Category: government
Governments Innovate in Response to Fiscal Crisis
Who says governments can’t be innovative. AZCentral reports on ways local governments there are creatively responding to the fiscal crisis: Responding to a growing demand for library services in east Mesa, the city in 2011 opened an express library at a vacant strip mall for $360,000 rather than building a stand-alone library for as much [...]
Can Kickstarter Solve Urban Problems?
Over at the Design Observer Group, Alexandra Lange has a very thoughtful piece on how to use Kickstarter to fund public projects: Most of the Kickstarter projects under the Design tab congregate around the themes of bikes, cheese, typography and iAnything, yet there is now a subset of urban interventions. A plastic tent for a [...]
Is Canada Drinking the Austerity Kool Aid?
Thus far, our stolid neighbor to the north has managed to avoid the worst of the global crisis, thanks to a common-sense moderation that is almost tedious to observe. They didn’t go in for massive bank deregulation, they have a pretty high-functioning health care system, the list goes on and on. But now there are [...]
What a Fiscal Drag
That’s what JP Morgan thinks we got from the debt limit agreement. They see four consequences of the deal: 1) No default. This had always been a low probability (<1%) very high cost outcome, which now seems off the table. 2) An eventual S&P downgrade is still more likely than not, though we think this [...]
Who’s Your Debt Daddy?
Amid all of this foolish brinkmanship, it might be worth remembering who owns our national debt. The Congressional Quarterly has an interesting interactive chart here. You can also see the past (noncontroversial) history of the US debt limit here.
You’re Not Using the Internet. . .
It is using you. That’s the spectre raised in a recent article by Sue Halpern in the New York Review of Books. Among other works, she reviews Eli Pariser’s Filter Bubble (which we have previously commented on). Here is just one of the many troubling issues she raises in her article: Why this matters is [...]
