Watch it all and follow the link to get your own street tour access.

Behind the ephemeral “cloud” of cloud computing, the network we use for everything from checking our email to streamlining our health care system, there lies a very tangible and very big computer infrastructure.

But besides a glimpse at some of the hardware in 2009, there has been little information about Google’s data centers, the warehoused collections of servers that have given the company the foundation for its vast Internet operations.

Today, the company is throwing open the gates to the world ”” digitally, of course. It has released a site featuring photos of facilities from Belgium to Finland to Iowa and launched a guided Street View tour of one in Lenoir, N.C.

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An Episcopal priest who, with her husband, brings in about $65,000 a year tells Marketplace that they are lower middle class. A woman posting at dcurbanmom.com identifies her family as middle class, and their income is $100,000 a year. CNN talks to a man struggling to save for his son’s education who defines “middle class” as families with too much to qualify for federal Pell Grants””which is at most about $48,000 for a family of three. I was eligible for Pell Grants, and before that for subsidized school lunches, but I’ve always understood my family of origin to be middle class.

A majority of Americans consider themselves middle class, a recent Pew survey found, despite a wide variance in their earnings. So what does “middle class” mean if it applies to most of the country? And if we are all middle class now, what are the political and cultural implications?

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I wonder if the very concept of “the weekend” is biblical. It seems to me that “the weekend” turns Sunday into a second Saturday. Home Depot may gain, but we lose. It turns Sunday into a day to catch up on what we didn’t do Saturday or a day to ramp up for what’s ahead on Monday. It hollows out our whole week, because it marginalizes God and church and sermons and all the other vital things that happen in our lives only when we make the vital things also the central things. If we accept the concept of “the weekend,” we risk “fitting God in” rather than centering our every week around him. We risk living soul-exhausted lives, and wondering why God isn’t more real to us, why we’re grumpy

Read it all.

From an interview with the authors of the Simpson-Bowles reform plan and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein:

“…We just met with — a dozen of the largest high-tech company CEOs in the country. Not only are they hoarding cash. All their customers, all their suppliers are. They’re scared to death we’re going to go over this cliff and it could be a catastrophe….”

You can find a summary article to read there, it has briefer video links, but the best use of your time is to watch the full interview over here or read the transcript (about 42 1/2 minutes). Also, David Brook’s piece on the debt indulgence is worth a careful revisit.

Like many things, Five Talents started in a very small way. It began its life at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 when Martin Mimms came to tell me about Five Talents. I was immediately smitten by the idea and made a donation towards. It has gone on to become a firmly established NGO in both the USA and UK ”“ with professional staff and committed supporters. And I do want to say how much I admire the leadership of Tom Sanderson whose vision and drive is behind the success of Five Talents.

The organisation has grown quickly ”“ raising several millions (c.£5m) in its lifetime to help support 15 Microfinance programmes around the world. I recall the setting up of the Mama Bahati project some years ago which an organization led by Brian Griffiths raised several thousands of pounds ”“ including donations from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. This was taken over by Five Talents and it is thrilling to read from Five Talents on the Web that it is now serving 3,139 women in Tanzania.

But what is micro finance? The term ”˜micro-finance’ means providing very poor families with very small loans to help them engage in productive activities, or small businesses, to help them out of poverty. It is of no surprise to those of us who have visited Africa and India that it is women who have gained so much from this initiative. The former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, described it as ’a critical anti-poverty tool for the poorest, especially women’. Indeed, women have emerged as credit worthy clients, offering reliable and conscientious commitment and, in turn, micro-finance initiatives have strengthened social and human capacity of women in the family and community. I read recently that the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh offers loans to 7,000 people, 97% of whom are women. Women are transforming their own life chances and are emerging from poverty as a result.

Read it all.

No matter who gets elected president next month, the United States economy in 2013 will have only tepid growth.

Does that sound like this year all over again? Yes, indeed.

At least that’s the view of 44 professional economic forecasters, members of the National Association of Business Economics, who on Monday released their outlook for the coming year.

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Canadian household debt has shot past the sky-high levels that foreshadowed the U.S. housing bust.

But it’s taken a statistical revisions by Statistics Canada to get there.

Canadians’ debt-to-income ratio reached 163.4 per cent in the second quarter, up from 161.7 per cent at the end of last year.

Read it all.

[China’s]…economy has gone from being rather smaller than Italy’s to the world’s second largest, and is now home to one million US$ millionaires. By the time the new generation of leaders hands over power to the next in 2022, China could be challenging the US for top spot.

This transformation has changed the way the world does business. Cheap Chinese labour has helped dampen prices in the West for everything from moccasins to mops to mobile phones. It is now the biggest investor in Africa, promising to shift the continent’s focus away from Europe and the US for the first time in two centuries. And China is now the biggest foreign holder of US government debt – a threatening stick, or a foolhardy bet?

The key question now is whether the new leaders can keep the economy growing at the same rate as in the past, and help the rest of the world recover. Most Western analysts expect it to slow from 10% a year to a still impressive 6-7%, but argue that deep reforms are needed if China is to become a rich rather than middle-income country.

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We do not wish to distress you Only to appeal to you.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

We stand here as Occupiers, as women, Queers, disabled, grandmas, young, old, as women of all faiths and none in solidarity with all other groups who are marginalised by economic injustice.

Even when times are good women, along with our children, are usually those who suffer the most. In times of economic crisis our inequality is amplified but we refuse to be victims.

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Four women who chained themselves to the pulpit of St Paul’s cathedral cut through the bolts after six hours on the advice of police, avoiding arrest…

he women wrapped chains around their waists after a prayer that Church officials had invited them to give. One, Josie Reid, chained herself to her wheelchair.

The action came on the anniversary of the Occupy protest last year when protesters took over the square outside.

Read it all.

(Please note you may find more about this ministry here and there–KSH).

The agreement builds on a long-standing support of the Shepherd’s Heart ministry by many parishes of the Episcopal Diocese, who, along with individual parishioners, regularly donate, prepare and serve meals to the Shepherd’s Heart congregation. This has continued in spite of differences over whether Shepherd’s Heart Fellowship validly withdrew from the Episcopal Church in October 2008 and is now part of the Anglican Church in North America. The agreement sets this issue aside in favor of mutually serving the homeless, the poor, and the addicted. Both parties recognize the new relationship between the Episcopal Diocese and Shepherd’s Heart Fellowship is not of an ecclesiastical nature, such as would normally exist between a diocese and a parish, but one of cooperation and collaboration in a specialized ministry. Because of this unique use of the Shepherd’s Heart property, the parties have agreed that this agreement should not be interpreted as a model for resolving other property disputes.

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The United States Postal Service chose Washington National Cathedral’s Bethlehem Chapel to issue its Holy Family Forever stamp on Oct. 10. The stamp depicts the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt after Christ’s birth. The family appears in silhouette against a deep orange sky with the brightly shining Christmas star ahead of them. Joseph leads a donkey on which Mary and the infant Jesus ride.

The contemporary artwork on the stamp, now available nationwide, is a departure from some of previous Christmas stamps featuring traditional artwork of Mary and Jesus. Indeed, the 1980 USPS Christmas stamp showed the Madonna and Child in Bethlehem Chapel’s Epiphany stained-glass window.

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A legal row between Cadbury and a small confectioner over the use of the colour purple on packaging was “demeaning”, a senior Essex church figure has said.

The Meaningful Chocolate Company redesigned its purple advent box after a warning from its lawyers.

The advice followed Cadbury’s victory in a dispute with rival Nestle over its rights to purple packaging….

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When Facebook Inc. (FB) filed its proposal Feb. 1 to go public, it touted the effectiveness of ads linked to customers’ friends, citing research from Nielsen, the audience-counting company.

arbara Jacobs, an assistant director for corporation finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was skeptical, as she and her staff vetted the filing to ensure Facebook had disclosed all material information to investors. The claim appeared to be drawn from marketing materials, not a Nielsen study, she wrote to Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman, 42.

She gave him an ultimatum: Produce the study and provide Nielsen’s consent for use of the data — or don’t use it, she wrote to Ebersman on Feb. 28. Facebook dropped the reference after initial resistance.

Read it all.

Ten years ago I was part of a movement called Jubilee 2000 which changed the way people think about debt. It challenged a deeply held principle ”˜that debts must always be repaid’ by showing how, in the case of many debts owed by impoverished countries, the consequences of repayments was creating nearly unimaginable suffering.

We were not calling for an act of charity, but a realisation that the economy we had created was structured in a way which was deeply unfair, exaggerating inequality and poverty in many parts of the world. We didn’t want donations, but a change in the rules of engagement.

The change in values which the Jubilee movement effected, forced decision-makers to enact policies which went someway to redressing this injustice. $125 billion of debt was wiped out, government’s were able to start spending money in ways that benefited their people.

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A potentially serious complication has arisen in California’s latest effort to avoid billions in spending cuts, which threaten the state’s education and welfare systems.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 intends to forestall “draconian” budget cuts by temporarily raising taxes, including sales taxes and income taxes on the wealthy. The initiative could largely determine his legacy, as well as the state’s fiscal health for at least a decade. Moreover, if successful, Prop. 30 could begin to shift the national conversation on taxes after decades of extreme antitax sentiment across the country.

Polls show that a thin majority of state voters support Prop. 30. But that support could be undercut by another proposition that aims to raise taxes for public education. Molly Munger, the millionaire behind the rival initiative, has even suggested she might start airing comparison ads arguing why voters should vote for her proposition, not Governor Brown’s Prop. 30.

Read it all.

As biblical orthodoxy puts it, you cannot serve both God and mammon. Twenty-five years ago, having chosen to serve God and study theology, Justin Welby gave up an 11-year finance career that had seen him rise to the ranks of group treasurer with a major U.K. company, Enterprise Oil. Ordained as a priest in 1992, he was appointed Bishop of Durham just last year.

He is now the current front-runner to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury: the most senior cleric in the Church of England….

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In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses…In an emailed statement, Darden said staffing changes are “just one of the many things we are evaluating to help us address the cost implications health care reform will have on our business. There are still many unanswered questions regarding the health care regulations and we simply do not have enough information to make any decisions at this time.”

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The Pentagon says cyberspace is an operational domain on par with land, sea, air and outer space, and there is little doubt that a global cyberarms race is getting underway. The United States is already well engaged in this race, as evidenced by reports of the computer worm Stuxnet, used to attack Iran’s nuclear enrichment equipment. But so far these efforts have largely been kept secret and conducted as intelligence operations.

DARPA’s workshop points again to the need for more transparency. The United States still has no open, overarching doctrine to govern a cyberweapons program. A good place to start would be a declaratory policy that would lay out when and under what circumstances offensive weapons such as Stuxnet might be used. After that, an open discussion is needed about rules of engagement for this complex new field, along with additional study of such issues as how and whether the military should protect non-military assets in government and the private sector.

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The global economy risks skidding toward recession just three years after pulling out of the previous one, the International Monetary Fund warned, adding that fighting a renewed world-wide downturn will be much more complex than it was in 2009.

“Risks for a serious global slowdown are alarmingly high,” said the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report, which was released here Tuesday ahead of the fund’s annual fall meeting. It was its bleakest assessment of global growth prospects since the 2009 recession.

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The greatest risk to US financial markets stems from other countries’ willingness (or lack thereof) to continue to hold dollar reserves as the value depreciates. If those nations suspect that the US cannot maintain the strength of our currency, they will begin to drain assets from American banks ”“ seeking safer havens for their wealth. That could entail trading US treasury bonds for perceived “safer” currencies such as those of New Zealand or Canada or even switching to an entirely different asset class such as gold or silver.

While there may not be any significant signs of capital flight yet, just look east. The Chinese are the largest, external holder of US debt. And they’re already heading down this path ”“ dropping the share of their portfolio comprised of US dollar assets from 74 to 54 percent in the last five years. It may very well be a harbinger of what’s to come.

Attempting to counter fears fanned by trends like this, Bernanke talks of a “soft landing…”

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Do you sleep with your smartphone? Are you on 24/7? Do you think that your success depends on your non-stop connection to work?

Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow has a better way.

In her latest book, Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work, Perlow shows how to disconnect and become more productive in the process. She provides techniques for devoting more time to your personal life while simultaneously accomplishing more at work.

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Among the 23 recipients of the MacArthur “genius” grants this past week: an economist, a mathematician, a photographer, a neuroscientist, and a Boston-based stringed instrument bow maker.

Benoit Rolland acknowledges that the violin reigns supreme as the star of the strings, capable of fetching millions of dollars at auction. But what about the bow? “A violin with no bow is not a violin, that’s clear,” says Rolland.

“A lot of people, even some instrumentalists, in our younger years we believe that the violin is of paramount importance and the bow is just a tool,” says Elita Kang, assistant concert master of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. “But the bow is just as important as the violin because that is our breath. That’s how we draw the sound out of the instrument, so without a fine bow that’s responsive and flexible and finely made, we can’t express ourselves fully.”

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His job was to stand with customers in their back yards, suntanned and smiling, and look beyond the problems of the past several years to see the opportunities in every suburban cul-de-sac. How about a pool and a sauna next to the patio? Or a custom waterfall near the property line?

“The possibilities here are as big as you can dream them,” he liked to tell customers, gesturing at their yards.

In a country built on optimism, Frank Firetti was the most optimistic character of all: the American salesman ”” if not the architect of the American dream then at least its most time-honored promoter. He believed that you could envision something and then own it, that what you had now was never as good as what you would have next. Since the country was founded, it had climbed ever upward on the spirit of people like him, on their vision, on their willpower, on their capitalism. But now, when he traveled from house to house to sell his monuments to American success, he sensed that spirit waning….

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The reality is that more than three years into this weakest of economic recoveries, 12.1 million Americans are still out of work””nearly 23 million by the broader definition that includes those who have stopped looking or can’t find full time work””and the labor participation rate is still down to 1981 levels at 63.6%. Hooray!

Of the 114,000 new jobs, 104,000 were in the private economy, and all of the 86,000 in upward revisions for July and August came in government jobs. Job growth for 2012 has averaged 146,000 a month, which is down from 153,000 in 2011.

Manufacturing employment fell again (down 38,000 in the last two months) further dampening one of the few bright spots in this recovery. A still abysmal 40.1% of the unemployed in America have been jobless for six months or more. Such a job market is anemic by any historic measure for this stage in an expansion and reflects continuing slow GDP growth in the 1%-2% range.

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It’s rare to find a pastor who is attuned to how “place” informs human experience and community. But a discerning pastor can know more about this than most city planners, if they are attentive to the particular shape of the lives of their congregants and their community. Enter Eric O. Jacobsen (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary), a pastor of 14 years, the last 5 as senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma. “I am not a trained architect or urban planner, but an ordinary pastor who has always lived within walking distance of my church,” he says.

Jacobsen’s 2003 “break-out” book, Sidewalks in the Kingdom (Brazos Press), used the tenets of New Urbanism to help Christians recognize the value of local churches in local neighborhoods. Jacobsen calls his newest book, The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment (Baker Academic), a “more mature reflection” on the subject.

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Greece is teetering on the edge of collapse with its society at risk of disintegrating unless the country’s near-empty public coffers are shored up with urgent financial aid, the country’s prime minister has warned.

Almost three years after the eruption of Europe’s debt drama in Athens, the economic crisis engulfing the nation has become so severe that democracy itself is now imperiled, Antonis Samaras said.

“Greek democracy stands before what is perhaps its greatest challenge,” Samaras told the German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published hours before the announcement in Berlin that Angela Merkel will fly to Athens next week for the first time since the outbreak of the crisis.

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The U.S. unemployment rate fell sharply in September to its lowest level since January 2009, suggesting that summer job growth was stronger than previously thought and providing new fodder for a presidential race that has focused on competing views of the nation’s economic health.

Data released Friday portrayed a labor market that has perked up a bit since the spring but is still growing modestly. The unemployment rate slid to 7.8%, the Labor Department said, falling below 8% for the first time since President Barack Obama’s inauguration. The rate has fallen half a percentage point since July, when it was 8.3%.

Read it all. Mish did an excellent job in his analysis. Blog readers know I prefer U-6, which I consider the most representative rate–it stayed the same month over month–KSH

The accolades continue to pile up for Charleston area restaurants.

Esquire magazine has named two local dining establishments to its 2012 list of “Best New Restaurants.” Only 20 establishments nationwide made the list.

The Macintosh on King Street, opened by the Indigo Road restaurant group in September 2011, and Carter’s Kitchen in Mount Pleasant, which opened in February, landed on the annual list compiled by food critic John Mariani.

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