In My Head

Brian Frank’s photo essay about the Colorado River, “Downstream, Death of the Mighty Colorado” tells a powerful story.

From Kai Ryssdal on MarketPlace.org: “The Colorado River flows from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado down through Utah and Arizona, along the border with California to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Flow might be too generous a word, actually. Because we use so much of the Colorado’s water in the American Southwest for both irrigation and development, what used to be a river is actually just a trickle by the time it crosses the Mexican border. Some years, it never even reaches the sea.”

The recent stimulus package might have divided Congress, but a California winery has devised a bailout plan we can all get behind: a wine that gets cheaper as the market goes down.

Made by San Francisco-based Crushpad, the 2007 Bailout Napa Valley Cabernet is a blend of grapes from some of Napa’s most storied vineyards.  Here’s how the Bailout plan works:

1. You preorder the wine for $39 per bottle. Crushpad will record the closing value of the Dow Industrial Average on your purchase date.

2. For every 100 points the Dow drops from the purchase date, Crushpad takes $2 off the final price of each bottle (which can go as low as $9 per bottle). As of this writing, the lowest price has been $17.34.

3. The final price will be settled on August 14, 2009, and you’ll be reimbursed for the difference (consider it a “stimulus check”). Your wine will then be bottled and shipped.

Even if (by some miracle) the market should rebound this summer, you won’t have to pay more than $39. Plus you’ll have a great excuse for popping the cork right away.

Bailout Wine
Dude Where’s My 401K?

Image credit: Sean McCabe

Great article in The Atlantic this month.  Though it is long, it was very interesting in looking at the history of past economic crises and what it took to break out of them and predicts what areas of the country and what factors about those areas are going to make it easier for them to survive and flourish  after this current upheaval.  For those of you in transition of some sort, wondering where and how to make this time eventually work for you, this article may have some good insights.

The $700 billion financial bailout plan was rejected in The House of Representatives today after a 205-228 vote.  About 60% of Democrats voted for the measure, but less than a third of Republicans backed it (something I found surprising given President Bush’s urge to pass it).

Not sure how I feel… maybe we should let the house of cards fall and rebuild rather than bandaging the leaks….

UPDATE:  Dow suffers biggest point drop in history, falling nearly 778 points in reaction to House vote rejecting economic rescue.