Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
China Buying Time at $2.49 Per Gallon
June 6th, 2008In short: The Chinese government is massively subsidizing gasoline prices. Via: Forbes: Beijing is holding down many prices–including oil–with a cumbersome price-control scheme. Consider the following: Since January 2007, global crude oil prices have risen by 109%; gasoline prices in the U.S. have risen by 77% (roughly apace); gasoline prices in China have risen only […]
Stockton, California: 3/4 of Homes for Sale Are In or On the Path to Foreclosure, More Inventory Coming
June 4th, 2008I’m sticking by my New Year’s analysis that Fall ’08 is going to get very strange. Via: Reuters: In some areas of California, so many foreclosed homes are available to buy on the cheap that real estate agents are discouraging prospective sellers from even putting their houses on the market. Perhaps the most extreme example […]
South Florida: Cops Evicting Old Ladies, NFL Players, Drug Dealers from Foreclosed Homes
June 4th, 2008…and everyone in between. Via: New York Times: In a decade handling evictions for the Miami-Dade County Police Department, Albert Fernandez has run across a middle-class father bankrupted by his daughter’s cancer treatment; an old woman scammed by a gambling husband; and countless families perpetually on the edge of poverty. But he has never turned […]
Spam Sales Rising
June 1st, 2008Via: AP: Love it, hate it or laugh at it — at least it’s inexpensive. Sales of Spam — that much maligned meat — are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets. What was once cheeky, silly and the subject of a […]
Energy Fears Looming, New Survivalists Prepare
May 25th, 2008Via: AP: A few years ago, Kathleen Breault was just another suburban grandma, driving countless hours every week, stopping for lunch at McDonald’s, buying clothes at the mall, watching TV in the evenings. That was before Breault heard an author talk about the bleak future of the world’s oil supply. Now, she’s preparing for the […]
South Africa: Migrant Attacks Spread to Cape Town, Army Deployed
May 23rd, 2008Via: Reuters: Anti-immigrant violence has spread to South Africa’s second largest city, Cape Town, where mobs attacked Somalis and Zimbabweans and looted their homes and shops, police said on Friday. Hundreds of African migrants were evacuated overnight from a squatter camp near Cape Town, the hub of South Africa’s prized tourism industry. Somali-owned shops also […]
Squatters “Rent Out” Foreclosed Homes
May 20th, 2008Via: Reuters: They enter through a broken first-floor window each night to sleep on a moldy bed in the abandoned four-family house at 827 Main Street, part of a new generation of squatters emboldened by America’s housing foreclosure crisis. “For squatters, foreclosed homes like this are like a camp-ground with free camping,” says real-estate broker […]
Johannesburg Calls for Extra Police as Riots Kill 22
May 20th, 2008Via: Bloomberg: Authorities in Gauteng, the South African province containing Johannesburg, called for police reinforcements after rioters targeting mainly Zimbabwean immigrants killed at least 22 people over the last two days. Incidents were reported today in Cleveland, just south of the city center, in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, Primrose in the east as well as […]
Spain Transports Drinking Water to Barcelona by Tanker Ship
May 16th, 2008This one takes the cake; or the tapas, as the case may be. Via: Christian Science Monitor: With Spain’s average rainfall down 40 percent last year, many cities have restricted residents from filling their swimming pools or watering their lawns. But perhaps no municipality has developed such diverse and creative solutions as hard-hit Barcelona, which […]
The New Homeless: Formerly Middle Class People Sleeping in Their Cars
May 16th, 2008Maybe those SUV purchases weren’t stupid choices after all—people are living in them now. This is a CNN video report: The New Homeless. Research Credit: PD
