The honey badger of payments (opens in new tab)

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his classic Bits about Money essay on how checks shaped the entire American payments infrastructure, from the origins of ACH to why a standard US bank account is, technically, a credit product. He then examines what happened when DOGE tried, via Executive Order 14247, to eliminate federal paper check disbursements by September 2025. The carve-outs Treasury eventually had to make map almost exactly onto the essay's original argument. Checks are the honey badger...