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I just got this from Jay Babcock, editor of Arthur magazine, on whose behalf I posted an appeal for emergency funds this past Spring. In the spirit of community, he’s offering to pay back those in desperate need of cash now that the overall economy is skidding to a halt. From Jay: DID YOU LOAN US MONEY? Thanks to all who donated cash to Arthur when we really needed it back in June. Arthur is doing better now, but times are getting scarier for many of us with each passing day. In the spirit of generosity that you showed to us, we would like to make this offer: if you gave to Arthur back in June and are now...
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This week we witnessed the collapse of all the bubbles. This is really just the echo of the dot.com crash, and happens after the birth of any new technology. There’s a great book on this - I have to find it so I can tell you who wrote it. In any case, if there’s a new bubble we have to think of it as the bubble of government itself. Not that I’ve got money to back it up, but my prediction is that this is a medium-term bottom and that people who buy stocks of good depressed companies at the current levels will be very happy in a couple of years.
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from the upcoming Arthur Magazine No. 31, Oct 2008 
I poked my head up from writing my book a couple of months ago to engage with Arthur readers about the subject I was working on: the credit crunch and what to do about it [see âRiding Out the Credit Crisisâ in Arthur No. 29/May 2008]. I got more email about that piece than anything I have written since a column threatening to defect from the Mac community back in the Quadra days. Many readers thought I was hinting at something under the surfaceâa conspiracy, of sorts, to take money from the poor and give it to the rich. It...
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I’m guest blogging on BoingBoing this week and next, so look for twice-daily posts from me over there. I’m attempting to remind people what BoingBoinging is all about - at least for me - and why it’s so particularly appropriate an necessary skill in the current social and economic environment. As well as how it can be fun. I’ll attempt to list the posts here as I post them. Rushkoff Here: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/22/rushkoff-here.html
Open Source Democracy: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/22/open-source-democrac.html
Android: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/23/android.html
Print Your Own Money: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/23/what-went-wrong.html        ...
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So much to say about the current financial mess, so little time. I’ll leave investors to fend for themselves this week. I’ve given enough of that CNBC-style advice lately, contrarian though it may be. I’d rather spend these precious minutes explaining why the financial meltdown is not a bad thing for a lot of us. In brief: there’s a real economy, and a speculative economy. While they are usually related to each other - even dependent on each other - that relationship changed over the past twenty years. Really since the Reagan era. Trickle-down or “voodoo” economics (as the the first G Bush called it) was based on the faulty notion that if we allow investment banks to...
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 I don’t usually post when a new translation comes out, but the folks at Okultura are special, and have worked long and hard against great odds to get this new edition of Cyberia translated and published. In their words,
Czym jest Cyberia? CyfrowÄ
krainÄ
, w której wszyscy chcÄ
c nie chcÄ
c żyjemy, czy Åwiatem wysokich technologii, dostÄpnym tylko nielicznym informatykom? RzeczywistoÅciÄ
wirtualnÄ
czy czymÅ caÅkowicie namacalnym, dostÄpnym naszym zmysÅom? Co ÅÄ
czy ze sobÄ
informatyków z Doliny Krzemowej, magów chaosu, konsumentów psychodelików, pisarzy cyberpunkowych, wspóÅczesnych psychologów i fizyków oraz twórców i odbiorców muzyki transowej? O tym dowiecie siÄ z ksiÄ
żki Douglasa Rushkoffa, pierwszej, bÅyskotliwej próby opisu cyberkultury, ukazujÄ
cej jej...
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This is unorthodox, but what the heck? I’d rather do some “pull” media than all that “push” stuff. My next book,
Life Incorporated:
How we traded meaning for markets, society for self-interest, and citizenship for customer service,
will be published by Randomhouse in June 2009. We are assembling a reviewers’ copies list now. (Reviewers are journalists who write book reviews for publications.) While I can’t promise anything, if you email me your name, address, and print/radio/web/tv/blog affiliation, I will put you on the list to get a galley. Press galleys cost a whole lot more than actual books, so if you are simply a reader who wants a copy but can’t afford it, email me and...
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All sorts of people have been calling my cellphone this weekend, asking for an explanation of what’s “really happening” with the Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae bailout. Really briefly, here’s what’s going on and what I think it means. Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac are essentially mortgage financers. Banks sell mortgages, package them all together, and then sell them as debt to other investors - usually other banks, investment firms, mutual funds or pension funds. These are the famous “mortgage backed securities” everyone is talking about. Freddie and Fannie buy lots of these mortgages and then resell them at a profit. The rate they receive from the debtors (the mortgage money they collect) is at a better rate...
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I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it’s good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example). I usually don’t feel uneasy when I put those filters on, but last night - during the Guiliani speech - I realized I was no longer filtering a speechwriter’s intentional manipulation; I was trying to look beyond real hate. These folks were gritting their teeth, shaking their...
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My friend Legba Carrefour has been working with DC Students for a Democratic Society and Students for a Democratic Society for some time, now (he’s 27), and has served as a great window for me into the world of public demonstrations and their regular suppression. A conversation got started on my email list, Media-Squatters, about the protests at the DNC last week, and a number of us were surprised by reports of police brutality - as well as how little any of this was broadcast on the major networks. (Here’s a link to the most famous of the brutality episodes in the Rocky Mountain News. Here’s some of Legba’s report to us: I have...
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