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updated 01/26/07  

wEssays and Weblog Archives, 2005 - 2006

 



Writing/Film

Dear Aspiring Writers: The Worst Advice You'll Ever Read

Don't Write for Readers, Just Write Grants

Ernest Lehman, Screenwriter

Central Casting, Dept. of Acceptable EVil

Tinseltown Tags Titles from Bard

When Empire Was Easy: Around the World in 80 Days

Trois Colours: White

Spirited Away: Decay and Renewal

Suzhou River

Blue: Love and Loss

The Nelson Touch

Running On Empty

"It's all about oil, isn't it?"

An American Poem
(Robinson Jeffers)


Taoist Chinese Poems

2006

A Literary Look at
I-State Lines


Kurosawa's High and Low

A Bountiful Mutiny

Howl's Moving Castle

Thailand's Iron Ladies

Trois Colours: Red

The Thin Man: Thoroughly Modern Movies

Iranian Films: The Mirror

Piratical Nonsense

A Real Pirate Movie: Captain Blood

The Con in Confidence: The Confidence Man

Yojimbo (film) / Heart of the Matter (novel)

Secrets of Lord Nelson's Success

Gavan Daws, Historian
 
American Identity

Hapas: The New America

Can You Tell What I am? Part I

Can You Tell What I am? Part II

Only in America

Self-Reliance

2006

Your Tattoo in 50 Years

The American House and Frank Lloyd Wright

Defeat and Over-Confidence


Cultural Commentaries

On Hatred and Anti-Americanism

Anti-Americanism Part 2

Anti-Americanism Part 3

French-Bashing

2006

The World Is Not a U.S. Suburb

Germany: We All Have Problems, But...

Round Dwellings


Kroika! Chronicles

This Blog Sells Out

Doom and Gloom Sells

The Kroika Mascot-"Auspicious Pet"

Wal-Mart and Kroika

2006

Kroika and Starsbuck Take a Hit

Kroika Ad 1

Kroika Ad 2

Kroika Ad 3

Kroika Ad 4

Kroika Bids for Oreo!


Jank Coffee

Happiness Is a Cup O Jank
The Jank Coffee Shop

Jank Coffee, Upscale Tropic Style



Marketing Follies

My Brand Management Stinks

This Blog for Sale, But Not for $5


 
Unfolding Crises: Asia

China: An Interim Report

Shanghai Postcard 2004

Japan's Runaway Debt Train

Will Avian Flu Trigger a Global Depression?

China and India: Five Flies in the Ointment

China & the U.S.: Circle of Self-Interest

China Trade Surplus: Gusher Profits for U.S.

Air Pollution and China's Future

China: What a difference 27 years makes

China Irony: Steel, Marx & Capital

Is Japan's Recovery Sustainable?

Corruption and Avian Flu: China's Dynamic Duo

Exporting the Real Estate Bubble to China

Is the Bloom Off the China Rose?

2006

Curing The U.S. and China's Dysfunctional Relationship

China and U.S. Inflation

Trade with China: Making Out Like a Bandit

Whither China?

Will the Housing Bust Take Down China?

China's Dependence on Exports to U.S.; Is China About to Pop?

The Rot in the Middle Kingdom

A Tale of Two Debts: Japan and the U.S.

What we can learn from Japan's 15-year decline in real estate

China Syndrome: Is Growth Sustainable?

Is China a Bubble?
 
Battle for the Soul
of America


Katrina, Vietnam, Iraq: National Purpose, National Sacrifice

The End of Empire is Real Simple

A Degree of Success

Why the Democrats Keep Losing

American Chickenhawks: Your Congress

Is This a Nation at War?

A Nation in Denial

Hawaii National Guard:
An Unfair Deployment


The Great Karmic Unraveling

This is not Vietnam

American Dream or American Nightmare?

Why Is This Such a Tepid Time?

Bringing the War Home

The False Gods of Consumerism

That Price Isn't Cheap, It's Subsidized

U.S. Fascists Seek Ban on Cancer Vaccine

The Truth About Christmas

The Most Hated Company in America

2006

2006 Sea Change

Obesity and Debt

Baseball: Rot at the Center of the Empire

Immigration Ironies

Medication Nation

U.S. Healthcare: Working Toward a Real Solution

A Drug Industry Running Amok

Where There Is Ruin

Birth of America, The Alternate Version

Corporate Rot I

Corporate Rot II

The Popularity of Consensus

I Am a Member of an Absurd Elite

Now Is The Winter of Our Discontent

Will This Be A More Enlightened Christmas?

The 7 Most Important Stories of 2007

Iraqi Moneypit

Iraq and Vietnam: A Nam Vet's View

Homeland "Security" and Insecurity


Design Follies

The New Jank Coffee Shop

Jank Coffee, Upscale Tropic Style

Round Dwellings



 
Financial Meltdown Watch

What This Country Needs Is a... Good Recession

Are We Entering the Next Age of Turmoil?

Why Inflation Appears Low

Meltdown in the E.U.

Meltdown: U.S. - China

Retirees: the New Elite?

Boomers: Prepare to Fall on Your Swords

The Real Federal Deficit

The Word of the Decade: Gold

Katrina's Long-Term Effects

Catalyzing the Great Unraveling

Welcome to 1935

Meltdown in the Making

Is Risk Eliminated, or Merely Increased?

Adios, O Bogus Prosperity

Doubling Down on 5-Card No-See-Um

Greenspan & The Conundrum Effect

Why are we in this handbasket?

Stock Market Tea Leaves

The Scandals Yet to Come

A Rickety Global House of Cards

Are Japan and Germany Truly on the Mend?

Unprecedented Risk 2

October Crash Redux

Five Good Things About Recession

Clear Skies or Storm Clouds?

Zero Savings and Rising Retail Sales

Foreigners Buy U.S. Debt--A Vicious Cycle

Could One Rogue Trader Bring Down the Market?

Worried about Inflation? Stop Measuring It

Economy Great? Bah, Humbug

Huge Deficits and Huge Profits: Coincidence?

Who's The Largest Exporter?

Three Snapshots of the U.S. Economy

2006

The Coming Conflagration

Who's the Doomsdayer?

Storm Clouds of Recession

The Next Stock market Plummet

This Is False Prosperity

What's the Point of Doom and Gloom?

Entitlements Chickens are Coming home to Roost

Sugar-Coated Denial

Are We Poor or Prosperous?

The Bubble Mentality

Loaded for Bear

Comparing Nasdaq to Depression-Era Dow

Who's Buying Treasury Bonds? And Why?

Derivatives: Wall Street Fiddles, Rome Smolders

Complacency, Denial, Risk
Five Financial Fairy tales

Coming to a Market Near You: Crash!

Financial Chickens Coming Home to Roost

Is the Stock Market on the Same Planet as the Economy?

The Housing-Recession-Oil-Healthcare Connection

Could We Have Deflation and Inflation At the Same Time?

What We Know, What We Can Safely Predict

Is Getting Rich Really This Easy?

Bankruptcy U.S.A.: Medicare, Greed and Collapse

Sucker's Rally

A Whiff of Apocalypse

Where There Is Ruin, There Is Profit

Whither the Dollar and Interest Rates?

Basel II and Banking Risks

Retail Sales and Rising Debt: Could They Be Connected?

Protecting Capital 1

Protecting Capital 2

Protecting Capital 3

Protecting Capital 4

Protecting Capital 5

Why I am Not a Pundit

Is There Cross-Feedback Between Housing and Stocks?

The Bonds-Gold Connection

The New Dow "High"

Are Business Ethics Hitting New "Highs"?

Our (Mis)Trusted Regulators

Do You Trust This Market Rally?

Google Buys YouTube: the Top Is In

How Now, "High" Dow?

New Dow High: A Clear-Eyed Look

Bad Luck Bonds (Friday the 13th)

Getting Bond Yields Right

Is the Dow Breaking Out?

Financial Survival

Gloom, Doom or Boom?

Up, Down or Sideways?

What Is the Low VIX Telling Us?

Beneath the Surface: The Dollar

Beneath the Surface: Bonds

Beneath the Surface: Gold

Beneath the Surface: Commodities and the Wealth Effect

Beneath the Surface: the Dollar

Are Labor Costs Rising?

Market Manipulation--how it works

Is the Market Top In, Or Still to Come?

Gold and the Empire of Debt

Risk, Manipulation and Liquidity

What If Rates Don't Drop?

More Portents of Doom

More on ETFs

Will Retail Sales Be a Lump of Coal?

When Virtuous Cycles Turn Unvirtuous


 
Planetary Meltdown Watch

The Immensity of Global Warming

Sun Sets on Skeptics of Global Warming


Housing Bubble Watch

Housing Bubble? What Bubble?

Housing Bubble II

Housing Bubble III: Pop!

Hidden Costs of the Housing Bubble

Housing Market Slips Toward Cliff

Housing Market Demographics

2006

Commercial Real Estate Blues

The Housing Conundrum

The Three Laws of Real Estate

As the Real Estate Bubble Pops, so Does the Economy

Bubble Pop: Coup-de Grace to the Economy

A Monster of a Housing Bubble

Housing Bubble: Reader Feedback

Housing: Catching the Falling Knife

Five Stages of the Housing Bubble

Hidden Costs of the Housing Bubble

Outbreak of Bubbleria Devastates Nation

Foreclosures: How Bad Will It Get?

Foreclosures 2: How Many?

Bubble Bust: Where's the Bottom?

Another Way of Figuring the Bottom

The Housing-Inflation Connection

Unaffordability: The Mobile Homeless

Derailing the Property Tax Gravytrain

Bubbling Property Taxes

Have You Checked Your Property Taxes Recently?

Charting Unaffordability

How Many Foreclosures Will Hit the Market?

Housing Wealth Effect Shifts Into Reverse

Housing Bubble Bust Will Take Down the Global Economy

The New Road to Serfdom: A Negative-Equity Mortgage

The Housing-Savings-Recession Connection

After the Bubble: How Low Will It Go?

After the Bubble: Rents and Housing Values

Why Post-Bubble Rents Matter

After the Bubble: How Low Will We Go, Part II

Housing: 10% Decline May Trigger Financial Ruin

How to Buy a $450K Home for $750K

The New Road to Serfdom: A Negative-Equity Mortgage

Inflation and Housing: Calculating the Bust

The Growing Financial Risks of the Housing Bubble
Construction Defects: The Flood to Come?

Construction Defects
Part II


Who Gets Hammered in the 2007 Housing Bust

Real Estate Bust: The Exhaustion of Debt

What Happens When Housing Employment Plummets?

One More Hole in the Housing Bubble: Insurance

Financial Kryptonite in a "Super-Strength" Housing Market

Three Secrets to Unloading Property Today

Welcome to Fantasyland: Housing's "Soft Landing"

Why Is the Median House Price Still Rising?

Why Median Prices Appear to be Rising?

The Root Cause of the Housing Bubble

Housing Dominoes Fall

Twilight for Exurbia?

Phase Transitions, Symmetry and Post-Bubble Declines

Mortgage Risk Meltdown

Second Home Madness

Foreclosure Alternative: Wheel Estate

What we can learn from Japan's 15-year decline in real estate

Big Lies, Small Lies and felony Lies: Real Estate 2006

Plateau of Denial

Housing Bottom is Now--Or Not

Fortress of Denial

Housing's Stairstep Descent: 39 Steps Down

Stories from the Housing Frontlines

The 60-Year Mortgage

Stories from the Housing Frontlines II

Real Estate and the Derivatives Powder Keg

Housing's Two Monsters

Southwest Over-Building, Wacky Mortgage Business

 
Oil/Energy Crises

Whither Oil?

How much Is a Gallon of Gas Worth?

The End of Cheap Oil

Natural Gas, Naturally High

Arab Oil Money and U.S. Treasuries: Quid Pro Quo?

The C.I.A., Oil and the Wisdom of Crowds

The Flutter of a Butterfly's Wings?

A One-Two Punch to a Glass Jaw

2006

$200 a Barrel Oil

Oil Supply and Demand

Oil Rising

Running Out Of Oil vs. Running Out of Cheap Oil

Is the Price of Oil Manipulated?

Whither the Price of Oil? (up)

The Winning Trifecta: Autos, Oil and Healthcare Solutions

Get This Right and Wealth Will Follow: Oil Reserves Decline


Outside the Box

How to Make a Favicon
Asian Emoticons

In Memoriam: Winky Cosmos

The Wheeled Vagabonds

Geezer Rock Overload

Math Class Doodles (animated)

Paying for Web Content

On Personal Risk

Assessing Danger: Personal Risk 2

Haiku Fun

Reader Haiku / The Con in Confidence

The Popularity of Consensus


In a Humorous Vein

If Only Writers Had Uniforms

Opening the Kimono

Ten Guaranteed Predictions for 2010

Why My Book Is Better Than the DaVinci Code

The New Disease We Just Know You've Got

My Brand Management Stinks

Travails of an Unknown Author


One-Word Titles

Complacency

Nostalgia

Greediocy

Lifespans


Praxis

Keys to Affordable Housing

U.S. Conservation & China
Steve Toma, Me & Skil 77s: 30 years of Labor

Real Science in the Bolivian Forest

Deforestation and Sustainable Forestry

The Solar Economy (book)
The Problem with Techno-Fixes

I Love Technology, I Hate Technology

How To Blow off Web Ads and More

2006

The Feel of Quality

The Art of Craft

High Energy Cost Solution Is Close To Home--And Work

The American House and Frank Lloyd Wright

Gifts and Gold

Round Dwellings
 
Health, Wealth & Demographics

Beauty of the Augmented (Korean) Kind

Demographics and War

The Healthiest Cold Cereal: Surprise!

900 Miles to the Gallon

Are Our Cities Making Us Fat?

One Serving of Deception

Is Obesity an Inflammatory Response?

Demographics & National Bankruptcy

The Decline of Europe: A Demographic Done Deal?

2006

Are the Risks of Obesity Overstated?

Healthcare: Unaffordable Everywhere

Kaiser: A Model for National Healthcare

U.S. Healthcare: Working Toward a Real Solution

The New Disease We Just Know You've Got

Can You Can Tell Which Pill Is Fake?

Bankruptcy U.S.A.: Medicare, Greed and Collapse

The 10 Secrets to Permanent Weight Loss

Readers Weigh In on Weight Loss Tips

The Winning Trifecta: Autos, Oil and healthcare Solutions

The New Drug You need: Discolegato

Workable National Healthcare



Landscapes

Selling the Landscape

The Downside of Density

Building Heights and Arboral Roots

Terroir: France & California

L.A.: It's About Cheap Oil

The Last Redwood

Airport Walkabouts

2006

Building Heights, Density and Liveability

Rooftop Gardens

Waimea Canyon, Yosemite, Camping & Pancakes

Huzzah for Iowa


Nourishment

The French Village Bakery

Chocolate Is Good For You
 
Ideas

What Is Happiness?

Our Education System: a Factory Metaphor?

Education: Replacing the Factory With The Workshop

Understanding Globalization: Braudel

Can You Create Creativity?

Do Average People Know More Than Their Leaders?
On The Impermanence of Work

Flattening the Knowledge Curve: The "Googling" Effect

Human Bandwidth and Knowledge

Iraqi Guangxi

Splogs, Blogs and "News"

"There is no alternative to being yourself"

2006

Is There a Cycle to War?

Leisure, Time and Valentines

Is the Web a Giant Copy Machine?


Science Matters
Anti-Missile Defense: Boost Phase Vulnerability


History

The Strolling Bones: Rock of Ages

Bad Karma: Election Fraud 1960

Hiroshima: First Use

All the Tea in China, All the Ginseng in America

The Great SF Earthquake of 1906
 
Archives:

weblog October 2006

weblog September 2006

weblog August 2006

weblog July 2006

weblog June 2006

weblog May 2006

weblog April 2006

weblog March 2006

weblog February 2006

weblog January 2006

weblog December 2005

weblog November 2005

weblog October 2005

weblog September 2005

weblog August 2005

weblog July 2005

weblog June 2005

weblog May 2005

What's New, 2/03 - 5/05


Essential Books

The Misbehavior of Markets

Boiling Point (Global Warming)

Our Stolen Future: How We Are Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival

How We Know What Isn't So

Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future

The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal

The Future of Life

Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak

The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies

The Solar Economy: Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future

The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures

Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated.
 
Friday Quiz

Quiz #1: Pet Obesity

2006

Energy Use and Waste

Energy Use and Waste

The Origins of Carbonara

Organic Farms

Oil and Renewable Energy

Human Diseases

Largest Oil Producers

E.U.'s Biggest (Legal) Drug Consumers

Wine and Alzheimers

Biggest Consumers of Chocolate

Calories in Chocolate

Median Price of a U.S. House

Wage Inflation in China

Why Should You Buy my Book?

Where Is This? April06-1

Where Is This? April06-2

Where Is This? April06-3

Where Is This? May06-1

Where Is This? May06-2

Where Is This? May06-3

Where Is This? May06-4

Where Is This? June06-1

Where Is This? June06-2

Where Is This? June06-3

Where Is This? June06-4

Where Is This? June06-5

Where Is This? July06-1

Where Is This? July06-2

Where Is This? July06-3

Where Is This? July06-4

Where Is This? November06

                                                   

wEssay noun, combination of 'web' and 'essay,' denoting a short essay which exploits the hyperlinks, interfaces and interactive capabilities of the World Wide Web; coined by Charles Hugh Smith on May 1, 2005, in Berkeley California.


copyright © 2005-2006 Charles Hugh Smith. All rights reserved in all media.

 
   
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