President Obama has launched a Kickstarter project to solve the debt problem.

via Funny or Die

Square has just launched Card Cases, an easy way to pay at local places without using a credit cards.

Bitcoin is a peer to peer digital currency that is independent of banks or governments. The currency was started in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, and can be used to pay for some products and services, or traded for other currencies (one Bitcoin is currently worth about $7.50.)

GigaOM has an excellent overview of the Bitcoin phenomenon.

NeighborGoods is a wonderfully clever web service that encourages sustainability by helping neighbors share their stuff with one another (we posted about NeighborGoods when they launched last year.) Now Micki Kimmel and her team have started a Kickstarter project to fund NeighborGoods 2.0.

With NeighborGoods 2.0, we’re launching a brand new groups feature so members can make private or public sharing communities for organizations, companies and and groups of all sizes.

With NeighborGoods 2.0, groups can save thousands of dollars by sharing resources they collectively own.

“The Money Tree” is an experiment conduced by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and her friends this summer in Chicago where they hung 100 one dollar bills with unique messages on them from a tree to see how people walking by would react.

via The Daily What

Dowling Duncan came up with a beautiful redesign concept for US bank notes.

We wanted a concept behind the imagery so that the image directly relates to the value of each note. We also wanted the notes to be educational, not only for those living in America but visitors as well. Each note uses a black and white image depicting a particular aspect of American history and culture. They are then overprinted with informational graphics or a pattern relating to that particular image.

See Previously: US Currency Redesign Concept by Michael Tyznik

via Neven Mrgan

NeighborGoods, an awesome new web service that helps you share stuff with your friends and neighbors, just launched nationally today. Congrats to Micki Krimmel and her team!

NeighborGoods.net offers a unique service by building upon the success of sites like Craiglist and Freecycle. Inspired by their ability to encourage re-use and keep waste out of landfills, NeighborGoods goes one step further to help people get more value out of stuff they actually want to keep. Members can safely borrow a lawnmower, lend a bicycle, or earn some extra money by renting a DVD collection. NeighborGoods is like Craigslist for borrowing. NeighborGoods provides all the tools to share safely and confidently including transparent user ratings and transaction histories, privacy controls, deposits, and automated calendars and reminders to ensure the safe return of loaned items.

An enraged shopper in Toronto demands to know why the Eaton Centre mall was closed during the G20 protests.

via reddit

Michael Tyznik created a beautiful redesign concept for US paper currency as part of the The Dollar ReDe$ign Project. Some people thought these were actually the new design for US currency to the point where Snopes had to debunk it.

One of the most important things about America is our Bill of Rights. It is possibly the most important information any citizen can have. The design of our money currently contains semi-religious (the eye in the pyramid) and overtly religious (“In God We Trust”) symbols and text that go against the incredibly important separation of church and state implicit in the first amendment. In my redesign, these are replaced with the text of the Bill of Rights. It has been proposed that these ten amendments are in order of importance, so it is fitting that the most important rights are included on the most common banknotes.

Michael is selling a poster featuring all of his US currency designs.

via Jeffrey Zeldman & MONOmoda

Yesterday the new $100 bill was unveiled by the US Treasury. Innovative or fugly?

photo by Scott Beale

While stopping by Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco last week I shot a photo of their beautiful wooden iPad kiosk for Square.

Alexis Amann & Jonathan Burstein “Don’t Give Up The Ship”

San Francisco Arts Commission’s Community Arts & Education Program (CAE) worked with local businesses in San Francisco to turn storefronts along Market St. between 5th and 8th Streets into temporary art installations. Last night’s “Art in Storefronts – Central Market” reception was teeming with an unlikely mix of art enthusiasts, street musicians, pan-handlers, and giddy teenaged girls (Teen-sensation “Boys Like Girls” was playing next door at the Warfield). Here are some of my photos:

Liz Maher “No One Seems to Care That I Want Roots”

Bayly & Miller “Find Yourself in Natural History”

Phillip Hua “Consider It”

Drone Dungeon Collective

More photos are available in my Flickr set.

The Central Market exhibition runs until January 31st, 2010. The Bayview hosts “Art in Storefronts” starting October 30th and The Mission District jumps on starting November 20th. More information on all of these events can be found at the SF Arts Commission website.

photo by Josh Ellingson

Case-Mate has created a special iPhone Recession Case that is perfectly suited for our “current economic climate”. Made of cardboard, this iPhone case costs only $0.99 and includes free “Sharpie Script” personalization on the back. Some assembly required.

Tough times call for tough cases and that’s where the recession case comes in! The recession case lets you keep cash in your pocket without sacrificing on unique design for your beloved iPhone!

A ten tentacle salute to Michael Lyons for the tip!

photo by Todd Heisler

Oliver Stone is working on “Wall Street 2″, a sequel to his 1987 film “Wall Street”, which is scheduled for release in April 2010.

“Greed Is Bad, Gekko. So Is a Meltdown.” (Tim Arango, New York Times)

via MG Siegler

U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt

Congress says that with no way to actually pay back our debts, faking a coup to eliminate financial obligations is the best plan for the U.S. economy.

Personal finance service Mint presents a visualization of One Trillion Dollars.

It’s official, trillion is the new billion. No longer is government spending talked about in terms of a mere ten digits. With the recent flurry of government spending, we are going to need another three zeros to make sense of it all. One trillion dollars is a number that few people can comprehend, let alone your standard nine digit calculator. So what does one trillion dollars look like?

via Hacker News

photo by Mark Heithoff

Christopher Ketcham wrote an facinating article for Details about Daniel Suelo who lives in a cave in Moab, UT and has survived without any money since 2000. Daniel writes about his experiences with zero income on his website and blog, both of which he updates for free at the local library.

“RE:Invention” is a short documentary by Cathy Goerz that shows how for some people the economic crisis has become an opportunity for positive transformation.

RE:Invention is a movie about how people have responded to the economic downturn and how it has affected them. Rather than allowing these troubling times to create bitterness and anger, these people have taken their financially challenged situations and made positive changes to their lives.

Cathy is now working on an extended 30 minute version of this documentary and she is looking for new interview subjects.

My San Francisco-based team of filmmakers is producing another short documentary that continues to explore how the economic downturn is an opportunity for personal transformation and positive social change. We are shooting interviews in Northern California during July 2009. We are looking for three kinds of people to be interviewed and featured in the film.

US To Trade Gold Reserves For Cash Through Cash4Gold.com

GOOD Magazine takes a look at the Largest Bankruptcies in History (full size).

Last week, General Motors began the fourth largest bankruptcy proceedings in history, joining the many other large and venerable companies that have sunk to the bottom during this economic crisis. In fact, eight of the 20 largest bankruptcies have happened during the last two years of crisis.

via swissmiss

One of the joys that I have always found in a well constructed comic was not merely the joy of the narrative and art, but also where the story brought my imagination. As a geek with a slight familiarity with economics, I have often found myself reading comics and thinking about the challenging of composing actuarial models for things like the risk of having your car smashed by the Hulk. (Seriously, I got into a shouting match with someone once over the advantages of a publicly financed model over private-hero insurance.)

The folks at Ecocomics have actually done that and literally have a post on Supernatural Disaster Insurance, and even a follow up post on the topic!

However, they have so so many other lovely posts at that beautiful intersection between graphic art and the dismal science, such as:

• The economic impacts if super geniuses chose to produce technology rather than take over the world.
• What would happen if Magneto entered the construction industry.
• Where does the Canadian government get the money from to keep making super-soldiers?
• Unionizing New Krypton
• and, of course, Insurance for Superheros

This blog is seriously required reading for all comic-book and econ-geeks.

Broke-Ass Stewart started his writing career with a cheap living zine he created, then a newsletter and eventually morphing into a book Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco. Since then he’s become a bit of a SF cult hero and published Living Cheaply guide for NY.

Well after all that, he’s still broke but not too poor to buy us all beer. Wednesday, at the Rickshaw Stop, Stewart is throwing a Fuck the Recession party to remind us in these dire times, SF is still a fun place no matter how broke-ass you are.

SF Indie Mart silkscreening your shirts making buttons, and free beer while it lasts. RSVP please.

photo by Nicki Ishmael

As many of us have recently struggled through getting our taxes done, or look ahead in dread at the chasm of taxtime hate that stands between now and April 15, one video emerges to bring porny humor to the situation: Math Bus. Seen last year as a SXSW short, it flew under the radar because it parodies not just tax season, but a particularly notorious subgenre (and brand) of porn known as “Bangbus.” In the highbrow Bangbus scenario, a bunch of well mannered gentlemen called Bang Brothers drive around in a bus (or van) and pick up women to have sex with for the promise of money. This is an original concept. And then in a display of the superiority of the male species, they dump said female on the side of the road after the sexual transaction — sans cash, laughing and high-fiving. Many have asked if Bangbus is real, and in general if, or why, anyone finds this hot. All I can say is that no, Bangbus is not “real” in that the actresses are indeed pre-arranged and paid, and their contracts and all federal 2257 recordkeeping age and ID requirements are on file, meaning it’s a setup. It’s fake. I don’t have an answer for the rest of the question. Which is partly why Mathbus is a great — and pointed — satire of porn culture’s Jackass-style misogyny.

But Mathbus — man, I think it’s real. These dudes drive around and get chicks to do their taxes. It’s sick.

This of course means robots that serve cocktails.

Austria’s RoboExotica made its maiden foray into US territory last spring, with their first annual RoboExotic-US, a screamingly successful conference and meditation on the human-machine interface in the form of the cocktail robot.

A good time was had by all, at least according to those who actually remember the event.

The plan is to bring the whole shebang back this year for a West Coast tour (Maker Faire, RoboGames, and of course another RoboExoticUS).

For this mission of mercy and philosophical understanding to come to fruition, RoboexoticUS needs YOUR HELP! They have set up a pledge page on Pledgie to gently entreat you to send in your pennies to aid the robots’ journey across the ocean.

Donate a buck or two, and reap the rewards when they arrive triumphant through the gates of SFO, slinging rum, insults, fire, beer and the satisfaction in knowing that if it’s done right, science can really hurt the next day.

See Previously: Roboexotica USA Photos & Video

Thanks Scott Beale for the photo of El Espanol Borracho!

As part of his thesis work in the Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena Jonathan Jarvis created series of animated shorts that present a visualization of the Crisis of Credit to help explain our current economic situation.

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated.

via Andre Torrez