by ChristinaBlunt Despite last week’s promising government figures showing a decline in the American unemployment rate, “Welfare and Citizenship: The Effects of Government Assistance on Young Adults’ Civic Participation,” serves as a reminder to social scientists that with every great social shift (such as the global economic downturn) we must re-examine our premises. The article, … Continue reading »
Tagged with Recession …
The Salience of Political and Financial Climate in Policy Frames
by NickieWild Politics often guides the course of technological development. One of the most obvious places that this has occurred, and continues to occur, is the United States’ NASA program. With the US essentially still fighting two wars, the looming health care, Medicare, and Social Security crises, and the general poor state of the economy, … Continue reading »
“The Trash of the Titans?”
The BBC has today announced that the British government has decided to scrap plans for the creation of so-called “Titan” prisons. These prisons – first announced in December 2007 – were each expected to accommodate 2,500 prisoners at a cost of £350 million per institution. Although, the introduction of these prisons has been met with … Continue reading »
Consuming in a Recession
by bmckernan While at the start of the economic downturn many media outlets were claiming the video game industry to be “recession proof,” recent sales figures seem to indicate that even an industry often characterized as “escapist” seems not to be fully impervious to financial realities. A recent article in the New York Times reports … Continue reading »
George Ritzer Guest Post: Are Today’s Globalized Cathedrals of Consumption Tomorrow’s Global Dinosaurs?
By: George Ritzer Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland A decade ago I wrote a book dealing with what I called the “cathedrals of consumption”. These are consumption settings that had, in the main, come into existence in the United States in the post-WWII era. Of particular interest were the most grandiose of these consumption … Continue reading »
Mr. Mom and the Recession
by socanonymous The current recession has been dubbed the “he-cession”, referring to the fact that it is predominantly males that are being laid off. The female unemployment rate has been relatively stable in certain industries. A role reversal in some domestic household activities has taken place. The notion of female breadwinners is not a new … Continue reading »
Down and Out
by socanonymous The unemployment rate in the United States has reached a 16-year high of 7.2%. Economists say that we are still far from the recovery period and until then, expect things to get worse. Effects are certainly being felt on a global scale. The recent suicide of German billionaire, Adolf Merckle raises the timeless … Continue reading »
