I wanted to start this line of posts with the observation that there is no more nationally-specific experience than getting sick. But that’s not necessarily true. In Canada, provinces manage their own healthcare, and when I show you some pictures of where I stayed, you will understand why Michael Moore picked a nice Ontario clinic …
Continue reading “The Cost of (Getting Sick Under) Socialized Medicine”
Doug Henwood, as usual, offers a salutary alternative to the funerary hagiography.
Several blocks around my home have been discussed on Spacing Montreal recently. Three gas stations within a few blocks have been razed and replaced with–wait for it–condos (more here and here). The condo-ization is a relatively straightforward process. Gas stations sit on corners and take up a lot of space yet run relatively low margins …
In comparing our building–a redone calendar factory–with the other dwellings in our neighborhood–more typical Montreal brick duplexes or triplexes–I often joke that we are the gentrifiers. But it’s actually not a joke at all. I knew this intellectually, but now it’s been driven home for me. We are now literally (in the literal sense of …
it’s all in our minds. We just need to snap out of it. Like Y2K. Sure, that’s true to a point, but the more frightening prospect is that all the prosperity that people felt coming up to the crisis was also in their minds, largely fictional, and therefore incredibly dangerous. I know it was just …
I first learned of Washington Mutual when our mortgage in Pittsburgh was sold to them in 2001 or so. We had originally signed with Cendant Mortgage (they had the best deal when we bought in 1999) and I remember some vague talk about the possibility of our mortgage being sold to another company. It didn’t …
I mostly read magazines in bed and I have an on-again off-again relationship with The Nation. However, I spent a couple nights mulling over this disturbing story about what the mortgage crisis is doing to the black middle class. Meanwhile, the papers here have been running congratulatory editorials because the conservatives finally got it together …
Continue reading “Surprise: Predatory Lending Hits the Poorest Hardest”
