That's Capital

posted by Titus Levi, PhD When the financial crisis boiled over in September, Washington’s wizards of finance made their first bold interventions by bailing out big banks, insurers, and other financial institutions. No wonder: these organizations have much better access to decisions makers; when they cry out for help, they get heard by the right people. Even if Richard Fuld is in the doghouse, you can bet that Hank Paulson will take his calls. People like you and me don’t get the time of day. That may be changing since federal regulators and bailout strategists have begun shifting their attention... Read more →

If there's an artist who might understand how to capture the Israeli-Lebanon war it's French dramatist Antonin Artaud, known for his Theater of Cruelty, a company producing highly visual, wildly murderous stories, sometimes known as Grand Guignols. Dramas that were spectacularly bloody and horrific. Artaud's work was rooted in the following ideas: most human beings are incapable of understanding the violence that drives us, but once we see it externalized, we can finally process it, then act with compassion and grace. Artaud viewed his Grand Guignols as a spiritual effort to bring the most horrific of our psychic fears to... Read more →

TC News Desk May 2, 2006 New York, NY Jonathan Field, co-founder of That's Capital, says he was eating his breakfast when the phone rang. He thought it was his landlord. "It's that time of the month when they normally figure it's time to start hounding me for last month's rent," Field recalled. But it wasn't someone asking for rent money. They were asking Field for something much more important. "All of a sudden, someone's telling me to hold the phone, as they had a speaker from Congress who wanted to talk to me. They even knew my first as... Read more →

For my money, the best reality television the past few weeks was on C-SPAN. Namely, coverage of the immigration issues erupting all of a sudden. America's donor free/commercial free network has been much better than other television media in following the surprisingly robust rallies that seemed to erupt spontaneously across the nation. Two weeks ago, 500,000 people marched in Los Angeles. Two weeks later, another 500,000 showed up to march in Dallas. Yesterday hundreds of thousands showed up for rallies in Washington DC, Seattle and New York, slowing down a range of industries depending on low paid labor across the... Read more →

A friend of mine called last week. He hadn’t been in touch for a bit. Apparently, he had fallen in love with a woman he only sees on weekends. He's in New York. She's in Chicago. When he's not with her, all he does is think about her. “It’s amazing how powerful a hold she has,” he told me. “I’m out having beer with friends and all I can do is wonder what she’s doing when I’m not around. I catch a scent of a perfume that reminds me of her and I’m completely undone.” A magazine sales guy whose... Read more →

Two tales. Story one Once upon a time (back in 1950), Las Vegas, Nevada had a population of 24,624. Fifty years later, it was getting nearly 600,000 visitors alone each year. Between the city and the surrounding valley, its current population is approximately 1.5 million, expected to double within ten years. Founded as a central railroad stop in 1905, Las Vegas has been a gambling mecca ever since. Nevada was the first state in America to legalize casino gambling, and the last to officially outlaw it in 1910. Three weeks later, according to reports, the gambling simply moved underground. Then... Read more →

In the last few posts, I’ve been exploring a range of issues around the narratives that drive modern life. The stories we tell ourselves that give meaning to political movements, businesses, or modern social institutions; i.e. nuclear family, liberal arts educations, democracy, etc. Stories which give human beings the confidence to get up in the morning and feel assured that life has some order, whether it’s that they’ll have a job to go to, that they are deserving of certain status among friends, or even simply that when they go to turn on a faucet, water will come out. Underlying... Read more →

Hollywood. In your imagination, what is it? What happens there? The making of television? Movies? Video games? Music? Who walks its streets? Strivers from all over coming to make a name? Or is it just a mass of smog tinted boulevards crowded with passing cars but few people? It's hard to say. But through much of the 20th century, the phrase "Hollywood" projected an over-riding image. It was "the dream factory." A place producing cinematic stories devoured by all the modern world. Those stories had their own specific arenas. The movie theater. Initially, the experience of moving pictures on a... Read more →

by Jonathan Field My office is a room in the back of a boxing gym. I rent there because it’s affordable. It's also never boring. While the gym is noisy at times, I can always tune out any bedlam by closing my door. And if I’m momentarily frustrated or need a break, there’s always a lot of life to follow amid the doings of the gym. This past week I let myself get distracted watching two guys spar. One of them was Amadou, a young guy originally from Senegal whose most noticeable feature is a bright smile. The sport frequently... Read more →

Link: It's Like Lending to a Friend, Except You'll Get Interest - New York Times. As described in today's Bob Tedeschi New York Times' column, Prosper.com takes elements of web-based social networks and banks to lend people money. It does this by acting as a middle-man between those who need money and the funding source, in this case individuals who want a place to put their money that gets a better return than offered by traditional banks... and don't like the risk of the stock market. Blending eBay, Friendster, and also a bit of Paypal, it lets people looking to... Read more →