14 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2022
    1. to lowered economic productivity through reduced earnings. In addition,increased health costs amount to $192 billion, whereas costs associated withincreased crime and incarceration (increased victimization costs of street crime;increased corrections and crime deterrence; increased social costs of incarcer-ation) total $406 billion.

      Childhood poverty results in an annual loss of $294 billion due...

  2. Feb 2022
    1. “When I moved to Kansas,” Roberts said, “I was like, ‘holy shit, they’re giving stuff away.’”

      This sounds great, but what are the "costs" on the other side? How does one balance out the economics of this sort of housing situation versus amenities supplied by a community in terms of culture, health, health care, interaction, etc.? Is there a maximum on a curve to be found here? Certainly in some places one is going to overpay for this basket of goods (perhaps San Francisco?) where in others one may underpay. Does it have anything to do with the lifecycle of cities and their governments? If so, how much?

  3. Nov 2021
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  6. Dec 2020
    1. People who think that racial differences are all biological might say that all these non-White groups have suffered so much excess death because of that bottom circle, because of greater biological susceptibility.  Recent studies have evaluated this hypothesis and found that it’s not true.  Instead the answer is simpler: Black and Latino/a people in particular are dying of COVID-19 at such staggering rates because they are more likely to be exposed to the virus in infectious settings, particularly workplaces.
  7. Oct 2020
    1. Reporting on a study at Queensborough Community College, also in the CUNY system, Sheila Beck notes that the library’s reserve textbook collection is “heavily used,” however, staffing and other concerns have prompted librarians to consider “less labor intensive and less costly alternatives.“ Beyond textbook reserves, academic librarians can help students to locate required course readings in other ways: older editions of their required textbook, pre- or post-prints of articles in institutional repositories, articles or other texts in databases subscribed to by the library, or readings that may be in the public domain or otherwise available on the open web.

      The basic economics of this system would indicate (especially as classes become larger and larger) that more careful consideration of choice, economics, accessibility, availability, etc. on a larger institutional level creates larger marginal gains for those in the class. If a staff librarian, teacher, or someone else within the system does the leg-work up front and does it well, then the dozens or even hundreds of students in the course don't need to spend (read: waste) their own time re-inventing the proverbial textbook wheel once they're in the class.

      Portions of the situation here make me wonder if we might pull a page from Dr. Peter Pronovost's playbook in the health care space and create a simple checklist of what to do when planning for textbooks and readings. Checklists that include things like:

      • will the texts actually be used?
      • will they be primary to the subject or are they supplementary?
      • What are their prices?
      • Are alternate materials available?
      • Are older editions available?
      • are public domain or open web versions available?
      • are there copies in the library? reserves? pirated versions? pre/post prints?
      • etc.

      Once such a checklist is available, institutions should require that it be available along with syllabi and other course listings.

      cross references:

  8. Aug 2020
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  10. Apr 2020