Marketplace Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch describes on his personal blog this week how by pre-ordering your Thanksgiving turkey you’re actually buying a derivative.
Here’s his Whiteboard explainer on how derivatives work:
We’ve written before about WNYC’s Your Uncommon Economic Indicators (YUEI for lack of a better term!) project, which asks listeners to send in videos, stories, and photos showing how the economic downturn is being seen on a street-by-street level. This is just one of several projects mapping the economy, but now the technology behind YUEI is available for individuals and stations. WNYC’s John Keefe explains in this video:
A new photo essay project from Michigan Public Radio takes us through home foreclosures across the state, including interviews with contributors. In one of the pictures, homeowner Eric Lewis talks about what he thinks is broken in the current housing system:
“People are too willing to walk away from the problems they created and give them to someone else… As far as I’m concerned, my house is worth just as much as it was 20 years ago.”
The ongoing Mapping Main Street documentary project, part of the MakersQuest initiative, finds stories about towns Main Streets across America from Queens to Chattanooga to Wisconsin. If you have a story or photograph from your town’s main street, add it here.
But do we have too many maps? New Hampshire Public Radio’s Virginia Prescott, who hosts Word of Mouth, spoke with writer Alex Hutchinson, who talks here about what it means to have a sense of direction.
Online Exclusive: Does My Sense of Direction Suck? from The Walrus Magazine on Vimeo.
A new film about the real estate crash, the story of a farm town in Montana, and a lecture about the cultures of the Great Depression all give very different but very clear pictures of the economy and how we got here — then and now.
The new feature-length documentary from filmmaker Leslie Cockburn was recently discussed on the Economy Project blog at the University of Missouri. But the film doesn’t focus on casinos like the ones in Las Vegas. Instead, this film looks at the entire economy as one American casino – the idea that the finance industry was gambling with peoples’ homes and bank accounts as you might put money in the slots.
One of the places that’s fallen short after all this gambling is Ronan, Montana, a farming town in rural Montana. Patchwork Nation blogger Carly Flando writes about how the town is having to explore other means of survival, now that the farming industry is suffering.
But for all the talk of new businesses and hospitals, David Sagmiller, the owner of Westland Feed, still sees the farms and ranches that surround Ronan as the foundation of the entire Mission Valley’s economy. The valley, which stretches north from Missoula, Mont., toward Flathead Lake and Glacier National Park, is known as one of the best seed potato areas in the state, and eight potato seed farmers live near Ronan.
“The community relies on agriculture,” he says. “The hospital would never get the community to survive. You can’t live off that.”
Rich Janssen, sitting sideways in a booth at the Ronan Café, agrees that agriculture is an important part of the community. However, the dynamics have changed.
“There’s a lot of government and school workers here, too,” he says. “It’s a blue-collar town with a little white collar mixed in.”
For more perspective on how we got here, a new lecture on WGBH’s Forum project from CUNY Professor Morris Dickstein recalls the Great Depression and its effect on culture. Will there be a similar impact 60 years from now?
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A new exhibit at the Library of Congress celebrates the art of political cartoonist Herbert Block (“Herblock”), looking at how he chronicled news events, from 1929 through 2001.
Veterans Day. Credit: Flickr/Jeff Cagle
Returning from war, veterans face numerous challenges. For some, that includes starting a new career after their service. This Veterans Day, we take a look at stories old and new of how veterans cope with coming back.
Military spouses, journalists, veterans, and family members are sharing advice about returning from war in a “conversation” from PBS’ film series, POV. Regarding War is a space to share your stories and learn from those who’ve dealt with this difficult topic. The accompanying film The Way We Get By profiles a group of senior citizens who greet soldiers returning from war in Bangor, Maine.
American Experience shares letters written by servicemen and women written home to their families from World War I through the present day. These don’t all have happy endings, but they give a unique glimpse into what it’s like to be so far away and what it’s like to come back.
One example is from Lewis Plush, who fought in World War I:
“”Men fought to kill, to maim, to destroy. Some return home, others remain behind forever on the fields of their greatest sacrifice. There was a war, a great war, and now it is over.”
Plush was honorably discharged from service on February 15, 1919. He returned home and homesteaded property in the coastal mountains. He married in 1923, planted apples and raised turkeys on his ranch, and died in 1956 at age 63.
Two veterans profiled today are taking steps to start new careers after completing their military service. NPR’s Michel Martin spoke with two former service members who are now a college counselor in Atlanta and cardiovascular perfusionist at the Mayo Clinic, respectfully.
For more stories about military service and first-person accounts, EconomyBeat is featuring posts from Milblogging.com, where soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are sharing their stories.