MetaFilter posts tagged with economics and america

Paging Mr. Dickens...

dejah420 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:39:18 -0800

When welfare benefits the rich, and starves the poor: Despite soaring unemployment and the worst economic crisis in decades, 18 states cut their welfare rolls last year, and nationally the number of people receiving cash assistance remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years. The American tradition of guaranteeing cash assistance to the poor came to an end with the signing of legislation in August 1996. Since then, states get block grants, and state and local governments decide how to spend the money. For example; fewer than 2,500 Georgia adults now receive benefits, down from 28,000 in 2004—a 90 percent decline. Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois have each dropped 80 percent of adult recipients since January 2001. Nationally, the number of recipients fell more than 40 percent between then and June 2008, the most recent month for which data are available. In Georgia last year, only 18 percent of children living below 50 percent of the poverty line—that is, on less than $733 a month for a family of three—were receiving aid. States are spending the TANF block grants to plug budget holes[PDF], fund property tax rebates, [google book excerpt] and other discretionary spending. Because there is no federal oversight anymore, it's become a real challenge to find out where all the money goes, once it leaves the feds hands. One thing is for sure though...it sure doesn't seem to be getting to the poor.

There Could Be Blood

kliuless — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:36:53 -0800

Andy Grove on Our Electric Future - "Energy independence [viz.] is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to." Perhaps some infrastructure spending^1,2 is in order? [etc., &c., cf.] also see :P - "Tesla Motors Is Delivering Cars" - "Superconducting Power Grid Launches In New York" - "New heights reached in polymer based solar cell efficiency"

[S]pray a sheet of glass with a mixture of dyes combined with a substance called tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminium. In combination, the dyes and the glass act as the waveguide, preventing light from escaping. Meanwhile, the interaction between the different dye molecules and those of the tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminium allows a quantum-mechanical phenomenon, called Förster energy transfer, to come into play. This eliminates the reabsorption loss by ensuring that light is re-emitted at a frequency which the dye molecules cannot then reabsorb. On top of this—literally—Dr Currie and Dr Mapel have come up with another trick: placing a second sandwich of dye and glass over the first. The upper layer of dye intercepts high-energy light, such as ultraviolet. The lower one captures longer wavelengths that have passed unperturbed through the upper, and also any lower-energy light that has been re-emitted within the top layer and somehow escaped. The upshot is a device that, even as a prototype, converts ten times more of the incident light into electricity than a conventional solar cell. [and btw]

cheers!

We’re too sophisticated to allow bioregional commerce.

ZachsMind — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:22:05 -0800

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. This Saturday will mark this article's four year anniversary. Frankly, I was mildly surprised not to have found it mentioned before in MeFi. It's a good read about a sad state of affairs; how our government is turning its own people into outlaws, because freedom has been traded in for an illusion of security. ...but then we already knew that. Don't we?

Breaking the Chain.

chunking express — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 06:55:11 -0800

Breaking the Chain: The antitrust case against Wal-Mart. Barry C. Lynn argues Wal-Mart is a monopsony, and should be dealt with the same way A&P and Standard Oil were many years ago.

Of matrícula accounts and ITIN loans

kliuless — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 22:49:11 -0800

Embracing Illegals: Companies are getting hooked on the buying power of 11 million undocumented immigrants - The Underground Labor Force Is Rising To The Surface [pdf]

How America Works

lilboo — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:15:38 -0800

How America Works

In the tradition of They Rule, Jonathan Schwarz from A Tiny Revolution provides some context in regards to the 1996 funeral of Thomas Enders.

And the food had to be satisfying and taste good too, otherwise, what's the point?

anastasiav — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 07:48:21 -0800

The Challenge: Purchase, prepare and eat healthy, mostly organic meals on a food stamp budget. These are the results.