Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
Developer Offers Plan to Buy Belle Isle for $1 Billion, Secede from Michigan
January 20th, 2013If you can’t get your burbclave built in Honduras, maybe Detroit will work? Or Idaho or Texas… My guess is that the Seasteading guys will fire something up before it happens on land. And when they’re through effing around with half ass solutions (cruise ships???), there’s always Rapture… Or Elysium. In all seriousness, a Rapture-on-the-Surface […]
Ex-Treasurer of Spain’s PP Had €22m in Swiss Bank
January 18th, 2013Via: Irish Times: The beleaguered government of Mariano Rajoy has been embarrassed by revelations that its party’s former treasurer had a bank account in Switzerland containing up to €22 million. Luis Bárcenas held the treasury post in the conservative Partido Popular (PP) from 2008 until 2009, when he resigned because of an investigation into his […]
Spain Plunders 90% Of Social Security Fund To Buy Its Own Debt
January 15th, 2013Via: ZeroHedge: Spain has been quietly tapping the country’s richest piggy bank, the Social Security Reserve Fund, as a buyer of last resort for Spanish government bonds – with at least 90% of the €65 billion ($85.7 billion) fund has been invested in increasingly risky Spanish debt. Of course, this is nothing new, the US […]
Number of Working Poor Families Grows as Wealth Gap Widens
January 15th, 2013Via: Reuters: The number of U.S. families struggling with poverty despite parents being employed continued to grow in 2011 as more people returned to work but mostly at lower-paying service jobs, an analysis released on Tuesday shows. More working parents have taken jobs as cashiers, maids, waiters and other low-wage jobs in fast growing sectors […]
Mexico: Armed Civilians Patrol Two Towns in Southwest
January 15th, 2013Via: AP: Several hundred civilians have taken up arms in two towns in a southwestern Mexico state and are arresting people suspected of crimes and imposing a curfew, leading authorities to promise to reinforce security forces in the area. People wearing ski masks or bandanas and carrying small arms this week began manning checkpoints on […]
Air Pollution in Beijing Goes Off the Index
January 13th, 2013Via: AP: People refused to venture outdoors and buildings disappeared into Beijing’s murky skyline on Sunday as the capital’s air quality went off the index. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center said on its website that the density of PM2.5 particulates had surpassed 700 micrograms per cubic meter in many parts of the city. The […]
USDA: Drought Cut Corn Crop by About One-Fourth
January 12th, 2013Via: AP: For farmers like Earl Williams, last year couldn’t have started out better or ended much worse as a warm, sunny spring that let him plant early gave way to record heat and drought that devastated his corn. Williams ended up with about two-thirds of the crop he expected, and a U.S. Department of […]
Tide Detergent Now Used as Ghetto Currency
January 8th, 2013Via: New York Magazine: It turned out the detergent wasn’t being used as an ingredient in some new recipe for getting high, but instead to buy drugs themselves. Tide bottles have become ad hoc street currency, with a 150-ounce bottle going for either $5 cash or $10 worth of weed or crack cocaine. On certain […]
‘New Weight Loss Gadget Sucks Food Straight Out of the Stomach’
January 7th, 2013Wow. Maybe they can somehow form the slurry into delicious and nutritious chow pellets. Which could… You know… No? Via: Independent: Who would have thought that the future of weight loss might lie in the hands of the inventor of the Segway? Dean Kamen, creator of the two-wheeled wonder, along with a team from Aspire […]
Greece: Communities Ditch Euro, Use Local Currencies and Bartering to Beat the Economic Crisis
January 5th, 2013When I first posted about the Tem back in March 2012, there were only an estimated 300 people using it. Now, there are 1,300. Via: Guardian: It’s been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done […]
