The Moustache of Understanding likes to talk in aphorisms and oversimplifications, but sometimes he gets things just right. His latest column details a new way of bringing products to market drawing on newly arrived smarts, network technology and prototyping based all over the world. He also points to the new model of manufacturing; financed and invented in the West, developed in the East, rolled out in both markets.
I’ve been digging around Current.com, partly to see if there’s any way I can make a buck or two for Freyburg Media, and partly because there’s some really good content on the site. Here’s a story about how Argentines have coped with their recession (something we’ll have to start doing soon)…
and here’s another report from Angola about China’s rising influence in the region.
Wired has a few really interesting articles about how the current econopocalyopse is actually a great opportunity for small, agile companies who don’t rely on the industrial processes of yesteryear. And there’s no better example than Detroit, which has clearly hit a wall and needs to reach out and innovate immediately if it wants to survive.
Now that the credit crunch has put the brakes on Dubai’s go-go economy, the dark side of the Middle Eastern paradise is starting to seep out. Not without dissenters, of course, but all the same, the harsh laws and questionable labour practices everyone was happy to ignore when times were good seem to be getting closer scrutiny.
With the economic crisis hitting Japan at an even more torrid pace than the rest of the world, many former high flyers are now moving into “net rooms,” which are essentially closets with an internet connection so you can look for a job. And when you think about it, what more do you need? What you might want is another story, but if things get worse here, we might see more net rooms in North America.
According to the cover of the Atlantic, the economic crapstorm we’re currently weathering is going to not only throw piles of people out of work and cause general misery, it’s also going to remake America’s geography. Richard Florida, who you might remember from his book “The Rise of the Creative Class,” asserts that regions like the Sun Belt, which experienced massive growth during the housing bubble, will be in dire shape in years to come, as will old industrial cities like Detroit. New York might take less of a beating, due to the big influx of creative types and industries other than finance, though frankly I think Florida might be overstating his case in that instance. Strangely, though the cover says “Toronto wins,” due to multiculturalism and a diversified economy (oh yeah, and Canadian banks are a hell of a lot better off than American banks), there’s barely any mention of the city in the article itself.
As fears of peak oil, resource wars and economic collapse dot the headlines, it’s a fair question whether aviation, which chews up an enormous amount of fuel and greenhouse gases, is still a viable form of transport. The New Republic has an interesting piece about how flying defines our economy, and how screwed we’ll be if aviation goes away.
Michael Lewis, the author of “The New, New Thing,” recently rented out the biggest mansion in New Orleans, a house he’d lusted after as a boy and found overwhleming once he moved in. He also found that being inside a house thats way beyond your means, even if you’re renting it, says a lot about both the American psyche and the subprime mess the US currently finds itself in.
So, just when you thought Bush couldn’t screw things up any further, the push for biofuels has pushed the world into a food crisis. That’s just great.
This one’s more ranting about the proposed Canadian DMCA. Also, on a technical note, it looks like video hosting sites don’t ike something about the end credits, so I guess I’ll have to tweak that for further episodes.
