Americans Doing More, Buying Less, a Poll Finds: “The Department of Labor’s time-use surveys show… compared with 2005, Americans spent less time in 2008 buying goods and services and more time cooking or taking part in ‘organizational, civic and religious activities.’ Just as tellingly, evidence can also be found in culture. While one new study shows that attendance at museums and cultural events dropped from 2002 to 2008, it has climbed in 2009 at many major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. Movie attendance was also up 5 percent in 2009, and in the world of the Walt Disney Company, product sales have declined as the company’s theme parks enjoyed a 3 percent increase in visitors last quarter.”
“The minimum wage machine allows anybody to work for minimum wage. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 5.04 seconds, for $7.15 an hour (NY state minimum wage). If the participant stops turning the crank, they stop receiving money. The machine’s mechanism and electronics are powered by the hand crank, and pennies are stored in a plexiglas box.” (via.)
Autumn seems to beget a disproportionate share of American financial crises. But why? (Check out the comments.)
Another exciting project from The Concord Free Press. In Spring 2010, they will publish IOU, ” a multi-genre collection of new writing about money.” CFP is a non-profit literary publisher distributing free books requesting only that the recipient pass the book along to another reader and donate something to a charity of his choice. In October they will publish “The Next Queen of Heaven” by Gregory Maguire (Wicked).
From WSJ: “As long the economy stays grim, bankruptcy filings will become increasingly common – which may diminish the stigma that accompanies bankruptcy. It is, in a sense, surprising that so many Americans should still feel ashamed of bankruptcy when those in a far more comfortable situation feel no such chagrin. Corporate bankruptcies are an accepted part of doing business from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Executives who collect $30 million from a bank in the years before it collapses are not expected to give it back.”
“Arakawa and Madeline Gins’s quest to make human beings immortal is at risk of dying…” (More victims of Madoff.)
Interesting points from Wooster Collective, “Should Art Be Treated Like Stocks?” You could also suppose, “Should Art Be Treated Like Gold?” There’s no question the government expects to inflate our way out of this mess. Thus demand for gold — demand for objects rather than paper (interestingly, this isn’t happening with diamonds due to increasingly competition with De Beers, who for so long controlled the output.) Art involves tricky issues of scarcity and value. There’s no end to the variables when it comes to art by living artist. The artist may decide, “oh, I like this one I’m going to make 500 more like it.” Or he might die tomorrow. So as an investment, it’s always a gamble.
Megan McArdle explains what she did after graduating business school during the recession in 2001, offering great straightforward advice: “I sent out about 1400 resumes blind after my firm failed. I got not one response. All the jobs I interviewed for came from personal contacts… Find other people in the same boat… Also, those people will be amenable to hanging out on a tight budget. PBR: it’s not just for hipsters any more.”
Good magazine posts this easy to read infograph of international currencies. Glad I saved those Euros when I was abroad last spring. Note the troubled South African rand.
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