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The Austin scene

By Laura Hertzfeld | Published: March 12, 2010

Even if you can’t make it to Austin for the big South by Southwest conference this week, there’s plenty going on online, including new (and free!) music, great ideas in social media and other ways to boost your business without spending a lot of cash, and innovative technologies to keep up with the kids these days. Here is some of what the public media crew is planning for the week:

EconomyStory will be hosting a panel on Saturday called Covering Big News on Small Budgets – something we think we know a little bit about by now! The panel recording will be made available online following the event.

To give a sense of what we’ll be talking about, check out this slideshow showing how public media covered some of the biggest events of the past year:

Former NPR producer’s Davar Ardalan previews SXSW Interactive in Austin with notes on speakers and activities:


PBS will be broadcasting live video interviews and updates from Austin, so you can keep up with all the panels online and on Twitter @PBS.

Austin NPR station KUT (Twitter @KUTAustin) has a comprehensive roundup of events and ideas. KLRU’s Austin City Limits is taping its first episode of the new season during the festival, with Cheap Trick in the studio on March 18. For more on music, NPR’s All Songs Considered previews the bands to watch over the next week.

You can follow all the Austin happenings on Twitter, too. All of the public media attendees will be adding their posts under the search: #pubsxsw. A list of SXSW speakers is here and I’ll be tweeting from @economystory and @laurahertzfeld. Yeehaw!

Also posted in Econstory, NPR: Local/National Collaboration, PBS: Video, PRX: Public Radio Archive, WNYC, Youth Radio: Youth Stories | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s Greek to us

By Laura Hertzfeld | Published: March 9, 2010

Greece is in major debt and the ancient country is facing some very modern problems trying to get out. As a newer member of the eurozone, the European countries who have adopted the euro as their one currency, more financially stable nations like Germany and France are nervous about the implications coming to Greece’s aid.

NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff spoke with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou about what his country needs from the U.S. and how Greece got into its current financial situation.

Marketplace commentator David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute falls on the side of questioning the expansion of the eurozone. He notes that the weaker countries in the eurozone are making sacrifices to stay in the club, and this approach will not help them succeed in the long run.

These governments — and others in Europe — are accepting higher unemployment in order to defend their currency…And yet, while Spain’s socialist government has seen its poll numbers drop, neither Spain, nor Greece, nor Portugal, nor Ireland is experiencing serious public pressure to quit the euro.To the leaders of these countries, the euro means Europe, and Europe means prosperity, stability, democracy, and peace.

How will the Greek crisis affect your investments here in the U.S.? Nightly Business Report spoke with foreign exchange experts on why investors here should care.

Standard & Poors analyst Alec Young:
Europe and the UK represent about two thirds of overseas market capitalizations. So anybody that owns an international mutual fund or an international ETF, there’s a very good chance, if it’s broadly diversified, that they do have significant exposure to Europe and to the UK.

Some experts say that while Greece is having trouble and there is a threat to other struggling eurozone nations, the fears about the global economy’s stability as a whole are secondary.

NPR’s Corey Flintoff spoke with economist Joseph Stiglitz:

The Greek crisis has contributed to the general air of uncertainty in international financial markets… Greece is one of five euro zone countries now struggling with big national debts. “The major implications are for Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland and therefore in some sense for all of Europe,” says Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University.
The problems in the euro zone could impact the U.S., too, Stiglitz says, especially if they dampen sales of U.S. exports to Europe.

Also posted in Econstory, Marketplace: Multimedia Series, NBR, NPR: Local/National Collaboration, NewsHour: Economic Patchwork Map, PBS: Video | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Under one roof, or none at all

By Laura Hertzfeld | Published: March 1, 2010

The job shortage for recent grads is forcing more young people to think about alternatives to getting their own apartments after finishing college and going out into the “real world.” Often this means moving back in with their folks. But those who can move in with family are the lucky ones – homelessness has also increased with this recession.

In many countries, young people often live with their parents until they get married and start a family of their own. In this country, “moving out” has become a rite of passage, but that’s changing, as The Takeaway reports in Many Generations, One Roof: “President Barack Obama does it, and according to a study by the AARP, so do 33 percent of all 18-to-49 year olds.”

Having an extra person in the house can be more costly for parents. Smart Money magazine mentioned this phenomenon in a piece about renovations in the current economy, explaining that having a child move back into the house as an adult can necessitate expensive changes – such as redoing an attic or adding a bathroom.


And whether it’s a boomerang kid grounded by a tough job market or an aging in-law whose portfolio losses nixed her own housing plans, adults usually cohabitate best when everyone’s got some privacy. After all, who wants to bring a date home to a room that shares a wall with his parents or be woken at odd hours when Grandpa blasts his TV at full volume?

Making Sense: New England also has some tips for cheap home renovation:

But not everyone has that kind of back up plan. EconomyBeat struck a nerve this morning when it linked to a post by someone who’d turned to drugs and became homeless after losing his job.

I lived in California and worked for a startup in the tech industry. I was laid off and as a result of my depression, fell ‘deeper’ into my meth addiction as a way out. This caused me to lose my apartment, and 99% of my belongings.

And he’s not alone. Julie Rose at Charlotte’s WFAE reports on the homelessness problem in North Carolina and a survey that’s trying to get people off the streets.

There are about 6,500 homeless men, women and children in Charlotte. Advocates think some 500 of those people are chronically homeless, meaning they’ve been on the street for at least a year. But that was just a guess.

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Health care reform around the country

By Laura Hertzfeld | Published: February 26, 2010

It was hard to miss: The White House confab this week with the warring sides in Congress meeting over the heated issue of health care reform. National shows and local stations each weighed creative approaches to coverage:

KQED in San Francisco (home city of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has been a leading advocate of health care reform), put together a page for comments and a live blog of the event. The Sunlight Foundation provided a tool to track donations to members of congress Congressional representatives as they spoke during the summit.

Tennesee had three representatives in their delegation: – two republicans and one democrat, some open to compromise on the health care bill, and one, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who made the case as other Republicans did to “start from scratch,” as WPLN in Nashville, with Capitol News Connection reported .

Nashville is a hub for the health care industry, which doesn’t seem to be hurting as the health care reform debate continues. WPLN reported that four major health are providers in Nashville, including HealthStream, posted positive year-end financial results.

But the urgency of health care reform certainly hasn’t gone away with a few hours of debate at the White House. As WAMC in Albany, NY found, thousands of people in New York alone are at risk without some serious changes:

The failure to enact health care reform this year will lead in the next decade to approximately 13,900 premature deaths of people between 25 and 64 years old in New York according to a report released today by the consumer health group Families USA.

Similar stories are cropping up around the country. For a full video roundup of health care coverage, PBS has a collection of clips from Frontline, NewsHour and more.

Also posted in CNC: Ask Your Lawmaker, Econstory, KQED, NPR: Local/National Collaboration, NewsHour: Economic Patchwork Map, PBS: Video, Public Interactive | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chopinomics

By Laura Hertzfeld | Published: February 25, 2010
Frederic Chopin, 1849/Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Frederic Chopin, 1849/Credit: Wikimedia Commons

How much would you pay to take a piano lesson from Frederic Chopin? In his time, adjusted for inflation, the price tag on a piano lesson with Chopin would fall somewhere between $50 and $96 in 2010 dollars. Worth it? Classical station WDAV in North Carolina reports:

Considering the average daily wage for an unskilled laborer in Paris was one franc. That’s three weeks’ wages to pay for one lesson if you don’t eat.

To commemorate the composer, Poland put his image on money:

In 1982 Chopin and the first two bars of this Polonaise in F Minor appeared on the Polish 5000 zloty bill. This year, The National Bank of Poland is adding their two cents’ worth with a release of special, collectible Chopin banknote valued at 20 zloty – about $6.77. Fourteen of the new notes if you want a lesson from the old poet of the piano!

There’s a ton of zloty in music today. Apple’s iTunes hit its 10 billionth 99-cent download this week. In an unusual agreement from two bloggers on opposite sides of the political spectrum, Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas and GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini each speculated on Twitter about what that $10 billion in revenue could have gone to, had it been spent in government:

@PatrickRuffini: iTunes songs have been sold 10 billion times…less than the cost of the jobs bill
@Markos responded: Less than monthly cost of wars too!

Also posted in Econstory, NPR: Local/National Collaboration, PRX: Public Radio Archive | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments