To Whom It May Concern (You): I finally watched HBO’s 2025 show The Chair Company, expecting something light... or better yet… something dumb in a smart way. [SPOILER ALERT: I’M EXPLAINING THE BIG ARCH AND ENDING AHEAD] Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave) usually delivers comedy that looks like it fell down the stairs but somehow lands on its feet. What I didn’t expect was to feel like I was accidentally watching a Postcards essay performed by middle management. It just happened to be more absurd and in line with my fringe sense of humor. On the surface, the show is about a man who becomes obsessed with a defective office chair. A chair breaks at work, and everyone pretends it didn’t happen. He can’t get anyone at the manufacturer on the phone to hear his complaints, and the system strikes back when it dares to challenge it. There’s no accountability, and the story devolves into an exploration of how the system really works. The chair company insists everything is fine while quietly rearranging the org chart to sidestep the problem rather than fix it. That sounds trivial, especially for an HBO show. It’s supposed to be that way. That’s the joke. The longer the show goes on, the clearer it becomes that the chair isn’t the point. The chair is just the excuse. The point is the system. There’s no villain twirling a mustache in a corner office. There’s no grand reveal: the bad guy isn't exposed or hauled off. The company persists not because it’s evil, but because it’s stable. Today’s system absorbs pressure, redirects blame, and promotes people who notice problems rather than letting them disrupt the machine. Hell, they don’t even need to fix the problem to get the promotion… just don’t make any noise. When the main character realizes something is deeply wrong, he doesn’t bring the system down. He spends an incredible amount of time and energy becoming paranoid about it being something more than it really is… And when it turns out to be just a form of extraction and a system that punishes people who ask too many questions… he has to make a choice. He can keep fighting an absurd losing battle, or he can join the system and extract its rewards at the expense of others. That’s the punchline. And it’s uncomfortable because it’s accurate. The show’s final message isn’t that institutions are corrupt. It’s that institutions don’t need to be corrupt to function this way. They only need to prioritize continuity. Once you understand that, a lot of modern life starts to make more sense. That’s also where it clicked for me… A lot of places I’ve worked make sense now. This is the same thing I keep circling in Postcards from the Edge of the World. It’s not really about sovereign debt or central banks. It’s not about empires in the narrow sense. But the way systems extract, persist, and reassign stress without ever admitting fault. In history, we like to imagine collapse as dramatic. We think of revolutions, bank runs, and heads on pikes. But most of the time, systems don’t end. They adapt, swap personnel, rename programs, and issue new credentials. The extraction continues… but it’s just routed through different pipes. The Norman Conquest brought asset reassignment. Bretton Woods didn’t end money. It really reorganized who controlled it. Modern liquidity crises aren’t moral failures. They are balance sheet problems. solved by moving the pressure somewhere less visible. Just like the system surrounding the chair company. They don’t fix the chairs… or problems. Neither do most big companies today. They just fix the narrative, adjust the reporting structure, and make the problem small enough to live with… And if you’re perceptive enough to see it clearly, you’re valuable. You’re not really a rebel… but a caretaker. That’s the quiet truth the show lands on. The system doesn’t crush its critics… it recruits them. That’s also the unspoken theme running through Postcards. I’m not writing about doomsday scenarios or collapse. I’m writing about durable arrangements. I’m explaining how extraction survives reform. And about how power prefers stability over justice, every single time. It’s all different centuries and different costumes. But the same mechanics. So yes, The Chair Company is funny. Genuinely funny. Absurd in a way that sneaks past your defenses. It’s not for everyone, but it’s right up my alley. It’s also one of the better accidental explanations of how institutional systems work that I’ve seen in a while. Without the absurdities and humor and well-timed jokes, it’s just a boring description of an unaccountable system. If that kind of thinking resonates with you, that’s exactly what Postcards from the Edge of the World is for. We explore history, economics, power, and extraction. It’s all written without pretending there’s a clean moral ending. You don’t escape the system… you can’t. You have to learn how it works. And you take moves to reclaim your sovereignty while buying the right companies to protect yourself and build wealth. And once you see it… You’ll never unsee it.
If you want more of that perspective, you know where to find it. You can join us today for $1 per issue. Our latest issue from yesterday is right here. Stay positive, Garrett Baldwin About Postcards from the Edge of the WorldThe Postcards Doctrine holds that wealth, power, and stability do not persist through innovation, morality, institutions, or financial sophistication, but through control of chokepoints that remain productive across regime change. Civilizations rise and fall. Ideologies rotate. Technologies obsolete themselves. Financial instruments are rewritten, repudiated, inflated away, or nationalized. What survives is not what performs best in good times, but what continues to function when systems fail, rules change, and authority resets. The doctrine begins with a simple observation: extraction always migrates toward what people cannot avoid. Early on, extraction flows through trade. Then finance. Then regulation. Then platforms. Then metered access. Eventually, it settles on inputs that cannot be substituted, deferred, or digitized. Postcards are sent from the edge of these transitions. Each one documents a moment when the system tightens, when optionality narrows, and when value stops flowing to innovation and starts flowing to ownership. Enjoy.
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