The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a new paper analyzing 138 years of economic history in 14 advanced economies, which proves that high levels of private debt cause severe recessions. (
Via)
Bonus SLYT:
Money As Debt (1hr)
posted by infini
on Sep 10, 2012 -
32 comments
"Some date the crisis to August 9 2007, the day it became clear that Europe’s banks were up to their necks in US housing debt. The ECB flooded markets with €95bn of liquidity. It seemed a lot of money then. The term “trillion” was still banned by the Telegraph style book in those innocent days. We have since learned to swing with the modern dance music from central banks." [
Five years on, the Great Recession is turning into a life sentence]
posted by vidur
on Aug 13, 2012 -
101 comments
"...Charles Marohn and his colleagues at the Minnesota-based nonprofit Strong Towns have made a very compelling case that suburban sprawl is basically a Ponzi scheme, in which municipalities expand infrastructure hoping to attract new taxpayers that can pay off the mounting costs associated with the last infrastructure expansion, over and over."
Building resilient cities and towns with fiscal conservatism.
[more inside]
posted by invitapriore
on May 8, 2012 -
46 comments
Welcome to the world of Britain's working poor. The Rowleys belong to a section of society not much mentioned in ministerial and media dispatches. They are neither the very wealthy affected by the 50p tax nor the "squeezed middle" expressing anxiety about child benefit and this week's budget; nor are the Rowleys representative of the long-term unemployed or one of the 120,000 "troubled families" in which the government is investing £448m over the next three years.
[more inside]
posted by modernnomad
on Mar 18, 2012 -
105 comments
The nation is awash with a new black market commodity... Across the country, retailers are finding massive amounts of this product missing. In West St. Paul, Minnesota, one enterprising individual has taken $25,000 dollars of this chemical that some Police Departments are calling liquid gold:
Tide Detergent
posted by symbioid
on Mar 13, 2012 -
100 comments
The New Dealers :
For some time, I'd been hearing stories from my sources in the interstate marijuana racket about law-abiding "civilians" turning to the game because of the recession, and so, armed with introductions, I hit the road to meet some of these unlikely criminals face to face. That's how, on a hot evening in June, I found myself in Dan's Northern California kitchen.
posted by desjardins
on Dec 26, 2011 -
55 comments
ink&paper A short film about the last paper shop, and the last letterpress, in Los Angeles.
"There are days go by that there can be absolutely no business at all."
posted by OmieWise
on Dec 21, 2011 -
22 comments
"Imagine if you had never been homeless before and you'd just lost your job and you lost your home. What would you do? Would you immediately go begging or knocking on a door? No, you would downsize, move into cheaper accommodations, if that did not work you'd move in with friends or relatives and then you'd move into a cheap motel and then ... where would you want to go before winding up at a shelter door? You would much prefer to live at a park with your family and your dog." ... "In just about every major city, there are tent cities. Unfortunately, we're in a growth industry and the numbers are going to continue." -- Michael Stoop, a community organizer for the
National Coalition for the Homeless, explaining that the
surge in American tent city shantytowns, first highlighted on MeFi in 2008/09:
1,
2,
3, has not slowed.
The Great Recession: Life in Tent City, Lakewood NJ /
Photo Gallery /
Video.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 10, 2011 -
40 comments
Political revolution, the Tea Party, and Occupy Wall Street notwithstanding, what actual policy steps could be taken to prevent the U.S. from falling into a Japanese-like decade of stagnation (or worse)? Economists from the
New America Foundation offer a rather balanced, clearly articulated, and comprehensive proposal:
The Way Forward.
[more inside]
posted by GnomeChompsky
on Oct 11, 2011 -
66 comments
BBC News asks independent trader Alessio Rastani "
what would keep investors happy, make them feel more confident?" and gets a surprisingly honest answer:
"Personally, it doesn't matter. See, I'm a trader. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. If I see an opportunity to make money, I go with that. So, for most traders, we don't really care that much about how they're going to fix the economy, about how they're going to fix the whole situation; our job is to make money from it. And, personally, I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession which is I go to bed every night and dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this." [SLYT]
posted by finite
on Sep 26, 2011 -
235 comments
With the conclusion of the debt ceiling debate ending in another defeat for liberals, the emerging narrative is that Obama is weak, a poor negotiator who was out-maneuvered by Republicans and forced into the agreement because of strategic errors. But
Glenn Greenwald tells a different story:
[more inside]
posted by AlsoMike
on Aug 5, 2011 -
241 comments
In
an investment manager's view on the top 1% - referring to the richest Americans by wealth and income - we learn that one needs $1.2 million in net worth to barely slip in the door of the top 1%. But that's just a start: the real power and influence in the U.S., the author argues, resides in the top 0.1%. You can guess who you'll find there: bankers and large-cap CEOs. Relevant quotes include...
[more inside]
posted by mark7570
on Aug 4, 2011 -
115 comments
Current TV
previously & previously, the media company founded by Al Gore after the 2000 election, has picked up the kinds of in depth long form journalism being rapidly dropped by major networks, but has been tantalizingly unavailable for those without cable; until now. They have been putting their Vanguard episodes up on their website and on YouTube.
[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Apr 30, 2011 -
24 comments
Right Wing Radio Duck "Donald's life is turned upside-down by the current economic crisis and he finds himself unemployed and falling behind on his house payments. As his frustration turns into despair Donald discovers a seemingly sympathetic voice coming from his radio named Glenn Beck. "
posted by Arthur Phillips Jones Jr
on Oct 2, 2010 -
52 comments
Earlier this week, Toxie, NPR's cutest toxic asset
died. One of the mortgages bundled into this asset was an investment property in Bradenton, Florida, which, like many Florida homes, has never been occupied or served as anything other than a financial instrument. Boston.com's Big Picture recently took
a look from above at the effects that this (and previous) housing bubbles have had on the development of Florida's cities and landscapes. How do you design a city that nobody plans to live in? (
Previously)
posted by schmod
on Oct 1, 2010 -
82 comments
Cairo, Illinois is mostly abandoned. It was once a thriving city of 15,000, but the Mississippi barges don't stop there anymore, and
racial turmoil, including
a three-year boycott of white-owned businesses that refused to hire black workers, killed the town's economy.
The Cairo Project, from Southern Illinois University, is a good overview of Cairo's history and its current situation.
Can punk label
Plan-it-X start a rebirth by
moving to Cairo and
opening a coffeeshop? If it helps,
there's still good barbecue.
posted by escabeche
on Jun 12, 2010 -
54 comments
