Author: Austin Vegas

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The Financial Bridge to Recovery Doesn’t Include Non-Bankers

On the news that the large wall street banks are set to make record payouts again this year, nearly 18 months after the financial meltdown, most people might have a knee jerk reaction of disgust. Alas, no. We need these captains of industry to keep our engines of capitalism running right!?! Right?

Yeah, right into the ground…

With all this talk of change, new regulation and transparency, the success of these banks has not come as a result of any of these factors so the questions continue to be asked. Why did we even bail out the banks if they recovered so quickly, yet main street is still struggling to right their own ships?

Frank Rich has an excellent piece on the “Weapons of Financial Destruction” which are still in place today, and the same result could very well happen again in the near future.

The economy is not all doom and gloom as John Stewart points out:

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JS is right, there aren’t really many songs about banks, but Henry Rollins writes a pretty good one from the view point of the Banker themselves:
Henry Rollins – Liar
[audio:http://inallcaps.com/GOODS/2010/JAN/06%20Liar.mp3]

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Searching beyond 2009

I was reviewing the Google Zeitgeist page showing the top searches, patterns and trends of 2009.

zeit·geist | Pronunciation: ‘tsIt-“gIst, ‘zIt | Function: noun | Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist (spirit) | Date: 1884 | Meaning: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.

The information is interesting and enlightening, in that I, in no way follow any popular trends in the US. I must be fringe, or just don’t care that much about celebrity or movie/tv entertainment: 7 of top 10 Google News – Fastest Rising, 6 of top 10 Google.com – Fastest Rising, and 100% of Google Image Search top 10 are all such trends.

Google had dedicated trend pages for both Entertaining and Celebrity. If I dive deeper into these pages, I’m further aware that none of these celebrities are of interest to me except Michael Jackson and Les Paul. On the top ten TV and movies lists, I watch none of the TV shows (although that’s not a surprise as I don’t watch too much TV) and have only seen Star Trek and Avatar of the movie list. On the concert list, I’ve scene Blink 182 and U2 and don’t care to see them again, or the rest on that list.

One story I’m impressed made the list is the Missing Link as the finding of “Ida” in Germany further shows evidence of evolution of humans. Stories like this make me wonder how humans will evolve in another 47 million years (if we make it past the 2000s first).

Regarding Sports, Yankees, Steelers, Lakers, Red Wings, Roger Federer and of course Tiger Woods are all on top – no surprise for any. I am a little surprise that Coach K is the top and that the coaches list is dominated by American NFL Football and college basketball coaches. Lane Kiffin is well on his way to top the list of 2010 (and the one issue I’m on the side of Al Davis). Interesting too to see that Americans favor searching Chelsea football – the team I follow for now Arsenal is ranked 5th.

Here in New York, top searches seem to be all services except I’m quite shocked that Hale and Hearty topped Shake Shack in local food searches. Soup and salads over burgers? maybe New Yorkers are trying to get healthy on their own and DON’T NEED a salt ban (get it Bloomberg?).

The economy, healthcare (swine flu & universal health care), scandals (Bernie Madoff & Mark Sanford), bailouts (TARP & AIG) and disasters (tsunamis and earthquakes) all topped in the news for 2009 and will continue in some form into 2010. Haiti already starting the disaster trending again this year.

The Stooges – Search And Destroy
[audio:http://apt104.com/Aug%2009/iggy/12%20Search%20And%20Destroy.mp3]

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Traveling Smoker in front of 5th Ave Apple Store

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No Pants Subway Ride NYC

Improv Everywhere is one of my favorite public space chaos creators. They have created some interesting events such as No Shirts in the Abercrombie and Fitch store, Slo-Mo in Home Depot, Human Mirror and the MP3 experiments. But the most attention grabbing and news catchy event is this day in winter when thousands of New Yorkers strip off their pants and ride the subways, seemingly unaware that there’s anything wrong with their attire. No Pants subway ride has now gone global in 43 other cities around the world in 16 countries and I assume will continue to amass exhibitionists and voyeurs for years.

The event occurred this past Sunday, the 10th, and I accidentally stumbled upon the end result that evening stopping off at Union Square for groceries when 3000+ participants had gathered to celebrate the joint feat. I got off the 4 coming down from a museum day in the UES when I was hit by a wall of pant-less participants shouting in unison “Take off your Pants!”. Unfortunately, it’s chaotic night scenes like this that push the limits of my camera, as the XSi I have is slow with autofocus and my standard flash is equaly inaccurate in these situations. As a result, my photos are not as clear as I had hoped. I’ll need to practice more of these in the future as I work to pick up the much faster Canon EOS 5D Mark II on the wish list.

I would have participated (*cough*), if it wasn’t for the 28 degrees and my fashionable thermal underwear just wasn’t as revealing as some of the lingerie bottoms flaunted around the square. Much better photos from agents are available on the IE site.

Seu Jorge – Rebel Rebel (David Bowie Cover)
[audio:http://www.rollogrady.org/media/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/rebel-rebel-david-bowie-cover.mp3]

Rebel Rebel, you’ve torn your dress
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!

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