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Thursday 31 January 2008

Fetid pools mark the 'new America'


The sub-prime loans crisis reaches 2 million foreclosures and goes legal as the Feds start laying charges on those whose claim was to be a “Proud sponsor of the American Dream.” Enron déjà vu.

So what does a fetid swimming pool explosion in LA have to do with panicked people queuing outside British banks? Read on:

Timothy Eagan /New York Times: The Pools of Riverside County
Look closer and you think you’re staring into a ghost exurb – empty homes left to bankers. This is the new America, Southern California’s affordable edge city, drowning in a sea of debt. In the Inland Empire, the eastern-most suburbs of Los Angeles, one out of every 43 households is facing foreclosure proceedings.

Peek behind the palm trees and there you see the most shocking sight: abandoned swimming pools, fetid and green, left to the elements and choked with algae.

Thousands of people have walked away without even draining the water. Mosquito control agents now patrol these murky pools, treating them with pesticides to keep disease-carrying larvae from forming.

“With the skyrocketing foreclosure rate, the problem is compounding daily,” said Jared Dever, a spokesman for the government district that monitors insect breeding grounds. He said about 2,000 abandoned swimming pools would have to be treated in just one part of Riverside County.

Still no wiser? Let John Bird and John Fortune explain what the hell is going on, Without going into any detail at all. It's far too boring:



I like 'enhanced'. I'd buy anything if it said 'enhanced'.


More about "the ingenuity of the markets":



That's not silly, that's a sophisticated banking system in operation.

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