The recession is hitting Ohio's former steel towns hard. As other areas of the country start to revive, the recession's full force is still on display
here. Since January 2008, another 10,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost, according to recent Ohio employment figures. "There were other places that were dirtier, but you didn't get shocked every 15 minutes," Tomlin says with resignation. "This is what people around here without union jobs have to do to survive."
posted by VikingSword
on Dec 17, 2009 -
56 comments
It sounds like a George Lopez joke. “Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home Depot the other day.” Except it’s true.
posted by Joe Beese
on Nov 11, 2009 -
31 comments
A government stimulus can overwhelm the impact of a credit crunch, and the innate dynamic of a productive economy can re-assert itself after such a crisis, leading to renewed growth. But this not merely a crisis of liquidity. It is one of excessive private debt, on a scale that is also unprecedented. Economist
Steve Keen on the
global debt bubble.
[more inside]
posted by HP LaserJet P10006
on Sep 20, 2009 -
55 comments
As part of what Mayor Michael Nutter has dubbed the "Plan C" budget, the
Free Library of Philadelphia (the Pennsylvania city's public library system), chartered in 1891, will
close all its branches and cease all services October 2, 2009, unless
measures to raise sales tax and delay some pension payments are approved by the State Legislature in Harrisburg. The closing could be a huge blow for a city whose most famous citizen, Benjamin Franklin, founded
The Library Company of Philadelphia, the United States' first successful lending library, there in 1731.
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Sep 11, 2009 -
99 comments
Detroit is one of the most visually interesting cities in the world, however it is also one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented.
Detroit Book of Love is a group of photographs illustrating what contemporary Detroit artists have been doing in regards to developing an understanding and appreciation for this complex and diverse city; from street portraits of the survivors, to the landscapes of wild new growth, to the industrial leftovers. As a group they show Detroit as it is, not what it should be or what it once was.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Aug 7, 2009 -
27 comments
How green was my valley: California's economic meltdown The fields of wheat, cotton and cantaloupe that sustained his family for three generations are gone. The land is a mess of fallow fields, cracked earth and swirling dust. (PDF - By some estimates, 12.8% of the United States' agricultural production (as measured by dollar value) comes from California, and the majority of that is in the Central Valley).
However, his particular scene of devastation, Mr. Allen argues, has nothing to do with the credit crisis, the housing crash or the downturn that has California in a vice grip.
It has to do with a seven-centimetre-long, semi-translucent, steel blue fish known as the Delta smelt. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu
on Jul 24, 2009 -
76 comments
Too Poor to Make the News "The super-rich give up their personal jets; the upper middle class cut back on private Pilates classes; the merely middle class forgo vacations and evenings at Applebee’s. In some accounts, the recession is even described as the “great leveler,” smudging the dizzying levels of inequality that characterized the last couple of decades and squeezing everyone into a single great class, the Nouveau Poor, in which we will all drive tiny fuel-efficient cars and grow tomatoes on our porches.
But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility — the already poor. From their point of view “the economy,” as a shared condition, is a fiction."
posted by nooneyouknow
on Jun 17, 2009 -
74 comments
Standard & Poor’s changed the
UK's credit outlook from stable to negative a few days ago, and warned that there is a chance the UK could lose its AAA rating. Meanwhile, Moodys, another of the
big 3 rating agencies, has warned that
the US might also eventually lose its AAA rating. The UK announcement
caused sterling to drop by 1% and the FTSE by 2%. However,
many blame the same rating agencies for their part in
triggering the subprime crisis. The irony of this is not lost on the
Wall Street Journal, who note that "After all, those governments are jacking up spending, in part, to bail out the financial firms who gobbled up those 'AAA' asset backed securities duly blessed by the credit ratings firms."
[more inside]
posted by memebake
on May 26, 2009 -
38 comments
Unemployment: good for the heart and the soul.
"In studies over the past 10 years, Ruhm has consistently found death rates decline during recessions and rise when the economy expands. If unemployment rises 1 percent, he estimates the death rate will fall by about half a percent."
posted by dersins
on Apr 27, 2009 -
38 comments
Are
times of
recession good or
bad for the
contemporary art market and
artists? "Affordable" is becoming a
leitmotif: there are
events,
international fairs, as well as
various galleries.
Some collectors and artists are sharing
survival tips and
tricks; and there are plenty of special offers to be had: Josh Poehlein - screenshot collages,
free ; Shepard Fairey - "Obey Eye" screen print, 18 x 24 inches, signed and numbered, at a random time on April 21st:
$45.00 ; Michel Gondry - your portrait, signed:
$19.95 (allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery); 'Damien Hirst' - "For the love of Paris" postcard, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, signed and sent:
€ 1,80 ; Banksy - original, freely usable, high-quality jpg files:
free.
posted by progosk
on Apr 16, 2009 -
31 comments
Dear FileFront User:
We regret to inform you that due to the current economic conditions we are forced to indefinitely suspend the FileFront site operations on March 30, 2009. If you have uploaded files, images or posted blogs, or if you would like to download some of your favorite files, please take this opportunity to download them before March 30th when the site will be suspended.
We would like to give a warm thank you to all of you who have been part of the FileFront communities we have built together. Your support has had a meaningful impact for all of us here at FileFront. Again, we want to give you a sincere “thank you” for your support over the years and wish you all the very best.
Keep gaming alive,
FileFront Management and Team.
posted by lazaruslong
on Mar 26, 2009 -
34 comments
They are known as “quants” because they do quantitative finance. Seduced by a vision of mathematical elegance underlying some of the messiest of human activities, they apply skills they once hoped to use to untangle string theory or the nervous system to making money. "
They Tried to Outsmart Wall Street." [spoiler inside]
[more inside]
posted by dersins
on Mar 10, 2009 -
38 comments
Newly jobless and homeless former members of the Japanese upper or upper-middle class are turning to a distinctly 21st century version of the flophouse, the
net room: a tiny cubicle, rented by the day, with that all-important feature... an internet connection and a computer.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Feb 27, 2009 -
41 comments
" ... the recession, particularly if it turns out to be as long and deep as many now fear, will accelerate the rise and fall of specific places within the U.S.—and reverse the fortunes of other cities and regions." From The Atlantic Online -
How the Crash Will Reshape America
posted by Afroblanco
on Feb 15, 2009 -
69 comments
LayoffDaily.com -- thoroughly cataloging each day's depressing layoff news, from the
very small companies to the
very large, and updated several times a day. (But there's also a small section of the site devoted to news of companies and government org's that are hiring.)
posted by Asparagirl
on Feb 2, 2009 -
42 comments
