Posts

Showing posts from February, 2017

Why 2,400 people die in house fires every year

Image
Six children were found dead after a fiery house collapse that injured four other family members who escaped from the home in Northeast Baltimore's Cedmont neighborhood Thursday morning, the city Fire Department said. It was one of the deadliest fires in Baltimore's recent history. In 2002, Angela and Carnell Dawson and their five children were killed in a fire in an East Baltimore rowhouse in retaliation for their calling police about drug dealing. In 2007, six people, including children, were killed in a fire near Green Mount Cemetery. In 2010, three children and three adults were killed in a fire in the East Baltimore Midway neighborhood. (Baltimore SUN, Feb 19, 2017) Baltimore Cedmont neighborhood: Six children perished That a fire in an older house can kill six people of a single family is unfortunately not a freak occurrence that practically never happens. It isn't even only a result of historic building techniques with inherent risks such platform framing or the lac

How a Lack of Jobs is Changing the World - The Future of Work

Image
T he end of work as we know it  may be responsible for the collapse of  the existing world order. Fewer people finding jobs or enough income for a living has destabilized the European Union, has fueled Brexit and has determined the US election. There are several explanations for job scarcity and insufficient wages. One points to international trade as the culprit; another identifies technology as a job killer. Politicians promising jobs, jobs, jobs differ on which explanation they use for the job crisis, but all assume that they can create jobs, either by reducing or eliminating free trade or by slowing automation. Those who blame other countries for the US job woes ignore the fact that manufacturing in the US had a pretty stable share on the overall GDP from 1960 to now. Its not that nothing is made in the US anymore, it is just that fewer people make it ( Brookings ). Discourse during election campaigns doesn't dig deep, nor does it provide historical perspective. Politicians tal