The Decline and Fall

Unless you've been living in a cave you should be aware of the current political battle over the debt ceiling. Personally, I see this as nothing more than political theater by the Republican Party, but what is truly worrisome is that some of the Tea Bagger freshman Republicans are more willing to allow this Country to default than to vote to raise the debt ceiling.

If we default, the United States would lose it's primary position as the World's reserve currency. In our current position as the World's reserve currency we have an ability to borrower at astoundingly low interest rates which bleeds into our mortgage rates, credit card rates, car loans, basically any thing that requires borrowed money. It's frustrating that the Tea Bagging Republicans want to sacrifice this amazing gift for political theater. Fucking Ideologues, I can't stand them.   

I feel like this is the beginning of the end of the American Century. It was fun while it lasted.

In other related news; I tend to read a lot of Urban Development articles,cities are near and dear to my heart. Recently, I came across an article about Los Angeles on the 'New Geography' website.
New Geography Article


New Geography has a conservative slant on development, they tend to high density and mixed use development as anathema to a development of a city. Ultimately, the thesis of this article is that the mayor's pet projects of the Downtown Stadium, the Subway to the sea are giant wastes of money. New Geography seems to think that the blue print for bringing prosperity back to Los Angeles is by implementing the political policy of the Chamber of Commerce. This article summarizes what was wrong with the development of the city for the last 50 years, what Los Angeles doesn't need is another 50 years of low rise development, we need the subway and additional development downtown for the city to really grow again.

With the expansion of the Panama Canal, the Port of Los Angeles will the ultimate driver of growth. How the port goes as will go the city.