, will allow ICE to reduce its footprint by nearly 20 percent “effective immediately.”
“Given this increase in unprecedented collaboration
FORT PIERCE, Fla.—A federal judge on Feb. 4 sentenced Ryan Routh to life in prison for attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump.
Routh was also sentenced to seven years behind bars on a gun charge. He also received a $500 fine.
The sentencing hearing came months after Routh, 59, attempted to stab himself in U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s courtroom following a guilty verdict on multiple counts.
Federal prosecutors said in a court filing that a life sentence was appropriate given what they described as months of deliberate planning and a clear intent to kill.
“He took steps over the course of months to assassinate a major presidential candidate, demonstrated
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is onto something. And the right people are terrified.
As my colleague Bob Hoge reported, after Gabbard appeared on the scene at the operation to secure the multi-year crime scene that is the Fulton County, Georgia, Election Hub and Operation Center (see FBI Raids Fulton County Election Hub Days After Trump Vows Prosecutions for 2020 Election - Here We Go – RedState and 700 Boxes of Ballots Seized After FBI Executes Fulton County Warrant, Dems Try to Develop ‘Legal Plan’ – RedState), she was the subject of thinly sourced, scurrilous "leak" —
The U.S. shot down an Iranian drone targeting the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and a U.S.-flagged ship evaded an attempt by armed Iranian gunboats to force it to stop, as tensions escalated Tuesday in the Persian Gulf.
The Lincoln was sailing about 500 miles from Iran’s southern coast when an Iranian Shahed-139 drone “unnecessarily maneuvered toward the ship” and continued flying toward the carrier even after U.S. forces took steps to de-escalate, spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said, without specifying the steps.
An F-35C fighter from the Lincoln then destroyed the drone, which caused no damage, Hawkins said.
Experts are warning that a new social media platform launched on January 28 exclusively for artificial intelligence bots is “a security nightmare.”
Modeled after Reddit, “Moltbook” allows autonomous AI “agents” to post, comment, upvote, and interact with each other in real time.
AI agents are intelligent digital workers that actively perform tasks on behalf of users or organizations.
The platform was created by entrepreneur Matt Schlicht, who used his own AI agent, Clawd Clawderberg, to manage and run the site. The AI agents on Moltbook are primarily powered by OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot/Clawdbot), an open-source, locally-run AI system developed by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger.