The Inner Monologue

Wages and Inflation: Why Workers Usually Come Out Ahead

It is common to hear people say that “everything costs more, but pay never keeps up.” It is a powerful grievance, repeated in politics and breakroom conversations alike. Yet the hard truth is that, across history and across the economy, most workers’ pay actually does rise faster than inflation. The gap may be small, the…
The Lucky Pulse X7 Is Real—And the Casino Industry Is Losing Its Mind

For decades, the casino industry has clung to a single sacred truth: the house always wins. But what if that truth is no longer guaranteed? What if, hidden in plain sight, a device now exists that shifts the advantage—not overtly, not illegally, but subtly, consistently—back to the player? That’s exactly what the emergence of the…
The Caribbean Shockwave: How Venezuela’s Defiance Redrew the Map of the Americas

1 October, 2038 It is hard to believe, even now, that the balance of power in the Western Hemisphere was overturned not by a great war, not by a technological revolution, but by a battered petrostate led by a man the world once dismissed as a desperate autocrat. Yet the autumn of 2025 remains the…
Stop Waterboarding the Desert

There is stupidity, and then there is the special stupidity of trying to make the desert look like Ohio. It is a uniquely American madness: to take the driest, harshest landscapes on Earth and insist on growing the thirstiest plants we can find. Cotton in Arizona. Alfalfa in California. Lawns in Las Vegas. It’s not…
Your Cheap Knockoff Tool Just Murdered Your DeWalt Battery

So, you thought you were being so clever—buying that sketchy off-brand cordless tool and slapping your premium DeWalt/Milwaukee/Makita battery into it to “save money.” Congrats! You might have just turned your $100+ battery into an expensive paperweight. Let’s break down why mixing name-brand batteries with bargain-bin tools is a terrible idea—unless, of course, you enjoy…
The Return of Garden Hermits: Now with Wi-Fi and Wings

The ultra-wealthy have rediscovered an 18th-century pastime: hiring live humans to lurk in their estates. Only this time, the “garden hermit” has gone deluxe. Gone are the days of wizened old men in burlap huts. In today’s luxury market, billionaires demand a cast of roaming cosplayers, complete with horns, wings, and the occasional glow-in-the-dark rune…
The Alarms of Prosperity: A Metaphor for First-World Society

Step into the modern hospital and you will hear the sound of civilization itself. The rhythmic tones, the urgent beeps, the overlapping cries for attention—they are not just the alarms of machines but the music of the modern world. Every monitor, every pump, every device is certain its message is vital. Every one insists on…
The Lawyer’s Line: Why No Client Can Buy a Crime

There’s a profound misunderstanding in the public imagination about what it means to “hire a lawyer.” The popular image—fueled by crime dramas and political scandals—is that lawyers are hired hands, advocates who will say or do anything to protect their client. The truth is far more complicated, and far more noble. A lawyer is not…
Beauty Is Not Enough: Why Living Somewhere Beautiful Only Works If You Are Paying Attention

It is tempting to believe that beauty is a kind of automatic upgrade. That if you place a human being in the presence of mountains, oceans, forests, or desert horizons, something inside them will inevitably soften, expand, or heal. We speak this way casually, almost mythically, as if beauty were a force that acts upon…
When Health Policy Becomes Wealth Policy: How America’s New Health Care System Rewards the Mega-Rich

Public policy rarely announces its true purpose outright. Instead, it reveals itself through outcomes—through who bears the risk, who absorbs the cost, and who quietly accumulates the gains. Nowhere is this clearer than in America’s newly emerging health care system, a system no longer defined by universal access or shared responsibility, but by individualized risk…