Daily Digest 5/1 - Portraits Of Greece In Crisis, Visualizing The Ends Of Oil, Spain In Recession As Austerity Bites Deep

• 25 Horrible Statistics About The U.S. Economy
• Data Points To Weaker Economic Momentum
• Spain In Recession As Austerity Bites Deep
• Can Gold Be Used As A Currency?
• Portraits Of Greece In Crisis
• Visualizing The Ends Of Oil
• The Art Of Recycling: Converting Plastic To Oil
• U.S. 'Dirty Oil' Imports Set To Triple

Follow our steps to prepare for a world after peak oil, such as how to store & filter water

Economy

25 Horrible Statistics About The U.S. Economy (David B.)

Despite what the mainstream media would have us to believe, the truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is not increasing. Back in March 2010, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In March 2011, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In March 2012, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. So how can Barack Obama and the mainstream media claim that the employment situation in the United States is getting better? The employment rate is still essentially exactly where it was when the last recession supposedly ended.

Data Points To Weaker Economic Momentum (Ernest W.)

Consumer spending climbed 0.3 percent in March, just below the median forecast in a Reuters poll, but inflation ate up most of that gain. "The higher gas prices we saw last month are taking their toll," said Todd Schoenberger, managing principal at the Black Bay Group in New York.

After-tax income climbed 0.2 percent when accounting for higher prices, the Commerce Department said.

Spain In Recession As Austerity Bites Deep (Ernest W.)

Spain's demand for electricity, a good indicator of the strength of economic output, fell for the eighth month in a row in April, the national grid operator said.

Spanish bonds showed little reaction to the GDP report but yields have risen to around 6 percent in recent weeks. At around 7 percent, they are seen as financially unsustainable.

Can Gold Be Used As A Currency? (Ernest W.)

It worked! Kinda. I took Matthew Bishop’s challenge, and tried to spend a gram of gold like I would any other currency. And, frankly, didn’t have a lot of luck — until I managed to find a small business where the owner just happened to be standing around.

Portraits Of Greece In Crisis (jdargis)

After years of building up more than $400 billion in debt, Greece was devastated by the recent global economic crisis. Fearing the fallout from a Greek bankruptcy, fellow Eurozone members provided aid packages -- under strict conditions, including the adoption of severe austerity measures. Greece is entering a fifth straight year of recession, its economy poised to shrink another 5 percent in 2012. Average unemployment is at a record 21.8 percent -- with youth unemployment (under 25) at 51 percent. Years of increasingly difficult conditions have hit the citizens of Greece hard, and the uncertainty and frustration have led some to flee, a few to take their own lives. Collected here are images from a nation in the midst of a deepening crisis.

Visualizing The Ends Of Oil (jdargis)

In 1997 Burtynsky had what he describes as an "oil epiphany."As he said at a TED talk: "After 17 years of photographing large industrial landscapes, it occurred to me that oil is underpinning the scale and speed ... at which we’re taking our resources.” One result was his monumental Oil series, exhibited in 2009 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., with a lavish companion volume published by Steidl. The series is intended to “map an arc” in the industrial cycle of oil, from extraction to consumption to disposal.

The Art Of Recycling: Converting Plastic To Oil (James S.)

Scientifically referred to as “Thermal Depolymerization” the depolymerization process reduces complex organic materials—usually biomass plastic—into light crude oil. Scientists originally based this process of the geological processes they believed produced fossil fuels. Utilizing pressure and heat, the process breaks down the long chain polymers of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, decomposing them into short-chain petroleum hydrocarbons.

U.S. 'Dirty Oil' Imports Set To Triple (Ernest W.)

U.S. imports of what environmentalists are calling "dirty oil" are set to triple over the next decade, raising concerns over the environmental impact of extracting it and whether pipelines can safely transport this Canadian oil.

The United States currently imports over half a million barrels a day of bitumen from Canada's oil sands region, according to the Sierra Club. By 2020, that number is set to grow to over 1.5 million barrels -- or nearly 10% of the country's current consumption.

High Voltage Politics, Life and Times of the Electric Car (James S.)

According to Forbes, the Chevy Volt sold 2,289 units in March 2012 alone. While that’s good news for the Volt, it is tempered by forecasts from auto-industry executives who believe that the electric car will not gain more than 10 percent of the market even by 2025 or beyond.

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