[lysacor]

Well, I was aware that I was telling a story–one that is implicit (if not necessarily overt) from its first lines and paragraphs. I had placed the narrator (er, myself, I guess) in a predicament that I was going to have to move him out of. It was a strange book to write insofar as I had to keep stopping between sections to do research, or to refresh my connection with people I was writing about. It was far more stop/start than usual, when it came to the actual writing, and I was aware that the sections had a kind of not-quite-freestanding quality (not quite; the book is designed to be read in order, just as a novel or any other longform narrative would be). But I never really faltered in terms of the book’s momentum. Obviously there were constrictions, insofar as I had to adhere to some factual lines of what happened, but My eye was always on that overarching narrative–the personal story, mine–that was designed to move things forward. more

[eedcvfrr]

I found myself thinking about Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip when I was reading your book – and, more broadly, the idea of a work of art that’s both a reflection on Los Angeles and Los Angeles in microcosm. Do you think there’s some specific quality about LA that makes this duality come to the forefront more than in other cities?

[EricJ2190]

Historically and culturally, there’s some overlap between Always Crashing in the Same Car and American Dream Machine. Do you see these two books as being in dialogue with one another at all?

[jeriellsworth]

As of now, you have two published books of fiction and two nonfiction works, with a memoir forthcoming. Do you find that your approach to the two is different? And – as the inevitable followup – how did you keep Always Crashing…, which has elements of memoir, from overlapping with the memoir? here

[davout]

Americans should increasingly question the role of the Fed and its impact on society. It’s not normal, nor should it be, that the economy keeps running from bust to bust to bust and requires ever more debt and intervention to “save it” from the fall out of the asset bubbles the Fed has propagated time and time again. And markets are again, as Druckenmiller has pointed out, in a massive asset bubble as the Fed arrogantly and fanatically insists on continuing the run the biggest QE program in history, despite buybacks at record highs, despite inflations concerns skyrocketing, despite historic valuations, despite the fastest GDP growth in 50 years and despite corporate earnings having fully recovered. If not now, then when? When things slow down? When things suddenly become uncertain again? That’s when the Fed will taper and end QE? Don’t believe a word of it. [links]

[williams9gross]

I’m not holding my breath, but the best way to shine the light on this most important yet so ignored issue is for us all to speak out and share the secret that is now out in the open. But it must be shared with as many as possible as to build public pressure for accountability and truth, for this Fed currently is subject to neither, and the media keeps giving them a pass. Why?

[shadowdust]

But the real hammer just dropped by one of the most successful investors ever, billionaire Stan Druckenmiller. Not only does QE add to inequality it is the main driver:

[jwalck]

When will the media confront the daily barrage of Fed speakers or Powell directly about this glaring disconnect? Between what Fed officials deny and what even now billionaires and some central banks openly admit?

[unsolicited]

The Housing Crisis was in 2009.
The Fed’s acting like we’re still in the middle of one when we’re not.
There is zero economic justification or even a reason compatible with the Fed’s mandate to keep buying MBS. Yet they do, again contributing to a housing bubble.#reckless pic.twitter.com/KO7brQvISn — Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) May 11, 2021

[dragon]

LVMH, Kering, Prada and Hermès report quarterly results this week

[mstate2]

Upcoming initial public offerings include Forever 21 and Brooks Brothers-owner Authentic Brands Group, rental service Rent the Runway and DTC pioneer Warby Parker here

[kosovito]

A deal for a prestige label, Italian or otherwise, won’t come cheap. There are only a handful of brands that are big enough to draw the attention of an LVMH or Kering, or even OTB, the Italian owner of Margiela and Diesel that is reportedly looking to make a major acquisition. And while the long-term trends may be against the independents, the global rebound in luxury sales makes it a seller’s market. more

[kldunc]

You may be king of your subterranean castle but you are still of the world, reliant on it, and so also on whatever civilisation you have purported to leave behind. Really, what a luxury bunker sells is the act of playing pretend – playing rogue cowboy in the zombie apocalypse. It sells us the notion that we can tough it all out on our own if we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and forsake everyone else, eliminating the seemingly superfluous social bonds that unite all humans weaker and less resilient than us. Survival of the fittest. A myth of superiority.

[ArsenShnurkov]

Surrounded by nothing but barren, rocky Nevada desert and a few scraggly palms, a perfectly normal two-storey stucco house conceals a secret: one buried underground. The underground house, built in 1979, includes a grotto, a putting green, concrete pillar trees, and painted vistas backlit with LEDs on a timer system so as to not disturb one’s circadian rhythm.

[cyclonite]

In a display of humorous weakness, the Underground House is hooked up to city water and ventilated by run-of-the-mill air conditioning – something nuclear fallout would have no problem penetrating. Like many luxury bunkers, there is no way to grow food or secure new rations once the old ones wear out or are consumed. Some Vivos developments purport to have hydroponic gardens, but otherwise one assumes that takeaways will no longer be delivering in nuclear winter.

[kathysafari]

For just $15,000 per person, you too can join an elite group of people with equal amounts of foresight and money, and survive the end of the world. To be fair, the world certainly feels like it is ending: the climate catastrophe, extreme weather and already faltering public infrastructure, combined with widespread social unrest and a global pandemic, probably looks pretty grim if you are an eccentric billionaire with money to burn. It is no wonder the interest in underground bunkers has skyrocketed, starting shortly after the Great Recession and climaxing during the polarised chaos of the Trump years. here

[psbagumba]

Luxury bunkers all have one singular weakness: they are underground, and we humans require things from above ground to live. They assume a rather temporary apocalypse. Vivos allots a stockpile of a year of food, which is to say there is only so much one can bury, only so long one can stay alive metres beneath the earth, even if you are rich and famous. While survivalism is predicated on the notion of an individual being able to, through clever accumulation and planning of resources, cheat the end of the world, it is rather difficult to survive the apocalypse all on your own. In a Twilight Zone twist of fate, you can descend into your stockpile of canned goods after all’s gone to shit only to find you have forgotten a can opener.

[dacoinminster]

Today’s incarnations, offered by companies like Vivos, a survivalist start-up founded in 2010, feature indoor swimming pools, hotel-like interiors and amenities, and digital screens simulating outdoor life and natural life. Vivos, like Underground World Homes before it, plays on American fears of different apocalypses: solar flares, something called Planet X, ‘major earth changes’ and ‘anarchy’. [links]