The Chesapeake Bay State

Like last year at the ISA in Atlanta, you can tell that there is an overrepresentation of Europeans lining up for the very first sips of morning coffee.

Though I used to drive through occasionally back in 2008, this is my first real visit to Baltimore as such. Its Inner Harbor turned out to have all the hallmarks of contemporary urban waterfront renewal, even including an H&M store. Still, every time I return to the US I become less and less enthusiastic about late-modern capitalism. The extreme commodification and vulnerability as people have to juggle two or three jobs just in order to stay afloat in a rising sea of debt. At least to me, it is obvious that capitalism requires much greater measures of equality and social investments to function over time.

Oh well, soon time to head up to the Baltimore Convention Center for the first panel of the day.