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[10ebbor10]

It does in limited amounts. This sort of protests polarizes the population, forcing everyone to take up an opinion and destroying the middle ground.

[Helgoland]

Moderate wealth is opium for the masses! Decrease the average worker's standard of living and heighten the inequality to make the proletariat realize the true nature of the class struggle! Oppress them to bring about - the revolution!

Kidding, kidding. But in this case I guess it's a good thing: Th ones on the wrong side of polarization will become old (and irrelevant) within the next thirty years.
Oh wait, there's still 4chan. Damn...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

California judges overturn rape conviction based on 19th century law that does not protect unmarried women. The only upside is that it was remanded for a retrial rather than dismissed, and that the judges in question appear to be using this as a way to raise public awareness that this is on the books.

[ChairmanPoo]

IMF admits that their austerity recommendations were a fubar. OOPS!

[misko27]

IMF admits that their austerity recommendations were a fubar. OOPS!

Oh yeah. We needed something as terrifically stupid as this to get the message clear "Austerity, really, really bad"
 
I wonder how the peopel who've staked their political reputation on Austerity in Europe will handle it?

[Sheb]

Pretend nothing happen. I was reading this week's Economist, and they're totally oblivious to it. They're praising Ireland as an exemple that austerity works, and urging the Brits to continue, despite the fact that their economy is still not growing, and budget deficit -both real and structural- are higher than when that government started. and the Tories are siad to prepare to blame the LibDem in the next campaign for stalling the economy by opposing yet more budget cuts.

[MonkeyHead]

The thing is in the media here we hear nothing about Ireland compared to Greece, Spain and Portugal, and we have propped up Irelands economy to the tune of billions. Hell, there are ghost towns there that were built on my tax cash (ok, so not literally) that nobody lives in. I suspect that this is partly as our deeply unpopular government doesnt want us plebs to hear about how much ash it can afford to fling at other EU states while restriciting how much of its cash is spent within the UK. What really annoys those of us in the UK with a socialist mind is how taxation in a number of forms seems to keep rising, and government spending in the public sector keeps being cut. This seems like the crudest method possible to save cash, and it doesnt seem to be working in any way to stimulate our economy, for fairly plain reasons. Now we have 3 deeply unpopular mainstream political parties and a number of extreme right/left wing nutcase parties, the next election will be a mess.

[Sheb]

That cash is mostly under the form of loans though. Ireland's problem is that it's extremely dependent on the international market, as it acts as a kind of tax shelter for corporations that want acces to the EU market. Any drop in international demand will send their economy in recession again.

Also, their tax burden is slowly but surely getting out of control. Debt rose by nearly 100% of GDP since the crisis, and while they like to crow about how they beat deficit reduction target, it's still over 8% of GDP. In the event of a Greek default for exemple, it's pretty easy to imagine the yield on their debt skyrocket.

[palsch]

The strangely underreported decline in the incarceration rate.

At the time of President Obama’s inauguration, the incarceration rate in the United States had been rising every single year since the mid 1970s. The relentless growth in the proportion of Americans behind bars had persisted through good economic times and bad, Republican and Democratic Presidents, and countless changes in state and local politics around the country.

If a public policy trend with that much momentum had even slowed significantly, it would have been merited attention, but something far more remarkable occurred: The incarceration rate and the number of people under correctional supervision (i.e., including people on probation/parole) declined for three years in a row. At the end of 2011, the proportion of people under correctional supervision returned to a level not seen since the end of the Clinton Administration.

Some good news, but interesting political dynamic where no-one wants to even acknowledge the good news for various reasons.

[Frumple]

Here's hoping the trend continues.

Any idea what's causing it, though? Linked article didn't seem to suggest much along those lines.

[palsch]

Here's hoping the trend continues.

Any idea what's causing it, though? Linked article didn't seem to suggest much along those lines.

A combination of cost cutting (notably in California) forcing a smaller prison population at the state level and the fact that Obama is pushing more treatment and prevention for first time non-violent drug offenders. More people go to rehab, fewer end up on probation. The politifact article linked goes into some detail on that point.

[Frumple]

Yeah, noticed those. Off the cuff it didn't seem like that'd be enough to get a three year dropping streak, but maybe the gains aren't terribly large or somethin'. Judging by the BLS site, though, it looks like that latter change may be doing most of it. To wit:

The majority (83%) of the decline in the correctional population during the year was attributed to the decrease in the probation population (down 81,800 offenders).

for the 2011 period. Though I don't know if the rehab thing is what caused that or if it's something else.

We've still got a flipping ridiculous incarcerated population, of course, but... gains are gains.

[Pnx]

Well a very large portion of incarcerations are drug related, so it makes sense that a rehab focused drug policy would cause a large drop.

[MonkeyHead]

Any sign of the demographic imbalance in the prosion population approaching more expected levels in that data?

[palsch]

Any sign of the demographic imbalance in the prosion population approaching more expected levels in that data?

Didn't see anything about that in the parts linked. Would probably have to dig out the original surveys to see if they include demographic information.

The only thing I can think of that ought to affect such imbalance would be the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced the crack/coke penalty disparity from 100:1 to 18:1. So that's something...