Our crappy economy

Strong Canadian Dollar and Higher Pot Prices for US Stoners
The good stuff comes from Canada, so you may have noticed that the price has risen about 25%.

New research on pot prices "evaluates the impact of recent changes in user sanctions for marijuana on marijuana prices. The results suggest that lower legal risks for users are associated with higher marijuana prices in the short-run, which ceteris paribus, implies higher profits for drug dealers. Additionally, the findings have important implications for thinking about the slope of the supply curve and interpreting previous research on the effect of drug laws on demand for marijuana."

I'm not a stoner, but I have been considering it lately with all the bad news bombarding our country. Beer doesn't cut it anymore.
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The US debt is expanding by $1.4 billion/day or $1 million/minute

What's that mean to you?

It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.

Yes, I am so happy that I have tried to curb my spending to within my means for these past several years and have eliminated my debt... and I can still be fucked. Great.
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A nice, but long read on Why America's Currency Is the World's Problem
Politicians and central bankers are looking on helplessly as the economic outlook worsens by the day and European companies rack up huge losses.
Thomas Enders, the CEO of Airbus spoke to employees in Hamburg, and explained that "the rate at which the US currency is falling makes "reasonable processes of adjustment" a virtual impossibility. Every cent the dollar drops against the euro costs Airbus €100 million. This has even the normally optimistic Enders alarmed. "It's life-threatening," he told his audience."
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"U.S. Credit Crisis Adds to Gloom in Norway" This story upsets me because just a few days ago, I was almost on board for Norway after seeing the scene cut from Michael Moore's "Sicko." But even Norway isn't immune from the far reaching crapola and greed of the US money pigs.

Norway’s unlucky towns are the latest victims — and perhaps the least likely ones so far — of the credit crisis that began last summer in the American subprime mortgage market and has spread to the farthest reaches of the world, causing untold losses and sowing fears about the global economy.

Where all the bad debt ended up remains something of a mystery, but to those hit by the collateral damage, it hardly matters.

Tiny specks on the map, these Norwegian towns are links in a chain of misery that stretches from insolvent homeowners in California to the state treasury of Maine, and from regional banks in Germany to the mightiest names on Wall Street. Citigroup, among the hardest hit, created the investments bought by the towns through a Norwegian broker.

I am still going to order the language tapes for Norwegian and Swedish because you never know.
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Talk about being fucked over big time by greedy Washington pigs, many New Orlean's residents are shut out from moving home because they can't afford the rents on the new housing projects. Cheap dwellings, if available, "routinely come without finished walls or stoves." FEMA trailor residents are being evicted in the meantime. This is how the US deals with their most vulnerable citizens. It's a disgrace. This would never happen in Norway.

We may as well hope that more uber-wealthy liberal celebrities take up the cause as Brad Pitt has done in helping to rebuild the lower 9th Ward.

The project, called Make It Right, calls for building 150 affordable, environmentally sound houses over the next two years. In a telephone interview from New Orleans, where he plans to present the designs today, Mr. Pitt said the residents of the neighborhood had been homeless long enough. “They’re coming up on their third Christmas,” he said.

Mr. Pitt said he had been attached to New Orleans for more than a decade. “I’ve always had a fondness for this place — it’s like no other,” he said. “Seeing the frustration firsthand made me want to return the kindness this city has shown me.”

Indeed. It doesn't seem like anyone's tax dollars are going to actually help those on the fringes- it's just going to the pockets of war profiteers. So much for war being "good for the economy."
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