Affordable Housing Institute : US

Ten days ago, the Federal Reserve made a bet that economic students will be studying for decades.  Under Ben Bernanke, the Fed pushed $200 billion – that’s your money and my money – into the global capital markets pot, in effect making a bet that assets the market won’t buy have the value their originators […]

Is lending about trust or distrust?
 

All others pay cash?
 
Sherlock Holmes believed that debt says, I don’t trust you.  As he put it:
 
 “Consider debt.   I lend you money, which you promise to repay, in regular installments.  Everything about the transaction breathes distrust.  In fact, while I personally am no romantic” — Watson broke out in a […]

Lately, in the context of my work with Slum Dwellers International, I’ve been thinking about the problems of basic municipal infrastructure — water and sanitation (usually abbreviated W&S) — and along these lines, recently read a terrific paper by Jim Salzman of Duke. 
Jim Salzman of Duke

Thirst, a Short History of Drinking Water, chronicles […]

 
 
Author’s note: Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the last of science fiction’s original Big Three, died yesterday at the age of 90.  Three weeks ago, I was in Colombo, where Clarke lived, and in the very brief period when I wasn’t working with the Slum Dwellers International folks, several colleagues and I strolled to dinner at […]

 
We’ve all had roommate problems, but few have faced the complete lack of cooperation experience by the flatmate of this Bristol (UK) council housing resident, as reported a while back by  The Guardian Weekly: 
An inquiry was under way last night to discover how the body of a dead man lay on a sofa for at least […]