Blog 7: The G.I. Bill in Economix

I really liked Economix because I thought it explained many aspects of economics and politics in an accessible yet fairly detailed way. I especially liked how it linked certain policies and political ideologies to specific politicians and presidents, because it's hard for me to remember who *actually* did what. Also, I thought Goodwin did a great job connecting policies from the past to contemporary realities and consequences (for example, Reaganomics influencing politicians today.)

I was especially drawn to the parts about the welfare state (135-140) and liked how Goodwin illustrated how effective welfare policies not only benefit individuals, but also the economy as a whole. If people have greater access to education, healthcare, and economic security, the entire country benefits. I hate that conversations about welfare have to be about economic benefits, and not just basic human decency and the right of everyone to health and security, but it's definitely how the conversation can be framed to persuade more conservative politicians into supporting better welfare policies. I notice contemporary pundits and politicians (and the majority of my relatives on facebook) still touting ideas about immigrants and poor people sucking away our country's resources and wasting hard-earned taxpayer dollars. It's really disappointing to see this rhetoric alive and well today, and it calls for us to be more critical of other parts of government spending and excess.

On page 138 Goodwin briefly references the G.I. bill of 1944, which helped veterans get educated, start businesses, and buy homes, which, in turn, stimulated the economy. What Goodwin failed to mention was the deeply racist reality of the G.I. bill. While the wording of the G.I. bill did not explicitly contain any racist elements, the benefits of it were administered by local institutions, such as banks and universities. Many of the banks and universities of the 1940's did not extend the same benefits to Black veterans as they did white veterans. Thus, a huge number of Black Americans were prevented from accessing the economic security and success their white peers enjoyed. I understand that Goodwin's book can only be so detailed, as to not get bogged down in nuance and end up with a book 10 times as long, but I also think making quick reference to unequal access would have benefitted his analysis greatly. The racist and unfair distribution of the G.I. bill's benefits may seem like a minor mistake from the past, but it's a symptom of a widespread historical and contemporary system that prevents people of color from accumulating wealth and achieving greater economic success in the future. This analysis is absolutely crucial, because it helps make sense of race and class differences today, and can begin to explain why so many communities of color have struggled (and still struggle!) to accumulate wealth for the benefit of their future generations.

http://www.demos.org/blog/11/11/13/how-gi-bill-left-out-african-americans

Blog Post #7 Regan Bradley

Pages 284-286

Our Sick Planet

We have all heard of the environmental challenges taking place in our world. They are happening whether we know it or not. We cannot argue with nature. Our planet is dying because it cannot support the population we are throwing at it. There is a scientific concept called carrying capacity. This is a maximum number of a species that a given environment can support. Once this capacity is reached, naturally the species must decrease it numbers in order to thrive in the environment and not cause serious damage.

Many scientists believe that the human population is near to or has reached its carrying capacity. We are overpopulating the Earth. We talk of fossils fuels and other dying resources. We are using up all we have. We are running out. We have no where else to go.

When reading the Economix book, I noticed two pages in particularly that hit me hard. Pages 284 and 285 contains a map of the world showing the how we are negatively effecting the world. Phrases such as "Dead Zone," "Forests cut down," "Plastic Soup," and multiple bodies of water drying up linger on the page in an effect to prove our destruction of the Earth. Years and years ago these we unthinkable things and here we are.

The next page of the book follows by saying "It's clearly too late to stop these problems from happening. However, it might not be too late to stop problems that are unthinkable today." We can stop further problems from happening. We can control out population so we do not overuse the Earth. How we do this all I do not know. That's what we need to discuss as a species.

Blog #7 - Kayla Snell

One of the parts that stuck out to me in Goodwin's Economix book was the part where Goodwin discusses Malthus' idea. It reminded me of the overarching topics in a class I took last semester, Development in the Third World, and therefore it made me feel some of the frustration I felt back then. Among these pages are two panels that most strongly remind me of it, both on page 36. The first is of the two pregnant ladies that say "We're barefoot because we're pregnant!" and "We're pregnant because we're barefoot!" It highlights the important point that despite the fact that despite the huge cost involved to raise kids, poor people don't have much choice. For example, my grandma was dirt poor, but one of 13 kids because her parents needed the extra hands around the farm. Immediately after that is the second panel that reminded me of another important point that class brought up. Now, as a global population, we are using up our natural resources and polluting our planet to an alarming extent. The rich countries with wealthy white folk like to put the blame elsewhere. They say "It's a population problem. We are running out of resources because there are too many people. Those poor countries keep giving birth to children. It must be their fault." But really, the problem is consumption. We are running out of resources because Americans and the rest of the West won't stop buying crap! The people with 13 kids in Third World countries don't produce hardly any waste compared to us, yet we like to point our fingers just like the guy in the comic does to the poor beggar. So although Malthus' ideas contributed to economics being called the "dismal science," ignoring the issue of too much consumption in favor of too many people in order to place the blame on poor countries is perhaps just as dismal of a thought.

#7

For this blog post, I chose to focus on chapter 4. Zooming in, I particularly enjoyed the section talking about the great depression, and FDR's actions once he got into office. Firstly, I would like to say I give anybody who actually wants to be president of the united states credit. That just seems to be the hardest, most stressful, pressure filled occupation in the world and I don't think I would wish it on my worst enemy. People that high in the government have to deal with the biggest most complex problems that seem to be impossible to fix.

That being said, sometimes I listen to politicians and I have no idea what they are saying/ what anything means. I don't know if they are purposely using language that the average person (me) wont understand, or if what they are talking about is so complex that only experts on  the topic can actually understand the language. THEN I read the following box:

First, this was kind of nice/funny to read. Even the experts are acknowledge that some of the things politicians say just doesn't make any logical sense. Seeing it in a book solidified that huntch I had. There's such a diverse set of problems that you have to deal with as president, and it would be impossible for one person to be advanced in every subject. That is why presidents have a boatload of advisors, but maybe they weren't the smartest either. On the other hand, the country was falling apart and FDR needed to just do anything so it seemed like the government was trying to fix the situation.

Another thing I liked from the same section was the part they highlight about how hard some problems  are to fix. 

The solution to the problem is the problem. The problem and the solution are the same thing? I don't know. Its a paradox.

Blog #7

Coming from a complete science background the only Econ I know is what I learned in high school Econ and the small facts I have learned from my boyfriend who graduated with an Econ degree. I thought this book was a very interesting way to learn about Econ. I really enjoyed it because it was much more engaging with the comic book approach. I think all books are more interesting when there are pictures to look at though :) With this book in particular I felt that I had been taught most of the big picture topics taught in the book but didn't know all the little details.   

One section that stood out to me that opened my eyes a little was pages 276 and 277. It was titled Blast From The Past.

I think this part stood out to me because it brought attention to the idea that the World is dealing with problems that seem very familiar to events from history. I think this is super important to pay attention too because we should be learning from our mistakes in the past to better the world in the future. The large diagram of all the car companies and who are in ownership or shared technologies is very interesting to look at. Its such a cool way to represent the idea of a global oligopoly. Overall I enjoyed reading this book even though Econ isn't the most interesting subject to me!

Blog Post #6: Chicago's Mild Sauce

Before I went to Chicago for spring break, I asked a friend – a Chicago native –  for some uniquely Chicago things to do and see during my trip. The very first thing she told me was “mild sauce.” Curious, I’d begun to seek out mild sauce as soon as I arrived in Chicago and needed dinner, and it wasn’t at all hard to find. I ate at Harold’s Chicken Shack (also recommended by my friend) and asked the cashier for extra mild sauce. When I got my food, I noticed a couple things: first, that the sauce wasn’t in a little cup beside my food, but instead was slathered on in a way that made my hands completely sticky; second, that it was rather sweet, a little spicy, and very delicious.

Wondering about who and what made up mild sauce, I did some research, and found that the sauce had multiple origin stories. It was possibly invented in Chicago buy any of a long list of restaurants in the South and West Sides which claim to be its creator; it was maybe discovered by a customer who’d dared to mix ketchup and barbecue sauce for their chicken or shrimp; and it could have been brought up to Chicago from somewhere in the Deep South during the Great Migration.

Whichever origin story might be true, what I found to be interesting is a comment made by Charmaine Rickette, the CEO of the fried chicken restaurant, Uncle Remus. Rickette claimed, “Mild sauce was not mild sauce until we created it,” when referring to the possibility that customers might’ve first mixed up the sauce on their own before the original owners of Uncle Remus started selling it. In this sense, Uncle Remus promotes the idea that mild sauce wasn’t “mild sauce” until a business (i.e. them) took part in legitimating it, since the sauce then became standardized.

Another interesting thing about mild sauce is the recipe. Although dozens of different restaurants around Chicago serve it and it varies a little from place to place, mild sauce is consistently a mixture of ketchup, barbecue sauce, and hot sauce. This might reflect a few things about the Chicago culture and people who embrace it. First, that the sauce isn’t fancy, but is instead for the working class: all its ingredients are common and unpretentious. This can also be seen in the way that the sauce is slathered onto the chicken or shrimp, and not instead in a dipping cup beside the meal. Second, that the sauce’s predominant sweet flavor is much stronger than its spicy flavor, possibly meaning that the sauce and those who enjoy it might have cultural roots in places that had an appreciation for spicy food, like the Deep South (which would make sense, given the Great Migration origin story), but have since had their palates adjusted for milder flavor because of the milder food typical of the Midwest.

Finally, of the restaurants in Chicago that are most popular for their mild sauce (e.g., Uncle Remus, Harold’s Chicken Shack, Lem’s BBQ House, Uncle John’s Barbeque, Coleman’s BBQ), it can be seen, from the establishments’ names, that mild sauce is most often an eating ritual among certain demographics – notably African American people, since these restaurants belong to barbecue or soul food traditions. Uncle Remus, for example, was a prominent fictional character in African-American folktales in the late 19th century – and each of the other restaurants’ names mention either barbecue or chicken, possibly as an indication of the restaurants’ roots in southern cooking.

So, mild sauce, as a food event, has been legitimated and constructed by multiple businesses since it was first possibly concocted by an inventive customer. And the sauce says a lot about the people in Chicago who eat it – namely, that they: are probably unpretentious, enjoy southern food, and like to hold back a little on the spice – but have great taste nonetheless.



Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-mild-sauce-hearken-food-0628-story.html

Blog Posting #7 (due Saturday 3/31, 11:59 P.M.): INTERVENTION! So how is unregulated Capitalism treating YOU?

Here Michael Goodwin explains that his whole book is an intervention

Background (from our recent work, before we get to the new Blog project):

• Item: Three scientists from Georgetown publish a piece in Journal of medical ethics which pretty much proves that Continuing Medical Education has been hijacked by drug companies to construct new medical 'conditions' so that their drugs will find a market. As they say ' Hypoactive sexual desire disorder is a typical example of a condition that was sponsored by industry to prepare the market for a specific treatment.'  So it really isn't real? INTERVENTION! (Go HERE to read their abstract.)

• Item: The Journal of medical ethics establishes a Blog where concerned (read: pissed off) scientists can express themselves on serious, public 'matters of concern.' INTERVENTION!

•Item: One of the authors of the CME paper publishes a passionate, informed blog piece on how the very idea of HSDD is not just false (bad science), but misogynist: 'The labeling of flibanserin reveals the absurdity of this “disease” and its treatment.  In fact, hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) was invented by pharmaceutical manufacturers.'  She calls it 'regulatory failure.'  Go girl. Feminist INTERVENTION! (Go HERE for Adriane's blog.)

Item: Faced with the expiration of their 20-year patent on the blockbuster drug Prilosec®, Astra-Zenica splits the omeprazole molecule into its two enantiomers and re-patents the left isomer as Nexium® though it has no clinical efficacy.  Nexium® costs 28 times its generic, just-as-good ancestor, and Astra-Zenica spends .5 billion dollars advertising its new drug in the first year, also establishing GERD as a legitimate medical condition (which can't be diagnosed) through sponsored CME.  Robin joins in writing an amicus curae ('friend of the court') brief to the US Patent office opposing patents on enantiomeric drugs.  It fails, but in January of 2007, the European Union Patent Office rejected new patents for all 'enantiomer-based' drugs. INTERVENTION!

Item: One of the lead authors of the anti-ADDYI pieces writes a detailed article on the whole sordid, misogynist, greedy story of 'the female Viagra' for the Hastings Center.  And, in fact, the entire Hastings Center mission is all an ethical INTERVENTION!


Problem:  --> Does ANY of this matter?  Are 'minds changed'? Do things 'get better'?


This issue is central to what Science Studies calls 'rhetoric of science,' and it will engage us for the rest of our work.  At stake is whether and how we can 'intervene' in the complex web of culture to make a difference.  Writing.  Blogging.  Protesting.  Making films, songs, YouTube vids, whatever.  How do you change a mind?  CAN you change a mind?  Pretty important in the era of bots, 'fake news,' Cambridge Analytica, Facebook selling us out, and the entire 'post-truth' moment.  

Well, we know it must be possible; we know each of us has changed.  Now to look at how and why. LOTS more on that presently.

The Blog: 

But for now, how about something simpler?  How about reading a comic book?  How about looking at how we came to see the economic universe?  

Let's explore this in a nicely limited, focused way, starting with your reading of Economix (all of it, we hope by now). Start making sense of how, and how well,  it works as an intervention into the way we see the economic / political world we live in. You're looking for a place where you learned something,  And / or a place where you felt something.  And / or a place where the book tied to things in your life. All our usual analytical questions apply.  How did you feel, reading it — and why? The comic / graphic-novel format, of course. But also the particular historical / economic facts and events he includes; was any of it new? What? and did it matter?  How does Goodwin's friendly little nice-guy narrator relate to you?  Adam Smith coming in like God to remind us what he really said?  How does the tone — hipster earnest and searching — make you feel, and why?  By what methods does he legitimate his arguments — and with what effect?  Goodwin, like Lewontin and Pollan, and unlike Brang and Pinker, takes an explicit political position.  Does this bring him closer to 'truth,' 'the facts,' and/or 'reality'?  Why?  Corporation 'persons' as glowering, smoking skyscrapers?  Capitalists as Fat Cats and crooks? One of us, as we talked in my office, pointed at the little beaten guy on the cover, pulling out his empty pockets and said 'me.'  Point taken.

Anchor your piece in specifics: As little as a frame, as much as a chapter.  Characters, pages, facts, language, arguments, positions. It's a graphic-novel text, so we're close-reading the story-in-pictures that makes the arguments.

Feel free to answer any or all of these questions, in whatever order — and to go further or take your own path.  Feel free to bring in anything from anywhere you found it, if that helps you — your econ course, your crappy manager at Kohls, arguments with Aunt Mary about how we're going to Make America Great Again — but you don't need to; you can stick with Mike.  Feel free to narrate from your own life experience, if it relates.  Whatever you need to do in order to take us, in the most compelling way possible, through your encounter with the unique, perpetually controversial intervention that is Economix.  

Have fun!