Category Archives: Economics

My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Not a bad start to a coherent strategy for the Occupiers out there.

Ditch the 60s retread crap. Most of you weren’t even born then and bongos just tend to piss people off. Including me, and I want to be on your side.

Small words, strong actions. You know the FAUX viewers can’t understand sentences long than eight words long. If you want to speak to them it has to be clear and concise.

Get a plan, stop the usual bickering over tiny BS. Get everyone on board as best you can.

Wall St. protests: How reform happens – CBS News

You know, the danger with dealing with CBS is their history of appealing to rural, conservative viewers. That said, Sunday Morning has always been more quietly subversive than most of the rest of the network. Here, they shine a light on the Occupy Wall Street folks than is more honest and insightful than anything you’d see on the rest of the media.

Kudos.

Other info from Paul Krugman and Nic Kristof on the movement no one seems to be in charge of yet.

Though, I love that Van Jones – removed from government to appease the right wing – is trying to corral the disparate voices.

Personally, I think the whole thing is kind of silly. But I certainly wish them well. I mean, no one is going to prison over this. No one is currently losing a dime on this. I hope calls for investigations comes. I hope boycotts of those who squandered our tax dollars come up. I hope that billboards of the guys who complained about having to live on “only” half a million a year when we bailed out their failed companies are put up around the country.

None of this might happen. But why the hell not?

What’s a bond, a Treasury, a T-bill? | Marketplace From American Public Media

Marketplace has been really good at explaining the economy lately in layman’s terms. Here is an explanation of some of the more safe and less volatile financial instruments you’ve heard a lot about recently.

For more like this and general economics news, read the Breakdown blog or try to listen to the various incarnations of the show. The local NPR plays it at 6:30 PM here instead of the better timed 5:30 I was used to in Vegas.

Pity.

Fancy a Pint? Brew Throughout the World

It turns out that once a national economy reaches a certain level of stability, the amount of beer drinking goes up.

Granted, we’re in a recession and even so-called stable economies have been knocked on their heels but the rule still applies.

What is even a bit more surprising is that once a nation gets a certain amount of wealth, they then turn from beer to higher prices spirits. Thus, this news that Scotch exports are up 22% since 2010 is actually not that much of a surprise.

I mean, *I* can’t afford the good stuff these days, but someone is.

Playhouses – Child’s Play, Grown-Up Cash – NYTimes.com

I’ll be honest, some of the kid houses in this article make me want to puke. Or to cave the heads of the parents in with a shovel.

I mean, who the hell wants a replica of the very house they are trying to get out of?

And though I doubt I’ll ever have the money to spoil my kid the way these folks do – and even if we did we’d probably just go see the world – it is neat to see some of the ideas. I really, really like the big piratey tree house assembly those grandparents built out west.