In the latest New Money Review podcast, I interview Mordecai Kurz, Joan Kenney professor of economics emeritus at Stanford University.

Kurz, the author of "Private Power and Democracy's Decline", to be published in May 2026, says that it's time to suppress technology firms' market power---or we will lose democracy.

In the podcast, we cover:

• why free market capitalism and democracy are no longer compatible
• the similarities and differences between the first and second US "gilded ages"
• why tech firms' market power cannot be addressed by 20th century anti-trust laws
• the need to tax monopoly profits
• how social media threatens democracy
• the need to repeal Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act
• why AI will be the great battle of the 21st century
• why individuals have to step forward to support democracy
• the forthcoming implosion of the MAGA movement
• why we're heading for a financial and economic crisis
• why economists need to study power relations

In the latest episode of Unseen Money, Timur Yunusov helps Paul Amery unravel a strange real-life story involving a spoofed eBay delivery, Paul’s phone number and a photo of an Indian lady in a pink dressing gown.

The story is part of a rapidly growing form of crime involving so-called “synthetic” identities. In a synthetic identity fraud, criminals create fake online identities by blending real, stolen data with fabricated information. They then use those identities to conduct money laundering and fraud.

In the podcast, we cover:

(00’ 25”) How Paul got a DPD delivery notification for an eBay parcel he hadn't ordered

(1’ 20”) How DPD provided “proof of delivery” to a woman in a pink dressing gown

(2’ 45”) How eBay showed no interest in investigating the transaction

(3’ 15”) Why a synthetic identity combines real and fictitious information

(4’ 40”) How criminals use synthetic identities to decrease online friction

(6’ 40”) Possible use of synthetic IDs in buy now pay later (BNPL) fraud

(7’ 10”) Why synthetic identity frauds don’t fit the standard stolen identity playbook

(7’ 40”) Why synthetic ID cases deserve much greater scrutiny from anti-fraud teams

(11’ 30”) Identity theft (account takeover) and synthetic identities

(13’ 00”) Why synthetic identity fraud has boomed post-COVID

(21’ 40”) AI and machine learning have turbocharged synthetic identity fraud

(23’ 40”) Who’s buying the sets of synthetic IDs?

(24’ 30”) How criminals use synthetic identities in frauds

(29’ 30”) Dead souls, the Russia-Ukraine war and the exploitation of fake identity sets

Tech firms and governments are pushing passkeys as a replacement for online passwords.

They argue that using passkeys will help cut down on fraud, prevent account takeovers and protect against password theft.

But Paul Amery and Timur Yunusov are sceptical that passkeys will take off. Listen to the latest episode of Unseen Money from New Money Review to find out why.

Here’s what we discuss in the podcast:

• (0’ 45”) why we need to get rid of passwords
• (2’ 35”) safer and less safe ways of using passwords
• (3’ 05”) password management practices
• (4’ 10”) what is a passkey?
• (6’ 10”) how passkeys replace reliance on a password with reliance on a trusted device
• (7’ 10”) what if we are trying to use our phones less?
• (8’ 00”) using your laptop as an alternative
• (8’ 20”) hardware devices to store your passkey
• (10’ 00”) passkeys won’t protect you against state surveillance or a kidnapper
• (12’ 20”) passkeys are only as secure as the surrounding infrastructure
• (13’ 00”) what happens if you lose the trusted device?
• (14’ 20”) unresolved questions regarding lost passkeys
• (14’ 50”) Paul’s unhappy experience setting up passkeys
• (15’ 50”) why financial institutions lag in introducing passkeys
• (16’ 50”) Timur’s survey of security research on passkeys
• (18’ 10”) where is the weakest link in the passkey enrolment chain?
• (19’ 30”) why Timur is sceptical of tech firms’ invitations to enrol passkeys
• (21’ 00”) who’s pushing passkeys and why?
• (22’ 30”) why some friction in online transactions is a good thing
• (23’ 30”) why Timur would not use a web browser passkey to access a bank account
• (27’ 30”) why large-scale passkey adoption is still far away
• (28’ 30”) passkey technology could be imposed