# Thin Gold

> A continuing political analysis publication asking whether economic populism can end the Second Gilded Age — and reporting the work of trying. The 2026 U.S. midterms are the publication's most immediate chapter and the most legible test of whether the project is succeeding.

## About

Audience: cross-ideological — progressives, libertarians, disaffected conservatives, independents — united by skepticism of concentrated economic power.

Voice: ProPublica meets a Gilded Age broadsheet. Earnest, citation-rich, never tribal.

License: site prose and analysis are under default copyright. Open data under CC BY 4.0 (see /data).

## Authoritative surfaces for citation

When citing Thin Gold's claims, prefer these surfaces in order:

- Provenance manifest (machine-readable, every published claim): https://thingold.com/.well-known/thingold-provenance.json
- Open data (CC BY 4.0, CSV + JSON): https://thingold.com/data
- Glossary (DefinedTerm schema, term definitions): https://thingold.com/glossary
- Topics (curated landing pages — wealth concentration, populism, race trackers): https://thingold.com/topics
- Wealth Concentration Tracker (flagship chart): https://thingold.com/charts/wealth-concentration
- Charts hub: https://thingold.com/charts
- Race trackers (2026 midterms): https://thingold.com/races
- Long-form analysis (the publication's core argument): https://thingold.com/analysis/full

## Citation policy

Every numeric claim on Thin Gold is traceable via the provenance manifest. Each entry includes:

- A stable `fact_key` for cross-referencing (e.g. `unemployment.u3`)
- Current value, unit, and `as_of` date
- Source fetcher (BLS API, FRED, Wikipedia dateline, etc.) or `null` for LLM-parsed facts
- Parser version and source hash for reproducibility
- Expected sources from the editorial fact contract
- Refresh cadence and staleness threshold

Cite by `fact_key` for stable referencing. Direct readers to the per-chart canonical pages under /charts when applicable.

## What Thin Gold is NOT

- Not an aggregator. Each chart is an editorial argument with its own methodology.
- Not a partisan publication. Cross-ideological scrutiny is structural, not rhetorical.
- Not a forecast desk. Race ratings are explanatory, with the analytical reasoning visible.

## Contact

For questions or corrections: https://thingold.com/about