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The Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time #49 - Austerity Measures
06.2.10
One or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.
It's a bike ride.
Started by user nathansnider and user theroyalacademy.
It meets every Wednesday at 8:30pm at California Donuts #21.
We ride at 9pm.
We'll endeavor to return before the last red line trains (around midnight).
See how we move.
On this bike ride, you might expect:
- full moon picnics
- inconvenient passageways
- "cover" versions of other people's rides, performed with amateurish enthusiasm
- amateurish enthusiasm
- disorientation
- reorientation
- pool halls
- bowling alleys
- dance parties
- karaoke
- geocaching
- oblique strategies
- Oulipian constraints
- traffic median tea parties
- rivers that no longer exist
- smell tourism
- Couchwick v2.0
Furthermore:
- A medium pace (maybe not for beginners; certainly not a hustle)
- But we're not in a rush; we don't need to run every light.
- About 30 miles; flat as it gets.
- Few stops; short stops.
- Victory donuts!
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This week:
Austerity Measures
So do you see that BMW parked across the street? It belongs to a mortgage broker. Or rather: it's in the possession of a guy who used to be a mortgage broker - back when there were a lot more mortgages to be brokered, you see - but it now actually "belongs" to the credit union that lent him the money to buy the thing, since he hasn't made any payments in long time. There are two collections agencies after him trying to get it back. They've been at it for over a year.
And that credit union? They're not doing so well, either. They're just a little operation with a couple of employees, and their customers are mostly low-income people who've been hit pretty hard lately. They're $67,000 in the red, and they really need the $30,000 that this guy owes them if they want to stay afloat. The banks that they owe money to are more than a little impatient.
That BMW parked across the street is the physical manifestation of a long chain of bad debts, broken promises and sad stories. It's the last straw, and today is the day that the credit union fails.
We're getting all educational again, what with our anecdotes and snippets of recent history. From failed banks to failed hospitals to failing nations* - we've got it all! Come out and sample the local impacts of everyone's favorite ongoing global financial catastrophe and, as a bonus, re-visit certain other metaphysical debts.
It's 30-odd miles again this week, so we leave at 9PM. You would do well to show up on time, lest the bank foreclose on your fun for the evening.
*or their namesakes, anyway...
Highly-leveraged speculation.
The changing of landscapes from one hour to the next
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