Global recession - where did all the money go? | Business | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/dan-roberts-on-business-blog/interactive/2009/jan/29/financial-pyramid

Before the credit crisis, the world was awash with money. Now central banks are pumping in more than ever before and still everyone is short. Dan Roberts explains the illusion of wealth.

Watch this video at home on depression cooking --http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking

Have a video site with clips to compliment your cook book recipies. Perhaps interviews/cooking instructions from the variety of people who contribute recipes?

Cooking we can use - poorman's feast

As if I needed another reason to get 14 hours of sleep every night.

In the sleep-deprived, gruesome images produced 60 per cent more activity in the amygdala - a primitive, emotionally reactive part of the brain - than in well-rested people. // Evidence is growing that sleep - and dreaming, REM sleep, in particular - helps the brain to process memories. Disrupt this mechanism, and you could end up with psychological problems such as PTSD.

Nearly two years ago I filmed the first episode of what was to become “Great Depression Cooking with Clara”. At the time the episode was intended to help me remember how Clara created the meals I had enjoyed eating over the years. I wasn’t sure if I could capture the magic of her storytelling and the details of the cooking at the same time (there are no second takes with Clara, if she did it once she doesn’t feel the need to do it again).

(These are absolutely wonderful!)

David Foster Wallace’s struggle to surpass “Infinite Jest.”

Article on the writer David Foster Wallace who committed suicide on Sep 12th 2008. He battled with depression.

What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant

"Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking human being"-dfw, dfw's writing after infinite jest, struggle with depression, portrait of older dfw, some biography

The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonmonthly.com%2Ffeatures%2F2009%2F0903.galbraith.html

"Why the economic crisis, and its solution, are bigger than you think."

Great foresight from the guy who tried to beat the poker pros

While the nation's lenders ran amok during the boom, Andy Beal hoarded his money. Now he's cleaning up - with scant help from Uncle Sam.

Andy Beal, a 56-year-old, poker-playing college dropout, is a one-man toxic-asset eater--without a shred of government assistance. Beal plays his cards patiently. For three long years, from 2004 to 2007, he virtually stopped making or buying loans. While the credit markets were roaring and lenders were raking in billions, Beal shrank his bank's assets because he thought the loans were going to blow up. He cut his staff in half and killed time playing backgammon or racing cars. He took long lunches with friends, carping to them about "stupid loans." His odd behavior puzzled regulators, credit agencies and even his own board. They wondered why he was seemingly shutting the bank down, resisting the huge profits the nation's big banks were making. One director asked him: "Are we a dinosaur?"

Two scientists suggest that depression is not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation that brings certain cognitive advantages

"Two scientists suggest that depression is not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation that brings certain cognitive advantages"

From the Smithsonian. Eight exhibitions: The Depression, The New Deal, The Country, Industry, Labor, The City, Leisure, and American People." Features artwork, photos, and newsreels.

"Picturing the 1930s," a new educational web site created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with the University of Virginia, allows teachers and students to explore the 1930s through paintings, artist memorabilia, historical documents, newsreels, period photographs, music, and video. Using PrimaryAccess, a web-based teaching tool developed at the university's Curry Center for Technology and Teacher Education, visitors can select images, write text, and record narration in the style of a documentary filmmaker.

1930's in pictures

Yet another reason to avoid the middle of the grocery store. (via @seldo)

Eating a diet high in processed food increases the risk of depression, research suggests. What is more, people who ate plenty of vegetables, fruit and fish actually had a lower risk of depression, the University College London team found.

food inc.

"As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Price, wage-fixing, and collusion blamed for length of 1930's Depression.

David Dobbs tells us about a new theory in genetics called the orchid hypothesis that suggests that the genes that underlie some of the most troubling human behaviors -- violence, depression, anxiety -- can, in combination with the right environment, also be responsible for our best behaviors. Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail -- but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most cr

People that are genetically prone to being at risk in poor environments are also more successful in good environments

found via kottke.org

"the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success"

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.

a bad environment and poor parenting vs the right environment and good parenting

“stress diathesis” or “genetic vulnerability” model Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people. The Atlantic Online | December 2009 |

In any given era, those who minister to the mentally ill — doctors or shamans or priests — inadvertently help to select which symptoms will be recognized as legitimate. Because the troubled mind has been influenced by healers of diverse religious and scientific persuasions, the forms of madness from one place and time often look remarkably different from the forms of madness in another.

from a book on the same topic, describes how the "symptom repertoire" of mental illness is becoming standardized around the world, which is quite different from times past. "we’ve been changing not only the treatments but also the expression of mental illness in other cultures. Indeed, a handful of mental-health disorders — depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia among them — now appear to be spreading across cultures with the speed of contagious diseases. These symptom clusters are becoming the lingua franca of human suffering, replacing indigenous forms of mental illness."

"...thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful."

thinking and happiness. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciam.com%2Farticle.cfm%3Fid%3Drapid-thinking-makes-people-happy

Rapid Thinking Makes People Happy

The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point.

EMU - european monetary union

"There are accidents waiting to happen across the region, but the EU institutions don't have any framework for dealing with this. The day they decide not to save one of these one countries will be the trigger for a massive crisis with contagion spreading into the EU."

Brazil lost 650K jobs in 1 mo - Jan apparently??? how

JM Keynes

READ THIS

finally they take a step or two towards the truth

So this freaking article has been showing up all over delicious for weeks, and I didn't save it when I read it, but since it's everywhere I'd like to officially say: NO. WHETHER OR NOT IT IS AN EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE, RIGHT NOW THERE IS NO REASON TO GO THROUGH LIFE MISERABLE, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOUR PROBLEM-SOLVING OR WHATEVER IS IMPROVED. NO NO NO. Unless the *fate of the entire human population rests in your hands*, you should NOT STAY MISERABLE.

The persistence of this affliction — and the fact that it seemed to be heritable — posed a serious challenge to Darwin’s new evolutionary theory. If depression was a disorder, then evolution had made a tragic mistake, allowing an illness that impedes reproduction — it leads people to stop having sex and consider suicide — to spread throughout the population. For some unknown reason, the modern human mind is tilted toward sadness and, as we’ve now come to think, needs drugs to rescue itself.

While there has been endless speculation about Darwin’s mysterious ailment — his symptoms have been attributed to everything from lactose intolerance to Chagas disease — Darwin himself was most troubled by his recurring mental problems. His depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”

For years Dr Doom toiled in relative obscurity as a NYU economics professor under his alias, Nouriel Roubini. But after making a series of uncannily accurate predictions about the global meltdown, Roubini has become the prophet of his age, jetting around the world dispensing his advice & latest prognostications to politicians & businessmen desperate to know what happens next – and for any answer to the crisis. Most other economists scoffed at Roubini & his predictions of imminent disaster. They dismissed his warnings that the sub-prime mortgage disaster would trigger a financial meltdown & that the investment banks would be crushed as the world headed for a long recession. Yet all these predictions & more came true. Few are laughing now.

Nouriel Roubini

a Cassandra

As stock markets headed off a cliff again last week, closely followed by currencies, and as meltdown threatened entire countries such as Hungary and Iceland, one voice was in demand above all others to steer us through the gloom: that of

as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones—in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources.

"Dr Nesse’s hypothesis is that, as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones—in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources. Therefore, he argues, there is likely to be an evolved mechanism that identifies certain goals as unattainable and inhibits their pursuit—and he believes that low mood is at least part of that mechanism." Via Mindhacks.

Their conclusion was that those who experienced mild depressive symptoms could, indeed, disengage more easily from unreachable goals. That supports Dr Nesse’s hypothesis. But the new study also found a remarkable corollary: those women who could disengage from the unattainable proved less likely to suffer more serious depression in the long run.

The Economist | Depression may be linked to how willing someone is to give up his goals

Many Links

WSJ article that has one part of the housing collapse that I hadn't heard before. Apparently inflation data that gets reported and looked at by the Fed and other regulators doesn't include home prices, it includes rental prices. Since the housing bubble was driven by mortgages, rents didn't spike nearly as much home prices. Had a truer picture of inflation been reflected in the numbers regulators been looking at the rate would have been double what was reported and likely regulators would have had to act in some way.

A great piece on the differences between the housing crash and the dot com bubble.

WSJ.com | Bubbles have been frequent in economic history - Steven Gjerstad and Vernon Smith explain why the housing crash ruined the financial system but the Dot-com collapse did not

fantastic wsj essay on formation of bubbles, experimental economics

How the New Deal actually corrected the economy and the myths used to argue that it did not.

Addresses the pervasive myth that FDR failed. That is, it's a "myth" for some definitions of "myth." As always, YMMV.

At such a moment, it is imperative to expose a dangerous popular myth regarding the efficacy of President Roosevelt’s actions: that it was not the programs of the New Deal, but only the placing of the nation on a wartime footing years later, that restored the health of the nation’s economy. This belief, though widely held, cannot stand up to even the most basic economic analysis. Yet the mainstream corporate media, which abound with anti-government ideology, seek to reinforce this myth. Just this past Sunday, The Washington Post featured on Page One of its Outlook section an article by Amity Shlaes headlined “FDR Was a Great Leader, But His Economic Plan Isn’t One to Follow.” Underscoring Shlaes’s made-up claims, the Post ran the continuation of her piece under the title: “FDR’s Plan Failed to Spark Real Growth.”

The unprecedented expansion of the money supply could make the '70s look benign. - ARTHUR B. LAFFER

I love that the Wall Street Journal writes this but never complained about Bush using fear mongering. Also I don't think he has fear mongered, I think Obama has presented evidence that backs up what he is saying.

the Great Depression are not only historically inaccurate, they're also dangerous. Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren't likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future. In fact, they have contributed to the continuing decline in consumer confidence

Mr. Obama's analogies to the Great Depression are not only historically inaccurate, they're also dangerous. Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren't likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future. In fact, they have contributed to the continuing decline in consumer confidence that is restraining a spending pickup.