Troy Tate and The Smiths: The Not Poor Recordings . The Smiths were first produced by Troy Tate and the bootlegs have been rather bootleggy as it were. These are one step removed from the master recordings and don't sound quite so hollow... Includes an apparently unheard version of Accept Yourself as a bonus.
posted by juiceCake
on May 4, 2011 -
19 comments
Hu Jintao, premier of China, is in the middle of his first state visit to the US, whose pomp and circumstance reflects China's growing economic stature and role in world affairs. Due to the linguistic and political differences between the US and China, few Americans know very much about Hu. Many of them will have had their first real look at him during an extended and surprisngly candid
joint press conference held with President Obama and lasting well over an hour - something which never happens in China. Fears (or possibly hopes) of a trade war between the US and China
a year ago have faded, and instead a trade deal involving $45 billion of American exports was announced, to
mixed reactions. He was received
less kindly by Congress, whose members expressed disquiet about everything from trade deficits to human rights and whose leaders
declined to discuss matters over dinner - perhaps because they did not wish to be lost in the high-powered crowd of attendees.
[more inside]
posted by anigbrowl
on Jan 20, 2011 -
59 comments
Yummy avocados. So delicious...so contentious...and at times...so expensive. Why have prices in the U.S., particularly California, been so high? And why have they dropped? Weather and a bad crop? Or are the causes often more insidious? A
one act play sums up one perspective on the situation.
[more inside]
posted by thisperon
on Feb 23, 2010 -
70 comments
The Seljuk Han in Anatolia has tons of information about and pictures of the caravanserai, inns for caravans, built by the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm in what is now Turkey. The Seljuk caravanserai, called hans, were a vital resource for trade from the middle ages to recent times. The website, by
Katherine Branning, explains
what a han is,
their origins,
their function in trade,
what life there was like and much more. The site also features 39 individual hans, such as the
Kadin Han, now a furniture store,
Dibi Delik Han, which is undergoing restoration,
Zazadin Han, which has been restored already, and the spectacular
Sultan Han Kayseri. For an academic survey of Seljuk hans, here's Ayşıl Tükel Yavuz'
The concepts that shape Anatolian Seljuq caravanserais [pdf, automatic download].
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 8, 2010 -
13 comments
"Through the quarter-century in which China has been opening to world trade, Chinese leaders have deliberately held down living standards for their own people and propped them up in the United States. This is the real meaning of the vast trade surplus—$1.4 trillion and counting, going up by about $1 billion per day—that the Chinese government has mostly parked in U.S. Treasury notes. In effect, every person in the (rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about $4,000 from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China."
James Fallows on how the trade deficit between China and America works and what it means for the future.
posted by afu
on Sep 30, 2008 -
41 comments
Give us your secrets. The Chinese government plans order foreign manufacturers to reveal information about their digital products, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday. It will introduce rules requiring foreign firms to disclose secret information about digital household appliances and other products from May next year, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing unnamed sources. If a company refuses to disclose information, China would ban it from exporting the product to the Chinese market or producing or selling it in China, the paper said. [more inside]
posted by caddis
on Sep 22, 2008 -
38 comments
Where no economist had gone before . Paul Krugman posts a type-written paper on interstellar trade which he wrote as "an oppressed assistant professor" in the '70s.
I do not propose to develop a theory which is universally valid, but it may at least have some galactic relevance. [
pdf link]
posted by grobstein
on Mar 11, 2008 -
25 comments
Made in China. A look inside the world’s manufacturing center. Flash video slideshow of the port of Shenzhen (7:00 minutes with sound)
posted by srboisvert
on Jul 23, 2007 -
26 comments
The Trade Surplus and the Olive Tree The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has seen its loan portfolio drop 73 per cent since 2003. Nobody seems to be defaulting on their loans lately, and there hasn't been a
big bailout since 2001.
The IMF's summit this week in Singapore will look at this issue and how to better the world
balance of trade betweed the developing world and the industrial economies of the west. But is there really a
place (warning: PDF) for the IMF in the trade agreements between
China and the
US?
posted by parmanparman
on Sep 15, 2006 -
7 comments
Dead Ringers: the Science Museum asks us the question "should we upgrade our mobile phone?" "
No" and "
no" say the Times and the Observer, but we still do: on average every 18 months. What's the problem? Well it isn't just the lead, arsenic, beryllium and
brominated fire-retardant cases (pollutants all) disappearing into our land fills (which are not covered by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive [
WEEE] in Europe). Coltan also goes into our phones. It occurs mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and as such our demand for upgrades has been
contributing to a war (despite mobile phone companies' claims to the contrary, coltan is not regulated like timber). If we must upgrade, we can at least
recycle or hack our
old phones.
posted by nthdegx
on Aug 7, 2006 -
49 comments
Bookmooch lets you give away your old books to a loving, caring home. Oh, and you can get used books for free too. Everyone wins!
via
posted by ferociouskitty
on Aug 7, 2006 -
21 comments
Alibaba regularly ranks as one of the
top destination web sites in the world, currently higher than Wikipedia or CNN, it is a mind boggling Bazaar of bulk items available for import and export, mainly from China. A popular site rarely heard about, it is for those who buy by the shipping container or become lost in the bewildering variety and possibilities of generic bulk commodities.
posted by stbalbach
on Jan 13, 2006 -
28 comments
A game of double bluff The UK and EU are keeping the poorer nations exactly where they want them: beholden to their patrons. (George Monbiot in the Guardian.) See also
Oxfam's critique of the Doha round of
WTO talks.
posted by adamvasco
on May 31, 2005 -
3 comments
VotePair.org allows third party voters in swing states to trade their vote with Kerry supporters in uncontested states. The result is that Kerry is more likely to win the swing states and third party candidates still get the same number of votes when tallied nationwide.
posted by freshgroundpepper
on Oct 17, 2004 -
39 comments
Tricks of the Trade . In an article in
The Morning News,
Defective Yeti asked readers to reveal the secrets of their profession:
Attorney:
Do whatever it takes to fit your contracts onto a single page. Even sophisticated negotiators can be charmed by the lack of a staple.
Auto Mechanic:
Always put copper grease on the battery terminals after servicing a car. The performance benefit is negligible, but when customers look under the hood they will immediately see that something’s changed and thus feel happy to pay you.
Handyman:
If you have to change a light bulb where the glass is broken, you can press a potato into the metal base to unscrew the remains of the bulb from the fixture.
Got any secrets to success or even just survival in your racket?
posted by planetkyoto
on Aug 24, 2004 -
130 comments
Choose your own adventure! "The following imaginary scenario attempts to picture what would happen if the
IMF did not exist. It tells the story of a businessperson in a fictional developing country that is suffering from a shortage of foreign exchange. In the scenario, there is no
IMF to turn to in order to resolve the currency crisis. You will soon come to realize the difficulties of carrying on international trade in that imaginary world without the
IMF."
posted by livii
on Jul 15, 2004 -
21 comments
