I just stumbled on this great list of resources from early this year, on a blog by Alison Stenning: Some really great blogs have emerged over the past few years as people have tried to document their own, and others’, struggles with austerity. There’s an article about some of these blogs here. These are some of the most interesting…
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What it means to privatize the justice system
Great article about the consequences of turning over parts of the criminal justice system to private, for-profit companies. How do the companies make money? By charging offenders on probation for their own monitoring, and by racking up fines and interest charges on the cost of traffic tickets and small court fines. There are already many…
The ongoing saga of wealthy Brooklynites
(Leaving the connection between austerity and gentrification/displacement to the reader…) This is one of the seemingly never-ending series of New York Times articles about wealthy young people having to leave uber-hip neighborhoods for new, cheaper destinations (like Queens and Jersey!). I read the Times pretty faithfully, and these articles never (1) talk about non-wealthy non-young…
Fat-Cat Administrators at the Top 25 – NYTimes.com
It’s not hard to find examples of the uneven implementation and consequences of austerity. A great study out last week by the Institute of Policy Studies looks at several indicators at public universities and finds some interesting correlations. The student debt crisis is worse at state schools with the highest-paid presidents. The sharpest rise in…
The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills
Subtitle: Recessions, Budget Battles and the Politics of Life and Death. By David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu —thebodyeconomic.com This book came out in 2013, and is frequently cited in discussions of austerity and the damage – short- and long-term – resulting from budget cuts, particularly at the national level. The book is organized in three…