3.12.2009

What if you cannot get it up...



I never planned to write a blog entry about the credit crunch. All the talking about the financial crisis is, in my opinion, merely solidifying it: the fact that people think about other people talking about what could happen to other people might cause them to take more heed and to think that there's more going on than actually is.
Think about the stock exchange, for example: the prices of stocks and bonds aren't a reflection of the actual value of an enterprise: it's a projection of what people think the value of the enterprise is. Even more so, since stock prices are derived from the actions of large groups of people, the act to buy or sell on the stock market has to do with the considerations about what other people might think about the value of the business.

I don't mean to come across condesending, since I believe that there is actually real trouble in quite some places and economies. And the people that are losing their jobs, that's very real, too. But part of the crisis is making eachother believe the crisis is a crisis - which creates an ever bigger crisis...

This made me stray quite a bit from the post I wanted to make. I simply wanted to say: because of the financial crisis, some building projects have been put on a (semi)permanent pause. In some cases it's actually for the better, in some cases it's for the worse.

Oobject.com did something cool: they made a list of the 15 biggest high-rise buildings that have been put on hold, worldwide. Like 56 Leonard Street (New York), by Herzog & DeMeuron, a project I'd been curious to see develop further - it could have been an interesting new kind of structure (see above).
On the other hand: I'd almost say "Hats off to the credit crunch" - since it was able to stop an insanity like the Dubai Towers (in Dubai, of course), from happening...

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