Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

What Can’t It Do? European Austerity Policies Now Giving the World Anti-Matter, Clones

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Most people associate brain drain with developing nations. The idea being: a country that can't support its most talented minds will lose them to places that can. Most don't come back. That's now happening in southern Europe. Two cases just this week showed how the need to save five figures in salaries now could cost cash-strapped nations nine or 10 figures in valuable research down the line. Earlier this week we heard the ridiculous story of 30-year-old Diego Martinez Santos, a modest genius from Galicia, Spain, who has been doing research in Holland. Santos had just been voted "the most ... Read More

Austerity Is Hurting Our Health

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LONDON (Reuters) - Austerity is having a devastating effect on health in Europe and North America, driving suicide, depression, and infectious diseases and reducing access to medicines and care, researchers said on Monday. Detailing a decade of research, Oxford University political economist David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, an assistant professor of medicine and an epidemiologist at Stanford University, said their findings show austerity is seriously bad for health. In a book to be published this week, the researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression ... Read More

Economics: Red Cross Getting Tired of Carrying Austerity Fallout

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It's hard to find much silver lining in Europe's now-five-year-long economic collapse. But: at least could shift how what it means to be a "rich" or "poor" country. The trusty Voice of America reports today that the Red Cross, which first began as a stretcher-bearer's service on European battlefields, is now having trouble answering all the requests for basic needs from austerity-wracked European populations. Including such notable trouble spots as...Copenhagen? According to the Red Cross numbers, local chapters in Denmark, which tracked Christmas handouts since 2009, faced a 100 percent ... Read More

Letter from Spain: Inside The Maternity Ward

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Barcelona — Of the European movies that aren’t available with English subtitles, Bienvenido Mister Marshall is among the most frustrating. A brutal 1952 satire by Luis Garcia Berlanga the film tells the story of a small town suffering under the Franco dictatorship. Someone invents a story that the Americans are coming to town, bringing their Marshall Plan and prosperity. The town’s residents hold an ecstatic, ridiculous welcome for the Yanks, singing in expectation: Americans, they’re coming to Spain! Handsome and healthy! Long live the wealth of this great and powerful ... Read More