musings { Testament to our consumption

What it looks like after a foreclosure and who cleans it up:

economics { ItEot(f)WaWKI part deux

Just really an excuse for a 10k Maniacs video that relates to the current yet-to-be-called-a-crisis crisis and really world in general.



This video was made in the early 90s by the way. Seems not much changes over time.

economics { Its the end of the (financial) world as we know it...

...and I feel fine.


(original article)

Brits give a good, no bullshit overview. Dow Jones is taking a beating, and a lot of it is not undeserved.

More good stuff with no bullshit can be read here.

You look back on what the banks did and its hard to feel sorry for them. They were greedy and overreaching and gaming the system and themselves. Only thing that keeps me from laughing out loud is the fact they're gonna take a lot of us with them in one way or another.

But hey when the world burns, all you can do I guess is dance.

food { the farmers market: good, quality eats dirt cheap

Nerdwife and I have been going to farmer's markets for years. We started about a year after we were married. The St. Paul Farmer's Market is one of the best I've experienced. It features only produce and meats from farms within 75 miles of the City. It was huge and had an amazing selection. Homemade breads, meats, honey, and a large selection of vegetables. Everyone there were owner/operators which is a fancy way of saying they were from family farms or co-ops. $20 could buy you two canvas bags full of fresh, minimally handled, beautiful, tasty food. It was great for people on budgets to get produce as $20 in the grocery store could probably buy you as much, but the quality would not be as good.

The market always has a certain energy to it as well. Musicians come and play. Artists sell their wares (the St Paul Farmer's Market is in the heart of Lower Town, where the artistic collectives were located).

We were excited when we moved to Rochester and heard they had a farmer's market. We were sad though, the first year there were only a handful of vendors. But that has changed. Every year it keeps getting bigger. Its now coming on par with the St Paul one, just on a smaller scale. Musicians are there now. A great florist provides a weekly source of beautiful things for our house. I always buy the radishes because I'm a sucker for radishes.

We use the farmers market to supplement our CSA share. I'm in heaven when the tomatoes are in season.

I recommend Farmer's Markets if you area has them. Especially if you are on a budget, it may prove to be a great, local source of high quality produce that won't break your wallet. Its also a great way to meet the people who grow your food. Hear good music. Be outside.

Check it out:

ROCHESTER DOWNTOWN FARMERS MARKET
SATURDAY MAY 3RD THROUGH SATURDAY OCTOBER 25TH
4TH ST SE & 4TH AVE SE, ROCHESTER, MN
7:30 AM UNTIL NOON
http://rochesterdowntownfarmersmarket.org/


St Paul Farmer's Market
http://www.stpaulfarmersmarket.com/

economy { American Retailers rationing food?

Interesting. I don't have TV, so I'm curious if our media is covering this or not?

america { how are we doing?

BBC footage of sub-prime shanty town in LA.



America.


Fuck. Yeah.

politics/health { Woo! We rank last!

Saw this on GG Rhaposdy. Much like her, I'm not surprised by it.

Yahoo/AP article ranks us dead last in health care among industrialized nations. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it capitalism!

The 19 countries, in order of best to worst, were: France, Japan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Some countries showed dramatic improvement in the periods studied -- 1997 and 1998 and again between 2002 and 2003 -- outpacing the United States, which showed only slight improvement.

This is a hot button topic among both halves of my family and with my in-laws. They believe the pablum that we have the best health care in the world because we spend the most. This reinforced with a few Canadians they've met who have spouted the 'people die waiting for chemo' line that is about as true as Regan's 'welfare queen'. But we're not the best. Sure we may have advanced technologies or education, but what good does that do when it can't benefit the most people? Too many in this country can't afford health care and if they can, and they use it, they go bankrupt. How can this be best for society? I racked up $250k in medical bills in 2002 when I had AML. We had to pay around $5k and insurance covered the rest. We had good health insurance. But I can't get my own policy now as an individual because, since I've had cancer, I'm high risk and no company will insure me individually, I can only get insurance through a group policy (and even then, the company that managed my old employer's health insurance tried to get me dropped which is against the law). When I was 20, I had a kidney stone, it was large and had to be removed because it was stuck. $25k in medical bills. I was a student and I had no insurance and no money. I couldn't afford the medical bills. Luckily MN at the time had MNCare, a superset state program that rode on top of other gov't aid like Medicare. It covered me, it helped me pay my medical bills, and have other things done that I couldn't afford such as getting my teeth checked and my eyes checked (and help me buy new glasses). How it worked was you applied for it and if you met the criteria, it would cover you for six months. When I was even younger my family was below the poverty line. We relied on MNCare to help us with medical problems, such as the time I was hit in the head near the temple with a baseball and had a concussion. This was 20 years ago, we had better health coverage (and backup emergency health care aid) than we do now in 2008. I think most people want health care coverage, one that covers all. But many people in this country are greedy or don't want to pay the taxes for the common good of all (yes we would need to pay taxes to fund a socialized medical program). This really isn't that different from other services that benefit all and are in fact socialized, such as police, fire departments, education, Social Security. Why are we so hung up on this benefit to society?

A good example of something that became better when it became a social service was the fire department. Once upon a time fire departments were private companies and you bought coverage from them. This meant if a fire started in your neighborhood and spread, many or no fire departments would respond based on who had coverage. And if they did respond, they would only help those who had their coverage, the rest would burn. This is a good analogy for our health care and why we should have it socialized. Why sit and watch your neighbors house burn, when a system that saves all the houses could exist?

economics { iTuplip.com

Ran across the site after seeing this clip below on boingboing:



I may have to watch this site more often. I'm looking for a good source to help me understand that emotional, irrational beast that is Wall Street, especially since my employers over the years have saw fit to make me 'in control of my own money' by putting my retirement funds into the stock market.

People are wringing their hands and spouting DOOM since entities like the DOW Jones are down. Well no shit. Predatory sub-prime lending never seemed to make sense to me with what minimal economics I understand and now those who practiced it have to pay and sadly they're taking the rest of us with it. Remember the .com boom? Funded by hype. We had to pay in loss of jobs and erosion of various professions.

I don't trust the stock market and I don't think I ever will. Its based on emotion and greed. Very little is put into looking into cause and effect, or into the long term future. Its all about profit taking and the now. I wonder if there is a way to divorce our economy from this irrational machine?

---UPDATE---
I really likes these guys after watching a few of their 'Zombie Financial Media' clips:

thought experiment { trade and barter in the modern age

Kyle MacDonald traded his way from 1 red paper clip to a house.

Back to some of the earliest times of humankind, we've traded and bartered with others for goods and/or services we've needed. Overtime the face to face bartering was replaced by currency of set value.

What would it take in this modern time to achieve a trade and barter system again?

Would/can the gov't tax it? If so how do you tax an exchange of 1 hour of web support for a dozen farm raised eggs for example?

Just was pondering this while walking in to work. Please discuss.

economics { fair trade illustrated via World of Warcraft movie

They did a great job too! Anyone who plays WoW knows on average what a stack of 20 [Runecloth] go for, it, along with [Silk], [Wool], and [Linen] are the cornerstones of many realm economies. Comparable to cotton, coffee, tea, and a myriad of other commodities in our real world. While I don't like to compare effort in the digital fantasy world of Azeroth to the efforts of farmers, manufacturers, and people in the real world, whose toil directly impacts their daily life, [Runecloth] especially while not hard to 'farm', it takes time and requires in game expenditures (to repair durability, replace ammo or materials for potions, etc.). So I hope people who play WoW and do not know about the effort of farmer's in the Real World can appreciate, at least at some level their plight and understand the harmful effects of monopolies on markets, on trade, on people.



PS: All you fricking AH-whores on Proudmoore jacking the prices of everything so you can make epic flying mount money be warned, I am going to be using my Auctioneer Mod's powers for good and bring the damn prices back down to more reasonable by undercutting your asses. Market this motherfuckas! :-)

Priorities { I alternate between sickness and sadness

What 1.2 Trillion Can Buy

Look at all the good we could be doing. Look at how little it takes to change lives. Now consider how we're just pissing away this potential to be a force for good.