Friday, May 30, 2008

And What Are We Going To Wrap Fish With?

Circulation of American newspapers has been on the decline for nearly 20 years. Consolidation of major city newspapers took its toll back in the 1980's and the internet is now accelerating the process (see charts below, 2006 latest data).

Data: Newspaper Assn. of America

The number of daily newspapers has been declining continuously since 1980.

It's unlikely that health obsessed Americans would ever eat fish 'n chips wrapped in yesterday's newsprint soaked in vinegar, but don't news-papers have certain qualities that transcend the electronic media? Reading at the beach comes immediately to mind, but there are surely others - aren't there?

And what does all this have to do with debt, credit and markets? Nothing, except for this: the summer has officially started and I am off to the beach, where I plan to read a few research reports. Printed on paper, of course!

Have a nice weekend.

13 comments:

  1. Thai,
    see last comment yesterday's thread

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  2. Imagine how bad the data would chart if it were adjusted for population growth.

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  3. Have a good time at the beach. This site is excellent.

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  4. Hell, Enjoy your beach time. Will you be blogging from your Blackberry?


    "Regarding "thermodynamics/oil" here is a hopeful
    piece:

    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-greencrude29-2008may29,0,1053218.story"


    Cool. That is one of my current projects - figuring out the diesel producing enzymes in brown algae diatom.

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  5. Perhaps we don't read snoozepapers due to the corporate capture of nearly all the media. All their stories are tainted by the pursuit of profits, and after awhile, become boring. Especially when the reader realizes that this intertubes thing has *real* news on it, along with pron. ;) Isn't TV viewing also in decline, most notably with the young adults?

    It's kind of like eating at Mickey D's too often-you realize the 'food' gives your mouth something to do, but it always tastes exactly the same and isn't very good for you.

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  6. You are jumping the gun. I thought summer didn't officially start until the solstice. :)

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  7. Thai,
    You may want to take a look at The AutomaticEarth blog (May31 I Was Snow White, But I Drifted). The 2nd and 3rd articles in the thread about Phil Gramm and his wife and the deliberate facilitation of corruption. I had mentioned them to you on a previous exchange but this provides documented specifics.

    WRT rotten fish, I think the saying refers to fish that have been gutted. No fish market I've been to sells fish with viscera intact and the rot starts at the gills (head region) before spreading to the flesh.

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  8. The "intertubes" is definitely more eco, has fewer ads, and is more interest specific.

    Re: Thai's smoking article link-

    So evolutionarily, shunning from the tribe was a likely death sentence. But now people can survive without a tribe so shame isn't felt as often. So we need to 1) decide annually which behaviors are to be shamed, and 2) fund a Shame Czar. It seems to have worked pretty well with fur coats.

    Malcolm Gladwell has two great books (Blink/The Tipping Point). The latter is describes a sort of good "black swan". For example, some hipster in NYC gets a pair of hush puppies and for the next couple years that company's profits triple through no effort of its own.

    So if we nationally have an active shame tipping point for driving cars, eating cows, and watching professional baseball we can engineer a better future.

    BTW, Golden Compass is a kid's movie, but it really got some good punches in for the freethinkers.

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  9. Dink,
    There will always be people who feel no shame. At one end you have very rich people defrauding orphans and widows out of their pensions for more zeros on their financial statements. At the other end you have extreme physical cruelty for sadistic satisfaction. Over the past few months CounterPunch has had several links to videos of slaughter house conditions. In one of them one guy was using live turkeys as punching bags as they dangled by their ankles from the conveyor belt as they passed by him in full view of his co-workers. Some people feel no shame and never will.

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