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abcNews is calling it ‘pessimism porn’

According to ABCNews:

People are logging onto the Internet to read all sorts of dire economic predictions: a new Great Depression, bread lines, riots, you name it. And with the recession taking hold, many have become addicted to apocalyptic news about the economy.

So in honor of pessimism porn I’ll start with this piece on Ponzi before busting through the rest of the links I’ve assembled here:

  • Booze over Art: Sotheby’s Hong Kong Auction Total Drops by Half as Buyers Stall

    • The decline came as art dealers looked for signs of stability after declines in sale totals in New York and London. Asia auctions had been growing for a decade as Hong Kong became an arts center. This time, Sotheby’s offered fewer expensive lots, which are less attractive in an economic slowdown, and replaced them with wine lots, which are cheaper.

    The company sold all of the bottles it offered at its first Hong Kong wine auction. It also set an artist record for Lin, who founded the predecessor of China Academy of Art and died in 1991. Still, works by contemporary artists, including China’s Zhang Xiaogang and Indonesia’s I Nyoman Masriadi, sold for a fraction of the record prices they fetched last year.

    - bloomberg

  • Food Budgets Tightening: Empty Tables Threaten Some Restaurant Chains

    • A few chains have boarded up already. Many others are going into survival mode, trying to renegotiate their loans, cutting staff, offering bargains to customers and closing less profitable restaurants. Analysts predict thousands more restaurants could close in the next year or two.

    - nytimes

    Unoccupied Business Space: Vacated Midtown Manhattan Offices May Not Be Leased

    CB Richard Ellis estimated average rents fell 16 percent in March from a year ago to $59.35 a square foot. The vacancy rate is the highest since September 2004 and the rent is the lowest since April 2007, according to the firm.

    Powers declined to identify holders of the surplus space, citing client relationships. In January, CB Richard Ellis reported that New York’s biggest banks and securities firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup and bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., may vacate 8 million square feet of Manhattan offices this year.

    -bloomberg

  • Abandoning Water Sports: Boats Too Costly to Keep Are Littering Coastlines

    • The owners cannot sell them, because the secondhand market is overwhelmed. They cannot afford to spend hundreds of dollars a month mooring and maintaining them. And they do not have the thousands of dollars required to properly dispose of them.

    When Brian A. Lewis of Seattle tried to sell his boat, Jubilee, no one would pay his asking price of $28,500. Mr. Lewis told the police that maintaining the boat caused “extreme anxiety,” which led him to him drill a two-inch hole in Jubilee’s hull last March.

  • The End of Conspicuous Consumption: New US Shopper to Emerge from Crisis

    • In the US, tighter limits on consumer credit will underpin behavioural shifts. A recent survey of 5,000 US consumers by Alix & Partners predicted that post- recession spending would go back to just 86 per cent of pre-recession levels: about a 10 per cent drop in spending, or a $1,000bn (€760bn, £680bn) annual reduction.

    Ed Kerschner, chief investment strategist at Citi Global Wealth Management, says the US has passed an “inflection” point, marking the end of an acceptance of conspicuous consumption that he traces back to the Reagan presidency of the early 1980s.

    – FT

    • Pessimism Porn? « Red Tory v.3.0 – ABC’s Dan Harris is fixated on “a little something called pessimism porn.” According to Harris it’s “a term coined by the good folks over at New York Magazine and it refers to the fact that there are a lot of people who’ve become …
    • Wikinvested Blog » Blog Archive » Pessimism Porn: Hedge Fund … – During the final months of 2008, as the financial markets imploded, talk on trading desks turned to food and water stockpiles, generators, guns, and high-speed inflatable boats. The system really was about six hours from failing, says Gene Lange, a manager at a midtown hedge fund, referring to the week in September when Lehman went bust and AIG had to be bailed out. When you think about how close we were to the precipice, I don’t think it necessarily makes a guy crazy to prepare for the potential worst-case scenario.
    • The Liberty Voice » Lead Story » Secret DHS Doc Predicts Violence … – Secret DHS Doc Predicts Violence in Response to New Gun Restrictions. Apr 13th, 2009 • Category: Lead Story · Hat tip: Infowars Kurt Nimmo April 13, 2009. In the wake of the MIAC report and the Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment, …
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    1. sloppy unruh » Blog Archive » Fresh From Twitter - messy, unquiet blogging on 13-Apr-09 at 07:22

      [...] for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxabcNews is calling it ‘pessimism porn’ http://www.sloppyunruh.com/?p=2901@agent139 RT: sign up to become #Ycelebrity on the #Yshow – http://citizen-y.comPhilip K Nixon – [...]

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    2. Pessimism Porn | Renegade Futurist on 13-Apr-09 at 21:22

      [...] Sloppy Unruh has a round-up of “pessimism porn” [...]

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