building a green economy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html

new chinese luxury island

The most prominent development is a series of four luxury apartment towers and a "seven-star" hotel on Phoenix Island, a spit of sand off the coast that was created by the provincial government as a cruise ship dock. Photo: Shiho Fukada

In the last two months, Hainan, an island the size of Belgium in the South China Sea, has become a potent symbol of China’s economic vitality — or, perhaps, its excesses. Even in a country where new wealth spawns new tales of luxury living every day, Hainan is viewed with a mix of awe, envy and disgust. ...

“People are coming with entire bags full of cash,” said Raymond Hau, general manager of the Sun Valley Golf Resort, which is building the 220 luxury villas. “I’ve seen this myself. A man had a bag and unzipped it. Boom. ‘Here’s the deposit,’ he said. ‘I want two apartments.’” ...

Now, in Sanya, even those benefiting from the current boom say property and hotel prices have reached absurd levels. “There’s no real economy,” said Lin Mingkun, the manager of the yacht club and a condo owner. “It’s a bubble economy.”

full article: On China’s Hainan Island, the Boom Is Deafening. NYtimes, 30.03.2010

the heidi theory of economics

An Easily Understandable Explanation of Derivative Markets

"Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

read on...

BRILLIANT.

economica

Economica; Women and the Global Economy

international museum of women

slideshow exhibitions

bailouts

starsnbars 4/5/2009 6:45:48 AM

The pathetic truth is the average American is too "dumbed down" to realize they're getting totally scammed by this "bailout charade" as well as picking up the tab for it. What's really underway is a cleverly orchestrated coup d'tat of our democracy where big business calls all the shots and we the people become merely indentured servants to the state - its called "corporatacracy" and all these bailouts are the initial unveiling. What can we do? Our founding forefathers left us with a damn good document - the Declaration of Independence. It spells out in very clear and succinct language that it is not only our right but our responsibility as citizens to remove or overthrow any government from power that no longer meets the needs of the people and subverts our inalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Its time we the people take back our country from the "money changers" of Wall Street and their accomplices in Congress.

'Bailout Psychology' Destroying the Economy
Sean Oleander, SFchronicle, Sunday Insight

economic crisis

Economic crisis 'is as bad as they come'

Eff being in microecon. All the prof. talks about are tomato farmers and imaginary car manufacturers. My AP (macro)Econ teacher last year in Berkeley High was awesome. Mr. Powers. I mean, d00d, his name is freakin' POWERS. Now I go to class with a few hundred people I don't know and listen to some boring guy talk about..cows grazing on public land. Powers made econ interesting, because it actually is. He talked about the subprime bubble that was happening then, like actually stuff that's happening in the world zomgf'reals. Ughh I guess it is just stupid microecon that I have to go through and read the news on my own and dl the economist podcast to be informed. EFF I can't find the "teacher quotes berkeley high" page for Powers' quotes. Darn.