The blog ends, but the podcast continues! For a short while, anyway. Thanks Jon, for doing such an awesome job. I love this (most likely, apocryphal) story: So, Henry Ford one day was taking Walter Reuther, the United Auto Workers president, on a tour of a newly automated Ford plant that had replaced many of [...]

When you buy gas at the pump, ever wonder where the money goes? Oxfam America clues us in with their Follow the Money video:

Over at EconomyStory.org yesterday, one user posted this comment: It’s time for my micro indicator to broaden its horizons. For 20 years, I’ve interpreted cars with a burned out headlight as an indicator of economic decline. If I see three in the 25 minutes it takes me to get home, it’s still a recession. I’ve [...]

Gas prices are higher than any time since 2008, so a site like GasBuddy.com might be especially useful right about now. The site works by members of the public spotting gas prices and posting them. Points earned towards prizes like free gas — plus the altruism of helping your fellow driver and sticking it to [...]

From Vanity Plates: Creepiness in 8 Characters or Less.

Owning a car can be quite a cash-draining proposition. Repeat expenditures include gas, insurance, and repairs, and over decades of driving you could probably put your kid through college in what it costs in fuzzy dice alone. From the New York Times “Wheels” blog earlier this year: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American [...]

The Cash for Clunkers program is ending on Monday. Although a lot of people took advantage of the government subsidy to trade in their low gas-mileage car for a more fuel efficient one, many seem to have done so with a good dose of regret and a whole lot of anthropomorphizing. Here’s a guy, for [...]

The New York Times ran a piece on the front page of its business section today on the Elkhart Project, MSNBC’s longitudinal tracking of how one Indiana town is coping with the recession. Last week, before a visit from President Obama, MSNBC solicited questions from the community that reporter Chuck Todd then asked of the [...]

Before the Cash for Clunkers program got under way, many bloggers wrote about its  imminent failure. The title of a typical clunker-debunker post read something like  “Why ‘Cash For Clunkers’ Won’t Work” and went on to elucidate the failed logic of attempting to incentivize the lemon-driving population. As it turned out, eager recipients of the [...]