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.)
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.”
Prairie Avenue in Chicago was the place that got me really interested in design and architecture. It may be closing soon.
Do you really want to live in a foreclosed home, knowing the previous owner struggled and failed? It’s like moving into a property where the previous owner shot himself. Ghosts inevitably haunt the home, if you’ve got an imagination. Interesting points about how people are reconciling this for a bargain in The Daily Beast.
From Digital Fiction Show: a shop called “F*ck you recession”. Also on the site: Paul Boag on rediscovering “the delights of using a paper sketchbook and pencil for creative inspiration with web design.” (Previously: Survivial Creativity.)
“Arakawa and Madeline Gins’s quest to make human beings immortal is at risk of dying…” (More victims of Madoff.)
Ken Layne shows how the AIG mansion tour is like the last ten minutes of Day of the Locust.
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