economy – Newley Purnell

Some links that have caught my eye of late:

The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s [Pitchfork.com] — Via kottke.org
Wikipedia Will Limit Changes on Articles About Living People [NYTimes.com] — "Officials…say that within weeks, the English-language Wikipedia will begin imposing a layer of editorial review on articles about living people."
Slate Is Switching From 'Today's Paper' to a News Roundup [NYTimes.com] — "Slate is retiring “Today’s Papers,” one of the original aggregators of the Web, 12 years after it started its beloved once-a-day summary of the nation’s news pages."
"Stubborn political crisis hangs over Thai economy" [Reuters] — "Foreign investors are wading back into Thailand despite a three-year political crisis, stoking stock and currency gains, but economists say political unrest will limit how fast and how far Thailand pulls out of recession."
"Shifting the Right of Way to the Left Leaves Some Samoans Feeling Wronged" [WSJ.com] — "Government Calls Traffic-Rule Switch 'Common Sense,' but It Sparks Road Rage"
"King calls for unity in polarized Thailand" [Reuters] — "Revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej has called for unity in deeply divided Thailand to stop it from falling into ruin, in a rare foray into the country's four-year political crisis."
"Updated tutorials for Audacity (audio editing app)" [Teaching Online Journalism] — Excellent Audacity tutorials from Mindy McAdams.
News Corp. pushing to create an online news consortium — latimes.com — "The media giant, advocating a model that would charge for news distributed online and on portable devices, has met recently with major publishers."
"Myanmar Military Gains on Rebels as Villagers Flee to Safety" [NYTimes.com] — Perspective on the Myanmar military's ongoing war against the Karen rebels.
"Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid" [NPR] — Interesting data visualization.

A few days back, I asked some of my Twitter friends to share some good resources for understanding the subprime crisis and global credit crunch.

Wise Kwai suggested The Subprime Primer, a 45-slide presentation using (profanity-spewing) stick figures to illustrate the meltdown. I suggest giving it a read (but be mindful that it’s — obviously — simplified).

Jay Dedman recommended the helpful This American Life episode called The Giant Pool of Money, which I’ve mentioned before. It remains an excellent resource, and one that I plan to listen to again.**

Here are some other links that have caught my eye:

TheMoneyMeltdown.com: “Everything you need to know about the global money crisis of 2007-?.”

WSJ: Yes, Dow’s Record Was Year Ago Today, which contains this illustrative infographic. (Click the image for a larger version, or go to the article.)

I’ve read Zimran Ahmed’s blog, Winterspeak, since 2001, and he’s been posting some interesting thoughts on the credit crisis. Here was his take on things last week:

My prediction: deflation will continue through 2008 and 2009. The economy will continue to contract as consumers reduce consumption (and increase saving, which they must do) and businesses scale back operations so they fit the new, lower personal consumption environment. This will be a slow process, though, as the Fed and Treasury have worked mightily to obfuscate prices, and drag out the bubble deflation. Eventually, Helicopter Ben will say enough is enough and start to (finally) mail freshly printed greenbacks to households. Now we will switch from a deflationary environment to an inflationary environment, China will complete it’s transition out of the dollar, and we will get real, honest-to-God 70s style stagflation. And then we will wait for the next Volker.

I suggest reading the whole post.

RealClearMarkets.com is a good source for ongoing news. Thanks to Lan Anh N. for the tip.

The New Yorker‘s James Surowiecki has a piece called “Public Humiliation,” in which he concludes:

Considering that Wall Street firms spend all day dealing with the market, they have been slow to understand just how vulnerable they were to it. Companies like Lehman and, earlier, Bear Stearns saw going public as an excuse to take on more risk and act more recklessly, when in fact becoming a public company makes caution more important, since the margin for error is smaller, and the punishment for failure swifter. Now that the government has acted, Wall Street (or what remains of it) may yet be able to regain investors’ confidence. But long-term survival really depends on remembering the fundamental truth about playing with other people’s money: it’s a lot of fun until they suddenly decide to ask for it back.

(Emphasis mine.)

**And on a related note, thanks to newley.com reader Paul D. for pointing out a NY Times article providing the backstory on how “The Giant Pool of Money” came to be.

–> What about you? Got some good links to share? Leave them in the comments or email me (newley AT gmail.com)