Jargon Junction: "Leverage"

Ali "Al" Jafar: The right man in the wrong place at the worst time.

Assets: The shit you own.

Balance Sheet: Ripe for accounting fraud.

Bubble: The reason everyone's excited about souped-up linear regression software.

Capital: The crucial lifeblood and lethal poison coursing through humanity's veins.

Corruption: Corporate America's bread and butter.

Department of Justice: A federal bureaucracy that's too busy breaking the law to bother enforcing the law.

Depression: 1. (in psychology) Righteous rage turned wrongfully inward. 2. (in finance) Crypto's final act.

Efficient Market Hypothesis: None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Equity: 1. (in finance) What men in power desire most. 2. (in politics) What men in power fear most.

Free Market Capitalism: A perfect and infallible economic framework—until Wall Street needs another bailout.

Globalization: The go-to bogeyman for autocrats everywhere.

Gold: Priceless during boom times; worthless in the wasteland.

Hedge Fund: An opaque financial institution which charges exorbitant management fees in exchange for underwhelming investment returns.

Hyperinflation: Destroyer of empires.

Inside Information: The only way to beat the market.

Invisible Hand: The most ridiculous deity.

Investors: Degenerate gamblers Sophisticated capital allocators.

Junk Bonds: The foundation of American exceptionalism.

Keynesian Economics: How we got into this mess, Part One.

Kleptocracy: Applied democracy.

Leverage: 1. (in finance) If you’re worried about it, you’re fucked. 2. (in negotiations) If your counterparty has it, you’re fucked. 3. (in geopolitics) If your enemies exploit it, you’re fucked. 4. (in art) The not at all coincidental title of my timely, topical, hella fun novel.

Liabilities: The shit you owe.

Liquidity: How quickly you can take your money and run.

M&A: The fastest way to destroy two companies.

Macroeconomics: Complete and total guesswork on a global scale.

Microeconomics: Complete and total guesswork on an individual scale.

Money: No amount will fix you.

Neoliberalism: How we got into this mess, Part Two.

Net Present Value (NPV): Garbage in, garbage out.

Oligarchs: The Yes Men pulling the strings.

Paul Kingsley: The fictional villain America's actual villains wish they were.

Philanthropist: An improperly taxed individual.

Prism Capital: The world's most prestigious—and most ruthless—hedge fund.

Quota: Affirmative action for economists.

Regulatory Capture: Harms consumers; juices profits.

Rent-seeking Behavior: Nice work if you can get it.

Securities and Exchange Commission: Spineless, toothless, and useless.

Shareholder Value: The only metric that matters.

Shell Companies: The backbone of the money laundering industry.

Short Selling: Profitable Schadenfreude.

Tax Evasion: The quintessential conservative value.

Trickle-down Economics: The greatest trick The Gipper ever pulled.

Uncertainty: What stock jockeys love to hate and hate to love.

Valuation: The least exact science.

Volatility: What makes the market go round.

Wages: An unavoidable tax on investment returns which should be minimized, suppressed, and withheld to the greatest extent possible.

Wu Tang Clan: Influential and inspirational pioneers.

Xenophobia: The only incurable fear.

Yield: Bigger ain't always better.

Zero-sum Game: The cynical calculus of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Big Pharma, and every other industry happily cashing in while the empire burns.