Download or read book The United States of Excess written by Robert Paarlberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to other wealthy countries, America stands out as a gluttonous over-consumer of both food and fuel. The United States boasts an obesity prevalence double the industrial world average, and per capita carbon emissions twice the average for Europe. Still worse, the policy steps taken by America in response to obesity and climate change have so far been the weakest in the industrial world. These aspects of America's exceptionalism are nothing to be proud of. Is it possible that America is hard-wired to consume too much food and fuel? Unfortunately, yes, says Robert Paarlberg in The United States of Excess. America's excess is driven in each case by its distinct endowment of material and demographic resources, its unusually weak national political institutions, and a unique political culture that celebrates both individual freedoms over social responsibility, and free markets over governmental authority. America's over-consumption is shown to be over-determined. Because of these powerful underlying circumstances, America's strongest policy response, both to climate change and obesity, will be adaptation rather than mitigation. As the damaging consequences of climate change become manifest, America will not impose adequate measures to reduce fossil fuel consumption, attempting instead to protect itself from storms and sea-level rise through costly infrastructure upgrades. In response to the damaging health consequences of obesity, America will opt for medical interventions and physical accommodations, rather than the policy measures that would be needed to induce better diets or more exercise. These adaptation responses will generate serious equity problems, both at home and abroad. Responding to obesity with medical interventions will fall short for those in America most prone to obesity - racial minorities and the poor - since these groups have never enjoyed adequate access to quality health care. Responding to climate change by building more resilient infrastructures at home, while allowing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to continue their increase, will impose greater climate disruption on poor tropical countries, which are far less capable of self-protection. Awareness of these inequities must be the starting point toward altering America's current path.

Download or read book The Issues of American Excess written by William H. Dietzel and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is 21st Century America the Nation that we valued and trusted during the 20th Century? Does 21st Century America exhibit fundamental moral, ethical and economic inherent structural weakness? Washington D.C. is out of touch with these and other issues. These are the questions thinking Americans discuss and prognosticate daily. Questions relating to where America is headed during this perilous, tumultuous 21st Century. What would our 19th and 20th century ancestors say about an American culture driven by exploitation, greed, debt and bailout? What words will future generations add to describe this first adult generation of the 21st Century? Is America soft and vulnerable in ways which exhibit danger to future generations? Is American capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries now outflanked by Capitalism of 21st Century Asia? Historically no leadership country/economy has survived forever. Over the centuries all major economic former powers have softened, weakened, declined and become comparatively powerless. Is American 21st century patriotism real . . . or largely annual 4th of July show and tell? What about the Deindustrialization of America; do you support it? Perhaps support deindustrialization subliminally when you shop; without full consciousness awareness? Has the American Dream degraded away from the Land of Opportunity toward the Land of Entitlement; structured around an emerging Land of Cultural Mediocrity? And, finally, can America sustain gridlock partisan political posturing which simply does not equitably confront, discuss and solve the big issues such as those listed above? Read about American strength and weakness which simply must become clearly identified and come to solution. The sustainability of America depends upon it. On our watch!

Download or read book Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas written by Irene Taviss Thomson and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Irene Taviss Thomson gives us a nuanced portrait of American social politics that helps explain both why we are drawn to the idea of a 'culture war' and why that misrepresents what is actually going on." ---Rhys H. Williams, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Loyola University Chicago "An important work showing---beneath surface conflict---a deep consensus on a number of ideals by social elites." ---John H. Evans, Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego The idea of a culture war, or wars, has existed in America since the 1960s---an underlying ideological schism in our country that is responsible for the polarizing debates on everything from the separation of church and state, to abortion, to gay marriage, to affirmative action. Irene Taviss Thomson explores this notion by analyzing hundreds of articles addressing hot-button issues over two decades from four magazines: National Review, Time, The New Republic, and The Nation, as well as a wide array of other writings and statements from a substantial number of public intellectuals. What Thomson finds might surprise you: based on her research, there is no single cultural divide or cultural source that can account for the positions that have been adopted. While issues such as religion, homosexuality, sexual conduct, and abortion have figured prominently in public discussion, in fact there is no single thread that unifies responses to each of these cultural dilemmas for any of the writers. Irene Taviss Thomson is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, having taught in the Department of Social Sciences and History at Fairleigh Dickinson University for more than 30 years. Previously, she taught in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University.

Download or read book The Culture of Excess written by J.R. Slosar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-10-22 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of the 2008-2009 economic recession, this revealing work offers a psychological explanation of how we as a nation grapple with self-control and how we can develop a new and healthier generation. As J.R. Slosar shows in this urgent, sometimes startling volume, the nation's fast-and-loose approach to money was in fact a symptom of a more widespread pattern of excessive behavior. In The Culture of Excess: How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success, Slosar portrays an America where the drive to succeed and the fear of missing out manifested itself not only in self-entitled corporate fraud, but in everything from sharp rises in obesity and cosmetic medical procedures to equally troubling increases in eating disorders, panic attacks, and outbreaks of uncontrollable rage. The Culture of Excess is the first book to assess the impact of economic and social factors on the nation's psychological well-being. Narcissism, productive narcissism, psychopathy, rigidity and self destruction, perfectionism, the illusion of success, and identity achievement all come into play as Slosar diagnoses the psychological drivers behind this indulgent age, offering his prescription for helping "Generation Me" become "Generation We."

Download or read book The Surgeon General s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity written by and published by Office of the Surgeon General. This book was released on 2001 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Promotes the recognition, treatment, and prevention of conditions of overweight and obesity in the United States.

Download or read book The 9 9 Percent written by Matthew Stewart and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A trenchant analysis of how the wealthiest 9.9 percent of Americans -- those just below the tip of the wealth pyramid -- have exacerbated the growing inequality in our country and distorted our social values"--

Download or read book An American Sickness written by Elisabeth Rosenthal and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

Download or read book Front of Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-01-30 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the past decade, tremendous growth has occurred in the use of nutrition symbols and rating systems designed to summarize key nutritional aspects and characteristics of food products. These symbols and the systems that underlie them have become known as front-of-package (FOP) nutrition rating systems and symbols, even though the symbols themselves can be found anywhere on the front of a food package or on a retail shelf tag. Though not regulated and inconsistent in format, content, and criteria, FOP systems and symbols have the potential to provide useful guidance to consumers as well as maximize effectiveness. As a result, Congress directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to undertake a study with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to examine and provide recommendations regarding FOP nutrition rating systems and symbols. The study was completed in two phases. Phase I focused primarily on the nutrition criteria underlying FOP systems. Phase II builds on the results of Phase I while focusing on aspects related to consumer understanding and behavior related to the development of a standardized FOP system. Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols focuses on Phase II of the study. The report addresses the potential benefits of a single, standardized front-label food guidance system regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, assesses which icons are most effective with consumer audiences, and considers the systems/icons that best promote health and how to maximize their use.

Download or read book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism written by Anne Case and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller A Wall Street Journal Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year A New Statesman Book to Read From economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, a groundbreaking account of how the flaws in capitalism are fatal for America's working class Deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism are rising dramatically in the United States, claiming hundreds of thousands of American lives. Anne Case and Angus Deaton explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. This critically important book paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline, and provides solutions that can rein in capitalism's excesses and make it work for everyone.

Download or read book Against Excess written by Mark A. Kleiman and published by . This book was released on 1993-07-06 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drug-taking and drug control are alike; both are often done to excess. Against Excess shows how we can limit the damage done by drugs and the damage done by drug policies.

Download or read book These Truths A History of the United States written by Jill Lepore and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 773 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.

Download or read book A Pound of Flesh written by Alexes Harris and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2016-06-08 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over seven million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society. In A Pound of Flesh, sociologist Alexes Harris analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system and shows how they permanently penalize and marginalize the poor. She exposes the damaging effects of a little-understood component of criminal sentencing and shows how it further perpetuates racial and economic inequality. Harris draws from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. She documents how low-income defendants are affected by monetary sanctions, which include fees for public defenders and a variety of processing charges. Until these debts are paid in full, individuals remain under judicial supervision, subject to court summons, warrants, and jail stays. As a result of interest and surcharges that accumulate on unpaid financial penalties, these monetary sanctions often become insurmountable legal debts which many offenders carry for the remainder of their lives. Harris finds that such fiscal sentences, which are imposed disproportionately on low-income minorities, help create a permanent economic underclass and deepen social stratification. A Pound of Flesh delves into the court practices of five counties in Washington State to illustrate the ways in which subjective sentencing shapes the practice of monetary sanctions. Judges and court clerks hold a considerable degree of discretion in the sentencing and monitoring of monetary sanctions and rely on individual values—such as personal responsibility, meritocracy, and paternalism—to determine how much and when offenders should pay. Harris shows that monetary sanctions are imposed at different rates across jurisdictions, with little or no state government oversight. Local officials’ reliance on their own values and beliefs can also push offenders further into debt—for example, when judges charge defendants who lack the means to pay their fines with contempt of court and penalize them with additional fines or jail time. A Pound of Flesh provides a timely examination of how monetary sanctions permanently bind poor offenders to the judicial system. Harris concludes that in letting monetary sanctions go unchecked, we have created a two-tiered legal system that imposes additional burdens on already-marginalized groups.

Download or read book Alcohol and Public Policy written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1981-02-01 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Great Inflation written by Michael D. Bordo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

Download or read book On Corruption in America written by Sarah Chayes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the prizewinning journalist and internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world comes a major work that looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future. “If you want to save America, this might just be the most important book to read now." —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that the United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, she argues, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members. In this unflinching exploration of corruption in America, Chayes exposes how corruption has thrived within our borders, from the titans of America's Gilded Age (Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression, and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution--undermining this nation's proud middle class and union members. She then brings us up to the present as she shines a light on the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment and documents Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, which aimed to systematically undo the Constitution and our laws. Ultimately and most importantly, Chayes reveals how corrupt systems are organized, how they enable bad actors to bend the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they overtly determine the shape of our government, and how they affect all levels of society, especially when the corruption is overlooked and downplayed by the rich and well-educated.

Download or read book Fat Land written by Greg Critser and published by HMH. This book was released on 2004-01-05 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An in-depth, well-researched, and thoughtful exploration of the ‘fat boom’ in America.” —TheBoston Globe Low carb, high protein, raw foods . . . despite our seemingly endless obsession with fad diets, the startling truth is that six out of ten Americans are overweight or obese. In Fat Land, award-winning nutrition and health journalist Greg Critser examines the facts and societal factors behind the sensational headlines, taking on everything from supersize to Super Mario, high-fructose corn syrup to the high costs of physical education. With a sharp eye and even sharper tongue, Critser examines why pediatricians are now treating conditions rarely seen in children before; why type 2 diabetes is on the rise; the personal struggles of those with weight problems—especially among the poor—and how agribusiness has altered our waistlines. Praised by the New York Times as “absorbing” and by Newsday as “riveting,” this disarmingly funny, yet truly alarming, exposé stands as an important examination of one of the most pressing medical and social issues in the United States. “One scary book and a good companion to Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Download or read book Cultish written by Amanda Montell and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power. What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . . Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day. Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.