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Atomic Number 79
10.09.2009
02:51 am
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Scene the First: Some time around the early days of the universe, neutron stars collide. Superdense stars with the mass of our sun but contained in a diameter of only about a dozen miles. So dense that even a handful would be billions of tons. Unable to resist each other’s gravitational pull, these stars careen into each other, spiraling inward, colliding and producing explosions from which, among many other elements, gold is formed. It is these cosmic sex acts that are the origin of the gold that exists in our universe.

Scene the Second: In the latter days of our universe, our Earth forms, and there’s gold in them thar hills.

The animal kingdom loves shiny objects?

Posted by Jason Louv
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10.09.2009
02:51 am
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World Economy, As Seen from Space
10.08.2009
05:01 pm
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This is a great idea. Really shows who the greediest human beings are and where they live don’t it?

Reliable data on economic growth is hard to come by in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries. Yet according to scientists, outer space offers a new perspective for measuring economic growth.

Using satellite images of nighttime lights, J. Vernon Henderson, Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil from Brown University have created a new framework for estimating a country or region?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.08.2009
05:01 pm
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Unemployment: The Gathering Storm
09.28.2009
10:50 am
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Dangerous Minds’ super smart pal Charles Hugh Smith has penned another must-read essay over at his Of Two Minds blog (we’re dangerous, but he’s got two!) about the issue that no one seems to want to talk about, structural unemployment. That’s what happens when the jobs that were lost never come back:

In “normal prosperity” then an uptick in unemployment is not too worrisome because people find another job within a year. But when the economy sheds jobs relentlessly, then people become long-term unemployed: they can’t find a job this year, or next year, or the year after that. This is also called structural unemployment.

What few are willing to accept is that the U.S. economy is entering a decades-long period of structural unemployment in which there will not be enough jobs for tens of millions of citizens. My January analysis remains conservative; given the end of the credit/debt bubble and other structural issues, it seems very likely that the U.S. economy might have about 100 million jobs in a few years—leaving some 35 to 40 million people without formal full-time work or employer-paid benefits.

Since we’re already at 26.3 million unemployed/under-employed, losing 10 million more jobs is really not much of a stretch. That would leave 36 million people without full-time work or any work at all and about 100 million still employed.


That’s just the set-up. It gets much bleaker!

Unemployment: The Gathering Storm by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.28.2009
10:50 am
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Surreal Estate: Buy a House in Detroit for Under $5000
09.24.2009
09:58 pm
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?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.24.2009
09:58 pm
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Graphing American Jobs From 1850 to Now
09.21.2009
06:13 pm
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This visualization shows stacked time series of reported occupations in the United States Labor Force from 1850-2000. The data has been normalized: for each census year, the percentage of the polled labor force in each occupation is shown. The data is originally from the United States Census Bureau and was provided by the University of Minnesota Population Center.

(Flare: Job Voyager)

Posted by Jason Louv
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09.21.2009
06:13 pm
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The Minsky Meltdown: Why Capitalism Fails (and Why It Will Fail Again)
09.21.2009
12:09 pm
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Fascinating article about the “genetic flaws” if you will of the capitalist system. It’s actually kind of amazing to read an article like this in a major newspaper—and of course, there are others these days—but a decade ago, even five years ago, opinions such as the ones reported here never would have gotten mainstream exposure. Maybe in The Nation or Harper’s or the Atlantic, but not in a daily paper.  It’s about time the public wakes up to the facts about “the system” we exist in… and seeks a better one. Capitalism sure ain’t the best we can do, people… It’s not the only—and it’s certainly not the smartest—choice for the greater good.

Since the global financial system started unraveling in dramatic fashion two years ago, distinguished economists have suffered a crisis of their own. Ivy League professors who had trumpeted the dawn of a new era of stability have scrambled to explain how, exactly, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression had ambushed their entire profession.Amid the hand-wringing and the self-flagellation, a few more cerebral commentators started to speak about the arrival of a ?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.21.2009
12:09 pm
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Boarded Up by James Reynolds
09.16.2009
01:16 pm
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I love this!  Artist James Reynolds on Boarded Up: “With more and more businesses being forced to close down, the sight of bare wood across the windows and doors is now commonplace and unsightly. By pasting the wooden panels with actual images, this problem is solved.”

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Boarded Up by James Reynolds

Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.16.2009
01:16 pm
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Every Day Is Christmas in America (as long as you have credit)
09.15.2009
10:11 am
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Dangerous Minds pal Charles Hugh Smith has posted another must-read essay at Of Two Minds:

I just Googled “demand exhaustion” and came up with an obscure real estate paper from South Korea. Therefore I am claiming the right to coin this phrase as a general description of the end-state of global over-capacity and the saturation of U.S. consumer “demand” for more stuff.

Classic economic theory holds that consumer “demand” is insatiable and can never be completely filled. While that is true of the FEW resources (food, energy and water) and essential items which eventually wear out like say, tires, the “demand” for everything else appears to be largely artificial now, an urge prompted by relentless advertising and the accessibility of instant credit for more purchases (credit cards).

How much of the “demand” is organic, that is, flows from human desires for additional comfort and amusement? It could be argued that all of this is “organic demand”—or in the case of the dog bed and treats, “projected demand” (since the beloved pet probably would be just as happy or even happier with an old pillow and blanket).

On the other hand, it could also be argued that the returns on investment are increasingly marginal for most of these consumer goods. How much comfort and amusement can you wring from a second or third TV or your 40th shirt? How about that spa which gets used less and less as time marches on? Shall we label this “marginal demand” because the returns are increasingly marginal?

Every Day Is Christmas in America (as long as you have credit)

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.15.2009
10:11 am
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Douglas Rushkoff: Economics is Not Natural Science
09.11.2009
02:52 pm
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Terrific new essay by Dangerous Minds pal Douglas Rushkoff at John Brockman’s Edge website:

We must stop perpetuating the fiction that existence itself is dictated by the immutable laws of economics. These so-called laws are, in actuality, the economic mechanisms of 13th Century monarchs. Some of us analyzing digital culture and its impact on business must reveal economics as the artificial construction it really is. Although it may be subjected to the scientific method and mathematical scrutiny, it is not a natural science; it is game theory, with a set of underlying assumptions that have little to do with anything resembling genetics, neurology, evolution, or natural systems.

The scientific tradition exposed the unpopular astronomical fact that the earth was not at the center of the universe. This stance challenged the social order, and its proponents were met with less than a welcoming reception. Today, science has a similar opportunity: to expose the fallacies underlying our economic model instead of producing short-term strategies for mitigating the effects of inventions and discoveries that threaten this inherited market hallucination.

The economic model has broken, for good. It’s time to stop pretending it describes our world.


Economics is Not Natural Science by Douglas Rushkoff

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.11.2009
02:52 pm
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Catfish Being Used to Clean Pools of Foreclosed Homes
09.04.2009
01:15 pm
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WELLINGTON, FL—Debra Mitchell is a lead code compliance officer for the Village of Wellington. During the collapse of the housing market, the community was left with a large number of foreclosed homes.

Pointing out one example Mitchell said, “It has an unsanitary, abandoned swimming pool, stagnant swimming pool. There’s no electricity running at this location.”

The code compliance department was paying nearly 7,000 dollars a year to dump chemicals into the pools to treat the scummy buildup.

That’s when Mitchell and some of her colleagues came up with an environmentally-friendly idea to get rid of the green. An idea with a much lower price tag of just 700 dollars.

“Some of us got clever and decided to try the fish-eating…er algae eating fish,” she said.

At a typical home that needed help Mitchell revealed, “We have dumped 15 pleco algae-eating fish in here to take care of the algae situation.”


Something’s fishy in Wellington


(via Arbroath )

Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.04.2009
01:15 pm
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