In a world currently vibrating with the frantic, terminal energy of a dying star, The Economist—that self-appointed chronicler of the ‘liberal’ order—has posted a vacancy. They are looking for a new finance writer. It is an invitation to join the ranks of the anonymous, the monocled, and the terminally smug. To the uninitiated, this might look like a job posting. To anyone with a functioning frontal lobe, it is a call for a new high priest to help maintain the collective hallucination we call the global economy.

Let us consider the venue. The Economist is not a magazine; it is a lifestyle brand for people who think having a firm grasp on the repo market is a substitute for having a personality. Its writers are famously nameless, a stylistic choice intended to suggest a monolithic, god-like intelligence descending from on high. In reality, it serves to shield individual hacks from the embarrassment of their own predictions. By hiring a new finance writer, the publication is simply looking for a fresh pair of hands to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, ensuring that each chair is perfectly aligned according to the latest Milton Friedman-inspired feng shui.

The timing is, as always, deliciously absurd. We are currently watching the slow-motion collapse of every financial pillar that the publication’s editorial board has spent the last century worshiping. Debt is a fiction that has become more real than the ground we walk on, and the ‘market’—that invisible deity—is currently throwing a tantrum because it might have to go five minutes without a multi-billion-dollar liquidity injection from the taxpayer. Into this furnace, The Economist wishes to toss a new candidate. The lucky winner will be tasked with writing about 'market resilience' and 'fiscal prudence' while the world below them struggles to afford a dozen eggs.

What does the role actually entail? It requires the ability to take the grotesque reality of modern capitalism and refine it into a series of polite, dry observations. You must be able to describe the mass liquidation of a nation’s social safety net as ‘structural reform.’ You must look at a billionaire’s tax-evasion scheme and see ‘innovative capital allocation.’ It is a job for someone who finds the smell of burning sulfur to be quite refreshing, provided it is accompanied by a decent dividend yield. The finance writer is the person who tells you that your house being underwater is actually a fascinating case study in liquidity, and that your inability to retire is merely a ‘labor market flexibility’ success story.

The recruitment process itself is no doubt a marathon of intellectual vanity. They seek someone who can write with 'clarity' and 'wit.' In this context, ‘clarity’ means the ability to ignore the human cost of every spreadsheet entry, and ‘wit’ means the kind of dry, desiccated humor that one finds in a London club where the average member hasn't felt a genuine emotion since the Suez Crisis. They want an analyst who can navigate the complexities of central bank policy without ever accidentally mentioning that the entire system is a Rube Goldberg machine built out of greed and desperation.

The Right will view this as an opportunity to plant another foot soldier for the status quo, a new voice to scream for deregulation until the last tree is converted into a derivative. The Left will scoff, decrying the publication as a mouthpiece for the elite, while secretly polishing their CVs because the health insurance is probably excellent and everyone wants to feel important at a dinner party in Davos. Both sides are, as usual, missing the point. The point is that the position exists only to provide a veneer of intellectual legitimacy to a system that has become an automated suicide pact.

To apply for this role is to declare that you have no better use for your brief flicker of consciousness than tracking the palpitations of a dying stock exchange. It is a commitment to the 'dismal science,' a field of study that has predicted twelve of the last zero recessions and continues to treat the planet as a subsidiary of the insurance industry. The new finance writer will sit in a quiet office, perhaps in St. James’s, and weave tapestries of prose that explain why everything is fine, even as the smoke from the global periphery begins to stain the windows.

We don't need another finance writer. We need an exorcist. But until then, The Economist will continue its search for someone who can look at the abyss and complain about the lack of transparency in its reporting. The winner will get a desk, a paycheck, and the privilege of being the last person to turn off the lights when the numbers finally stop making sense. It is a prestigious role, indeed—the ultimate gig for those who want to be smart enough to know we’re doomed, but cynical enough to want to get paid for describing it.