Fraud And America

Believing Your Lying Eyes

Patrick McKenzie | Bits About Money | 6th February 2026 | U

Thoughts on fraud. Fraudsters tend to repeat themselves: "The dominant next adventure for a former fraudster is… opening up a new fraud." They share the same supply chain and professional services firms. They employ family and close friends, because they need loyalty in the face of threatened prison time. Properly investigating fraud is a vital but underrated function of a healthy democracy (6,700 words)

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To Remember In America

Yiyun Li | LRB Blog | 6th February 2026 | U

Writer recalls her bad memories of a traumatic time in nursery school in 1970s Beijing — four-year-olds were threatened with hammers — and finds parallels to 21C politics. "A friend in London talks about the mystifying phrase she keeps hearing these days: ‘This is not America, this is not who we are.’ But this is America, this is life, and this is how human beings behave. American exceptionalism will not save us" (600 words)