An explainer on how the moneylender is back on the prowl once again.

Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM) companies are big businesses around the world and they have rightfully attracted much criticism for questionable business practice. Many have called them illegal pyramid schemes, but today these companies continue to operate in most developed countries around the world and rake in billions of dollars in profit in any given year all with the blessing of local trade authorities.

So, what are these businesses? Let's park personal opinions on how annoying it is to be roped into one of these MLM meetings for the moment and assess the fundamental economics behind this business model.

This is Star Citizen: possibly the most ambitious virtual world in video game history.

Star Citizens' story has been that of bold ambition, record-breaking community support, and yes ... even a bit of good old-fashioned frustration.

In this episode, we'll explore crowdfunding, the video game industry, and a project that may prove to be the greatest video game in history. Enjoy!

In this episode, we explore Titans the biggest ships in the game and how industrial superpowers have built them on a massive scale.

Additionally, we'll also check out a project so monolithic in its scale of player involvement that it surpasses any other project in video game history.

As of the time of this writing, there are between 186 and 192 countries in the world (depending on who you ask).

In this less-than-serious episode, let's take a look at the 50 largest nations and see what makes their economies tick.

Japan became the first of the modern Asian countries to experience massive sustained economic growth. Japan had a lot going for it after the end of the war, it was able to rebuild with the help of the allies and go through its own modern industrial revolution. In the 1960s, Japan was growing at a rate of 10% a year which for a national economy was unheard of at the time, this economic growth continued and japan was able to ride the wave of globalization as the world's low-cost manufacturer. Japan developed a huge car industry, it was at the forefront of consumer electronics and was working meticulously to make sure that this newfound wealth was being invested wisely into infrastructure like high-speed rail, airports and metro systems that would make their economy even more efficient.

At its peak, there was so much wealth in japan that the real estate market of Tokyo had some pretty crazy anomalies. In the late 80’s it was estimated that the imperial palace covering an area of 3.4 square kilometers in central Tokyo had a real estate land value greater than all of the real estate in California. Of course, the imperial palace was never for sale and this was based on the cost per square feet in the area but it still should give a good idea of just how much money was washing around in Japan.

In this episode, we will look at how this all went so wrong and what it can tell us about countries that are today where japan was 40 years ago.

EVE Online has a botting problem. Robots can be programmed to play this game for hours at a time with no rest needed.

This has meant that normal players looking to play the game have been pushed to the side by these armies of robots that can farm currency far more effectively than they can.

In this follow up episode, we'll explore this issue and how it relates to the economy of the real world.

EVE Online is a massively multiplayer online game that is probably best known for articles about massive space battles with tens of thousands of players, or stories about in-game con men screwing over their allies after years of friendship. BUT! EVE online is interesting for a bigger reason though that is often overlooked, and that is its amazingly realistic economy. In this video, we explore one of the player nation-states and see how crazy realistic the economy of a video game about spaceships can be.

This is not sponsored by the Imperium, EVE online, or its developer, CCP games (but they are more than welcome to send me a cheque!).

Bill Benter, is a reserved unassuming and media-shy Pittsburg resident who made almost 1 billion dollars by gambling on horse races.

The man was a mathematical genius who was on the cutting edge of both computer science and statistical modeling so it is widely assumed with his business knowledge that he could have made money just about anywhere, in a rare interview when asked about his success in horse racing he said: “I was driven only partly by money, I believe I probably could have made more money in finance, but that didn’t interest me, I didn’t get into professional horse racing because it was hard, but because it was said to be impossible”

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the world's poorest country, with a large majority of its 70 million citizens living in absolute poverty. For a long time, poverty in Africa has been seen as a purely humanitarian issue. But could the answer just be good economic management? Unfortunately, this is a situation with a very clear solution that is impossibly hard to attain.

Poverty is a tough issue to deal with, but in this episode, we'll attempt to explore some of the fundamental causes of this poverty and see how they impact the Congo's fragile economy.