Speeding 'cushion' may dwindle due to recession

Be careful out there…

By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

The recession may be claiming a new victim: the 5-10-mph "cushion" police and state troopers across the USA have routinely given motorists exceeding the speed limit.

As cities and states scramble to fill budget gaps with revenue from traffic citations, "not only are the (speeding) tolerances much lower, but the frequency of a warning instead of a ticket is way down," says James Baxter, president of the National Motorists Association, a Wisconsin-based drivers' rights group that helps its members fight speeding tickets.

"Most people, if they're stopped now, are getting a ticket even if it's only a minor violation of a few miles per hour," Baxter says. He cites anecdotal evidence of drivers being pulled over at slower speeds.

Tim Davenport, 42, of Kansas City, Mo., was recently stopped on 15th Street in Blue Springs, Mo., and ticketed for going 40 mph in a 35-mph zone — although the police officer initially ticketed him for 40 in a 25, he says. "I drove down that road again, and the posted limit was 35," he says. "I figured the judge wouldn't accept that, since I was over the speed limit, and would still charge me with it. So I went ahead and paid" the $60 ticket.

Ivan Sever, 60, of Boston was stopped on the Massachusetts Turnpike for doing 55 in a 45-mph speed zone. "I had just passed into the section where the speed limit is 45," says Sever, who teaches recording techniques at Berklee College of Music in Boston. "I saw the (trooper) and slowed down. I passed him carefully. He pulled me over, said I was doing 55." …

Speeding 'cushion' may dwindle due to recession

Technorati Tags: financial collapse

We bought a toxic asset; you can watch it die

By Chana Joffe-Walt and David Kestenbaum

Toxic assets — home mortgages packaged into complicated bonds that no one wanted to touch when the housing bubble collapsed — are starting to trade again.

Planet Money wanted to figure out how this chapter of financial history will end.

So we decided to buy a toxic asset of our own.

How We Found Our Toxic Asset

There's no store where you can buy toxic assets; you have to know a guy. We know Wit Solberg, a former Wall Street trader.

Solberg left Wall Street to set up his own shop, Mission Peak Capital, in Kansas City, Mo. He and a dozen guys sit at desks with their tools: monitors, potato chips, Snapple, chewing tobacco. Pretty much all day long, Solberg looks at those monitors and evaluates toxic assets.

"The big black Angus cow that everybody wants? We're not buying that cow because it's too expensive," he says. "We want the cow that's got a wounded leg, but she might produce a few more calves for us — and [she's] cheap."

…

Finally, we find a beautiful, totally toxic asset at what Solberg thinks is a good price: $36,000. Back in the bubble, somebody paid $2.7 million for this thing. We buy a piece from Solberg for $1,000. It's going to be our encyclopedia of the financial crisis.

What Our Toxic Asset Looks Like

Our toxic asset has 2,000 mortgages, many of them in hard-hit states like California, Arizona and Florida. A lot of the people in our bond are really struggling. Almost half are behind on their mortgage payments, and 15 percent of the homes are already in foreclosure.

At some point those homes will be taken over and sold for a loss. Every time that happens, the bond shrinks. Eventually, our part of the bond will disappear entirely.

Until then, we get a little money every month from people paying off their mortgages. We just got a check for $141. If it goes to Thanksgiving, we could double our money.  …

Tracking Our Toxic Asset

Interactive: Tracking Our Toxic Asset

We Bought A Toxic Asset; You Can Watch It Die

Technorati Tags: financial collapse

How the Aughts killed America’s malls and newspapers – with one stone

by Philip Bump | 10:46 am, December 29th, 2009

DeadMalls.com is celebrating a decade of recording the death rattles of American shopping malls. Chronicling the nasty and brutish lives of malls throughout the fifty states with pictures and anecdotes, the site launched in 2000 and celebrates its first ten years next month. It seems a remarkably appropriate tenure.

Hard numbers documenting the decline of the American shopping mall are hard to come by. (Anecdotal and pictorial evidence, like this remarkable photo essay of defunct shopping malls, are much more accessible.) The phenomenon of mall death received robust coverage in magazines and newspapers and on television over the past 18 months. The Newsweek piece linked above cites the International Council of Shopping Centers, which reports that one-fifth of the nation’s largest 2,000 malls were failing. Its current number broadens that significantly – to 102,000 shopping centers of all size. This is much more in line with the widely-cited number from a 2004 Dallas Morning News article, claiming that the nation hosts 46,990 shopping malls and shopping centers. Wikipedia, meanwhile, has a list of shopping malls in the United States containing a modest 868 locations. It also notes that much of the fluctuation results from competing definitions of what constitutes a mall; we can assume that similar uncertainty exists as to what constitutes its death.

Some part of any decline, to be sure, is a function of the economic environment. The Journal article above, for example, graphed declining mall sales during the recession, painting a clear picture of impact. The recession, though, isn’t to blame. It made an existing trend worse.

In a piece from two years ago, The Economist detailed the numbers behind that trend. Nearly no new indoor shopping centers in the latter part of this decade. A 50% drop between 1997 and 2002 in the percent of all retail sales occurring at malls (from 38% to 19%). What once was a mecca became mainstream. And then, this decade – moribund. …

How The Aughts Killed America’s Malls and Newspapers – With One Stone

Technorati Tags: financial collapse

Trend watch: pot growing in abandoned McMansions

 

The lastest in American architectural innovation. Image credit, Photobucket, darkrose05rx8

The bad guys bought abandoned or repossessed homes, ripped out interior walls, illegally tapped into power and water, and grew pot commercially. What starts in California goes viral a couple years later. So, don't be surprised if DEA operatives begin cruising upscale developments in Florida or Connecticut. Possible counter-intel tactics by the bad guys: hire broke soccer moms to stop by and smile at the neighbors…

Trend Watch: Pot Growing In Abandoned McMansions

Technorati Tags: financial collapse,green economy,green architecture

After years of decline, Cleveland aims to go green

By Nick Carey

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – Orchards and vineyards may soon spring from the blight of thousands of abandoned buildings in Cleveland, a city struggling to rise from years of decline and home foreclosures.

Once a proud manufacturing powerhouse, Cleveland has lost nearly 10 percent of its population since 2000, the fastest drop of any U.S. city except for hurricane-hit New Orleans.

The city which was once America's fifth largest now ranks 41st in the U.S. Census with a population of 433,748.

"The first thing we must do is stabilize our housing market," said Jim Rokakis, treasurer of Cuyahoga County which includes greater Cleveland. "Then we'll need to work out what to do with all the vacant land we'll be left with."

The county has 36,000 abandoned homes that are a magnet for crime. As many as 18,000 must be demolished at a cost of several hundred million dollars. Proposals for the empty land include orchards and vineyards to help property prices recover, as few expect the city's population decline to reverse.

"This isn't a market for new housing," said Mark Seifert, executive director of local nonprofit the East Side Organizing Project. "And it certainly won't be in my lifetime." …

After years of decline, Cleveland aims to go green

Technorati Tags: financial collapse,green construction

UC Berkeley: Shrinking Cities Group

Today, every 6th city in the world can be defined as a “shrinking city.”  This is a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing cities, parts of cities, or metropolitan areas that are experiencing a dramatic decline in their economic and social bases.  The causes of this urban decline are many and complex, though one common denominator is that each “shrinking city” has been significantly impacted by the forces of globalization.  Marked by a loss of employment opportunities and the attendant out-migration of population, many shrinking cities have suffered from the post-industrial shift from manufacturing to service industries (e.g., Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Manchester/UK).  Other factors contributing to this decline are the so-called “second generation” transformations in the high-tech sector (e.g., the collapse of the dot-com industry in California) and economic changes wrought by the dissolution of socialist systems (e.g., in eastern Germany).  These processes, among others, have drained essential investment and resources from many urban areas, leaving the remaining cities with an ever-diminishing fiscal base.

The Shrinking Cities Group's work is carried out under the aegis of the Institute of Urban and Regional Development. The work draws upon the Institute's long-standing research experience in regional development and its vital worldwide networking activities with experts in research and policymaking.

Shrinking Cities Group

Technorati Tags: urban decline,financial collapse,green construction,green architecture

UN: Global renewables investment up despite financial crisis

Tom Young, BusinessGreen, Wednesday 3 June 2009 at 14:00:00

Investment in renewables rose five per cent in 2008 – proving new methods of power generation are now firmly established

Four out of every 10GW of new energy capacity built last year came from the renewables sector, according to a major new report commissioned by the UN Environment Programme…

UN: Global renewables investment up despite financial crisis

Technorati Tags: renewable energy,financial collapse

U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions down in 2008

WASHINGTON, DC, May 22, 2009 (ENS) - Energy demand across the United States fell in 2008, leading to the largest annual decline in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions since the federal government began annual reporting on greenhouse gas emissions in 1990.

Record-high oil prices and a decline in economic activity in the second half of the year resulted in a decrease of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions of 2.8 percent last year, according to preliminary estimates issued Wednesday by the federal Energy Information Administration.

Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions account for more than 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

These emissions decreased from 5,967 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2007 to 5,802 MMTCO2 in 2008, the EIA reported.

The economy, as measured by Gross Domestic Product, GDP, grew by 1.1 percent in 2008, even taking into account the economic downturn at the end of the year, but energy demand declined by 2.2 percent, indicating that energy intensity - energy use per unit of GDP - fell by 3.3 percent in 2008, the agency said.

Carbon dioxide intensity - carbon dioxide emission per unit of GDP - fell by about 3.8 percent, the EIA estimates. …

U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions Down in 2008

Technorati Tags: carbon dioxide,financial collapse

Smart solutions for a retail apocalypse

Malls are being mauled. In case you’ve been paying closer attention to Wall Street or the housing market, rest assured that America’s once-bustling shopping meccas are doing just as poorly.

Last month, General Growth Properties, the country’s second largest mall owner, declared bankruptcy. Anchor chains are dropping like flies, from Circuit City to Filene’s Basement. The trend has even reached the level of irony as liquidation resellers are being liquidated. The practical implication of all this is that local malls are going dark all the time across the country, with the carnage being documented at sites like DeadMalls.com.

It’s fair to assume to that these vacant structures are now done forever–at least as old-school malls. But rather than let them become gaping holes in the fabric of our communities, it’s time embrace the national project of finding ways to reimagine them as vital, forward-looking developments. This is exactly what Ellen Dunham Jones and June Williamson have done in their book Retrofitting Suburbia. Recently we spoke with Dunham-Jones, the director of the architecture program at Georgia Tech, about how repairing the legacy of this failed American institution. …

Smart Solutions For A Retail Apocalypse

Technorati Tags: green construction,financial collapse

Orlov: The new new money

Well, this portends good things for the U.S. …

It's official: The government in Beijing has announced that the Yuan can now be used in international trade. Their mouthpiece for this occasion was the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a private entity, which made the announcement on their behalf. By the end of this year, it is expected that fully 50% of all transactions with Hong Kong will be denominated in the Yuan. In turn, Hong Kong re-exports 90% of its Chinese imports. Importer #1 is the European Union; importer #2 is the United States. Some of these countries may soon find themselves hard-pressed to earn enough Yuan to continue importing Chinese-made products. …

The new new money

Technorati Tags: Orlov,financial collapse

Japan honours 'Limits to Growth' science author

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan on Thursday awarded its top science prize to a US researcher who decades ago predicted that rapid economic and population growth on a finite planet would lead to the collapse of civilisation.

Professor Dennis Meadows led a research team that in the 1972 study "The Limits to Growth," using a computer model called World3, forecast that on current trends humanity was headed for doom by 2100.

Meadows, of the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the lead author of the study, which became a best-seller but was also attacked as alarmist and opposed to technology and progress.

Emperor Akihito watched Thursday as Meadows, 65, received the 500,000-dollar annual Japan Prize from the country's Science and Technology Foundation for "transformation towards a sustainable society in harmony with nature."

In his study, Meadows argued that "human demand exceeds nature's supply."

Unless the human race switched from exponential population and economic growth to a sustainable system, his team argued, they would "overshoot" the Earth's limits, leading to the collapse of human civilisation.

More than three decades on -- a time span in which the world population has grown from less than four billion to more than six billion -- Meadows said that today he sees even fewer signs of hope.

"In 1972, our projections suggested growth would end in this 21st century, and that still seems inevitable to me," he told a Tokyo conference this week.

"If demand against the planet rises above its carrying capacity, the carrying capacity will decline," he said.

"Growth will not end gradually and peacefully in the distant future. It will end soon and suddenly through overshoot and collapse." …

Japan honours 'Limits to Growth' science author

Technorati Tags: financial collapse,population,resource depletion,Peak Oil

The Adversity Index

Neat visualization:

The Adversity Index, from msnbc.com and Moody's Economy.com, measures the economic health of 381 metro areas and all 50 states. Each area is judged to be in recession, at risk, recovering or expanding. On this map you can explore changes in the components of the index: employment, industrial production and home values, shown as a percentage change from a year earlier, and housing starts, shown as the annual rate of units begun. Roll over a state to see its numbers. Click on a state to see details for its metro areas. Slide left or right to see data for different months. Click play to see all the months. Use the forward and back buttons to step a month at a time.

Adversity Index linked from A city struggles: ‘We are back at square one’

Technorati Tags: financial collapse

Start your own cul-de-sac commune

We Technophiles have talked about this very thing on several occasions. And with entire suburban neighborhoods being abandoned, we could probably buy a whole cul-de-sac for cheap.

All over the world, people are losing their jobs. In America, there are millions of homes in foreclosure. The suburban areas are particularly hard hit, and many are asking how the suburbs will be reinvented. The Cul-de-Sac Commune project may be a solution. …

Start Your Own Cul-de-Sac Commune

Technorati Tags: financial collapse,intentional community

Slideshow: Great stimulus ideas from the Great Depression

From Tree Hugger:

Our favorite congressperson Michele Bachmann doesn't think much of the stimulus program. She says "Congress isn’t helping America to dig itself out of the recessionary hole, we’re merely digging it deeper." But what would her State of Minnesota be like if there had not been a stimulus project like the New Deal? Would shipping be able to get to the state? Would it have electricity? Art Galleries? Watch this slideshow of some of some of the projects paid for through stimulus programs like Rural Electrification, the Federal Art Program, the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps: Great Stimulus Ideas from the Great Depression.

Slideshow: Great Stimulus Ideas from the Great Depression

Technorati Tags: financial collapse

Clean energy investment not on track to avoid climate change

(New Energy Finance) The economic crisis has affected clean energy investments such that their growth is no longer on track avert the worst impacts of climate change, according to leading sector analysts. The analysis will be presented at the second New Energy Finance Summit in London Wednesday, March 4. NEF says lower economic activity due to the financial crisis will reduce CO2 emissions but in the longer term the drying up of funding for lower-carbon energy is likely to have far greater adverse impact on emissions.

Clean energy investment not on track to avoid climate change

Technorati Tags: renewable energy,climate change,financial collapse

After the crash, Iceland's women lead the rescue

 

"We have five core feminine values. First, risk awareness: we will not invest in things we don't understand. Second, profit with principles - we like a wider definition so it is not just economic profit, but a positive social and environmental impact. Third, emotional capital. When we invest, we do an emotional due diligence - or check on the company - we look at the people, at whether the corporate culture is an asset or a liability. Fourth, straight talking. We believe the language of finance should be accessible, and not part of the alienating nature of banking culture. Fifth, independence. We would like to see women increasingly financially independent, because with that comes the greatest freedom to be who you want to be, but also unbiased advice." …

After the crash, Iceland's women lead the rescue

Technorati Tags: financial collapse

Green revolution: still possible amid deep recession?

By Mark Rice-Oxley

In 2008, oil prices spiked then collapsed, climate-change talks stuttered, and nuclear power reemerged. Europe banned incandescent light bulbs, Britain made cutting emissions legally binding, and US President-elect Barack Obama appointed the greenest US cabinet ever. But what does this augur for 2009? While nature and the economy can be wildly unpredictable, experts believe a warmer year is coming. At the same time, carbon-dioxide emissions are likely to drop as businesses slow. Some experts hope "green collar" jobs will help reverse the recession, but fossil fuels will probably continue to power much of the world for years. When and if the economy picks up steam, demand for oil will rise – as will prices.

Will the recession defeat efforts to combat climate change?

Leaders like Barack Obama are promising a "green new deal" through formidable investment in the green economy. Environmentalists say that green technology is far more labor intensive than traditional energy sources such as oil and nuclear. There will also be plenty of jobs in the energy efficiency segment, according to Lester Brown, founder of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, who sees benefits to both economy and environment from retrofitting buildings, for example.

"If you compare wind and solar technologies versus coal," he adds, "it's much more labor intensive by a factor of 2 or 3. So if you're interested in creating jobs, you have to look at efficiency and renewables."

Green revolution: still possible amid deep recession?
Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: renewable energy,green economy,financial collapse

Iceland's fall: the isle that rattled the world

Tiny Iceland Created a Vast Bubble, Leaving Wreckage Everywhere When It Popped

By CHARLES FORELLE

REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- A boy charged to the front of an angry crowd here recently and tossed a carton of skyr, a popular local yogurt-like snack, at the Parliament building. It splattered on the rough-hewn stone.

He and thousands of Icelanders were protesting one of the strangest economic failures of the global financial crisis. This past fall, every bank that matters in this tiny nation -- that is, all three of them -- failed. Iceland's currency, the krona, became worthless beyond its shores. The country's financial system stopped working.

"We are pissed off at the government," said one young man, pausing between fusillades of eggs. A roll of toilet paper arced across the Nordic sky.

Iceland is an extreme casualty of an era in which it became extraordinarily easy to borrow money. But it was more than that: An examination of the nation's banking system, which collapsed over about 10 days this autumn, reveals the degree to which Iceland was one of the international financial bubble's most enthusiastic players. Home to fewer people than Wichita, Kan., Iceland became so leveraged and so deeply intertwined with the global financial infrastructure that its collapse has rattled the world from Tokyo to California to the Middle East.

The Isle That Rattled the World

Technorati Tags: financial collapse,Iceland