Economy

Your fridge is ground zero, Part 2 of 2

“Hunger, in your neighborhood or anywhere in the world,
is a violation of human rights, and caused by inhumane politics.
Corporations have a responsibility to get the excess food to those who need it,
and we all have a responsibility to demand that they do.”

(Your fridge is ground zero, Part 1 of 2, 4/24/15)

Yesterday, we brought an important documentary to your attention, “Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story” (trailer here, how to screen). It revealed some sobering statistics summarized here, below which you can find some of the things you can do to fight this scourge that on our environment, making all the effects of climate change much worse.

by David McLean Flickr/creative commons

by David McLean
Flickr/creative commons

  • The US and Europe have 150-200% of the food they actually need, wasting the land by over planting to supply peak demand periods.
  • Although fruits and vegetables are the most wasted foods, their environmental impact pales in comparison to how much is wasted in the beef.
  • The amount of US-grown and -produced food that is wasted in the United States is a whopping 40%, costing $165 billion a year. The world as a whole wastes 30%.
  • While most of us might jump to the conclusion that it is restaurants, grocery stores, and farms that are doing all the wasting, it is actually consumers, you and me, who are responsible for the waste of more than half. We demand perfection, not one blemish on any fruit or vegetable, and just toss away 20% of the food we do buy.
  • The role that food waste plays in climate change cannot be understated. A full 4% of all the energy used in the US goes to the production of the food that we toss. Moreover, much of the wasted food goes to landfills increasing harmful methane emissions. And, the water we waste to produce discarded food in this country each year could instead supply a year of water to 500 million people.

You and I waste we waste about 20% of the food we buy, so what can we do to help . . .

  • Use your freezer more because practically any food can be frozen for use at a later date.
  • When you are cooking a meal, use what’s in your fridge rather than what you are “in the mood for.”
  • At the grocery store, understand expiration dates which mislead consumers. Sell By is a communication meant only for the retailer, and Use By or Best by a certain date is far short, in some case weeks or months, of the actual time you can consume the food before it is inedible.
  • Save and eat all your leftovers, yours and from restaurants. This is one of the biggest sources of wasted foods.
  • Mark a bin in your fridge that says, “Eat First.”
  • Frequent farmers market, of course, but offer to buy stuff they won’t sell because it isn’t necessarily attractive, like having one tiny defect.
  • Talk to people stocking produce and ask for expired or discarded items which you can buy at a huge discount or have for free
  • Volunteer at food banks, and work with your community to obtain and distribute more food to neighbors.
  • Encourage enterprises that turn food waste into fertilizer.
  • Become a gleaning volunteer to pick up all the food that will otherwise be left to rot in farm fields.
  • Most of all, educate yourself about food waste. It will change your life (and your fridge) forever. Start with the National Resources Defense Council.

 

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Response to Climate Change Impossible Without A Revolution in Thinking

Adrian Kenyon's The World's A Balloon Flickr/creative commons

Adrian Kenyon’s
The World’s A Balloon
Flickr/creative commons

I will continue writing about the environment for how can we hope for a new age free from racial and sexual oppression if we destroy the world with our stupid choices?

In reading Naomi Klein‘s trailblazing book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, we are destined for ecological disaster within 50 years or less. Here she succinctly lays out the challenge . . .

. . . [W]e are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate.

And, the problem . . .

Living with this kind of cognitive dissonance is simply part of being alive in this jarring moment in history, what a crisis we have been studiously ignoring is hitting us in the face — and yet we are doubling down on the stuff that is causing the crisis in the first place.

The Real News seconds these ideas, exposing just how delusional government can be in misunderstanding the urgency of our response to  climate change.

 

Every activist concerned with social and economic justice should read Ms. Klein’s book. It’s a call to action that cannot be ignored.

. . . [P]oliticians aren’t the only ones with the power to decide [this] a crises. Mass movements of regular people can declare one too.

Slavery wasn’t a crisis for British and American elites until abolitionism turned it into one. Racial discrimination wasn’t a crisis until the civil rights movement turned it into one. Sex discrimination wasn’t a crisis until feminism turned it into one. Apartheid wasn’t a crisis until the anti-aprtheid movement turned it into one.

Let’s continue the forward momentum of this nascent movement and exercise our power, our people power, to silence or remove those who stand in the way of solving this epic problem. Stay informed. Get active. Your life depends on it.

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For Labor Day: Income Inequality Dampens Economic Growth for Rich and Poor Alike

In tribute to American workers, over half of whom earn less than $15 per hour but deserve so much more, we are reprinting our coverage on income equality. Where the minimum wage is $15 the local economy is boosted, reason alone to join the movement to rectify income equality.

See also: The Wealthy and Powerful Aid Social and Powerful Social and Economic Justice Activists and List of Organizations Working on Income Equality

 

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office showed that after-tax average income ballooned 15.1% fro the top 1% of earners, but grew by less than 1% for the bottom 90% of earners. (TIME magazine, August 5, 2014)

reway2007 Flickr/creative commons

reway2007
Flickr/creative commons

Correcting income inequality is not just a social and economic justice issue. When we talk about income inequality we have to be careful to distinguish it from income equality. Angry right-wing pundits seize on the term, income equality, to scare people with images of anarchy and culture wars.

Rather we are talking about righting a wrong, income inequality, by demanding equal opportunity, especially educational opportunity.

The dollar ratio between managers and workers compensation has increased ten-fold in favor of a few upon the backs of the many (more than 2-:1, two decades ago, to over 200:1, today). That gap in earnings has more and more been based on a widening education gap, which in turn further fuels the economic decline of the middle class and those already in poverty.

How many private homes, yachts, planes, cars, and vacation can you buy, after all? The very rich tend to stockpile their money as just another expensive commodity they can look at in self-admiration, just like Scrooge McDuck.

The overall economy worsens daily, as 90% of us spend, are often forced to spend, most of our income, thereby seeding the economy, while the top 1-9% sits on their excess wealth, again,  earned from the sweat of others. How many private homes, yachts, planes, cars, and vacation can you buy, after all?

There is a report out this week from Standard & Poor’s (S&P) that newly re-arms social and economic justice advocates. S&P is a respected Wall Street ratings entity that helps investors and top earners to become more wealthy through non-partisan presentations of financial facts and predictions. Now it has delivered a hard truth: unequal wealth distribution hurts the overall economy, actually creating recessions, inhibiting investments, and keeping us in harmful boom-and-bust scenarios.

The report cites the education gap as “a main reason for the growing income divide.”

With wages of a college graduate double that of a high school graduate, increasing educational attainment is an effective way to bring income inequality back to healthy levels.”

If we added another year of education to the American workforce from 2014 to 2019, in line with education levels increasing at the rate of educational achievement seen from 1960 to 1965, U.S. potential GDP would likely be $525 billion, or 2.4% higher in five years, than in the baseline. If education levels were increasing at the rate they were 15 years ago, the level of potential GDP would be 1%, or $185 billion higher in five years.

This education gap is a main reason for the growing income divide, and it affects both wages and net worth. From a wage perspective, occupations that typically require postsecondary education generally paid much higher median wages ($57,770 in 2012)–more than double those occupations that typically require a high school diploma or less ($27,670 in 2012).

But you first must have the opportunity to pay for higher education and that’s harder and harder to do as you go down the economic scale. If you care about social and economic justice or just care about a thriving economy or if you are a human capable of logical thinking, you know that major changes that increase access to a college education, without saddling people with decades of student debt, should be a matter of immediate importance.  

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Check back tomorrow for a starting list of wealthy and/or powerful people who already understand the problem, and can be tapped to help activists bring this movement further into the mainstream.

Also see: United for a Fair Economy (UFE)  2011 Annual Report 

And, for those who like your info on video, here is Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s The Last Word, summing up many of S&P’s conclusions . . .

 

 

List of Organizations Working on Income Inequality

Inequality-Related Organizations and Institutions

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

We’ve spent the last few days tweeting and writing on this website to draw more people’s attention to the scourge of income inequality. There’s really no time to spare. Rectifying income inequality is the one and only solution to rescuing our failing economy, but it is also a matter of life and death.

We published a list of wealthy and powerful folks who understand the problem and what needs to be done who can be tapped as resources, sponsors, and donors. Today, we are publishing this list of organizations compiled by inequality.org, which you can join and/or work in coalition with, or consult as a guides to your own activism.

 

ORGANIZING PROJECTS

  • New Economy Working Group An informal think tank-media-business network alliance working to distribute and root economic power in people and communities, support the cooperative sharing of resources, and give priority to building the community wealth essential to the health and well-being of all.
  • Other 98 Percent A grassroots network of concerned citizens fed up with the status quo in Washington that’s seeking practical solutions to help Americans stand against the bankers, CEOs, and lobbyists who’ve hijacked our democracy to serve themselves at the expense of everyone else.
  • US UNCUT. A national grassroots movement drawing attention through direct action to unnecessary state and federal budget cuts in light of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes by corporate tax dodgers.
  • Common Security Club A network of locally based groups, situated in communities and congregations, that help participants learn more about today’s economic and ecological challenges, undertake mutual aid and shared action, and become part of a larger effort to create a fair and healthy economy that works for everyone.
  • Mind the Gap. An educational effort, sponsored by NETWORK, the national Catholic social justice lobby, that aims to help build understanding “about the causes and consequences of this huge wealth gap.”

ADVOCACY GROUPS

  • Wealth for Common Good A network of business leaders and high-income Americans working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation, with members who range from entrepreneurs and doctors to elected officials of all backgrounds and political stripes.
  • Business for Shared Prosperity Business owners, executives, and investors who support public policies and business practices that expand economic opportunity, reduce inequality, promote innovation, and rebuild our nation’s infrastructure for long-term success.
  • United for a Fair Economy A national group working to raise awareness about how concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart.
  • On the Commons. A national network working to protect the commons and our commonwealth in ways that promote equity and sustainability.

THINK TANKS

  • Economic Policy Institute This Washington D.C. center has been broadening the discussion about economic policy to cover the interests of low- and middle-income workers since 1986.
  • Demos A New York City-based nonpartisan public policy research and advocacy organization working for a more equitable economy with widely shared prosperity and opportunity, among other goals.
  • Institute for Policy Studies A Washington, D.C. and Boston-based community of public scholars and organizers working with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power.
  • Center for Economic and Policy Research.  A national research organization working to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people’s lives.
  • Center on Budget and Policy Priorities A Washington, D.C.-based policy organization working at the federal and state levels on policies and programs that impact low- and moderate-income families and individuals.
  • Institute for Women’s Policy Research. A rigorous research group that explores how poverty and inequality affect women and also examines pay inequality between women and men.

INEQUALITY ANALYSIS

  • The Equality Trust A London-based effort, founded in 2009, that aims to reduce income inequality through a public and political education designed to widen understanding of the harm that income inequality inflicts on our modern societies.
  • Citizens for Tax Justice A Washington, D.C.-based public interest research and advocacy organization that seeks to give ordinary people a greater voice in tax policy, against the armies of special interest lobbyists for corporations and the wealthy.
  • Luxembourg Income Study A cross-national data archive and research institute based in Luxembourg that offers scholars and the general public alike access to comparative inequality indicators and commentary.
  • The Gini Project An interdisciplinary effort that draws on economics, sociology, political science, and health studies to examine the social impact of growing inequality.
  • Population Health Forum A Seattle-based initiative designed to raise awareness and initiate dialogue about how political, economic, and social inequalities interact to affect the overall health status of our society.

ACADEMIC CENTERS

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See also: Income Inequality Dampens Economic Growth for Rich and Poor Alikeand The Wealthy and Powerful Aid Social and Economic Justice Activists.

 

The Wealthy and Powerful Aid Social and Economic Justice Activists

10 Business Leaders that Just Say No to Income Equality

by Vince Lamb Flickr/creative commons

by Vince Lamb
Flickr/creative commons

A recent report from Standard & Poor’s (S&P) led us to examine more closely how income inequality dampens growth for rich in poor alike. Conservatives, as well as progressives, are beginning to better understand some of the underlying causes, and what can be done. Safety net programs such as social security and food stamps are not the culprit. Actually at fault are things like tax cuts for the highest earners, the tendency of rich people to accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulation without putting some back into the economy, and growing gaps in educational opportunity which inhibit social mobility.

Capital and Main collaborated with The Huffington Post to spotlight some powerful people who already understand the problem and are available now to be tapped as resources, sponsors, and donors in the struggle for social and economic justice. We have paraphrased it slightly (with credit) and added some hyperlinks  to help you on your way to greater advocacy on this important issue.

Here it is. Go get ’em!

  • Ben & Jerry’s ice cream co-founder Ben Cohen founded TrueMajority to stem the financial bailout of banks, and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities to help transfer taxpayer money from military programs to education and health care.
  • Multinational investment manager Morris Pearl is a member of Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength which favors the end of tax cuts for the wealthy.
  • Library software entrepreneur Stephen M. Silberstein endorses corporate tax rates that tie CEO pay to average worker income, and executive-produced Robert Reich’s documentary Inequality for All.
  • Early Amazon.com investor Nick Hanauer has gone on record saying that the middle class consumer is the driver of job creation, advocating for higher median incomes instead of tax cuts for people with high incomes.
  • Republican Ron Unz seeks to raise the minimum wage because it is a conservative issue: If low-wage workers have more money, taxpayers will have to pay less for social programs.
  • Former CEO of AT&T Broadband Leo Hindery, Jr., supports the right of all Americans to join a union.
  • Board member of major corporations Erskine Bowles favors repealing tax breaks for companies moving jobs overseas, expanding “wage insurance” programs to give support to workers forced to work lower paying jobs, and creating nonprofit community development corporations. 
  • Retired civil rights attorney and major Democratic Party donor Guy T. Saperstein is a leading advocate for public option health care, and cautions against a possible President Hillary Clinton because of her close ties to Wall Street.
  • Shout! Factory CEO and philanthropist Richard Foos helps numerous community support organizations such as Chrysalis, which helps to train and employ the long-term unemployed.
  • Investment banker turned Columbia University Professor Eric J. Schoenberg joined the debate about economic inequality by revealing his own tax records in an article for the Huffington Post, pointing out that while the average American family with an income of $55,000 a year pays an effective 5.5 percent tax, Schoenberg pays only one percent.