Most economists have come to believe that we are likely in for a solid decade of high unemployment and underemployment. There just doesn’t appear to be enough work to go around. That, by itself, is why I believe that this period of economic history will eventually become known as a Depression – it’s about an excess of capacity to produce stuff and services that has to be absorbed. Getting out of these doldrums is going to take fundamental changes in how we work that are probably best understood by how we got to where we are today. Predicting the future may be hard, but we can at least understand where we’ve been and go from there.
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Category Archives: Urban Life
Good to be Wrong
If you make it your business to understand the world around you, as I do, it’s only fair to make a few predictions. Predicting what will happen and then going back and evaluating it later is the only real “reality check” that I have to see if I’m on the right path or going off on a long trip to nowhere. Naturally, I’m often wrong about things. Not just little things on a daily basis – that would be a tedious and long list. I’m talking about the big things that I think I understand but end up in one big “D’Oh!” moment.
Restaurant Biz
Many people sit in a restaurant and dream of having one of their own. On the surface, it seems so simple – have a good idea, be a good host, show people a good time and it must practically run itself, right? While the do-it-yourself ethic may be a great idea for many things in life, a restaurant just isn’t one of them because, put simply, it’s not something you do for yourself but for your customers. Yet there’s nothing to get the ideas flowing like an empty space decked out in a stainless steel kitchen, marble bar, and wooden tables to get the imagination going.
Such a place just opened up, again, in my neighborhood. Any takers?
The Age of Anxiety
After the mechanized cruelty and destruction of World War II, two important works of literature tried to capture the feeling of despair. Along with well known 1984 (1948) by George Orwell, there is the lesser known Age of Anxiety (1947) by W H Auden. Both of these cast a shadow we still live under, twisting our language to defy and define a mechanical world not entirely fit for humans. Auden’s more romantic treatment is worth the read if for no reason other than its resonance today.
Formaldehyde
Ever day we learn that a chemical in our lives is thought to cause cancer or some other illness. After a while, most people’s eyes glaze over and it’s left to the experts to figure out what the real hazard is. Sometimes, movements form to get rid of the offending material and either an industry converts away from it or legislation is passed to force the conversion. One very simple molecule, formaldehyde, has stubbornly resisted the pressure on it and remains a large part of some people’s lives to this day. It is, at least, very strange.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 