Americans’ grocery bills reflect only a third of a true cost of food, according to a new report, which evaluated factors including healthcare costs, spending associated with biodiversity loss, and the direct environmental impacts of farming and ranching to determine that the U.S. spends at least $3.2 trillion on food each year.

Officially the cost is believed to be $1.1 trillion, but as the Rockefeller Foundation explains in its report, True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the U.S. Food System, (pdf) “our food system rings up immense ‘hidden costs’ from its impact on human health, the environment, and social and economic inequity.” It continues, “We’re actually getting squeezed. Society pays that balance not out of our pockets but through other means like rising healthcare costs, effects of climate change, and food workers who are often underpaid and undervalued.”

The report reads “And, if we don’t change our food system, future generations will pay those high costs, too.”

“Clinicians should be demanding a transformation of our food system,” tweeted Dr Gaurab Basu, co-director of the Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy.

Including Environmental and Health Costs, True Price of Food Is 3 Times What Americans Pay, Report Finds | Common Dreams News

 Note. Members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, our companion party in the UK, have recently been engaged in discussions with members of the Russian group Left Socialist Action (LSA), whose Russian-language website Is levsd.ru. This is a translation of one of the articles on that website, by Ivan Levchenko, a member of the Petersburg branch of LSA. It was posted on May 1, 2021, at a time when open hostilities between Russia and Ukraine appeared to be imminent. The original is here. –SS

As military equipment is moved closer to the border [with Ukraine–SS], the constant noise of propaganda assaults us from all sides. Pro-government experts and journalists, politicians and TV commentators promise gullible people that the start of a new war will inaugurate a long-awaited new era. Yet again they will present this war as “the will of the people.” As an experiment, however, try asking your friends and acquaintances or simply passersby whether they want it, and I am sure that the overwhelming majority will say no. Yes, there are also quite a few people who still believe in the policy of “ingathering the lands” and “we can do it again” but are convinced that if hostilities begin they will be unaffected and, as Zhirinovsky said, “the whole of your America will end up underwater.” However, the further we get from the tragic turning point of 2014 the less there remains of such enthusiasm. Endless sanctions, a destructive crisis, an isolation that seems everlasting.

But this is not even the most terrible thing. The grimmest and bloodiest images of the past are being romanticized. Parallels, sometimes terrible and sometimes absurd, are drawn between current and past eras. In this way, they try to persuade us that there is no development and no change, no future, no progress, no peace, no democracy, no human beings as independent personalities. There is nothing except eternal state power and eternal war. But when we encounter cruel reality without the mask of sacred mystique, we see that the almost deified “tsar” and “leader” is really no more than a highly placed corrupt bureaucrat. Instead of the materialization of some sort of metaphysical “struggle of good against evil” we find cynical political moves to improve their own ratings. There is absolutely nothing to which they will not resort In order to preserve this illusion. They will imprison scholars and activists; they will corral us into the confines of their senseless laws while themselves violating them; they will impose their obscurantism on absolutely everyone, even school students; they will pervert everything within their reach; but in the final analysis they will deceive themselves. And this will be the cause of their downfall.

Today we not only observe but also sense this agony of the imperial project, which has reached the point of self-negation and inner dissolution. This could have been halted had Putin and his supporters at the top found the strength to withdraw in time and sacrifice their power for the sake of the country’s future. But they have decided to go in the opposite direction and sacrifice the future to the past, the lives, freedom, and happiness of the people to their own ambitions. Of course, eventually this will all end. But least of all do we wish that people – including young people, who will have to build a new country – should again be sacrificed in geopolitical games. 

What then can we say to our generation, as well as to those older or younger than us? Value Life and defend it against those who will try by means of force or deceit to turn you into their tools for use in their intrigues. There are people who will always treat you as equals, share woe and joy with you, and love you as you are. And there are also those whom you have never seen — and are hardly likely ever to see — in the flesh, although they tell you that you must sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of theirs. Neither they nor their sons nor their grandsons will be with you in the same dugout. They will not even remember you. They will betray you, just as their predecessors betrayed the soldiers in Chechnya, because the true essence of this state power, alas, remains the same. And as the Lumen band sing: “Those who send you into the final battle will not die together with you.”

We don’t need this war | World Socialist Party of the US (wspus.org)

 Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to some researchers. The rapidly growing impacts of global heating being seen around the world suggest not, meaning political action will be needed.

An investigation commissioned by the government, explains the damage the current food and farming system inflicts upon the environment, as well as our health. It is the biggest destroyer of nature and a major source of climate warming, it says. The Climate Change Committee report recommends that meat consumption is cut by 30% within a decade. The suggested 30% target can be met by “nudges” to behaviour and replacement of meat by plant-based alternatives. It ruled out a meat tax. Food is deeply embedded in culture, and lecturing people on their diets is the wrong approach. 

 “Our current appetite for meat is unsustainable,” it says. “85% of farmland is used to feed livestock and we need some of that land back.”

85% of land provides only 32% of the calories we eat, it says: “By contrast, the 15% of farmland that is used to grow plant crops for human consumption provides 68% of our calories.” 

The report also tackles the myth that grass-fed livestock is greener, saying: “The more intensively you rear some animals, the more carbon-efficient they tend to be.”

Many other scientific studies have concluded much higher cuts in rich, western nations are needed if the climate crisis is to be halted.

One major analysis concluded Europeans and North Americans need to cut meat eating by 80% for their diet to be both climate-friendly and healthy.

 Another said a 90% cut in beef eating was required to beat global heating. 

Marco Springmann, at the University of Oxford, said: “The report shies away from recommending decisive policies that would help citizens reduce their meat consumption by highlighting the public opposition to meat taxes. However, its own polling indicated that 75% of respondents either supported or were not opposed to taxes on some meats.” He pointed out that “Behavioural science suggests targeted dietary changes are unlikely to be achievable without comprehensive measures, including fiscal incentives and mandates,” he said, alongside clear recognition from policymakers of the damage that meat causes.

Change is happening anyway, with most people already accepting they should eat less meat, be that for environmental, health or animal welfare reasons. Public sector caterers serving billions of meals a year in schools, universities, hospitals and care homes pledged in April 2020 ​​to cut the amount of meat they serve by 20%.

Food strategy for England calls for big cut in meat consumption | Meat industry | The Guardian

 Armin Laschet, the premier of the North Rhine-Westphalia state in Germany, blamed the extreme weather on global warming during a visit to a hard-hit area. 

Canada amidst ecological damaging heatwaves and an economic destroying pandemic is planning to spend tens of billions of dollars on fighter jets.

The Canadian government wishes to buy 88 warplanes at an initial cost of about $19 billion but the full life cycle cost of the planes is said to be closer to $77 billion. 

 Canada has bombed Libya, Iraq, Serbia, and Syria. Many innocent people were killed directly or as a result of the destruction of civilian infrastructure and those operations prolonged conflicts and contributed to refugee crises.

Opinion | 100 Public Figures Oppose Trudeau’s $77 Billion Fighter Jet Purchase | Canadian Foreign Policy Institute (commondreams.org)

 More than 100 developing countries have set out their key negotiating demands ahead of the COP26 climate meeting in Glasgow. These include funding for poorer nations to fight and adapt to climate change and compensation for the impacts they will be subjected to. Without progress on these points, they say that COP26 will be worthless and will end in failure.

 Freedom Days

Stadia are filling, crowds are crowding back.

The mask slips, though international vaccine lags,

Pubs are pulling pints again; who needs track

And trace? Meanwhile, the infection count drags

The graph line sharper, as work discipline

Is being restored and inflation rises.

The world is still there for workers to win

Away from the grasp of capitals’ misers.

‘Nothing’ll be the same again!’ it was said

When the NHS was being applauded,

But now, the leaders are telling the led

Even vague promises can’t be afforded.

Unless the wealthy are relieved of our wealth

Of course, to secure everyone’s future health.

D. A. 

 A record number of Americans died from drug overdoses last year.

93,331 Americans died of overdoses in 2020 – a nearly 30% increase from the previous year.

 The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that the drug’s makers Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK, now known as Accord-UK, used their position as the sole providers of hydrocortisone to inflate the price of the drug. Tens of thousands of people in the UK depend on hydrocortisone tablets to treat adrenal insufficiency, which includes life-threatening conditions such as Addison’s disease.

The UK’s competition watchdog has imposed fines totalling more than £260m on pharmaceutical companies after an investigation found that they overcharged the NHS.

The companies were able to inflate the price of hydrocortisone tablets by more than 10,000% compared with the original branded version on sale in 2008. This meant the amount the NHS had to pay for a single pack of 10mg tablets rose from 70p in April 2008 to £88 by March 2016. Before April 2008, the NHS spent about £500,000 a year on hydrocortisone tablets but this had risen to more than £80m by 2016.  companies also paid would-be rivals to stay out of the market.

Andrea Coscelli, the chief executive of the CMA. explained, “The actions of these firms cost the NHS – and therefore taxpayers – hundreds of millions of pounds.”

UK drug companies fined £260m for inflating prices for NHS | Pharmaceuticals industry | The Guardian

Migrants are the easy target as scapegoats for economic woes. It is not new. Blaming migrants for lower wages growth is easy and simplistic.

Last week, Philip Lowe, the head of the Australia Reserve Bank suggested migration could have caused lower wages growth. He commented the hiring of migrants brought in to deal with “specific gaps where workers are in short supply … dilutes the upward pressure on wages in these hotspots”.

This is not altogether startling, but he then added,  “…it is possible that there are spillovers to the rest of the labour market”.

The problem is, as Lowe noted earlier in his speech, “immigration adds to both the supply of, and demand for, labour”.

Essentially migrants increase the supply of people looking for work, but also the demand for things that need people to work to provide. In effect – both taking away and adding to the pressures on wages. Nothing in Lowe’s speech suggested that migration had a stronger impact on wages growth going down than up.

A number of economists were quite dismayed that the head of the central bank should stoke the anti-migration fires – especially, as Australian National University economist Ryan Edwards noted on Twitter, it goes against a vast majority of economic scholarship.

Most studies suggest migration has a positive impact on wages growth.

This is because migrants, as was noted in an article published in the Oxford Economic Papers journal in 2020, “perform complementary tasks, rather than substitutable tasks, in the labour market” – ie they don’t take your job, they work with or for you.

The positive finding is consistent with the landmark study led by ANU economist Robert Breunig in 2016 which found “almost no evidence that outcomes for those born in Australia have been harmed by immigration”.

A recent update by Gabriela D’Souza found that “wages are positively correlated with proportion of migrants” and “immigration has largely been a positive for incumbent workers”.

Even a study published in May by the Melbourne Institute which looked at the specific impact on youth workers found that young foreign students increase the competition for work for under 25s, but they also now have to compete with older workers who are staying in their jobs longer.

The government was reducing the budget deficit – in effect reducing demand in the economy – and all the while was arguing for smaller minimum wage rises and capping public sector wages.

We also had a collapse of the bargaining system, which reduced enterprise agreements and reduced strikes.

When the system makes it harder to bargain for wages rises, not surprisingly wages don’t rise as fast.

Blaming migrants for Australia’s lower wages growth is easy but too simplistic | Greg Jericho | The Guardian