In looking through today’s collection of news articles for a unifying theme, one thread stood out: they are all reflective of today’s times.
- The Foreclosure Mess. An interesting article in the NY Times highlights a side-effect of the foreclosure mess: at many college campuses, it is cheaper for students to band together to rent a McMansion than to pay the University to live in a dorm. This is particularly true for schools such as UC Merced, which has not fully constructed their dorm infrastructure.
- Economic Fears. We constantly hear that the engine of job creation are our nation’s businesses. But their fear is preventing job creation. No where is that better seen than with small businesses, who are having trouble getting loans to expand and create jobs from the big banks. In many ways, this is emphasizing one of the points of OWS: we need to move our money from large national-scope institutions to institutions with local scope and local interest, who want to reinvest in the community.
- Impact of Technology. Two articles in papers from each side of the country related to a common topic, but find radically different answers. The New York Times opines that the new car test drive is dead. Their position is that it is now so easy to research a vehicle, that more and more people are skipping the test drive. People focus on design and information on overall quality more. The Los Angeles Times goes the other direction, stating that test drives are even more important and should be longer. They argue that short test drives are pointless, and drives of at least an hour are required to judge how easy the navigation and console systems are to use, whether the vehicle can interface with all your electronic devices, whether the gauges and systems are readable at night, etc. BTW, in other car news, the food truck trend has led Nissan to introduce a new food truck design.
ETA: I forgot to metion that today is National Unfriend Day. However, don’t unfriend me. I really want your comments!
