World 10 · Building capability
Taxes, insurance & financial systems
Free — no account needed to read
The rules and institutions surrounding your money.
By the end of this world
You will understand the general ideas behind taxes and insurance, and how banks, central banks and regulators shape the money around you.
Taxes
- Why governments tax — Taxes pay for shared things and shape behaviour — and people disagree about how much and how. (6 min · Foundation)
- Income tax, consumption tax and capital gains — The main ways money is taxed: when you earn it, when you spend it, and when an asset grows. (7 min · Foundation)
- Tax brackets, deductions and credits — Why moving into a higher bracket does not tax all your income at the higher rate. (7 min · Practical)
- Tax planning vs tax evasion, and why rules differ — Arranging your affairs within the rules is legal; hiding income is not. Every country’s rules differ. (6 min · Practical)
Insurance
- Why insurance exists: risk pooling — Many people each pay a little so that the few who suffer a big loss are covered. (6 min · Foundation)
- Premiums, deductibles and coverage — The three words that decide what an insurance policy costs and what it actually pays. (6 min · Foundation)
- Health, life, property and liability insurance — The main kinds of insurance, what each protects, and who each tends to matter to. (8 min · Practical)
- Common insurance mistakes — Over-insuring small things, under-insuring big ones, and not reading what is excluded. (6 min · Practical)
The system around you
- Banks, payment networks and credit systems — How a payment actually travels, and how lenders learn about you before they lend. (7 min · Practical)
- Central banks, interest rates and monetary policy — Why one institution’s interest rate decision changes loans, savings and prices across a country. (8 min · Deep)
- Who watches the system: financial regulators — The bodies that license, supervise and protect — and what they can and cannot do for you. (5 min · Practical)
- Financial crises — How confidence, debt and leverage combine into a crisis, and why crises spread so far. (8 min · Deep)