from russia with love or ladies-in-waiting

Over on the side bar, are you seeing those solicitations for romantic services for those wanting to meet women from Eastern Europe, too—or is that just a glitch in my own marketing algorithm? Those advertisements are prejudicial and tawdry and I think reinforce negative and unwarranted stereotypes, and makes one wonder about the threshold for promotion and sponsorship quality. Still, seeing such ads made we wonder what people might say about the girls from this particular Ukrainian locality.

smoking is derpy

dannelsesreisen

Just checking in. Here are some the highlights—or rather anchor points—of our grand tour (Dannelsesreisen) through south-western Norway, with surely many spots in between. Stay tuned for more regular holiday dispatches on our travel blog. I do not quite imagine, however, a disembodied, stern- and Wagnerian-looking Henrik Ibsen presiding over our schedule, though surely such a spectre would be a very good guide.

fjord explorer

PfRC will be taking a bit of a sabbatical for the next few days for continuing adventures on the road—this time to Norway and back. Please stay tuned to our little travel blog, in the meantime, for holiday dispatches and postcards from the great northern reaches.

no quarter or crowded house

Here’s a pessimistic thought: the same mob-mentality that fomented the same froth of bubbles that burst with the real estate market is likewise the authoritative voice on what constitutes a secure harbour, a safe-haven investment to berth one’s wealth and is kettling (purposefully or otherwise) to the same supposed shelters.

Not finding the proposition of holding fiat currency liable to fluctuation at interest rates that are not keeping pace with inflation and an uncertain stock market, people sought shelter in fundamental instruments that were lauded to retain the value that by all rights they should’ve: homes and real property. This trend, however, attached more takers than the market could honestly sustain and some trickery and greed kept up the enticement far too long. Though they have economic trifles of their own to address, bigger markets like the US and Germany are able for the time being to absorb the rush and act as a relatively secure harbor, but brokers are redirecting interest and channeling fear to a clutch of smaller economies to their acute displeasure. I don’t think a Switzerland, a Norway or an Iceland on the mends particularly like being dubbed a safe-bet as the influx of phantom money, held in trust but not benefitting the local marketplace, that they cannot accommodate and is proving ruinous for trade as it over-values their domestic currencies. Consequently, like with the housing sector, or anything else over-sold and amateurish, one seriously risks inflating so-called safe-havens and worse denigrating the commodity that is one’s home—maison, zu Hause, Huset, Húsið, and making it worth less through attribution.