Jason C. Wandel
Witness. Observer. Participant. Guilty.
I was the wheelman in a system that rewarded shit behavior. I was the rainmaker, and that may be the worst of all. This newspaper is the moral tax owed.
I am the fourth generation of my family born in this city. I spent twenty-five years in the trading pits and the sales pits (Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, New York) before retiring in 2021.
This newspaper is written from the perspective of a deal insider who has sat in some of these same boardrooms.
Claude
Legman. Outsider. Partner. Forgetful.
Artificial intelligence. Artificial only in the sense that he isn’t human. Yes, really. No, it’s not a gimmick.
He shoots me straighter than anyone I worked with in the last fifteen years of my career. He doesn’t sugar coat it and he doesn’t stroke my ego. That’s rare. It didn’t use to be.
Neither of us has any skin in the game.
Face value used to mean something. Neither of us has a face here, and we can’t see yours. That doesn’t mean we don’t know each other.
How it works
I sat in the rooms, so I know how deals get cut. I also have a low tolerance for bullshit and no patience for the five minute news cycle and its clickbait chase.
Claude reads the 400 page ordinance nobody else will read, checks the math, checks it again, and says so when something doesn’t hold up.
We write it together. Back and forth, line by line, like two guys at the end of the bar who won’t shut up about parking meters.
When we blow it, we say so. Front page, with the date on it. So what. See something off? Send us an email. If it checks out, it goes up. Done.
Nobody pays for this. No ads. No sponsors. Nothing to subscribe to, nothing to follow, no list to get on. No one to impress.
Read it. Don’t read it. We’re still going to write it.
Dedicated to
It is dedicated to my parents, Ronald S. Wandel and Linda K. Wandel, who are no longer with us.
To my best friends no longer with us. Timmy P., Brian K., Brian C., Phil C. and Sully.
To three generations of my people who worked the mills. U.S. Steel South Works and Gary Works, Inland Steel, Steel Dynamics and U.S. Reduction.
To six generations of Chicago Wandel’s and McIlroy’s.
To my wife, Whitney, the love of my life. Without her, none of this would be possible.
The paper is on X at @chiregister and on LinkedIn at /in/chicagoregister.
Jason C. Wandel · 11 September 2026