It’s been a long time since overtly political music was considered dangerous in this country—as much as I like Dead Prez, for example, I sort of doubt that the FBI is bothering to give the group the John Lennon treatment. But the situation is very different in the anarchic amalgam commonly known as Somalia, a […]
Who among us doesn’t enjoy a tale of humanity laughing in the face of death? And so a zillion eyeballs were understandably drawn to this entertaining New York Times‘ account of the massive parties that Ghanaian expatriates throw when a loved one back home meets his or her Maker. This admirably raucous tradition is a […]
Since I know first-hand the terrible things that young men are capable of when deprived of romantic companionship for too long, I fear for the future of India. The country’s gender ratio is skewing way too male these days, which means that tens of millions of 21-year-old men will one day find themselves coming up […]
Tags:demographics·economics·India·Mississippi·Mizoram·statistics
Granted, I haven’t been following the whole “rebirth of piracy” story as closely as I should be. But I nevertheless floored to read this assessment of just how bad the situation has gotten, particularly for sailors who lack the personal financial resources to wriggle free of captivity: Some 600 seafarers are at present held for […]
Though I only recently became aware of the fact that Burkina Faso is a hotbed of film production, I was completely unsurprised to learn that the nation’s movie industry is deeply troubled. The primary culprit, as you might surmise, is piracy; as cinemas have vanished with the proliferation of affordable DVD players, the markets in […]
One of the pluses of travel these days is that it affords me the opportunity to catch up on reading. (The parents in the audience know well that young’uns page-rate down by quite a bit.) On this latest Texas trip, when I wasn’t busy finagling my way into a remote immigration detention facility, I stole […]
Tags:agriculture·books·economics·Eric Schlosser·immigration·philosophy·Reefer Madness
Modern slang is full of gastronomical synonyms for money: dough, bread, cabbage, cake. Notably absent from the long list, however, is a foodstuff that once actually functioned as a form of currency: the humble eel, a traditional English delicacy often served in jellied form. Nine centuries ago or thereabouts, eels were more than just a […]
Tags:currency·economics·eels·England·fish·food·Medieval history
I somehow went almost an entire month without pimping my latest Wired feature, which appears in the March issue (alongside Joel Johnson‘s excellent cover story on the Foxconn suicides). The piece is a deeply reported essay that tackles a tricky business proposition: For companies that make products out of atoms, does manufacturing in China and […]
Though I frequent Broadway shows about as often as I indulge in White Castle—that is, once in a blue moon—I’ll admit to taking undue pleasures in the travails of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Not in the various serious injuries that the production has incurred, mind you, but rather in seeing what happens when unchecked […]
Tags:Duke Minks·economics·Leonardo da Vinci·mining·Nauru·phosphate·theater
News of the mercury thermometer’s imminent demise got me wondering about where, exactly, our quicksilver comes from these days. Much to my surprise, I discovered that there is but a single mine in the world dedicated solely to the production of mercury. It is in Khaidarkan, a village in southwestern Kyrgyzstan, where the poor soil […]
Back in 1985 or thereabouts, I made the worst business decision of my life: I traded all of my Star Wars action figures to a classmate, in exchange for a Fisher-Price Space Shuttle that made “beep beep” noises when a rubber buttons was depressed. To my credit, I realized within a matter of days that […]
Tags:1980s·economics·NASA·space·Space Shuttle
A dozen years ago, this New York Times Magazine story wormed its way into my memory banks by citing a single, jaw-dropping stat: “About 70 percent of all Indian motel owners—or a third of all motel owners in America:mdash;are called Patel, a surname that indicates they are members of a Gujarati Hindu subcaste.” After reading […]
The late Hmong military leader Vang Pao is currently being memorialized in grand fashion, as his culture’s traditions dictate: [Vang Pao’s] funeral — six days and nights, with 10 cows slaughtered and stir-fried each day — has become a send-off for the ages. It began last Friday, his body borne on a horse-drawn carriage through […]
In researching my Teddy Weatherford yarn for The Atavist, I was compelled to revisit a tragic event that I described in Now the Hell Will Start: the Bengal famine of 1943, which ultimately claimed the lives of 3 million Indians. In the book, I detail how a bare modicum of foresight could have prevented the […]
Tags:economics·famine·France·Japan·Vietnam·Vietnam War·World War II
One of my favorite economics story of the millennium is the Wall Street Journal‘s 2008 A-head about the use of tinned mackerel as prison currency. It’s a fantastic testament to the primacy of money; even when removed from ordinary society, humans always find a way to regulate their commerce by creating tangible symbols of achievement. […]
Tags:cigarettes prisons·comics·drugs·economics·The Story of Money·Wall Street Journal·War on Drugs
The fundamental premise of the American economic system is that competition is healthy. By extension, we generally assume that the greatest men and women are those in whom the competitive spirit burns brightest—individuals with “fire in the belly.” These are the people who take play as seriously as work, and thus descend into deep depressions […]
The human rays of sunshine above are academics devoted to the study of juche, the nonsensical North Korean ideology that stresses self-reliance above all else. You would think that men and women in possession of advanced degrees would recognize the flaws in an economic theory that denies the basic sociability of our species—or, at the […]
Tags:dictatorship·economics·education·juche·Mongolia·North Korea·pseudoscience
If you haven’t yet checked out the Financial Times much-discussed breakdown on the economics of Somali piracy, do yourself a favor and allocate a few minutes’ worth of reading time. The piece won my heart by using buccaneer salary estimates to convey some perspective on how the notion of “dangerous work” differs so sharply between […]
Where would the Ethiopian economy be without the mild, broadly illegal stimulant known as khat? Apparently in quite dire straits: Coffee and khat exports earned Ethiopia close to 737 million dollars, which was 36.9pc of the total foreign exchange of two billion dollars that the country earned in the 2009/10 fiscal year with 36.5pc, 729.1 […]
One of the creepiest things about Burma’s ruling junta is its insistence on creating the trappings of prosperity, even as the vast majority of the nation grapples with desperate economic circumstances. Take the recent Yangon Auto Show, which followed the Western blueprint to a T with scantily-clad models draped across shiny new vehicles. Yet the […]
At the end of Wednesday’s post about one of the least heralded pioneers of refrigeration, we noted that the “ice lobby” had been instrumental in frustrating John Gorrie’s dreams of freezing water via mechanical means. This notion struck us as rather humorous since we can scarcely think of a less valuable commodity these days than […]
Tags:Charles W. Morse·crime·economics·Ice Trust·New York City·politics·pseudoscience
Despite a government ban, Cambodian dredgers are once again raking the floor of the Koh Pao River in search of vast quantities of sand. The risk of running afoul of the authorities is apparently far outweighed by the riches to be gained from exporting sand to Singapore, which desperately needs the granular commodity to expand […]
Tags:Cambodia·crime·economics·Indonesia·sand·Singapore·smuggling·trade·War on Drugs
As the violence continues in Kingston, let’s pause to consider the scope of Jamaica’s problems. By any measure, the nation should have long ago started working its way toward the middle of the development tables. Think about how much the place has going for it: lots of bauxite, fertile soil, an English-speaking populace, a thriving […]
Tags:Christopher Coke·corruption·crime·economics·Jamaica·politics
In the latest account of NBA big man Eddy Curry’s never-ending money woes, this passage jumped out at us: On Friday, a Manhattan court ordered Curry to pay $75,000 a month to lender Allstar Capital Inc. to resolve a debt that swelled to $1.2 million with interest. The court also has issued an order letting […]
Tags:basketball·crime·economics·Eddy Curry·loan sharking·Nevada·sports
America’s long-running (and endlessly futile) War on Drugs is on the verge of claiming another casualty: the government of Jamaica. The Caribbean nation’s capital is partly in flames today, as residents of Tivoli Gardens battle police with fire bombs and heavy weaponry. The reason for the bloodshed is the government’s call for the surrender of […]
Tags:Christopher Coke·corruption·crime·economics·IMF·Jamaica·poverty·War on Drugs
As we jam on our monthly Wired column deadline, we thought we’d give y’all something to chew over—a interesting snippet pulled from this excellent Discover piece about the kidney black market in India. Given our philosophical leanings, we generally find ourselves arguing for the legalization and regulation of kidney sales. But then we come across […]
Tags:Discover·economics·India·Iran·medical science·organ donation
Contrary to our expectations, the Haim Saban profile in this week’s New Yorker is a killer read. We had no idea that the man’s empire began with a spectacular insight about cartoon music royalties, or that kiddie-show billionaires have such awesome pull with world leaders. And there is at least one classic reporting detail, in […]
Tags:economics·Haim Saban·Mighty Morphin Power Rangers·television·The New Yorker
Given that our stance on immigration tends to dovetail quite nicely with a certain hoity-toity newsmagazine, we can only shake our heads at Arizona’s latest legislative shenanigans. Sure, we probably shouldn’t be surprised by anything that comes out a state that often seems content to go its oddball way (to Chuck D.’s tremendous displeasure). But […]
We’re still dealing with making sure all’s cool with the kid, so just a quick check-in regarding the 30th anniversary of the Mariel Boatlift. The clip above comes from a local station in northern New Jersey, home to the largest Cuban-American community outside South Florida. Make it to the back half and you’ll see that […]
Tags:Cuba·economics·Florida·immigration·Mariel Boatlift·Miami·New Jersey
In the midst of researching the economic downsides of bride prices, we came across this recent study from Tanzania, where money always changes hands before a young couple’s nuptials. As noted in the chart above, girls who toil in the fields attract far greater bride prices than peers who stick close to home: Using an […]
