Breaking Bank

Cover Art by Cat Sims
I have, which will surprise you not a little, been speculating — partly in American funds, but more especially in English stocks, which are springing up like mushrooms this year (in furtherance of every imaginable and unimaginable joint stock enterprise), are forced up to quite an unreasonable level and then, for the most part, collapse. In this way, I have made over £400 and, now that the complexity of the political situation affords greater scope, I shall begin all over again. It’s a type of operation that makes demands on one’s time, and it’s worth while running some risk in order to relieve the enemy of his money.
— Karl Marx writing to Lion Philips, 1864

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Front Matters

Front Matters

Put that coffee down!

Struggle Session

All That Was Solid

a conversation with ADAM TOOZE

Economic historian Adam Tooze on a decade of shattered illusions and the limits of the neoliberal imagination.

Illustration by Marco Miccichè

THE MINSKY MILLENNIUM

MIKE BEGGS

In 2008, Hyman Minsky finally had his moment. But he was miscast as a prophet of financial collapse. The real “Minsky moment” was the bailout, not the crash.

Means of Deduction

Means of Deduction

Data-driven anticapitalism.

WHY SHADOW BANKING IS BIGGER THAN EVER

Daniela Gabor

Despite nearly destroying the global economy in 2008, the shadow banking revolution marches on.

Illustration by Ariel Alter
Reading Materiel

Reading Materiel

Political Economy can remain a science only so long as the class struggle is latent.

Field Notes

Dear Prime Minister

A letter from Mario Draghi and Jean-Claude Trichet to Silvio Berlusconi.

Dossier

Devil in the Details

Don’t know the difference between an asset-backed security and your ass? We’re here to help.

PULLING RABBITS OUT OF HATS

J. W. Mason

How a decade of crisis changed economics.

Illustration by Mariano Pascual
Cultural Front

Cultural Capital

Why Jamie Dimon Wanted to Host a Farm-to-Table Party in Nashville.

Beyond a Boundary

The House That Debt Built

Jonah Walters

Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena is a monument to the subprime mortgage crisis and the companies that caused it.

Illustration by Aart-Jan Venema

Governance by Finance

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Ronald Janssen

squiggle

Can European democracy survive the reign of unelected central bankers?

Illustration by Dalbert Vilarino
Tumbrel

The Tumbrel

Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.

Girondins

From Pawns to Players

Branko Marcetic

How Amalgamated Bank went from a tool for garment workers to a tool of finance capital.

Versailles

In Mansions and Benzes

Meagan Day

Ten years after the financial crisis, we see how life is treating some of our favorite Wall Street villains.

Illustration by David Biskup
Leftovers

Leftovers

Always be closing.

Popular Front

The Move Your Money Hustle

Doug Henwood

Getting banks under control is a matter of politics, not individual consumer decisions.

Means & Ends

A Make or Break Year

Bhaskar Sunkara

The future of socialism hangs in the balance — and Jacobin has an important role to play.