Geithner: Force is Prudence

The tragic history of financial crises is a history of failures by governments to act with the speed and force commensurate with the severity of the crisis. If our policy response is tentative and incrementalist, if we do not demonstrate by our actions a clear and consistent commitment to do what is necessary to solve the problem, then we risk greater damage to living standards, to the economy’s productive potential, and to the fabric of our financial system. Senators, the ultimate costs of this crisis will be greater, if we do not act with sufficient strength now. In a crisis of this magnitude, the most prudent course is the most forceful course.

-Future Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner

Well put.

Via Felix Salmon.

Step 1: Sell Tainted peanut butter. Step 3: Profit

My mother just alerted me to a phonecall she received from Costco, telling her to throw out the Luna Bars she’d bought months back due to the possibility of salmonella contamination — which got me thinking.

Was this phonecall to help customers avoid sickness, or a sales tactic?

Think about it.

More Luna Bars thrown away means more Luna Bars bought now as replacements.

Is Costco pulling a fast one on their customers?

Obama and the KKK

An hour after the inauguration of America’s first black president, the Senate’s only former Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) collapses. Coincidence?

Via Reason.

Mexico City Policy

President-elect Barack Obama is considering issuing an executive order to reverse a controversial Bush administration abortion policy in his first week in office, three Democratic sources said Monday. The sources said Obama may use the occasion to reverse the “Mexico City policy” reinstated in 2001 by Bush that prohibits U.S. money from funding international family planning groups that promote abortion or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion services. It bans any organization receiving family planning funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development from offering abortions or abortion counseling.

Please do strike it down, Mr. Obama.

Sources: Obama may quickly reverse abortion policy – CNN

Tel Aviv Port

Love the curving surface:

Via Kanye West.

In an unlikely place, an economy

        Maria Luz Ochondra lives on one of the world’s largest garbage dumps, a place incongruously called the Promised Land, just outside Manila in the Philippines. No one knows exactly how many people live on and around the Promised Land, but at least a couple thousand desperately poor adults and children spend their days picking through the garbage looking for anything useful. Father Joel Bernardo, a Catholic priest who works with the residents, notes that they are the “leftovers” of the world, the poorest of the poor. Another resident, Paz Calopez, describes conditions in the Promised Land this way: “There’s always smoke, there’s always fire, even when it rains. The garbage is glowing, even at night, and you hear popping sounds. We think it’s batteries exploding. It smells worse than a bathroom, especially when the bulldozers come through.” Tragically, during July 2000, weeks of monsoon rains soaked and loosened the mountain of garbage, causing it to suddenly collapse, killing more than two hundred people and two of Mrs. Ochondra’s sons.
        It is hard to believe that in this most hellish of places on earth, populated by some of the most desperate people imaginable, there is a sophisticated and, one could even say, vibrant economy. In 1994, the Philippine government closed a large dump in another location, greatly increasing the amount of garbage going to the Promised Land. Almost as soon as the Promised Land began to fill up, its economy sprang to life. At the base of the Promised Land economy are the scavenger families who live on the dump and spend their days picking through the garbage, looking for scrap metal, plastic bottles, rubber tires, and other useful materials. Sometimes they find discarded appliances, pieces of furniture, clothing, children’s toys, even edible food. The scavengers keep some of the material for their own use, but sell most of it to middlemen, who are the next link in the chain. the middlemen tend to specialize by type of material and have relationships with recyclers and manufacturers that purchase the metal, plastic, and rubber that the middlemen consolidate from the scavengers. Some middlemen even have recycling contracts with large companies and hotel chains. These contracts allow the middlemen to hire scavengers on a piecework basis to pick through their clients’ garbage first, culling the choice material before the trucks tip it into the general dump. The middlemen enjoy more efficient access to better materials, and their client companies are charged reduced tipping fees.
        At the next level of the economic chain are the various businesses that have sprung up to service the scavengers, middlemen, and their families. Various shanty shops sell products ranging from soap to shoes, bicycle parts, ice cream, and school supplies. Although the scavengers have a very difficult, unhealthy, and dangerous existence, the dump nonetheless provides a relatively steady income that keeps the majority of its residents from starving–an all-too-real risk in a country with 74 million people who earn less that one dollar per day. As Father Bernardo observed, “It’s raw capitalism working here. And it really generates money. Millions of pesos revolve through here every day.”

Excerpted from

The Origin of Wealth by Eric D. Heinhocker. Page 79.

Lil’ Samurai

His name is Weng Weng. Don’t call him little.

Only 2 foot ’9 inches tall, Weng Weng fights crime in the Phillippines as Agent 00.

Via Kanye West.

Chanel ‘Choco’ Phone

Designed by Fred de Garilhe:

Via Kanye West.

Spinning Studio

Spinning Studio from kwest on Vimeo.

Via Kanye West.

Madvillain – All Caps

Smooth beat. Love the distinctive voice.

Via Kanye West.

Old School

Just about perfect with the grey felt and the high-top:

The Vans Vault Grey Stone Pack

Via Kanye West.

Flowing Pixels

Street art, NYC:

Via Kanye West.

Wave of the Future: 1986

Radical.

Via Microsiervos.

Kicking Madoff

Via DealBreaker.

Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad

Economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) was famed for proclaiming that he had three goals in life: to be the greatest lover in Vienna, the greatest horseman in Europe, and the greatest Economist in the world. Alas, he would say, he had failed in his second goal.

The Origin of Wealth by Eric D. Heinhocker. Page 39.