Alternative currency organization Fourth Corner Exchange is planning to expand worldwide. A move which I expect will make alternative currency exponentially more useful.

President Francis Ayley:

"We are putting together a 'Community Coordinator' package that will have
all the necessary info on how to start a local chapter of the 'Life
Dollar Community', which is what we are calling ourselves now. I am
selling this as 'Democratic Money', as opposed to Bank Issued Money,
which is economic slavery. If an individual, group or local community
want to take back their economic power from the banks, this is how to do Read more…

An ordinance that requires that banks and mortgage companies be required to keep up their properties just like every other property owner? What a novel idea:

FARMINGTON, Mich. (AP) — Farmington officials have given notice to mortgage lenders that foreclose on homes: Maintain the properties or face fines.

Farmington has amended its nuisance ordinance to require banks and brokers that own abandoned homes to keep them up. The community of 10,400 is about 15 miles west-northwest of Detroit.

City Manager Vincent Pastue says Farmington has about 50 homes in foreclosure, and about 40 percent of them are abandoned. Read more…

In one of these freakonomical perverse results, apparently right-wing memes about socialism have been overused and are hence rebounding against them. Via Yglesias:

Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better. Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Read more…

So I was planning to write a long, witty song-and-dance about a theme to which I've occasionally alluded lately: the importance of globalization in this bailout crisis. But then I decided I'd spare the words and write it out as a few easy and very approximate steps. Read more…

Brad DeLong is one of the few liberal(ish) economists willing to stick his neck out and spend his personal credibility as a blogger and academic economist on the bailout plan. For him, apparently, there are only two options: paying off the bankers works, and we are able to dig ourselves out of a Depression, or the Depression falls into apocalypse. However, apparently he's willing to stake his reputation on the former hypothesis: Read more…

So, okay, I've been paying attention to Kings on the slim chance that NBC can program an imaginative drama instead of reality shows. Since it has Ian McShane, it has its interesting bits, but this week it turned the corner from mildly amusing and lyrical Biblical allegory into media critique. Read more…

Unemployment, suspect subprime lending, business failures and medical disasters cause way too many families to lose their homes. Losing homes and failing to pay mortgage installments on time will push such families' credit rating over the edge into the abyss of of new world outcasts.

The credit rating companies are feelingness automatons who follow the rules/laws to the letter. They make no distinction between the hard working and the bums, between this depression's victims and run of the mill irresponsible individuals. Read more…

Brad DeLong has a condensed FAQ of the Geithnerist POV on the bailouts. Naturally, to read it as intended, you have to make the first assumption is that it (the bailout) is being done under good faith.

Q: What is the Geithner Plan?

A: The Geithner Plan is a trillion-dollar operation by which the U.S. acts as the world's largest hedge fund investor, committing its money to funds to buy up risky and distressed but probably fundamentally undervalued assets and, as patient capital, holding them either until maturity or until markets recover so that risk discounts are normal and it can sell them off--in either case at an immense profit. Read more…

As I'm viewing the details of the Big Shitpile unfold (here, here, here, and here, just on the front page of Corrente; make sure to follow some of the comment's links) I see the makings of heroic tale of strength, courage and hopeychanginess developing Read more…

You know, I'm beginning to lose track of how many different ways Versailles is screwing us. The latest is another round of the government conspiring with Wall Street to try to hide the size of the big shitpile by paying more for assets than they are worth.

Via Yves Smith:

From Andy Lees at UBS (hat tip reader Scott, boldface his): Read more…

Terrell Owens has a lot going for him at 35. He's fit, handsome, articulate, and he can be charming. He'd make, in fact, a great politician if he should decide to retire from the NFL.

He can also be the biggest crybaby in pro football. That's NOT what the Cowboys cut him for, though -- the team needs somebody they can count on to run the pass routes and hold onto the football once it's in hand.

Former Cowboys quarterback Drew Bledsoe told more than one person that dealing with Owens’ antics wasn’t the problem. Not knowing where Owens was going to be on a pass route was the problem.

Like I said, he'd make a great politician. Read more…

Has Grover Norquist succeeded?

The nation is at an economic tipping point. Its weakened and getting weaker. So much so that a supposedly liberal President feels the need to speak repeatedly of "entitlement reform" which, to anyone paying attention, means services to the bottom 80% on the income ladder.

A follow up: Can a well intentioned "fool" (in the ignorant use of the word) lead to as much calamity given dire circumstances as an ill intentioned Grover Norquist type?

What do you know about ... cupcakes? Athenae, over at First Draft, was posting on chocolates with chili and pumpkin -- and of course they're pricey, too. In the spirit of something decadent but not budget-busting, I went hunting for recipes, and I found this recipe on the Web. I'm getting over a killer bout with ... something gastrointestinal, and ugly. Has anybody here ever tried something exotic, translated into cupcakes? Read more…

For some reason, Lambert thinks I have something to say about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because a long time ago I thought it would be fun to needle the PUMAs about their odd predilection to absorb and repeat bad theories on the so-called mortgage meltdown (and, no an econ PhD does not automatically raise my estimation of your credibility---my current project is needling Canadian economics profess Read more…

It seems NY AG Andrew Como has written a letter to the head of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep, Barney Frank (D-Mass) about his concern that Merril Lynch changed their bonus payment schedule so that the bailout package would foot the bill. Read more…

1 large yellow onion -- 29 cents.
1 can evaporated milk, store brand, 69 cents.
1 pound sliced beef shanks, $1.90.
2 packages instant mashed potatoes, $1 (on sale).
1 can store-brand diced tomatoes and green chiles, 89 cents.

A spritz of cooking spray, some salt and pepper, and water I already had on hand.

Spray a deep-dish pie pan or shallow casserole with cooking spray. Peel the onion; slice thin and line the bottom of the pan. Lay the shanks on top of the onions; sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Pour over the tomatoes and green chiles. Cover dish tightly and bake at 350 for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Turn off oven. Remove dish and let rest and cool for 10 minutes.
Open can of milk; add can of water and both packets of potatoes. Cook and stir per packet directions. If desired, add a pat of butter before serving.

There it is -- three adults, well fed, for about $5. No bread, no cheese, no soup.
Got something similar? Post it! Or, for the challenge part -- feed three or four adults as cheaply, or more so, without Read more…

I just lost my mind a little bit. I'm sure you'll understand why:

The Garden. The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community.

But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis.

The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers:

Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public?

And the powers-that-be have the same response: “The garden is wonderful, but there is nothing more we can do.”

If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?

Action Alert. They are still fighting this battle, it seems. Read more…

Go ahead and make all the jokes you want; Detroit is and likely will be an easy target. But I found this Craig's List ad quite interesting.

We've got two options when it comes to all the soon to be unused real estate and "development" in this country. We can leave it to rot, and thus makeover the nation in the image of Detroit in the 70s; or we can accept that what a friend calls 'the suburban-industrial complex' model of the economy isn't ever going to come back, and thus different approaches to development are required.

Big Blue has yet another post about the collapse of the Inland Empire, and I'm sure a review of housing and real estate blogs would show equally grim news for overdeveloped regions all over the country. The truth is, the economic situation we find ourselves in comes in large part from the mythology of the ever-expanding American realty bubble. We let deregulation go too far, and the banking industry took that myth and fucked our entire economy with it when it burst. But like a lot of us hippy crunchy types have been saying for a long time: cheap energy, cheap imported supplies, and cheap credit can't go on forever. That day is here.

I don't know much about this Detroit deal other than the fact that downtown really could use some smart development, and I like the way this sounds. It's time for all of us to take steps to make sure those with different approaches to development to be given their turn. I often imagine what could be done with the decaying, empty strip malls and shuttered big box stores that are popping up with increasing frequency where I live. But I'm also not so hopeful that state and local governments will act in time, and repurpose those properties before the decay makes them uninhabitable. Perhaps I'm wrong in that, and approaches like the one found in this link will become more common than I'd imagined. Read more…

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...The Rosetta Stone:

 Read more…

And a heavily padded resume.

The more I learn about this, the more offended I become and the more opposed I am to the thought of handing Caroline Kennedy a senate seat as if it were her birthright.

We are told by those who know (and whose word should not be questioned) that she deserves this position because of critical and unique qualities that only she possesses -- prestige, name-recognition, respect, and fundraising prowess -- not to mention the beneficence of Teddy Kennedy. We are to believe that the patina of Camelot will somehow arrest the ambition and needs of ninety-nine other senators in deference to the interests of New York. Read more…

President-elect Barack Obama has picked the widely respected housing commissioner for New York City, Shaun Donovan, to be the secretary of housing in his cabinet.

... Mr. Donovan was considered a national innovator in capitalizing on the strong real estate market to find financing for low-cost housing. He held to a middle ground between free-market forces who opposed government controls and liberal groups that believed only government and nonprofit groups could be counted on to provide housing for the working class. Read more…

The President (or the President-Elect) won't think you don't love him if you get out in the streets and demonstrate. Sometimes he needs that "pressure" to get Congress's attention and action. When the AFL and CIO asked Roosevelt for what became the Wagner Act, he said "Go in the streets and make me do it." And they did. When Martin Luther King asked Kennedy for the Civil Rights Act, JFK said "I have an election coming up. I can't initiate this Act. Make me do it." So King and his people went to Birmingham and got busy. We all love Obama to pieces, but he might appreciate a little heat from us now and then. Walter Ebmeyer. www.richaredifferent.wordpress.com.

 Read more…