jealous

Originally posted at Dezeen

Every once in a while, a designer sees an arresting representation of all his values and best hopes for a dream commission...realized in someone else's work. Wow!...is all I can say. My hat of respect to Subarquitectura for their tram stop in an Alicante roundabout. How this project understands the necessary nature of public space, the utility of a transit stop, and activating a no man's land in the process with a celebration of destinations, both earthly and fantastic. Thanks for that example.

Hedging on Stupidity

George Washington Statue, Federal Hall National Memorial, Wall Street, Manhattan, New York City, originally uploaded by Scandblue.

Tyler Cowen's top two (related) reasons why we have a credit crunch:

"1. Collective stupidity: A lot of Greeks believed in Zeus and a lot of people in 1938 thought Hitler would be good for Germany. They were just plain, flat out wrong. I'll also put "model error" under this heading. The relevant stupidity concerned both the fate of home prices and the degree of acceptable leverage.

"2. Writing the naked put: This is Bob Frank's main explanation, noting that he uses different terminology and adds a relative status dash to the argument. If you don't know options theory, just imagine betting against the Washington Wizards to win the NBA title every year. For a lot of years you'll earn super-normal returns, but one year (not anytime soon, I can assure you) you'll be wiped out. That is essentially the strategy the banks were playing. They were going "short on volatility," so to speak. In the meantime they reaped high returns and some amazing perks for private life. It's hard to just call the party to an end, even if you have a relatively long time horizon."

...Adds Matthew Yglesias:

"And of course if you can actually make the bet with other people’s money, leverage the hell out of that money, and then make your take-home pay in the form of fees taken from the annual gains rather than having too much of your money tied up the principle, you do even better. There’s probably not much of a regulatory solution to people making bad bets in this way. But between now and whenever the next bailout-requiring crash, I’d like to see much higher taxes on the super-wealthy. I’m not that concerned about preserving incentives for multi-millionaire financiers to keep doing their work."

Now THAT was a sucking sound!

The Empire of Debt by Dee Hon, originally uploaded by Renegade98.

Reading my last post, I realized now that it was slightly prophetic without my knowing...I did not realize that WaMu's instant demise would suddenly open an abyss close to home. While Charlotteans were busy trying to find gas that weekend a silent run had begun on Wachovia the next day as depositors and shareholders became concerned with Wachovia's similar toxic holdings. We woke up Monday with the news that Wachovia had been parceled out to Citi Group. Just a week before, Bob Morgan, our chamber of commerce head, had been feeling a bit dapper and slick, stating in Time magazine's Postcard that Charlotteans "wanted to be number two to no one" (meaning of course New York) and here we all a sudden find a smirking New York dandy was riding on our number two filly (and top employer downtown)...My of my, how humbling...As they say, hoss, "Pride cometh before the fall".

These are amazing times for a tragic-moralist flaneur. Who can literally compose a sicker tragic drama worthy of Aeschylus than the sheer indictment of hubris that is transpiring before our eyes?? Just start with the finest piece of radio ever produced and go from there....It gets wickeder, wilder and my so much more chilling than anything Chrichton and folk can come up with. Just following the carnage of the dominoes falling is a surreal experience. I keep looking over my shoulder and I swear I just heard the voice of Jeremiah calling out from the hoary past....It is a time to be on bended knee. A time of reckoning.