Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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Too Many Cabs (and Other Economic Indiciators)

The Economix blog quotes Elliot Spitzer on cabs and the state of the economy:

When you can walk out into the street in the rain in rush hour and get a cab, we’re in a very serious recession. And the moment that I can’t get a cab anymore, I will feel the economy is picking up. Right now, it’s raining this morning, but I have no doubt I can get 10 cabs in 30 seconds. That’s a bad sign for the economy.

They also point to a longer list of some uncommon indicators including the rise of mosquitos as a result of foreclosed homes. As a side note, that reminded me of an article I read awhile back about kids in LA skating pools back in the day and how they were actually doing a service to the community by cleaning pools that would otherwise be mosquito breeding grounds. (Also, I wrote about some more indicators back in December and have a few more under my “economicindicators” tag on Delicious.)

June 18, 2009