Economy
Discover facts about economy. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Economy
How Benjamin Franklin turned mortgages into money
Long before central banks monopolized the money printer, Benjamin Franklin set up a paper money scheme in colonial Pennsylvania that actually worked. Instead…
Discover more
How a livestock ban helped crash Somalia’s economy
Nothing screams fragile economy quite like collapsing because of a sheep rumor. In 1998 and 2000, Saudi Arabia banned livestock imports from Somalia over…
Discover more
How time zones froze global currency markets
In 1974, German regulators shut down Herstatt Bank at the end of the German workday. There was just one tiny, world-breaking problem: New York was still wide…
Discover more
When Congress made the Treasury buy silver
In 1878, the US government essentially operated a massive welfare program for silver miners. Thanks to the Bland-Allison Act, the Treasury was legally forced…
Discover more
Why financial stability can lead to a crash
The reigning kings of economics love to claim that free markets naturally settle into peaceful equilibrium. Hyman Minsky thought they were delusional. He…
Discover more
Stealing credit for a financial law is peak banker behavior
Thomas Gresham gets all the historical glory for "Gresham's Law"—the famous rule that bad money drives out good—but he absolutely didn't invent it. The…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
China once taxed people in cowry shells
You’d think an empire capable of building the Great Wall would demand cold, hard silver, but the Qing dynasty was inexplicably forced to accept snail shells.…
Discover more
Tugan-Baranovsky blamed crashes on factory tools
While everyone else was blaming economic depressions on poor people not buying enough stuff, Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky pointed the finger at capitalists…
Discover more
How Roman soldiers won the right to keep their loot
In ancient Rome, a harsh legal concept meant your father literally owned everything you had until he died. This was terribly unmotivating for soldiers…
Discover more
The hidden trick that made tax withholding work
Before WWII, Americans paid their income taxes in a massive, painful lump sum every March. Recognizing that wartime tax hikes would cause mass defaults,…
Discover more
Why central banks agreed to limit gold sales
By 1999, European central banks realized gold was essentially a shiny pet rock that paid zero interest, so they all started quietly dumping it. When the…
Discover more
During Bengal’s famine, taxes went up
In 1770, a massive famine hit Bengal and Bihar. Instead of offering relief, the British East India Company—which operated like a heavily armed hedge…
Discover more
How Soviet factories survived without key supplies
The supposedly flawless, centrally planned utopia of the Soviet Union was actually held together by a shadow network of illegal corporate hustlers. Because…
Discover more
Farmers played the futures market before computers
You might think Wall Street quants invented high-stakes gambling, but Holbrook Working proved farmers were beating them to the punch decades earlier. Studying…
Discover more
Philosopher proved free markets are violent fictions
Libertarians love pretending the free market is a natural human state, but Karl Polanyi argued it's actually a violent, artificial construction ruthlessly…
Discover more
The secret deal that pushed down the dollar
Central bankers literally locked themselves in a New York hotel to orchestrate a global currency crash. By 1985, the US dollar was so overwhelmingly strong…
Discover more
The secret loan that helped trigger Australia's crisis
The Australian government tried to secretly bypass Wall Street by taking out a multi-billion-dollar payday loan from a shady Pakistani peanut trader. In 1975,…
Discover more
When owning gold became a crime in America
In 1933, the land of the free decided that owning a yellow rock was suddenly a federal crime punishable by up to ten years in prison. Under Executive Order…
Discover more
Officials hid a deadly dam disaster with fake crop reports
When the Banqiao Dam catastrophically failed in 1975, washing away entire Chinese towns and killing tens of thousands, the sheer horror of the event was…
Discover more
High interest rates actually make goods cost more
Modern central banks confidently jack up interest rates to crush inflation, assuming that making money expensive will force prices down. But 19th-century…
Discover more
How hut taxes pushed Africans into wage labor
If you've ever wondered how to forcefully drag self-sustaining farmers into the glorious capitalist machine, the British Empire has a deeply cynical…
Discover more
How saving too much can make life worse today
In Paul Samuelson's overlapping generations model, there's a bizarre anomaly called 'dynamic inefficiency.' Essentially, if a society over-saves and invests…
Discover more
How a Genoese bank swallowed a government
Forget modern sovereign debt; the real pioneers of turning government IOUs into an empire were the Genoese in 1407. The Banco di San Giorgio consolidated the…
Discover more
Who pays when a container sinks at sea
International trade is terrifying when your goods are floating on a stormy ocean. Enter Incoterms like FOB (Free On Board) and CIF (Cost, Insurance, and…
Discover more