Economy
Discover facts about economy. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Economy
When freelancers carried actual lances
The independent labor economy used to involve substantially more bloodshed. The term was coined in the nineteenth century to describe medieval mercenaries who…
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The corporate move that changes a company’s home on paper
Patriotism ends exactly where the fiscal liability begins. By simply purchasing a much smaller foreign entity and dramatically claiming a new home base on…
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Why bureaucracies may preserve the problems they fight
Solving the issue means losing the budget. Institutional entities possess a biological instinct to endure, meaning agencies designed to eliminate a specific…
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Some cities tax you for owning a dog
Man's best friend is essentially just a furry taxable asset. Several municipalities actively charge citizens an annual premium simply for the privilege of…
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Salaried corporate workers are legally exempt from overtime
The prestigious salary title is basically just a trap to steal your evenings. By officially reclassifying a worker as an exempt professional, companies…
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A brick tax led to oversized bricks
Bureaucracy always produces the most aesthetically pleasing architecture. To fund colonial wars, the government taxed bricks by the unit, causing clever…
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The eight-hour workday was once radical
Dividing life equally into work, rest, and personal time used to be considered dangerous extremist propaganda. Before it became the standard corporate grind,…
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Leonardo da Vinci wrote an early résumé
Even brilliant historical minds had to grovel for employment. In the late fifteenth century, the legendary polymath wrote a highly exaggerated letter to the…
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There is absolutely no fixed finite amount of work available
The pie magically expands every time someone takes a bite. Panicked citizens constantly assume that newcomers will steal a strictly limited pool of jobs,…
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Renaissance merchants invented double entry bookkeeping
Keeping track of ledgers is the true renaissance art form. Before the massive cultural explosion, clever Italian merchants figured out that recording every…
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Why smart employees sometimes act incompetent
The absolute quickest way to be burdened with horrific new duties is to do your job well. Brilliant workers quickly realize that displaying extreme capability…
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OnlyFans paid hundreds of millions in UK corporate tax
The UK economy is quite literally being propped up by people paying to see feet on the internet. The parent company of OnlyFans generates such absurdly high…
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Britain’s tax laws still leave room for paying with cows
Nothing says modern financial bureaucracy like paying your property taxes with a live, mooing farm animal. Under an archaic British law that was never…
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The fake Apple stores where employees thought they worked for Apple
You have to admire the sheer audacity of intellectual property theft operating at this scale. In 2011, bloggers discovered elaborate counterfeit Apple stores…
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Companies insure themselves against kidnapping ransoms
Because simply keeping your executives safe in warzones is too hard, multinational companies just buy bespoke hostage policies to ensure a smooth financial…
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Canada sold every ounce of its official gold
While other global superpowers are hoarding shiny metal in underground vaults like paranoid dragons, Canada just sold it all off and decided to blindly trust…
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The tax England paid to make Vikings leave
Extortion is totally legitimate once you put it in a royal ledger. The Danegeld was a massive national tax raised specifically to bribe Viking raiders into…
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Why watching live TV requires a UK license
In the UK, looking at a screen in your own living room is a taxable privilege. Anyone watching live broadcasts must pay an annual television license fee,…
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In Finland, speeding fines can soar with your income
In Finland, driving fast is exponentially more expensive if you are rich. Rather than flat fees, speeding fines are calculated as a percentage of the…
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Farmers can earn money by planting nothing
Sometimes the most lucrative crop you can plant is absolutely nothing. To prevent soil erosion and control market prices, agricultural programs routinely…
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The old farming quotas that paid landowners
Owning a very specific piece of dirt entitles you to free cash. Historical peanut quotas meant only certain plots of land were allowed to grow the crop. When…
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How a stuffed animal can become a tax loophole
Stuffing dead animals comes with highly specific financial perks. If a stuffed deer head or exotic bird is deemed old enough or carries educational value,…
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When Britain tried to tax gin out of existence
When eighteenth-century London descended into total alcoholic chaos, Parliament tried to price sobriety into existence. The Gin Act imposed crushing duties on…
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Why dead people sometimes receive government checks
The government is so efficient at distributing money that they frequently pay the deceased. During massive economic relief efforts, millions of checks are…
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