friend of the built environment

I’ve long had a rather scathing attitude toward bicycles and the people that ride them. This stems from several sources:
For starters, trying to walk home in San Francisco on the last Friday of the month can often result in risking life and limb in the face of Critical Mass. I hate the fact that bicyclists seem [...]

The questions I posed to Ask Paul Krugman:
Do you feel there are enough physical resources in the Earth’s crust to sustain 2005’s level of global economic activity indefinitely at current population growth rates?
How will resource extraction and distribution issues affect economies in the coming millennia?

Interesting Stuff…

I like this analysis of the $8k tax credit that is set to expire next month:
Since the tax credit is poorly targeted and inefficient, it might be hurting the economy more than helping. And it does nothing to reduce the excess inventory problem.
Don’t miss the earlier post about it last month:
Here is the math: 1.9 [...]

They’re closing my library.

Winston Salem, where “economic development incentives” is Southern for “expensive taxpayer black hole“.
Nothing says “civic pride” quite like a half-built stadium, an empty computer factory and a crumbling library.
Welcome to the new new economy, where the purpose of taxes are for corporate subsidies, not government services. The answer to state and municipal budget problems is obvious: cut [...]

Pittsblog makes a good case against many of the arguments being made by those slamming the plans to close CPLPGH branches.
The fact is, the idea that most of these branch libraries are vital community assets is somewhat laughable. As museum pieces, yes, they are very important. But just about every old branch library I’ve visited [...]

I want a few of these. Please get for me. K thx bye.

Hat-tip Anatoly: The list of the Hawttest heads of state. Our cuddly friends in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia feature. They obviously found the magazines stashed under my bed.
I wish they would give a ranking to Medvedev. Putin scores hawtness points for always showing up shirtless at the lake with his rod (fishing rod, you dirty people!), [...]

To quote Alan Greenspan:
“If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big,” Greenspan said today. “In 1911 we broke up Standard Oil — so what happened? The individual parts became more valuable than the whole. Maybe that’s what we need to do.”
The former Fed chairman said while “just really arbitrarily breaking down organizations into various different [...]

What’s the deal with everyone assuming you want to be sweaty when you get old? This survey of the best post-Miami places to retire to had a strict formula including number of sunny days. And here I’ve been trying to move slowly north with each passing year, and have always had strict precipitation criteria with [...]

Stocks are outrageously expensive right now. Stop buying them now or lose your pants. You have been warned:
- Year over Year Retail Sales: 9.3% average in prior 60% rallies versus -5.3% in the current one
- Consumer Confidence: 95.5 average; 53.1 now
- Capacity Utilization: 79.9% average; 66.6% now
- Year over Year Industrial Production: 4.1% avereage; -10.7% [...]

Banks are funny that way. Constantly talking about how compensation rules will prevent them from “retaining top talent”, or the new alarmist phraseology: foment a “brain drain“.
Two issues: first, targeting only TARP-recipients will not work. There is always going to be an implicit taxpayer guarantee as long as FDIC-insured banks are not more deeply regulated [...]