Essays

If we're so sad, why are we still spending?

Here's what sustained economic misery is actually doing — to our brains, our debt, our future selves, and the way we spend money in 2026.

Apr 29 • Hanna Horvath

Always the CEO, never the janitor

On upward identification, the American imagination, and why we protect people we’ll never be

Apr 22 • Hanna Horvath

The best financial advice I can give you is to sell your car

What if the key to financial wellness isn't a budget app — but where you live?

Apr 15 • Hanna Horvath

Your clout is a depreciating asset

On clout, depreciation, and the exhausting work of being someone who matters

Apr 8 • Hanna Horvath

Your taxes were designed to suck, actually.

I tried to find an ethical way to file my taxes. It did not go well.

Apr 1 • Hanna Horvath

You don't have to gamble for gambling to ruin your life

How gambling is eroding empathy, destroying relationships, and changing our culture — even for people who never bet.

Mar 25 • Hanna Horvath

I spent day Saturday doing life admin and accomplished nothing

or my thoughts on the adulting tax and why we're subsidizing our own survival

Mar 18 • Hanna Horvath

I make good money. Why do I still feel like this?

The middle class was a policy project. Every piece of it has been unbundled and repriced — and now two very different groups are living two very…

Mar 11 • Hanna Horvath

Nobody's hiring and everything is fine

There’s a promise at the center of American life.

Mar 4 • Hanna Horvath

Nobody trusts anybody anymore

Late-stage capitalism built a low-trust society, and it's an economic disaster

Feb 25 • Hanna Horvath

The grift economy is going mainstream

2025 was the year the grift economy went mainstream. Are we doomed to repeat it?

Feb 18 • Hanna Horvath

Soft clubbing is a late-stage capitalist fever dream

Let’s all pay to feel something, shall we?

Feb 11 • Hanna Horvath

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