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mattdpearce.com
Matt Pearce
@mattdpearce.com
55K followers 1.2K following 1.8K posts
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. Opinions are my own (but they are correct)

https://mattdpearce.substack.com
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mattdpearce.com
If a significant majority of the people who wager lose money, that meets my definition of a losing game. Yet prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi will be a greater feature in our lives in 2026 than 2025, including through the growing financialization of the news people get. This raises the pressing question for the news industry of whether the world benefits when candy gets taken from babies, and how long that arrangement can last.
January 12, 2026 at 7:20 PM
mattdpearce.com
lol Piketty
excerpt from Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and the Twenty-First Century” THE STRUCTURE OF INEQUALITY • 372 income growth substantially higher than the average growth of the US economy, which is not negligible. Among the members of these upper income groups are US academic economists, many of whom believe that the economy of the United States is working fairly well and, in particular, that it rewards talent and merit accurately and precisely. This is a very comprehensible human reaction. But the truth is that the social groups above
January 10, 2026 at 5:39 PM
mattdpearce.com
Ah oops.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
The White House excluded Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard from months of planning to oust Nicolas Maduro because her previous opposition to military action in Venezuela cast doubt on her willingness to support the operation, people familiar with the matter said. The move to cut Gabbard out of the meetings was so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for "Do Not Invite," according to three of the people. They asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. A White House official denied there was any such joke. As a Democratic congresswoman in 2019, Gabbard said the US needs to "stay out" of Venezuela, and as recently as last month she railed against "warmongers" pushing the US into conflict.
January 8, 2026 at 9:19 PM
mattdpearce.com
I love when my productivity increases 5% while my pay goes down slightly.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
The productivity report showed output in the third quarter increased an annualized 5.4% after advancing at a 5.2% rate in the prior three months. Hours worked rose 0.5% in the third quarter, while hourly compensation, unadjusted for inflation, increased an annualized 2.9%. After adjusting for inflation, worker compensation declined at a 0.2% pace.
January 8, 2026 at 4:43 PM
mattdpearce.com
“HOW WILL CAPITALISM END? ESSAYS ON A FAILING SYSTEM” WOLFGANG STREECK
January 4, 2026 at 4:22 PM
mattdpearce.com
It takes retrospect to understand how utterly the share-everything movement of the 2000s won the argument. As a digital media Millennial, I've spent much of my adult life receiving and generating free content in online sharing economies, first through blogs (like this newsletter), then through social media (where you may have found me sharing this piece), now through unlimited Al-scraped and -generated content (where these words will be ingested into a vast eddy of human-generated inputs). I'm out here freely receiving and giving myself away. More people than ever are probably engaged in some degree of creative activity. So why does it seem like creatives are more miserable today than when Hyde published "The Gift" in 1979, when it was objectively harder to encounter and distribute creative expression?
December 29, 2025 at 3:31 PM
mattdpearce.com
The Reformation must have been amazing for blogging.
Excerpt from Lewis Hyde’s “The Gift”: Those reformers and movements (such as the Anabaptists) that did not recognize the new sense of property did not sur-vive. Thomas Müntzer, another radical priest, actively supported the peasants in Saxony and stood in clear opposition to Luther and his advice to statesmen: Luther says that the poor people have enough in their faith. Doesn't he see that usury and taxes impede the reception of the faith? He claims that the Word of God is suffi- cient. Doesn't he realize that men whose every moment is consumed in the making of a living have no time to learn to read the Word of God? The princes bleed the people with usury and count as their own the fish in the stream, the bird in the air, the grass of the field, and Dr. Liar says, " "Amen!" What courage has he, Dr. Pussyfoot, the new pope of Wit-tenberg, Dr. Easychair, the basking sycophant? What a clear voice! The authorities caught up with this man, tortured him, and cut off his head.
December 26, 2025 at 3:50 PM
mattdpearce.com
For your holiday reading consideration: Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Memoirs of Hadrian.”

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/dead-dream...
Yourcenar's historical Hadrian is a conscientious warrior who hates war, who wants to see and inhabit the full breadth of the world he inherits, who loves poetry and climbs volcanoes to be first Roman to see the day's sunrise, who falls tragically in love with the young Antinous. The norms of Roman culture might as well be alien to us today (there's the matter of Antinous' age when they meet, for one thing), but the echoes of history meant "Memoirs of Hadrian," published in 1951, would be told as what we might now call a queer love story. [picture of a damaged ancient bust of Hadrian’s lover Antinous]
December 23, 2025 at 7:25 PM
mattdpearce.com
In reviewing Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Memoirs of Hadrian” I thought about the psychological weirdness of our own imperial ruler guys.

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/dead-dream...
The stranger character is Donald Trump, our developer-king. I wonder what he dreams about at night. The rest is public domain. One of the luckiest people ever, in every sense of that word, who, unlike Musk, seems to enjoy life, with its Pavarottis and Andrew Lloyd Webbers - so how come this president never gets less angry? He spends the days remaking the world in his likeness, gifted like one of the X-Men with an amazing power to transmute desire into concrete reality: He wishes the Kennedy Center were named after him and simply makes it so. Trump's psyche is the only permanent structure in his vicinity. He talks shit like he's going to live forever. A year ago an assassin almost blew his brains out, and this 79-year-old seems no more circumspect about death than if he were still in his twenties.
December 22, 2025 at 3:06 PM
mattdpearce.com
Thank you to my bank for asking the hard questions.
CBS NEWS AND THEFREEPRESS PRESENT Things That Matter. HAS FEMMISM FAILED WOMEN? LIZ PLANK VS ALLIE BETH STUCKEY Brought to you by BANK OF AMERICA
December 19, 2025 at 5:50 PM
mattdpearce.com
What I learned from 2025:

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/four-big-t...
1. The new superspender economy rules everything around us. If there's a single stat to capture what's happening to the economy, it's this: The top 10% of U.S. earners now make up half of all spending, and it's changing everything. Delta Air Lines expects to make more money soon from luxury and business fliers at the front of the plane than from everybody else. In my own world of journalism, a lot of unscaled creators this year have been running into the soft limits of competing for small dollars, while the rest of the news field is increasingly dependent on the giving of foundations and high net-worth individuals (rich people). In gross dollars, economic support for news is propelled by what feels like a smaller segment of American society, which raises uncomfy questions for journalists about who the real customers are.
December 19, 2025 at 3:46 PM
mattdpearce.com
A few notes on organizing:

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/an-unsenti...
One of the first mistakes of a novice organizer is to assume people are ignorant and just need to be cajoled into joining arms for the beautiful or rational cause. Although people can be misinformed, tired, and distracted, they have spent their entire lives calculating whether to compete, collaborate or quit when facing one of a million problems. Accordingly, people tend to have well honed bullshit detectors located somewhere in the deep recesses of the gut. People are well aware of what their own problems are. They have sharp instincts for when a solution for those problems might be harder or riskier than it sounds. After all, if the fix was so easy, the problem would have stopped existing a while ago. (Problems, like countries and peoples, have their own irrevocable and contradictory histories.) That's why pros know your single most important organizing tool isn't your mouth but your ears. The most effective organizers get organized by the people they set out to organize.
December 15, 2025 at 3:12 PM
mattdpearce.com
Flaubert was cooking with this.
A copy of “Sentimental Education” by Gustave Flaubert.
December 12, 2025 at 3:56 AM
mattdpearce.com
Flaubert demonstrating that “Bari Weiss dinner party” is a particular social atmosphere that stretches across nations and centuries.
After he had addressed a few chilly words to Frédéric, he turned once more towards those who were chatting around him. A landowner was saying: "This is a class of men that dreams of turning society upsidedown." "They are calling for the organisation of labour," said another: "Can this be conceived?" "What could you expect," said a third, "when we see M. de Genoude giving his assistance to Le Siècle?'15 "And even Conservatives call themselves Progressives. To lead us to what? To the Republic! as if such a thing were possible in France!" Everyone declared that the Republic was impossible in France. "No matter!" remarked one gentleman in a loud tone. "People take too much interest in the Revolution. A heap of histories, of different kinds of works, are published concerning it!" "Without taking into account," said Martinon, "that there are probably subjects of far more importance which might be studied." A gentleman occupying a ministerial office laid the blame on the scandals associated with the stage: "Thus, for instance, this new drama of La Reine Margot really goes beyond the proper limits. What need was there for telling us about the Valois?* All this exhibits royalty in an unfavourable light. 'Tis just like your press! There is no use in talking, the September laws are altogether too mild. For my part, I would like to have court-martials, to gag the journalists! At the slightest display of insolence, drag them before a council of war, and then make an end of the business!" "Oh, be careful, Monsieur! Be careful!" said a professor. "Don't attack the precious gains of 1830! Respect our liberties!" It would be better, he contended, to adopt a policy of decentralisation, and to distribute the surplus populations of the towns through the country districts. "But they are rotten to the core!" exclaimed a Catholic. "Let religion be more firmly established!" Martinon hastened to observe: "As a matter of fact, it is a restraining force." All the evil lay in this modern longing to rise above one's class and to possess luxuries. "However," urged a manufacturer, "luxury aids commerce. Therefore, I approve of the Duc de Nemours' action in insisting on having short breeches at his evening parties."
December 10, 2025 at 3:35 PM
mattdpearce.com
This week in litmaxxing.
A copy of Gustavo Flaubert’s “Sentimental Education”
December 10, 2025 at 3:23 PM
mattdpearce.com
dictionary isn’t sure how to process that either
Merriam Webster website "freaksome" The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar
December 9, 2025 at 1:44 AM
mattdpearce.com
Area Man Enjoys Good Book

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/my-brillia...
The novel is still the dominant art form for capturing interior lives, surpassable in perception only by data-powered surveillance. But data is artless, the medium of the tech oligarch, who sees all and knows everything except the most important things in life. The novelist, like in the 19th and 20th centuries, remains our middle-class champion of the private existence, its rivalries, romances and secret histories.
December 8, 2025 at 8:06 PM
mattdpearce.com
Elena Ferrante's "My Brilliant Friend" is so good it made me angry. I kept dog-earing pages through the novel's final scenes, about a Faustian marriage in working-class Naples. A moment between two friends at the bride's pre-ceremony bath almost yanked the spirit out of my body. The plot turns felt at once unpredictable and inevitable, the sentences grown heavy as if written in pig iron. After the reveal in the final paragraph, I said fuck into an empty living room, slapped the abused paperback to my forehead, and held it there.
December 7, 2025 at 11:24 PM
mattdpearce.com
Anyway I’m struck by this because I’m reading “My Brilliant Friend” (wonderful book, a rich text as they say) about growing up in working-class Naples, and it’s got that Jane Austen quality where you can watch how money walks into the story and starts directing the action.
Picture of coffee, keys, sunglasses on a table next to an opened copy of Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend”
December 5, 2025 at 4:08 PM
mattdpearce.com
Strong floors, no ceiling, terrible apartment.

mattdpearce.substack.com/p/joan-didio...
House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, for example, recently said that Democrats "believe in a country where you have a strong floor and no ceiling," an apparent reference to venture capitalist Oliver B. Libby's new book/political movement, "Strong Floor, No Ceiling." The progressive's pleasure receptors are not being activated by this sort of rhetoric, but progressives aren't the target audience. (That would be independent voters.) The slogan itself has all the hallmarks of old stepped-on product repackaged with new labeling, right down at the linguistic level. "Floors" and "ceilings" entered professional use long ago and have enjoyed durable careers as political cliches. But it turns out throwing these two particular cliches in the cement mixer together creates a wholly new substance that is no longer load-bearing as a metaphor: If my apartment had a "strong floor, no ceiling," I'd probably be pretty upset. Maybe I could shoot off fireworks from bed.
December 1, 2025 at 2:10 PM
mattdpearce.com
Red alert, boys. WSJ says it’s time to start dressing like Steve Zissou.
A BETTER BASE Look 1 A Breton striped tee can easily replace a white tee as a less-routine base layer. Look 2 One of the easiest ways to look stylish? Combine a navy tee, overshirt and pants with contrasting textures. For added punch, finish with a bright fisherman beanie. Look 3 The main takeaway here: An Oxford shirt can look great under a heavier overshirt. If it's cold, consider a thin turtleneck (Uniqlo's are great) as the base.
November 30, 2025 at 5:25 PM
mattdpearce.com
Nuzzi vs. Lizza vs. the group chat
mattdpearce.substack.com/p/the-ecstas...
We don't dwell much on karma as a literal concept anymore. But in a democracy - in theory - media does have a correctional function. I use that word in the penal sense. When egos get too big, the lies too great, the betrayals too much to bear, media does its Big Brother act and starts applying countervailing pressure to restore things to an equilibrium. It's just that in the old days, media was magazines and newspapers; today, it's all of us who make content. Lizza's disgustingly detailed second chapter, paywalled, marked the first time I saw a lot of people maliciously infringing on an independent substacker's copyright on a mass scale via samizdat Google docs and pdfs to deny the author his expected dollars. The main characters here may be gripped incurably by mania and self-delusion and revenge, but the rest of us don't have to be. Maybe some sort of balance is coming back to bear, via pulverizing recoil.
November 24, 2025 at 3:19 PM
mattdpearce.com
Still, we are confronted by one unavoidable reality here: Sagas of hubris and treachery are universal literary genres, approachable by any reader. If you can hack through the regrettable prose and the intrusive metaphors about bamboo, we are presented with rich texts of the human condition. Who could resist Ryan Lizza publicly declaring that he’s just celebrated one year with somebody else, “the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known, someone whose beauty, inside and out, takes my breath away,” then issuing a tabloid assault seemingly calculated to inflict maximum reputational and emotional damage against his ex? And to then keep piling on? Why does Keith Olbermann keep opening his mouth to remind everyone of his romantic entanglement with a then-teenager? These are characters so deeply addicted to their passions that they cannot stop choosing to destroy themselves. As Jean Genet once wrote, “Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.”
November 23, 2025 at 10:18 PM
mattdpearce.com
Now there’s a curiously phrased nondenial.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/s...
In response to the allegations in Mr. Lizza's post, Ms. Nuzzi's lawyer, Ari Wilkenfeld, said in a statement, "In 'American Canto, Ms. Nuzzi discusses the only instance in her long career as a journalist in which she had an improper relationship with someone she was covering."
November 22, 2025 at 12:09 AM
mattdpearce.com
lol

www.wsj.com/business/med...
According to executives familiar with the plans, foreign correspondent Chris Livesay was among the staffers who were going to be let go as part of companywide layoffs in the works before Weiss's arrival. In an email to Weiss, he spoke of affinity for Israel and suggested he was being "bullied" and isolated for his views, according to a person familiar with the matter. Weiss weighed in on the layoffs and spared Livesay, people familiar with the move said. Other CBS News correspondents say that Livesay wasn't bullied for having pro-Israel views.
November 20, 2025 at 11:17 PM