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Unsolicited Analysis: The Average American
We often speak in terms of the average American. This is particularly relevant to financial analysis. Do we know who that is? The census gives us invaluable insight into household incomes. Your median household income? $67,609. There are 116,783,000 households. Employment of those households…
- This sentence contains four words.
- This sentence contains five words.
- Exactly one sentence in this list is true.
…first you’re annoyed, then you giggle. Gotta love the Futility Closet.
I love art nouveau. LOVE it.
Yes, owls are the coolest birds of all time.
(via fuckyeahowls)
I am LOVING this Internet meme.
The Rise of the Chinese Ghost Town
From the World Bank’s blog:
In February this year, Geoff Dyer wrote an article for the Financial Times, “China: No One Home”, in which he chronicled the eerie emptiness of this new town development near the city of Kunming, in southwestern China. He wrote:“Construction started in 2003 and the results are now apparent in 13 immaculate local government buildings, each clad in marble tiles. A high school boasts an impressive indoor swimming pool and several of the region’s main universities have built large campuses. Pristine high-rise apartment blocks stand in rows, their new windows glinting in the subtropical sun.The one drawback: at the moment, Chenggong is almost completely empty. Its wide streets are all but bereft of traffic, a bank branch has no customers and leaves collect in the foyers of the municipal offices.”In June, I accompanied a World Bank mission to Kunming, where the Bank is supporting the development of a new light rail system. Upon learning that two stations had already been built in Chenggong, my colleagues and I just had to go see for ourselves — just what does a modern Chinese ghost town really look like? Well, here it is.
Click the link to see the photos. It’s apocalyptic.
Apparently I write like David Foster Wallace. Who do you write like?
"I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars."
Abbie Hoffman
"That’s a journalistic trick which you can also apply to literature. If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants in the sky, people will probably believe you."
Gabriel García Márquez
