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Too big to fail—that was the common explanation voiced at the start of the Great Recession for why the Federal Reserve had no choice but to channel trillions of dollars into the coffers of our leading banks. But, the government also pledged that once the crisis was over it would take steps to make sure we would never face such a situation again. The chart below shows the growing concentration of bank assets in the hands of the top 3 U.S. banks. The process really took off starting in the late 1990s and never slowed down right up to the crisis. It was the reality of the top three banks controlling over 40 percent of total bank assets that gave meaning to the “too big to fail” fears.
Reports from the Economic Front
Sociology and the Cuts
The BSA has created this blog in response to the budget cuts announced in the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review. We hope to address your concerns, engage with the challenges sociology faces as the cuts take shape and tackle the issues that matter to you, the sociologist. Our Blog Team We are delighted to have the BSA President, Professor John Brewer, and Professor Les Back, Goldsmiths University of London on our blog team. Our blog provides a place for sociologists to post commentary and lodge documents on the implications for sociology and society of the proposed government policy changes. We want to hear from you!
A few year ago, I was working at Kodak and friend and I were talking about the idea of Rolling Segmentation . More recently, we have been talking about how it relates to how that thinking can be applied to issues of instability and insurgency. I have not given the idea much thought for the last few years, and on rethinking about rolling segmentations/cohorts now, I have more questions than answers. Not the least of which is how is it all that different from any other longitudinal study? There are a number of them out there about how people’s political attitudes shift as they age, but I would be leery of trying to extrapolate them between different cultures. When I go back to the beginning of the idea, it popped up at Kodak as an attempt to explain why over time technology seemingly was adopted by older segments that had not adopted it before.
Ethnography.com
Ballots & Bullets | School of Politics & International Relations, University of Nottingham
During the course of researching for my forthcoming (that’s 2013) Bloomsbury Press book Representing Politics , which will look at how politics has been depicted in fiction over the last hundred years or so, I have come across many examples of the flawed, if not downright evil politician.The Public Intellectual
Being real in the field – an interview with Nikki Jones Listen to PI social science editor Nikki Jones in conversation with sociologist Karen Sternheimer about the sometimes strange relationship between an ethnographic researcher and the neighborhood she’s studying. Nikki is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was in the field for three years for her first book, Between Good and Ghetto , and lived in the Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco for three years for her forthcoming book, The Hustle: Why it’s Hard to Make Good in the New Inner City . Nikki is also producing a short film, The Camera Rolls , the story of one man’s decade-long effort to document daily life in a tough San Francisco neighborhood.
British Politics and Policy at LSE | LSE experts analyse and debate recent developments across UK government
The celebrity politician has become a fixture of our modern age. Mark Wheeler discusses the effect on democratic outcomes. In recent years, there has been an increased involvement of celebrities in the political process. As P. David Marshall has commented politicians have constructed ‘public personalities’ which have an ‘affective function’ in the organisation of interests and issues. Clearly, these figures perceive their usage of the mass and multi-media to be an effective means through which to influence public opinion.
Neal Stephenson talking at the Boulder Book Store at his signing of Anathem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Noted writer Neal Stephenson has argued that contemporary science fiction is too focused on nihilism and apocalyptic scenarios . The current crop of such works, such as the Walking Dead , are compared rather unfavorably to the hopeful view of the future that was supposed to be common theme in the mid twentieth century.
Talking Philosophy
Registration is required and free of charge. To register, please send name, affiliation and contact information to : taylor.conference.2012 [at] gmail.com
Public Reason · a blog for political philosophers
The Virtual Stoa
(4) But to pass to the Referendum—crown and apex of a constructive Conservatism in the new era. Accepted by Conservatives in the Constitutional crisis of 1910-1911, its value and necessity are infinitely more obvious now. It was called for then to save the House of Lords; it is needed now to protect democracy. For if democracy, faced in the new era by Socialism as its scarcely disguised enemy, is, from a constitutional point of view, to be made stable and safe, if its property and liberty are to be preserved, the people, in the last resort, must directly and for themselves decide their own fate. And for this duty they are ripe. Meantime, it needs only a blunder or two on the part of a Cabinet, a General Election dominated by passion or prejudice, and the flank of the Constitution is turned.
Light pollution which brightens the beautiful dark sky with an ugly muted glow is one of the most underrated negative externalities around. I talked a little bit about this earlier . Unfortunately, it is a really difficult problem to solve. On the one hand, Coasian bargaining can’t solve the problem given the huge transaction costs of dealing with the millions of people who cause the natural dark sky to disappear (not to mention that a property right in the skies relevant to this issue can’t really be defined or allocated easily unless you gave someone a near monopoly grant). On the other hand, even government solutions would be resisted by the “cult of light” that has formed around the notion that we need artificial lighting outdoors in order to be safe and secure (or to properly advertise business activity). I can’t imagine a tax on improperly shielded outdoor lights large enough to change behavior and decrease light pollution would be very popular with the electorate.
Pileus
In Medias Res
[Cross-posted to By Common Consent ] This is a sermon (though we Mormons rarely call these things "sermons"; usually just "talks" instead) which I gave in our main church meeting on January 1, 2012. It was the day after our third daughter, Alison, was baptized, and my parents and parents-in-law were in attendance, which all made for a wonderful occasion.normblog
Pauline Francis studied French at the University of Manchester and became a French teacher in London, before marrying and going to live in Africa. She later studied for an MA at University College London, majoring in Children's Literature, and became a full-time writer. Raven Queen is her first novel and won the Highland Book Award; it was followed by A World Away and Traitor's Kiss . Pauline lives in Hertfordshire and describes writing as 'the dream I never knew I had'. Here she writes about Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing . Pauline Francis on The Grass is Singing by Doris LessingAs an avid user of the metropolitan bus system for the past five years, I have met a lot of interesting characters. These include folks of different background, age, size, and color. I have witnessed events on the bus that are either too crude to describe in detail or too ridiculous to seriously warrant my attention. Over the years, I can say that my experience in using public transit services has been two-fold.
Sociology Lens » news. resources. commentary.
Zombies in the Academy
The “ zombified ” US Research Works Act was dropped this week following a boycott and protest of Elsevier, one of the major sponsors of the bill and a campaign contributor to the acts’ sponsor, Carolyn Maloney . Maloney and Elsevier are attempting to circumvent the 2008 changes to the US National Institutes of Health which ensures all research funded by its grants are freely available to the public. As evidenced by this link , Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union is conferencing next week. They must have noticed something fetid in the air because"Fama, that much-coveted goddess, has many faces, and fame comes in many sorts and sizes—from the one-week notoriety of the cover story to the splendor of an everlasting name. Posthumous fame is one of Fama’s rarer and least desired articles, although it is less arbitrary and often more solid than the other sorts, since it is only seldom bestowed upon mere merchandise. The one who stood most to profit is dead and hence it is not for sale.