David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu in their work, Body Economics, bring glaring examples of how austerity as a governmental practice is terrible for the economy and lives of citizens, thus bad for the country as a whole. First, we see an interesting set of statistics of how the great depression affected mortality rates in a few ways. Overall mortality rates declined despite increases in suicide rates. The reason for this is that there were less automobile accidents (the leading cause of death) and that people were healthier because they stopped consuming alcohol due to the prohibition, and walked more because they couldn’t afford gasoline for their cars, etc. These statistics also seem to be consistent in today’s Great Recession. The most important part of the history of the Depression is to see how the government reacted to it. Under Hoover’s austerity plan, the country ended up with the Ford Hunger March, which disastrously turned into a massacre. Under Roosevelt, the New Deal simply worked. It was a plan of the government funding jobs thus stimulating the economy. It was a plan of providing funds to those who needed it. Less hunger meant better health. This New Deal policy is stark contrast to the post-communist mortality crisis. The rapid transition from communism to capitalism had led to a major population decrease in men. Factories shutting down led to increased rates in suicides, homicides, and alcohol poisoning. Stress and anxiety led to alcohol abuse, then resulting in suicide and homicide and increased rates of alcohol related diseases. When Russia tried to slow down alcohol abuse, the men drank more lethal alternatives. This data and data we’ve seen with the IMF treated Southeast Asia is clear in proving that austerity kills. The question becomes why doe people still think austerity works? How can cutting healthcare improve the lives of its citizens? It simply doesn’t. How can sucking out funds from the economy improve the economy? It just doesn’t.
Archives
28
Mar 14
Planned Shrinkage
After reading the paper for this week, it doesn’t seem to make sense why the city would reduce fire-control in areas that would statistically have more fires. Normally, these weird instances of pulling plugs and cutting support from people who need them is a matter of saving money. But here, cutting off the amount of fire departments available to control fires is a matter of life and death in some cases. However, once we establish that this is a “planned shrinkage,” and that the effects of reducing services in low-income areas was intentional, we see that the reason was in indeed disperse low-income populations.
Referring to Cameron’s flow-chart, I wonder if getting rid of AIDS dense areas was part of the plan as well or if it was just a consequence of dispersing low-income areas. Either way, the problem worsened and the spread of AIDS became harder to control.
21
Mar 14
Root Shock
The common theme seen throughout the reading is the constant disregard toward individual struggles when building a city into a larger economic center for the higher-income population. It seems that this is a common theme as well in America in relation to what we have seen with mass incarceration. To the higher-income population, rounding up blacks and sending them to jail looks like creating better communities with less violence and drug-use. Obviously, this is absurd. But in the long term, one would wonder what the largest American cities would look like had housing never been removed and large buildings never been placed there instead.
