Podcast / The Time of Monsters / Aug 11, 2025

Working in the New Scam Economy

On The Time of Monsters: Alexander Sammon on toiling in the grift machine.

The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.

Working in the New Scam Economy w/ Alex Sammon
byThe Nation Company LLC

Almost everyone who is on line or even has a cell phone has encountered a familiar and

perplexing nuisance: an email or text with a job offer to make lots of money while working from

home. These messages seem like obvious scams but how do they work? Alexander Sammon, a

feature writer for Slate, conducted a personal experiment to find out by taking one of the jobs

he was offered. The result is a hilarious article detailing not just what it’s like to be ripped off

but also illuminating the new grift economy that flourishes in the internet age as Donald Trump

pursues his agenda of deregulation and the promotion of crypto currency. I had enormous fun

both reading Alex’s article (which I can’t recommend highly enough) and talking to him about

his strange experiences.

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(Yuliya Taba / E+ via Getty Images)

Almost everyone who is online or even has a cell phone has encountered a familiar and perplexing nuisance: an e-mail or text with a job offer to make lots of money while working from home. These messages seem like obvious scams, but how do they work? Alexander Sammon, a feature writer for Slate, conducted a personal experiment to find out by taking one of the jobs he was offered. The result is a hilarious article detailing not just what it’s like to be ripped off but also illuminating the new grift economy that flourishes in the Internet age as Donald Trump pursues his agenda of deregulation and the promotion of cryptocurrency. I had enormous fun both reading Alex’s article (which I can’t recommend highly enough) and talking to him about his strange experiences.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.

The Iran War Stalemate w/ Trita Parsi
byThe Nation Company LLC

The Trump administration has announced a new set of harsh sanctions against Iran. This is a strange development since originally Trump launched a war on Iran on the pretext that sanctions weren’t working. Trita Parsi of the Qunicy Institute argues the current tactic won’t work and is a holding action as both the US and Iran bide their time in a long conflict. Parsi’s writings can be found on his Substack. In the interview, we discuss his column on the surprising way many governments are rooting for Iran to check US imperialism.

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Subscribe to The Nation to Support all of our podcasts

Jeet Heer

Jeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.

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