Sunday, May 5

Tag: economic

Trillions in coronavirus spending is putting AOC’s favorite economic theory to the test
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COVID-19

Trillions in coronavirus spending is putting AOC’s favorite economic theory to the test

French philosopher Voltaire famously quipped: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Something similar can be said of modern monetary theory, also known as MMT, because it may be the economy’s only hope to get through the pandemic. Coined by Australian economist Bill Mitchell and popularized recently by Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to fund programs such as the Green New Deal, MMT holds that a country with its own currency can spend almost unlimited sums of money. While government spending is normally financed by either taxes or borrowing, MMT suggests that governments can also do this by simply creating money. I’m currently working on a book chapter that examines various economic theories about government debt, including MMT. I believe this theory is...
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How SNAP can help people during hard economic times like these
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IN OTHER NEWS, Journalism

How SNAP can help people during hard economic times like these

A record number of Americans are seeing their hours cut or losing their jobs due to the initial economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic. How will millions of newly jobless families keep putting food on the table? They might get some help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The nation’s largest anti-hunger system helped about 35 million low-income people buy groceries in 2019, down from a peak of over 47 million in 2013 in the aftermath of the Great Recession. After repeatedly trying to scale back SNAP the White House recently agreed to Congress’s efforts to ramp it back up. The Families First Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law on March 18, included an additional US$1 billion in funding for other nutrition programs and will let more people enroll ...
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Black Entrepreneurs Lead the Charge in Baltimore’s Economic Renewal
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Journalism

Black Entrepreneurs Lead the Charge in Baltimore’s Economic Renewal

Rasheed Aziz remembers visiting Baltimore in 2006. The empty, hollow buildings sprawled the entire block, he says. Buildings lacked roofs, doorways were boarded up, and tree limbs grew into missing windows. Aziz is the founder of CityWide Youth Development, which he began in central Florida to bring economic development to impoverished neighborhoods using manufacturing and entrepreneurship. In 2006, he decided to move himself—and his nonprofit—to Baltimore after his trip there. During that trip, he says, he saw a need for sustainable employment opportunities in underinvested areas in that city. “I’ve never looked through a window of a building and saw tree limbs before,” says Aziz, remembering his first visit and the “culture shock” he experienced. “That means there’s no roof. It’s ...
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Black Economic Security
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Journalism

Black Economic Security

The state of the African-American family is now at a crossroads in terms of where we are headed. Through poverty, violence and lack of opportunity, we are failing to develop the next generation of leadership in ways that will assure a net gain for us as a people and for America in general. Now comes the report from the Black AIDS Institute that if black America was a country, we'd rank 16th in the world in AIDS cases, with nearly 600,000 people currently living with HIV. With HIV, hypertension and diabetes all prevalent in our community, we would place 105th in national life expectancy as an individual country. We are all aware of people who eat too much salt, drink too much pop or are always "on the prowl". The problem with these behaviors is that far too often the consequences of th...
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Booker Washington’s Tireless Work in the US For Social-Economic Development For Black Americans
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Journalism

Booker Washington’s Tireless Work in the US For Social-Economic Development For Black Americans

Booker T. Washington who after being emancipated from slavery had only managed to get a primary education got probationary admittance to Hampton Institute and proved such an exemplary student, teacher, and speaker that the principal of Hampton Armstrong recommended him to Alabamans to lead them to establish a school for African Americans in their state. In 1881, he was hired as the first principal of a school being founded in Alabama. under a charter from the Alabama legislature for training teachers, the first time a black was being offered such a high position.They soon found the energetic and visionary leader they sought in Washington. Washington thus became the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. which he built from scratch into the most reputable and s...
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