McCracken County, Ky. librarians. Credit: Flickr/Circulating

NewsHour’s Patchwork Nation reported earlier this year on Laredo, Texas’s lone bookstore shutting down. Libraries are now also feeling the pinch of recent municipal cutbacks around the country.

In Florida, state funding for libraries was just cut entirely, and in other states, like California, fines are increasing and opening hours are shortening.

Libraries closing mean less Internet access for people without broadband at home, and fewer activities like readings and children’s classes.

The West Palm Beach Post reported:

Without state aid, Murray says the West Palm Beach library will have budgetary issues. It will hurt them the most with affording software that automates the library. Also, they would have to eliminate the AmeriCorps program, which provides volunteers for the library that goes to schools and works in minority communities, etc.

And while schools and libraries are facing cutbacks, publishers may be getting a boost from new standards in public schools.

Marketplace’s Amy Scott reports:

Jay Diskey is executive director of the Association of American Publishers’ School Division. He says after a big push to rewrite curricula in the 1990s, some publishers saw double-digit sales increases. Standardization could also save publishers money. Diskey says having to customize materials to meet a patchwork of state standards has driven up costs.

There’s certainly no shortage of books about the economy. Paul Solmon took a poll of economists to find out what’s on their bedside tables.

Yale University professor and Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller recommends Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages and Well-Being, by George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton and Economics of Integrity: From Dairy Farmers to Toyota, How Wealth Is Built on Trust and What That Means for Our Future, by Anna Bernasek.

There is some overlap between the books, but each offers what seems to me to be a very important perspective for our times, that may resonate especially well in this financial crisis.

Andrew Lo, director of the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, is a fan of Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique by Michael Gazzaniga.

By looking at economics as a branch of evolutionary biology and ecology, we can see new patterns and processes that explain much of the recent financial crisis, and the years of prosperity that led up to the crash.

NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff spoke with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou about what his country needs from the U.S. and how Greece got into its current financial situation.

Marketplace commentator David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute falls on the side of questioning the expansion of the eurozone. He notes that the weaker countries in the eurozone are making sacrifices to stay in the club, and this approach will not help them succeed in the long run.

These governments — and others in Europe — are accepting higher unemployment in order to defend their currency…And yet, while Spain’s socialist government has seen its poll numbers drop, neither Spain, nor Greece, nor Portugal, nor Ireland is experiencing serious public pressure to quit the euro.To the leaders of these countries, the euro means Europe, and Europe means prosperity, stability, democracy, and peace.

How will the Greek crisis affect your investments here in the U.S.? Nightly Business Report spoke with foreign exchange experts on why investors here should care.

Standard & Poors analyst Alec Young:
Europe and the UK represent about two thirds of overseas market capitalizations. So anybody that owns an international mutual fund or an international ETF, there’s a very good chance, if it’s broadly diversified, that they do have significant exposure to Europe and to the UK.

Some experts say that while Greece is having trouble and there is a threat to other struggling eurozone nations, the fears about the global economy’s stability as a whole are secondary.

NPR’s Corey Flintoff spoke with economist Joseph Stiglitz:

The Greek crisis has contributed to the general air of uncertainty in international financial markets… Greece is one of five euro zone countries now struggling with big national debts. “The major implications are for Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland and therefore in some sense for all of Europe,” says Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University.
The problems in the euro zone could impact the U.S., too, Stiglitz says, especially if they dampen sales of U.S. exports to Europe.

The top six finance Twitterers include personal finance guru Suze Orman (@SuzeOrmanShow), debt help radio program The Dave Ramsey Show (@RamseyShow), finance blog site Mint.com (@mint), UK markets strategist Ashraf Laidi (@alaidi), LendingClub founder Rob Garcia (@robgarciasj), and finance site Bulls on Wall Street (@BullsOnWallSt).

How much of a difference can you make in 140 characters? The David Ramsey Show, which claimed second place in the awards reports on how listeners can learn to be debt-free and shares their stories on Twitter:

Blake: Total debt paid off by just those who got thru on the phones today on #TDRS = $876,000. Year to Date = $9,149,900

The popular personal finance blog Mint shares links to content on their main site over Twitter, like the pros and cons of offshore banking and the urban legends surrounding credit scores. But Mint also provides real-time news and advice solely on Twitter, like today’s project where they are retweeting savings tips from readers:

RT @ekmurphy: automatic savings plan helps build savings every time I get paid, not just at the end of the month when I look at what’s left

Outside of finance, but still in the realm of news in the public interest, The Diane Rehm Show @DRShow and Matt Laslo @MattLaslo of Capitol News Connection were both finalists in the news category. Washington, D.C. radio legend Diane Rehm shares inside views of her guests, like health care expert and NIH director Francis Collins, and asks listeners to answer questions on relevant news topics.

Matt Laslo at Capitol News Connection gives real-time updates from his reporting escapades on Capitol Hill. A recent adventure found him hearing about Texas Independence Day:

Did you know it’s Texas Independence Day? Me neither, until Cornyn (R-TX) started talking about it on the Senate floor.

Who are your favorite economics and news experts on Twitter? My favorites are listed here, on the @economystory bloggers list.

Asked what she thinks California will look like in ten years given what’s happening in public education today, 21-one-year-old Taylor Kohles said, “We need to change our priorities and fully fund education. If that doesn’t happen, it will create an education gap.”

Twenty-year-old UC Berkeley student Eddie Rivero said he has friends who will have to drop out of school because they’re undocumented immigrants who can’t get financial aid and are paying part of their tuition with scholarships. He said they won’t be able to cover costs as tuition rises.

For more on the protests, check out Youth Radio’s Twitter list of Day of Action participants.

Relief workers in Concepcion, Chile. Credit: Flickr/Globovision

Chile and Haiti suffered similar massive earthquakes, but the aftermath and impact of the disasters couldn’t be more different.

Chile’s much more economically developed than Haiti and has made huge progress over the past 20 years, which partially contributed to limiting the country’s death toll after the earthquake. So recovery, as Marketplace’s Tess Vigeland reports, will be focused (after human relief) on not losing the economic gains in areas like natural resource developments and infrastructure improvements. She spoke with Kevin Casas-Zamora, of the Brookings Institution:

Vigeland: You mentioned that there’s been a lot of economic growth in Chile. How much of that do you know went into infrastructure that perhaps contributed to the death toll not being greater?

Casas-Zamora: I think why the death toll was as low as it has been given the magnitude of the tragedy, it ultimately has to do with development in general. The glaring comparison between Chile and Haiti showcases very well why development matters. And it matters because it saves hundreds of thousands of lives.

Vigeland: What do you think the rest of the world, other governments, are taking away from how Chile has handled this crisis thus far?

Casas-Zamora: My sense is that the most remarkable aspect of all this is that it comes in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti. And the contrast couldn’t be greater. Really, in Chile what we’re witnessing is a state that works, whereas in Haiti the most glaring absence in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake was of a state at all. I mean it was sort of a phantom state. Whereas in the case of Chile, you can definitely see what a difference a functioning state makes when a disaster such as this one strikes.

The effect of the earthquake on Chile’s natural resources business is a major concern. Nightly Business Report’s Terri Cullen reports:

The location of the disaster can inflate commodities prices as well. For example, Chile is the world’s largest copper producer. The quake briefly sent the price of copper soaring to a seven-week high, before settling back on word the country’s biggest mines are undamaged. Oil prices also rose after Chile’s government said the quake disrupted oil production in the country, so it would need to import more fuel.

The threat of escalating inflation and the loss of human productivity will no doubt hamper economic growth in Chile and Haiti in the months, and perhaps years, to come. But the rebuilding and recovery effort could potentially wind up helping the economy in the long run.

Haiti’s economic status isn’t the only reason the quake there was so much more devastating than Chile’s. Other factors, including a direct hit to the capital city, and that Haiti hasn’t been an earthquake-prone area, also contributed to a greater impact in the Caribbean nation.

But it’s not a contest. Both countries have much rebuilding to do and “donor fatigue” is a real issue. The Christian Science Monitor compares the giving to both countries so far. After the 2004 Asian tsunami, NPR published this guide to giving wisely and advice how citizens can assist both ongoing causes and the cause-du-jour.

In New York City, the politics site Gotham Gazette is launching Councilpedia. Founder Gail Robinson discusses the project on MediaShift’s Idea Lab:

Councilpedia will provide information about New York’s 51 City Council members and two citywide elected officials, including their campaign finance information, the bills they introduced, and the groups they gave “member items” — the parlance here for pork or earmarks. (Our third citywide elected official — the mayor — only takes contributions from one person: his billionaire self.)

Our main source for much of the raw data will be the New York Campaign Finance Board. By most accounts, the city has a model campaign finance law, and the board gets as much information into the hands of the public as it can. That said, the lists of donors often seem to be little more than an undifferentiated list of unfamiliar names.

Councilpedia is a recipient of support from the Knight News Challenge, which funds innovative ideas in journalism.

Statistician Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com is building on its 2008 work by ranking the most contested Senate races in the country by aggregating polling data. The latest rankings are quite preliminary since many candidates have not yet filed, so fundraising data hasn’t yet been added in.

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show today spoke with Micah Sifry of Tech President, a blog covering how politicians are using the Web. He’s currently leading an effort to increase transparency in government called Demand Question Time.

To go more in-depth on these issues, join OpenSecrets.org on Thursday, 3/4 for an online chat to address the issue of money in politics and whether or not it’s been affected by the recession.

In many countries, young people often live with their parents until they get married and start a family of their own. In this country, “moving out” has become a rite of passage, but that’s changing, as The Takeaway reports in Many Generations, One Roof: “President Barack Obama does it, and according to a study by the AARP, so do 33 percent of all 18-to-49 year olds.”

Having an extra person in the house can be more costly for parents. Smart Money magazine mentioned this phenomenon in a piece about renovations in the current economy, explaining that having a child move back into the house as an adult can necessitate expensive changes – such as redoing an attic or adding a bathroom.

And whether it’s a boomerang kid grounded by a tough job market or an aging in-law whose portfolio losses nixed her own housing plans, adults usually cohabitate best when everyone’s got some privacy. After all, who wants to bring a date home to a room that shares a wall with his parents or be woken at odd hours when Grandpa blasts his TV at full volume?

Making Sense: New England also has some tips for cheap home renovation:

But not everyone has that kind of back up plan. EconomyBeat struck a nerve this morning when it linked to a post by someone who’d turned to drugs and became homeless after losing his job.

I lived in California and worked for a startup in the tech industry. I was laid off and as a result of my depression, fell ‘deeper’ into my meth addiction as a way out. This caused me to lose my apartment, and 99% of my belongings.

And he’s not alone. Julie Rose at Charlotte’s WFAE reports on the homelessness problem in North Carolina and a survey that’s trying to get people off the streets.

There are about 6,500 homeless men, women and children in Charlotte. Advocates think some 500 of those people are chronically homeless, meaning they’ve been on the street for at least a year. But that was just a guess.

KQED in San Francisco (home city of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has been a leading advocate of health care reform), put together a page for comments and a live blog of the event. The Sunlight Foundation provided a tool to track donations to members of congress Congressional representatives as they spoke during the summit.

Tennesee had three representatives in their delegation: – two republicans and one democrat, some open to compromise on the health care bill, and one, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who made the case as other Republicans did to “start from scratch,” as WPLN in Nashville, with Capitol News Connection reported .

Nashville is a hub for the health care industry, which doesn’t seem to be hurting as the health care reform debate continues. WPLN reported that four major health are providers in Nashville, including HealthStream, posted positive year-end financial results.

But the urgency of health care reform certainly hasn’t gone away with a few hours of debate at the White House. As WAMC in Albany, NY found, thousands of people in New York alone are at risk without some serious changes:

The failure to enact health care reform this year will lead in the next decade to approximately 13,900 premature deaths of people between 25 and 64 years old in New York according to a report released today by the consumer health group Families USA.

Similar stories are cropping up around the country. For a full video roundup of health care coverage, PBS has a collection of clips from Frontline, NewsHour and more.

Frederic Chopin, 1849/Credit: Wikimedia Commons

How much would you pay to take a piano lesson from Frederic Chopin? In his time, adjusted for inflation, the price tag on a piano lesson with Chopin would fall somewhere between $50 and $96 in 2010 dollars. Worth it? Classical station WDAV in North Carolina reports:

Considering the average daily wage for an unskilled laborer in Paris was one franc. That’s three weeks’ wages to pay for one lesson if you don’t eat.

To commemorate the composer, Poland put his image on money:

In 1982 Chopin and the first two bars of this Polonaise in F Minor appeared on the Polish 5000 zloty bill. This year, The National Bank of Poland is adding their two cents’ worth with a release of special, collectible Chopin banknote valued at 20 zloty – about $6.77. Fourteen of the new notes if you want a lesson from the old poet of the piano!

There’s a ton of zloty in music today. Apple’s iTunes hit its 10 billionth 99-cent download this week. In an unusual agreement from two bloggers on opposite sides of the political spectrum, Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas and GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini each speculated on Twitter about what that $10 billion in revenue could have gone to, had it been spent in government:

@PatrickRuffini: iTunes songs have been sold 10 billion times…less than the cost of the jobs bill
@Markos responded: Less than monthly cost of wars too!

New Hampshire Public Radio reported on the project earlier this week, and the New York Times also picked it up.

OurGoods certainly isn’t the only trading system to spring up in the recession. A pub in England is allowing patrons to trade their skills for their drinks. The BBC reports:

Some drinkers have also volunteered to wash-up or decorate the pub.
Landlords Matthew Walsh and David Hurst said it was a way for independent pubs to compete with special offers at larger chain bars.

Of course, the barter system is hardly a new thing. In fact it’s the oldest thing on the books. NOVA’s History of Money program reported that bartering may even predate people:

Some would even argue that it’s not purely a human activity; plants and animals have been bartering—in symbiotic relationships—for millions of years.

Going back not quite THAT far, a 1998 PBS NewsHour piece on teachers in a remote area of Russia reminds us that when things are really bad, like in the early years following the fall of the Soviet Union, people tend to automatically switch to a trade-based system to get the things they need – even education.

The local government has started paying its wage arrears through barter. It now lets teachers go to local stores choose the products they need and deduct them from their salaries.

All this trading may seem like it’s under the table, but legally do you still owe taxes if you barter for something? The personal finance blog WalletPop says yes.

No money actually changes hands, so it’s almost as if the transaction didn’t happen, right? Not exactly. The fair market value of goods and services that you receive in exchange for goods or services you provide must be included as income on your tax return even though you don’t receive payment in a traditional way.

Think of barter just like cash: If it would be taxable if paid in cash, it’s taxable if paid in goods or services. If you receive value for goods or services that would normally be taxable to you personally but not as part of a trade or business (such as babysitting income), report it as “other income” on line 21 of your form 1040. If the exchange was part of your trade or business, report the transaction, including income and expenses, on a Schedule C on your form 1040.