Money and Ownership

Houses, cars, leases and mortgages: the arithmetic of ownership, and why most of what people own is rented.

• 2026-07-31 — The Loop Wake, work, mortgage, repeat. The loop doesn't make you an NPC; not minding it does. Thoreau's quiet desperation, updated.
• 2026-07-08 — Lemmings Every morning the herd pours onto the highway in leased cars and mortgaged lives, calling temporary permission prosperity.
• 2026-06-25 — My Job Is Easy The classic way to get rich isn't building. It's hiring people who take 0.25% over four years, call themselves lucky, and say the job is easy.
• 2026-06-23 — Where Would You Like to Go The EV owner thinks he bought the future. He bought the bait: paying retail to train the robotaxi fleet that ends car ownership.
• 2026-06-17 — Choose Your Caste Four castes in tech: the independent founder, the funded founder who lost the band, the foot soldier in big tech, and everyone outside.
• 2026-06-11 — Token Owners GoFundMe campaigns for tokens. Thirty-year cognition mortgages. The old poverty starved the body; the new one rations intelligence.
• 2026-05-05 — Bidding for Brains Right now AI is a bargain next to an employee. Once the labor is gone, the price of intelligence is set by whoever owns the compute.
• 2026-04-22 — Last Mile EVs are a transitional species between the gas car and what's actually coming: autonomous fleets that nobody needs to own.
• 2026-04-20 — Caste on Wheels A car loses about 80% of its value by year fifteen, every brand. It isn't an investment. It's a status badge on wheels that burns money.
• 2026-04-15 — The Means of Production A house makes sense in two cases: you inherited it, or you're rich enough that it's a prop. For everyone else the math says otherwise.
• 2026-03-30 — Owning the Dream An $800,000 house, fully paid off, still costs $1,000 a month in property tax. You never own it. You rent it from the state.
• 2026-02-14 — The New Mainframe AI raises the bar for everyone while the rewards flow upward to the same place they always have. Automate yourself and you get a bigger quota.
• 2025-10-07 — Managed servitude Employment as servitude with a LinkedIn glow-up and a 401(k): the same chains, better branding, standing desks and free snacks.

Other topics: AI and Jobs · Corporate Life · School and Conditioning · Agency and the Midwit · Power and Control

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