Working in the New Scam Economy
On The Time of Monsters: Alexander Sammon on toiling in the grift machine.

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.
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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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.
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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.
Many of Joe Biden’s closest advisors are now well-ensconced in the sinecures reserved for the elite, working at think tanks, academia, and major media outlets. Normally, they could expect to have future jobs when the Democrats retake the White House. But this cozy situation is being disrupted by ongoing reporting showing the extent of their complicity in the Gaza genocide and other US crimes in the Middle East. I spoke about this with Connor Echols, managing editor of Responsible Statecraft, who wrote an excellent article on the efforts to hold these officials accountable.
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