Mastodawn

2026-03-10 1530-1600

Debt and Wealth Inequality
Thinking Allowed

What does an 18-month study of residents on a housing estate in southern England tell us about living with debt? Laurie Taylor talks to Ryan Davey from Cardiff University about his new book The Personal Life of Debt - Coercion, Subjectivity and Inequality in Britain, which tries to understand how debt affects people emotionally as well as economically.

Laurie is also joined by Sarah Kerr (LSE International Inequalities Institute), whose book, Wealth, Poverty and Enduring Inequality - Let’s Talk Wealtherty, investigates the stubborn persistence of inequality in the UK. Kerr argues that the gap between top and bottom earners has become entrenched and normalised across generations.

Producer: Natalia Fernandez

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28 minutes

On radio

Sunday
06:05
BBC Radio 4

#BBCRadio4 #BBCThinkingAllowed #LaurieTaylor #Sociology #CostOfLivingCrisis #Debt #Loans #LoanSharks #Bureacracy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002sfvg

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Debt and Wealth Inequality

Living with debt - and has inequality become ingrained? Laurie Taylor hears new research.

BBC

Cosmic Librarian Aug 25, 2025

What Happened the Last Time a President Purged the Bureaucracy

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.

#bureacracy #USA #president #purges

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/06/government-workers-purge-1950s-communism-00202336

What Happened the Last Time a President Purged the Bureaucracy

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.

Politico

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Peter Riley Jan 31, 2025

THE UTOPIA OF RULES - David Graeber

1 Dead Zones of the Imagination
An Essay on Structural Stupidity

2 Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit

3 The Utopia of Rules, or Why We Really Love Bureaucracy After All

Appendix
On Batman and the Problem of Constituent Power

https://libcom.org/article/utopia-rules-technology-stupidity-and-secret-joys-bureaucracy-david-graeber

#Batman #Bureacracy #Capitalism #NeoLiberalism #Profits #Technology #Utopia

The utopia of rules: on technology, stupidity, and the secret joys of bureaucracy - David Graeber

According to Graeber’s bureaucratic procedures “are invariably ways of managing social situations that are already stupid because they are founded on structural violence.” But what Graeber means by structural violence is a system “that ultimately rests on the threat of force,” whether police officers, drill sergeants, tax auditors, or all the other agents who support a system that spies, cajoles and threatens. This complex of definitions lands Graeber squarely in the anarchist tradition, and though he layers contemporary anthropological theory into his analysis, he serves up a clear and generally jargon-free argument.

libcom.org

Golden Retriever GF Jul 24, 2024

I'm going to tell you a little story about riding waves. Not literal waves but taking risks and doing a CDU wetdream of moving to Germany with nothing but two suitcases and a dream. Because yes, I moved to Germany in two suitcases with the required allowance for a short stay Visa in my account. In all honesty practically nothing.

I feel personally long distance relationships should be introduced like new cats. Put them in a bathroom so the other cats can get used to the smell and they can acclimate together. Adding in a long distance relationship, ESP as an immigrant is going to disrupt ongoing relationships. In under a month Tally and I were broken up with in our triad. I'm not the only person I have heard this happen to. An immigrant trying to deal with a crisis while also trying to find a job in under 3 months is basically a standard rite of passage for immigration.

I also had to visit immigration ( Ausländeramt ), citizen services ( Einwohnermeldeamt ), the US friggin Embassy, AND stand in a huge ass line to get my 3rd Covid shot. But I got all my stuff approved and JUST in the nick of time got a job. Like I had a week left.

I moved in in August but my first February here was an appointment DAILY whilst also working full time/overtime in a language of which I only spoke a very solid A1. Surprising but not good competence. This got me placed in a German Integration course in April.

This started the hardest period of my entire life, and I am a gay trans woman. That is saying quite a lot. I was working full time/overtime Tuesday-Sunday at a unsuprisingly shit job. ( Your first job in another country will ALWAYS be shit ) while going to German courses 20 hours a week. It left me with 1,5 hours of free time a day and zero days off for 5 months.

During this time @thatfrisiangirlish also lost her income so we had to go to Arbeitsamt for unemployment funds and that was a monthly struggle of arguing why we deserved to be able to eat. Apparently if there is an immigrant in the family they are expected to produce more income than a German would.

So I passed the Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer ( B1 language competence ) and the Leben in Deutschland ( Government, culture, and history competence ) with a 1. The highest grade possible on the German grading scheme. The DTZ came in 2 parts. A reading, writing and hearing section which is like listening to Deutsche Bahn announcments and praying to god that you made it out and a Speaking portion where I got to be graded and questioned by two German bureacrats.

Theeeeen Ausländeramt said my job was not enough. Get a better one or go home. So I did. I now work at a locally famous job that I get to be congratulated for to this day. I'm not just a cook. I am a very good and skilled cook. So I dodged that bullet. Not without having a mental breakdown because my boss decided to get drunk and scream at me and out me to every table in the restaurant because I had the audacity to quit.

The next year was constantly being charged about 600 euros with a surprise bill. Every month. My grandfather also died. One of my first friends in Germany, a guy from poland, also killed himself near the end or year. I had to work with a very homophobic problem child, all while dealing with an increasing shortstaffing problem. All in all it was an incredibly stressful year but less so than the year before.

By the end of the year the Homophobe had quit, I received a raise and a promotion and finally the waves were beginning to settle into shore. I was starting to get the information required for marriage and we are finally closing in on the last steps to that. What started as an absolute shit tempest, like shit everywhere has really calmed down into mellow waters.

Immigration is the hardest thing I have ever done. I've gone through a divorce, had a hard degree in college, was homeless, a teachers aid on a campus where I had to control a class during a school shooting and almost murdered multiple times in the US. Immigrating to another country was still the hardest thing I have ever done. It requires you to be willing to fail, then get up and try to succeed again just to fail again. Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm still happier here than I ever was in the states and my German still needs work but damn has it been a wild ride.

#immigrantlife #germany #german #bureacracy #transjoy #lgbt

Saunatina4Seattle May 31, 2024

"Devil's in the details," amiright? 😈 I keep my eyes on them so people won't suffer further from bureaucratic carelessness. Being detail-oriented like the example in my story here might not seem like a big deal to most, but it is when you're a public servant. ✅

#seattle #bureacracy #detailsmatter #publicservice

James Fluker Apr 5, 2024

Rod Emerson on cutting red tape.

#NZPol #Politics #Aotearoa #NZ #NewZealand #Regulation #Bureacracy #RedTape #PoliticalCartoon

Angela Apr 4, 2024

OK, #NZTwits, here's the plan. Seymour apparently knows better than all of us parents, let's have him judge who's sick enough to stay home 😝

#nzpol #redtape #bureacracy #maliciouscompliance

Nick Byrd, Ph.D.Apr 3, 2024

215 regulations and policies about the business practices of federally funded research have been introduced since 1991. From 2013 to 2023 alone, the increase was 172%.

A free list and plot from the Council on Government Relations (2023): https://www.cogr.edu/sites/default/files/RegChangesSince1991_June%202023_0.pdf

#research #science #funding #policy #regulation #law #bureacracy #higherEd #medicine