Recession Watch
There are arguments about who first said Après moi, le déluge (“After me, the Flood.”) and whether is was meant prophetically (“Things are going to get bad once I’m gone”) or dismissively (“I really don’t care if things go to hell once I’m gone.”). I’m not sure it matters. I think both apply to the [...]
Continue reading about Euroarmageddon Tour — here comes the flood
France’s future is cloudy. OK, OK, cheap symbolism, but that’s the best kind, for reasons that I’ll come with eventually. Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering about the strange post name, “Tour Eiffel” is French for “Eiffel Tower”, and yes, we went on a tour of the Eiffel Tower this morning. We had gone last year [...]
Continue reading about Euroarmaggedon Tour — Tour Eiffel Tour
OK, as mentioned below, I got a grand total of two man-on-the-street interviews today. I was probably lucky to get that, all things considered. Sometime early this morning, while thinking about my goals for this trip, I came to the conclusion that my probability of success was pretty low in doing cold approaches on strangers [...]
Continue reading about Euroarmaggedon Tour — Saturday backstory
I did get two interviews. In two hours. Plus one bit of pungent walk-by commentary. I’ll chronicle the whole effort later, but here’s the feedback from today. Thomas — in his 30s, and looking like a classic clean-cut-with-stubble French professional — described himself as ‘not a typical Parisian’, though he never quite explained what that [...]
Tocqueville, we have arrived! I’m not sure what Tocqueville would have made of the Euromess, but I think it’s pretty easy to guess. On the other hand, I think I may have discovered part of the core financial problem here in France. Sitting in the lobby of our hotel, waiting for a room to become [...]
Continue reading about Euroarmageddon Tour — the Eagle has landed
OK, so we’re on the first leg of our flight to Paris, where I’ve found that my two French phrase books (the aptly-titled French Phrase Book as well as Just Enough French) don’t contain such handy questions as “What do you think are the possible sovereign consequences of replacing the European Financial Stability Facility with [...]
Continue reading about Euroarmageddon Tour: questions to ask
Important events and circumstances have combined in such a way that in a few short hours I will be boarding an airliner on my way to the Continent, to witness first-hand the turmoil of fiscal and sovereign upheaval caused by the ever-imminent collapse of the Eurozone, and to report on it here to you. OK, [...]
Companies are born, live, thrive, dwindle, and then often die or are absorbed by other firms. Being 56 years old, I’ve seen a lot of that first-hand and have worked for several firms that no longer exist. Over at 24/7 Wall Street, Jon Ogg and Douglas McIntyre have picked ten brands that they think will [...]
Big Government offers this chart of unemployment trends in post-WW II recessions. Nice to see that the massive deficit spending on ‘stimulus’ has paid off so well. ..bruce w..
It’s about to move into commercial real estate (emphasis mine): Investors who bought into the deal were confident that real-estate manager Tishman Speyer would be able to greatly boost profits by raising rents in Manhattan’s sizzling apartment market. But today, the 56-building, 11,000-apartment property is suffering from a slowing New York economy, a lawsuit that [...]
Continue reading about The real estate collapse isn’t over yet