Depression v2.0 may be rough all around, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more than a few economic winners amidst the widespread misery. You already knew about foreclosure specialists and pawn shops; now cast your jealous gaze toward the folks who operate commercial airplane graveyards, where flailing carriers are stashing the aging jets they can […]
Cameroon’s Ministry of Trade does not mess around when it comes to enforcing the nation’s new price-control regime: Yesterday, officials of the Ministry of Trade uncovered a clandestine bakery at the Etoudi quarter in Yaounde which uses expired products to produce bread. One of the products that was seized and displayed at the site was […]
We’re a sucker for unintentionally wry headlines, so we were delighted to come across this gem last night: “Demining efforts to make Taiwan’s Kinmen island more tourist-friendly.” Why, yes, that seems quite logical—few tourists are fond of vacationing amidst landmines. Yet once we stopped chortling, we couldn’t help but become engrossed in Taiwan’s project. Kinmen […]
Tags:China·Depression v2.0·dogs·Kinmen·landmines·Mozambique·Taiwan·weapons
We always figured that the advent of cheap CGI effects would have a deleterious effect on living, breathing stuntmen. But we had no idea things were so rough in the Filipino film industry. The Manila Times sheds some depressing light: Stuntmen are not covered by life or health insurances, but merely hope for the assistance […]
We’re not ashamed to declare ourselves total stats geeks, which means we’re always curious about the stories behind Big Important Numbers. And occasionally in our mathematical wanderings, we come to realize that some of those Numbers are a heckuva lot less revealing than they’re cracked up to be—batting average, for example, or Gross Domestic Product. […]
Tags:Depression v2.0·economy·George Packer·housing starts·statistics·The New Yorker
In sorting through the detritus of Depression v2.0, it’s gobsmacking to realize how much money the financial Masters of the Universe wasted on baubles and trifles. As this recent New York confession makes clear, bankers earning millions were stunningly unimaginative when it came to disposing of their lucre. Cars! Single malts! Vacation homes! Yawn… When […]
Tags:Aztecs·Depression v2.0·ethnobotany·Harvard·Mexico·R. Gordon Wasson
After at least 70 fires since the start of 2008, the Coatesville cops have a seventh suspected arsonist in custody. This time, it’s one of the city’s firefighters. A cause for relief? Hardly—the arsons have continued despite previous arrests, as well as the best efforts of the Chester County Arson Task Force. Why are some […]
Looks like it’s curtains for the Richmond Renegades, of the scrappy-yet-venerable Southern Professional Hockey League. The team will call it quits after this season, having fallen victim to Depression v2.0. According to Renegades owner Allen Harvie, one of the big problems is Richmond’s parochialism: The Wiley Bridge and Route 288 and the new malls at […]
There’s little doubt that as Depression v2.0 inevitably worsens, civil unrest will become more commonplace. Even the august New York Times is letting aged stock pickers pop off about the need to stock up on canned food and shotgun ammo. So don’t be surprised if your neighborhood occasionally comes to resemble Bartertown. But in madness […]
