economy
Adam Weinstein · 05/05/14 09:03AM
Retiring SEC Watchdog Calls SEC "a Tollbooth on the Bankster Turnpike"
Michelle Dean · 04/08/14 01:40PMHow did the American banking industry escape the crash of 2008 with so few scrapes and bruises, let alone so little jail time? It's easy to blame a general lack of regulation—but smarter to point the finger at the regulatory Securities and Exchange Commission itself. Last week one retiring SEC attorney, 66-year-old James Kidney, went out on a limb and agreed:
Will Spain Adopt A New Time Zone?
Dayna Evans · 02/18/14 12:40AMIn Obama's America, Women Finally Stop Aborting Their Babies
Ken Layne · 02/03/14 12:38PMNew 49-Cent Stamps Probably Won't Save the USPS
Dayna Evans · 01/26/14 01:35PMTell your grandma that Christmas card is never coming—the USPS announced today that one first-class stamp is now going to cost you just shy of two quarters, at the new rate of 49 cents. Up from the previous price of 46 cents, the three-penny increase is due to swiftly declining profits that the United States Postal Service has been dramatically struggling with the past few years. This is the first spike of that magnitude since 2002, and follows up 2013's inflation from 45 cents to 46.
America: We're Fucking Poor, and We're Fucking Scared
Adam Weinstein · 11/26/13 09:42AMLacey Donohue · 10/17/13 10:49PM
"Oilfield Trash" and a Boom That Won't Last
Ken Layne · 10/08/13 11:18AMPeople are strangers out here on the oil patch, and public conversation is terse and muted. You never know when an oil company manager or safety inspector or corporate spy is sniffing around. I learned after the first day in Williston, N.D., that my usual work uniform of an old sports coat and tie made me suspect. Leaving the tie at the motel helped, but not much.
Bakken Boom: Where the Buffalo Are Furloughed
Ken Layne · 10/07/13 10:02AMOil wells and sheet-metal buildings are hideous things, but America the Beautiful resumes as soon as you get past the last grim RV park and last signs of our shoddy civilization. The easiest way to refresh the soul is to look on the map for a big chunk of green: a national park or preserve or forest, or in the case of the Bakken, the Little Missouri National Grassland.
American Ugly: Bakken Shantytowns and Stucco Strip Malls
Ken Layne · 10/04/13 02:01PMBoomtowns don't have to be ugly. San Francisco was built during the Gold Rush, as was Sacramento and dozens of still pretty towns in the Sierra Nevada. Virginia City, home to the Comstock Lode, quickly built up neighborhoods of ornate mansions and a main street that offered everything from Oscar Wilde lectures in the opera house to exotic prostitutes from Australia and China. But since the 1960s, when America lost its ability to see or create beauty, our endless boom and bust cycle produces nothing but garbage: garbage housing, garbage retail, garbage jobs and garbage products.