A Lecture (by me) on Why I Choose to Use Political Economics (instead of other methodologies)

This short lecture (20 min) describes why I choose to work from a political economic method in my Intro to Economics of Crime and Social Problems.  The alternatives are of course more commonly accepted, and I feel far less useful to my students.
Despite the awkwardness of filming lectures, and my running out of the room for 30 seconds to get a marker, I feel this is one of my more profound intro online lectures.
I hope you enjoy
https://vimeo.com/43236196
Comments are welcome.

Great Quote on Plea Bargains (Graded Online Discussions are My Favorite Thing To Read)

Just a little late night fun as I am grading...

Generally speaking I subscribe the liberal view of plea bargains.  Namely they are taken by (forced upon) the poor and disenfranchised who cannot afford good legal representation.  Just another bias against the proletariat (and lumpen proletariat) in our criminal justice system.

Sometimes I am surprised by the simple logic and beauty of arguments that I would normally never agree with.  This is a good example.

The following is a mash up of the posts of two of my students from last semester on a casual discussion board.  Outstanding! 

"A person who broke the law earned their punishment.  Why should they get less punishment just to save the state money?  Obama is just going to waste it anyway".

Student Strikes in Quebec Reach 100th Day

Here is a great photo of the protest from David Ruccio's blog:
http://anticap.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/protest-of-the-day-105/

Have "victories" been won?  Yes and no.  I am not going to go with the "overdetermined" summary here, I will save that for another post.

I would suggest that similar to elimination of the penny, (see my older blog post), in the fight against high tuition at public universities Canada is again leading the way.

A large talking point in the current election cycle seems to be the lack of job opportunity for graduates in this country, and thus their inability to pay back their student loans.  Perhaps these unemployed graduates should have spent more time fighting to keep tuition, and thus their loans, at a lower, more manageable level.  Hindsight being 20/20 of course.

Of course when your income is zero, paying back even small loans can be problematic.  As more and more graduates struggle with their payments perhaps my graduate degree will indeed become a requirement for well paying bartending jobs?  Am I ready for the increase in competition?

Some Self Promotion (Teaching a Summer Course) , and the End of my Blogging Hiatus

Grades are in at UMass (still working on the last week of classes at John Jay), and my other new job (not related to academics) has settled down.  The hope is that I will be returning to regular posting starting today.

On that note...

I am teaching two online courses this summer.

At UMass
Economics 305: Marxian Economics.  This is the Marxian course developed by the man, the legend, Steven Resnick.  It still features video lectures by Steve. 
The course runs from June 5th to July 10th.  The course is offered through continuing education so it is open to non-UMass students (as well as UMass students).
Information can be found here:
http://www.umassulearn.net/classes/summer-2012?view=class&clid=9442

At John Jay
Economics 170: Introduction to the Economics of Crime and Social Problems.  This course is designed by me, but is a hybrid of material used by Jay Hamilton and Geert Dhondt (as well as additions of my own). 
The course starts with an introduction to general economics and then moves to topics such as drugs, prostitution and white collar crime. 
The summer session at John Jay starts on May 29th.
More information about this course can be found here:
http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/_winterjj/summersch.aspx