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Thomas Minney

Poverty Is Poison - New York Times - 0 views

  • many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development
  • That’s not surprising. Growing up in poverty puts you at a disadvantage at every step. I’d bracket those new studies on brain development in early childhood with a study from the National Center for Education Statistics, which tracked a group of students who were in eighth grade in 1988. The study found, roughly speaking, that in modern America parental status trumps ability: students who did very well on a standardized test but came from low-status families were slightly less likely to get through college than students who tested poorly but had well-off parents.None of this is inevitable. Poverty rates are much lower in most European countries than i
  • came into office in 1997 made reducing poverty a priority — and despite some setbacks, its program of income subsidies and other aid has achieved a great deal. Child poverty, in particular, has been cut in half by the measure that corresponds most closely to the U.S. definition. At the moment it’s hard to imagine anything comparable happening in this country. To their credit — and to the credit of John Edwards, who goaded them
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  • dest in scope and far from central to their campaigns.I’m not blaming them for that; if a progressive wins this election, it will be by promising to ease the anxiety of the middle class rather than aiding the poor. And for a variety of reasons, health care, not poverty, should be the first priority of a Democratic administration.
  • he nation turns back to the task it abandoned — that of ending the poverty that still poisons so many American lives.
  • the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably unders
  • as always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.
  • failure to make progress in reducing poverty, especially among children, should provoke a lot of soul-searching. Unfortunately, what it often seems to
  • Some of these excuses take the form of assertions that America’s poor really aren’t all that poor — a claim that always has me wondering whether those making it watched an
  • eativity in making excuses.
  • an city. Mainly, however, excuses for poverty involve the assertion that the United States is a land of opportunity, a place where people can start out poor, work hard and become rich.But the fact of the matter is that Horatio Al
  • dren growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels
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    The effect of poverty on children and families, and it's multiple and long term consequences.
Duncan Innes

Macroeconomics - Theories of Economic Growth - 1 views

  • The annual growth of productivity in the British economy increased by only 0.8% in 2005 the slowest growth since the recession year of 1990. There are many reasons for this sluggish growth of productivity. Part of the reason was the slowdown in growth in 2005 because output and output per worker tend to be positively correlated. In an economy where demand and output is weaker, people in work are not being used as intensively compared to when the economy is stronger. Deeper-rooted explanations for weak productivity performance focus on supply-side deficiencies. These include the effects of skills gaps in industry; and the transfer of the economy's resources into the public sector where productivity is lower. Other factors contributing to sluggish productivity growth include the effects of business red tape and a persistently low rate of spending on research and development.Low productivity growth means that little progress has been made in reducing the productivity gap that exists between the UK and most of her major competitors.
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    How economies grow. Analysis of supply side factors: Output per worker, the movement of services to the the less efficient public sector, skills gap, red tape, low spending on R&D, quality and quantity of labour supply, low productivity growth in workforce, innovation 
Duncan Innes

BBC Six o'clock news 16th September 1992 Sterling crisis - YouTube - 0 views

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    A video  on the 6 o'clock news on Black Wednesday
Duncan Innes

UK incomes fall 3.5% in real terms, ONS reveals | Money | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • The median salary for a full-time worker in the UK rose 1.4% in 2011 to £26,244, against a headline CPI inflation rate of 5% or higher
  • Progress in closing the gender pay gap has also slowed, with women in full-time employment earning on average £5,409 less than men – the gap narrowed by £179 in 2010 compared with £558 in 2009.
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    Real wages are falling by 3.5% a year
Duncan Innes

'Matters Could Escalate' : Economist Raghuram Rajan Warns of Currency Conflict - SPIEGE... - 0 views

  • I think this has to do with more than just currencies. It is very convenient for industrial countries to point to currency intervention as the problem, because they are not directly guilty of that. Is it any surprise that China resists an international agreement where the sole focus will be exchange rates? But industrial countries are not beyond reproach on the kind of policies they have been following in recent years. Let us remember where this crisis originated ...
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    Fascinating discussion on whether the race to low interest rates (and export lead growth) is the only problem in the world macro economy
Duncan Innes

Economics - Economics Q&A: Will the rise in VAT harm the UK's economic performance? - 0 views

  • Overall the rise in VAT is likely to cause higher inflation, reduced GDP growth and some job losses in 2011 and into 2012 - so some deterioration in three microeconomic indicators at the expense of improved government finances. But in the long term a 20% VAT rate is unlikely to have any noticeable effect on UK competitiveness and growth. The long-term trend GDP is driven by supply side factors such as technological progress, working age population growth, improved work and enterprise incentives and the scale and quality of capital investment spending).
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    A summary of the likely impact of VAT on Economic Growth
Duncan Innes

BBC News - Cuba begins public debate on economic reforms - 0 views

  • In September, President Castro announced plans to lay off around up to a million state employees - about a fifth of the workforce - and encourage them to find work in the private sector.
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    Report on the opening up of of the state system to allow private enterprise
josh mower

BBC News - Could Greece be Europe's Lehman Brothers? - 0 views

  • Could Greece be Europe's Lehman Brothers?
  • Three years ago today, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson made a momentous decision - to let the investment bank Lehman Brothers fail. The US government had helped to rescue a string of financial institutions, but markets kept pushing more to the wall. Mr Paulson was running out of time and options. There was no political support in Washington to keep throwing money at the problem. Wall Street would just have to learn to bear the consequences of its own folly. Today, many say that it was the wrong decision. The resulting financial meltdown (the stock market plummeted 43%) forced the authorities to do exactly what they had been trying to avoid - commit trillions of dollars to rescue the financial system.
  • Now fast-forward to the present. The "troika" of lenders to Greece - the European Union, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB) - may soon face a similar moment of reckoning.
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  • The government in Athens has consistently failed to cut its overspending as much as promised, and keeps coming back for more money. The Greeks complain that spending cuts demanded by the troika are killing their economy, which in turn pushes their tax revenues down, stoking the need to borrow yet more.
  • Would they really pull the plug on Greece to make an example of it? Or, with daily protests on the streets of Athens, could Greece itself walk away from the table? And if so, would it trigger another global meltdown?
  • Certainly it would be irrational for Greece to stop playing ball. Cut off from the troika's bailouts, the country cannot borrow. But even if it stopped paying its debts, Greece would still face enormous pain. Last year the government borrowed the equivalent of 10.5% of annual economic output, just to fund general government spending.
  • That overspend would have to stop immediately - far worse austerity than the troika demands. The Greek banks would also collapse, bereft of outside support. Having crossed the Rubicon of unilateral default, many economists believe the Greeks would leave the euro altogether. One reason is the need to devalue its currency to restore competitiveness. "Greece needs to move its exchange rate by at least 30% to have any chance of getting jobs back," says Mr Booth. Another is that the Greek central bank could then fund the government's continued borrowing with freshly-printed drachmas. But inflation would soar, and imports especially would become very expensive
  • That threatened a chain reaction of bankruptcies, which in turn caused a collapse of confidence throughout the financial system.
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    If Greece defaults would it lead to another recession?
Duncan Innes

Geography game: how well do you know the world? | Global development | guardian.co.uk - 2 views

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    Interactive Game based on geography and development economics
Duncan Innes

How ONS statistics explain the UK economy - ThingLink - 0 views

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    An interactive guide to the circular flow of income
Duncan Innes

Emma Harrison's tax bill casts doubt on 50p tax analysis - Channel 4 News - 0 views

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    Emma Harrison 50p tax rate
Duncan Innes

Economics - Unit 2 Macro:Video Resources on Human Development Data - 0 views

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    HDI told throught videos
Duncan Innes

We have to own up on the UK economy - we are not a big club anymore | Larry Elliott | B... - 0 views

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    economic football analogy
Duncan Innes

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies - YouTube - 2 views

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    Amazing TED talk on the damage of economic equality.
Duncan Innes

BBC News - Japan reports record annual trade deficit - 0 views

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    The effect of devaluation on Trade Balance
Duncan Innes

Inequality 'costs Britain £39bn a year' | Life | The Guardian - 0 views

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    Putting a cost on inequality
Duncan Innes

Profit vs principles - YouTube - 0 views

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    5 minute video on corporate aims and objectives inc CSR
Duncan Innes

The UK productivity puzzle - or is it? | Institute of Economic Affairs - 0 views

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    thoughts on productivity
Duncan Innes

BBC News - UK unemployment total sees slight fall - 0 views

  • The overall picture remains one of a jobs recovery that is much more sluggish than after previous recessions, analysts say.
  • ear ago. This compares with the 1.7% rise previously reported for the thre
  • as up 2% on a year ago. This compares with the 1.7% rise previously reported for the three
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  • This compares with the 1.7% rise previously reported for the three months to August, but remains below consumer prices inflation of 3.2%
  • inflation
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    Analysis of Octobers unemployment data
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