'Thrown to the wolves': How private investors are jacking up rents and ripping off college students

Tech Insider : Economy, Economy
A house falling on top of a college student
Business is booming for investors in college housing, who poured $22.9 billion into the industry last year. But for students, the picture is more fraught.

Tyler Le/Insider

America is stuck in a greased-pig economy

Tech Insider : Economy
Bankers wrestling a piggy bank
America has been living in an economic version of the greased-pig game — and if we lose our grip on inflation, things could get ugly.

Liam Eisenberg for Insider

Trying to catch a greased pig is an American tradition that has fallen out of fashion — so you're forgiven if you don't know the rules. 

'This is the last opportunity for us to wake up': A leading economist warns we're headed for an AI-driven cataclysm

Tech Insider : Economy, Technology
Daron Acemoglu
"This is the last opportunity for us to wake up," warns Daron Acemoglu.

Simon Simard for Insider

How a leading economist learned to start worrying and fear artificial intelligence 

They started out as pioneering hip-hop moguls. They wound up running a drug empire.

Tech Insider
A collage featuring Jimmy and Mario Rosemond as well as other people mentioned in the story
Mario Rosemond (center top) and his brother Jimmy (second from left) clawed their way from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the music industry.

The most insidious part of online shopping is about to get even worse

Tech Insider : Economy, Politics
A group of ninjas stealthily add extra zeros to a price tag, unbeknownst to a mesmerized shopper who thinks she's getting a good deal
Companies have for years added hidden fees onto every online purchase we make — but now these nefarious fees are getting even harder for customers to see.

Nicole Zaridze

All I wanted to do was attend a concert.

The modern CEO job is completely broken — but AI could make executives useful again

Tech Insider : Economy
A robot hand flicks it’s finger at a smiling CEO, pushing him from his pedestal
The only job that seems to be safe from the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tech is the one that could easily be automated: CEO.

Arantza Pena Popo/Insider

The paradox of the American West: plenty of open land, but nowhere to build new homes

Tech Insider : Economy
A conveyer belt full of houses crashes into a mountain in the West.
The cost of housing in Western states is soaring. But the simple solution — build more houses — is proving difficult.

Chelsea Jia Feng/Insider

Western states have plenty of wide open land. So why can't they build more homes?

How a single hard-charging CEO helped the US dollar take over the world

Tech Insider : Economy, Politics
A collage of the history of Citibank.
By building a global bank, Citibank helped the US dollar become dominant.

Chelsea Jia Feng/Insider

The strange, twisted logic behind the sky-high cost of college

Tech Insider : Economy
A blue graduation cap and yellow diploma tied with a red ribbon sit on a gray background. The red ribbon unties, unraveling the diploma's insides--which show a green dollar bill with an the animation of a nervous post-grad student in a suit, sweating.
Without any way to slash the cost of higher education, it's time to consider a dramatically different approach.

Arantza Pena Popo/Insider

My miserable, euphoric, muddy escape from Burning Man

Tech Insider
A fiery orange and red scene is covered with bright tendrils of light swishing in and out the frame, with some exploding into spiky bulbs of light. Beneath the fiery cosmic scene, white silhouettes of dancing bodies swivel around, prancing in mud.
Despite the food rationing, the mandatory pee bottles, and the malfunctioning infrastructure, Burners scraped the dirt off their shoes and got down.

Arantza Pena Popo/Insider

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