Archives for the ‘Financial Crisis 2008’ Category

Unemployed Cool

By Kat Kensington • Apr 11th, 2009 • Category: America, Blog, Financial Crisis 2008, Personal

[Mary Magdalene after spin class]
This is a complex weekend. Passover for some, Easter for others. Good Friday was a holiday and yet plenty are working and many are taking Monday off. Accountants are working straight through. For an expatriate under-employed lapsed Catholic, however, this weekend is not much different than all others. Nothing applies, as [...]



Palm Beach Story

By Edward Wilkinson Latham • Apr 5th, 2009 • Category: America, Blog, Financial Crisis 2008

by Edward Wilkinson-Latham

The first thing I notice after disembarking the plane in West Palm is the herd of wheelchairs and electric buggies gathered like an assembled posse. Polyester-clad blue rinses and vintage toupées battle in slow motion to be the first to climb slowly upon these complimentary electric chariots, as the nonchalant airport employees dressed [...]



Start Making Sense

By Michael Takasaki • Apr 2nd, 2009 • Category: Blog, Economics/Finance, Financial Crisis 2008

[Photo: Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog]
The fine folks over at NPR’s This American Life just won a Peabody Award for “The Giant Pool of Money,” an impressive, easy-to-follow report explaining how the subprime mortgage crisis came to be. They’ve also put out similarly excellent episodes covering the crises in banking and credit markets. [...]



Thanks for the stock tip, Mr. Dykstra!

By Michael Takasaki • Mar 23rd, 2009 • Category: Archival, Blog, Financial Crisis 2008

When Lenny Dykstra is being held up a as a financial genius and no one is questioning it, well, you’re probably in for a bumpy ride. Michael Takasaki considers just one of the more dubious signs on the way to a financial crisis.



Nasing Spesal

By Christopher Frey • Mar 20th, 2009 • Category: Blog, Economics/Finance, Financial Crisis 2008

[Photo: Financial Post]
Every crisis needs a pithy slogan or defining epigram, as Kat referenced in the previous post about the revival of “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters from WWII Britain. Thankfully, we may have one already for the global mess we now find ourselves in, courtesy of Latvia’s finance minister.
From The Economist:
Amid the wreckage [...]



Darkness at Gotham

By Kat Kensington • Mar 19th, 2009 • Category: Financial Crisis 2008

New contributor Kat Kensington will be blogging from her lofty perch in New York for as long as she can afford the rent.
Counting our blessings, we have our health. We have our friends. We still have our ability to see a world in a grain of sand. (No? Well, maybe some of us.) And yet [...]



Detroit Broke City, pt. 2 (The fixer-upper version)

By Michael Takasaki • Mar 17th, 2009 • Category: America, Architecture, Art, Blog, Cities, Culture, Financial Crisis 2008

(Photo: Heidelberg Project, Michael Takasaki)
Following up on last post: In Detroit, at least, there’s already a number of projects underway that are designed to staunch the bleeding in neighborhoods struggling with urban decay and foreclosure. Boing Boing led me to James Griffioen’s marvelous set of photos of the abandoned Detroit Public School Book Depository, which [...]



Detroit Broke City

By Christopher Frey • Mar 16th, 2009 • Category: America, Architecture, Art, Blog, Cities, Financial Crisis 2008

[Photo: Heidelberg Project]
While staying in Detroit, we head out toward 8 Mile and stop at the Heidelberg Project. It’s a two-block public art exercise that consumes the sides of houses, empty lots, the sidewalk, and even the trees of a long depressed, black (but once racially integrated) Eastside Detroit neighborhood. Tyree Guyton, who grew up [...]



New York Notes, Part 2

By Christopher Frey • Dec 4th, 2008 • Category: America, Art, Blog, Financial Crisis 2008, Personal, Politics, Travel

More scribblings from recent trip to New York City, in part for book-related research. & in part to confirm that what happened on November 4 actually did happen. (Pics from Lisa K.)

November 10, 2008
Paying sporadic attention to the news one item stands out: Gun and ammo sales are booming surging (insert your own punning headline [...]



New York Notes, Part 1

By Christopher Frey • Nov 24th, 2008 • Category: Art, Blog, Culture, Financial Crisis 2008, Personal, Politics

Scribblings from recent trip to New York City, in part for book-related research. & in part to confirm that what happened on November 4 actually did happen. balloon alley image by Lisa K.
Thursday, November 6
Two days after Obama’s election and there remains a palpable cloud of euphoria that glides above Manhattan streets like a giant [...]