Editor’s letter

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s a great investment we’ve learned about that will let you double your money every four years—guaranteed. How does it work? You lend money to people who will borrow it to make even more money. But you don’t need to look too closely at that, because, as you know, your gains are guaranteed. Pretty much. Oh, wait, you say you have heard this? It sounds like Bernie Madoff? Or swampland in Florida? Well, don’t worry about that. Because this time (say it with me) it’s different. This time, you see, it’s all digital. And that changes everything. Except of course it doesn’t, as Bitcoin “banks” like Celsius (see Making Money, p.33) are shutting down, leaving depositors with locked accounts scouring fine print that reveals that they could find their accounts locked.

One temptation here is to ask, How did you imagine things would end up? I might once have said that myself. But in editing the business pages at The Week I’ve had lots of opportunities to consider bubbles and blowups of every kind. I’ve come to understand that they have little to do with failures of intelligence. Last year, I often had people I regard highly ask if it was the right time to invest in Bitcoin. These days, I am more likely to get questions about whether to move everything into a savings account. The best answer in both cases is similar: All bubbles burst, all panics end. This sounds simple, but it’s not. There is great reporting about the economy, but there is also a lot that is impenetrable, magnifying the confusion and shame that people feel around money. Sometimes people lose their savings because of greed and stupidity. But more often it’s because no one has given them clear warnings. That’s the job of the press—and each story of scams and lost savings is a sign that we can do it better.