Kudos to the folks at the Center for Constitutional Rights and their allies in the struggle to end exploitative telephone contracts in New York state prisons. The problem is not restricted to New York, but that’s where the Telephone Justice coalition has been focusing its efforts.
Typically, states receive kickback commissions from the phone companies who receive the contract, creating a situation in which there is no incentive to seek competitive bids. Unsurprisingly rates for such calls are well [...] read more >
Race
Telephone justice
Posted by jtellerelsberg on October 19th, 2007“On being black and green” –anticipating unforseen consequences
Posted by jtellerelsberg on October 5th, 2007Marcellus Andrews is guest blogging at On the Commons and has a nice essay on how the world looks to an economist who’s “black and green”–an African American with a passion for the environment. “Somewhere along the way, I became a bit green in my views on economic life and policy, though my ‘greenness’ has a distinctly black undertone.”
Further down in his essay, Andrews raising the question of how unequal racial power might force its way into scenarios that [...] read more >
Bran scans show economy is unfair
Posted by jtellerelsberg on April 5th, 2007Scientific American is reporting on a an article in the journal Neuron that describes brain scanning experiments intended to see if poorer people react differently than richer people to opportunities to gain a little extra money.
The microeconomic law of diminishing marginal utility states that while accumulating a good—pretzels, pencils, nickels, whatever—each successive unit of that good will be less satisfying to acquire than the one before it. Finding a shiny quarter on the street is a real thrill. [...] read more >
Some thoughts on 2006
Posted by emilykawano on November 12th, 2006The 2006 Election(s)
By John J. Fitzgerald
The 2006 Election cycle has come and gone. Just like the 2006 Hurricane season it has not performed exactly as predicted, but it has left some changes in its wake. We might actually have experienced several different elections rather than just one. A lot of decision-making got formalized on the 7th of November.
Here are some of the highlights:
Angry response to Kerry Healey’s exploitation of racism in her attack ads on Deval Patrick
Posted by emilykawano on October 25th, 2006Dear Readers — the following is an email message I sent to all fellow faculty at Western New England College where I teach. I am including it here based on an invitation I received to share it with all readers of this Blog. I am reproducing it here without editing.
Mike Meeropol (econ Prof, Western New England College, Springfield, MA)
I am writing this e-mail because I am thoroughly disgusted with the effort to “Willie Horton” the candidacy of Deval Patrick for [...] read more >
Econ-Atrocity {special History of Thought series} C.L.R. James: The Future in the Present
Posted by emilykawano on April 14th, 2004By Geert Dhondt, Staff Economist
Madness surrounds all of us. Luckily the world is full of contradictions. While capitalism, barbarism and madness might seem all around us, so is its opposite, its negation. Thus, if we look hard enough we can recognize the new society in the present and we will be able to see the emergence of revolutionary possibilities. In the U.S., C.L.R. James was one of the first to clearly articulate the importance of independent Black struggles in creating [...] read more >
Econ-Atrocity: Global Poaching–Jamaica’s Brain Drain
Posted by emilykawano on January 30th, 2004By Brenda Wyss, CPE Staff Economist
Jamaica is hemorrhaging nurses and teachers. The Jamaica Gleaner reports that Jamaica loses roughly 8% of its RNs and more than 20% of its specialist nurses annually. Most go to the US or the UK. The US, with 97.2 nurses per 10,000 people, actively recruits nurses from Jamaica, a country with only 11.3 nurses per 10,000 people. Meanwhile, US and British schoolteacher work programs recruit Jamaican teachers for inner city schools in New [...] read more >
Econ-Atrocity: Bolivia–The Battle Over Natural Gas
Posted by emilykawano on November 26th, 2003By Noah Enelow
You would think the discovery of massive natural gas deposits in the heart of a developing country would present itself as an enormous windfall. All this country would have to do is find a source of financing, extract and refine the gas, sell part of it on the world market, and keep the rest, along with the profits, for domestic development.
Unfortunately, in Bolivia it hasn’t worked out quite so rosily. The battle over natural gas has exacerbated the [...] read more >
Econ-Atrocity: Bilingual Education Yes, Ron Unz No
Posted by emilykawano on October 30th, 2002By Rob Fetter and Stephanie Luce, CPE Staff Economists
Since the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 provided federal funding to school districts to assist them in adopting bilingual education programs, bilingual programs in many languages across the U.S. have flourished. Those committed to bilingual education continue to push their states and school districts to improve their programs, but bilingual education advocates have a new challenge: to fight off ballot initiatives that would eliminate the successes won to date.
On November 5, voters [...] read more >
Econ-Atrocity: Aid and AIDS
Posted by emilykawano on March 20th, 2002By Kiaran Honderich, CPE Staff Economist
(Reprinted from CPE’s newsletter, “The Popular Economist,” Spring, 2002.)
Over the last year activists have made important progress in the battle against global AIDS. Developing countries won a partial victory at the WTO ministerial meeting in Doha in November, affirming their right to produce affordable generic drugs in a health crisis. And the appalling mainstream consensus that treatment with antiretroviral drugs was too expensive and complex to be made available in poor countries–writing off literally [...] read more >
