Bryan Walsh writes for Time magazine.
While the team behind The Cove, the hidden-camera documentary about dolphin slaughter in Japan, was in Los Angeles last week accepting an Oscar for Best Documentary, it took a detour to help carry out another undercover sting operation — this time at a Santa Monica sushi restaurant.
Together with federal officials, the team members discovered evidence that a restaurant called the Hump — really — was secretly serving whale meat, in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. When confronted, the restaurant accepted responsibility for serving whale, and now faces a fine of up to $200,000. As Andre Birotte Jr., a U.S. Attorney on the case, told the New York Times, "Someone should not be able to walk into a restaurant and order a plate of an endangered species."
Which leads to the question — who would possibly eat whale meat?
Well, for one: me.
Before you begin flooding the Internet with electronic hate mail — or contacting the nearest U.S. attorney — you should know that my eating whale was a onetime thing, as part of my reporting, and it happened in Japan, where eating whale is not only legal but sometimes considered a national right. (Japan is not the only country to refuse to accept the whaling ban, but it's the only one that pursues whale in any significant way.)
In June 2005 I attended an annual whale-tasting event held by the Japanese Whaling Association at the national legislature in Tokyo. Restaurants from around Japan served their best cetacean recipes — whale sushi, whale sashimi, whale on crackers, canned whale, whale with Osaka noodles — to black-suited Japanese legislators, who grazed from one table to the next.
So I had to try it. When you cover a whale-tasting event, you have to taste whale. And morality aside, I can tell you that whale meat isn't good. As sushi and sashimi, it was fatty and chewy with a bland, blubbery taste — like salmon that's been kept out too long. The one exception was the whale noodle dish, but I'm going to say its success had more to do with the noodles and spicy broth than it did with the whale. All in all, the experience made it hard for me to keep a straight face when people referred to whale as a "delicacy." It was like eating leftovers from a submarine.
Indeed, even in Japan, whale meat isn't that popular. Though some coastal towns have hunted whale for centuries, relatively few Japanese ate whale regularly before the postwar years, which is when it took off. What changed? Blame U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, head of the U.S. occupation of Japan, who thought whale meat would be a cheap source of protein for an impoverished country and effectively launched the modern Japanese whaling industry. A generation of Japanese schoolchildren grew up accustomed to having whale in their lunch boxes.
But it's been decades since Japan could be described as impoverished, and a 2008 survey found that 95% of Japanese either eat whale meat very rarely or not at all. The fishing company that owns Japan's whaling ships estimated that annual per capita consumption from its catch might amount to less than four slices of sashimi a year. If Japanese whaling — which is allowed under the international ban only on a very small scale, as "scientific research" — ended tomorrow, your average salaryman in Osaka would barely notice.
And yet the whale wars continue — and even seem to be worsening. In January a vessel belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a group that tries to disrupt Japanese whaling on the high seas, was badly damaged in a collision with a Japanese whaling ship. On March 12, the Japanese Coast Guard in Tokyo arrested Peter Bethune, a member of Sea Shepherd, after he tried to board a whaling ship without permission in February. Yet Sea Shepherd — the subject of the popular Animal Planet reality show Whale Wars — isn't holding back. "Nothing is going to keep us from trying to save whales," says Laurens de Groot, a deckhand on a Sea Shepherd vessel. "We're not going to stop."
But neither is Japan. In part, the Japanese may be protecting their right to whale as a stand-in for a separate issue they actually care about: fishing for bluefin tuna, which is popular in sushi. The Japanese eat an estimated 80% of the world's catch of the species, which many scientists believe is in danger of being fished out of existence. If Japan holds the line on whaling, the argument goes, it would send a signal that limits on bluefin tuna aren't up for debate either.
We'll see if that message gets through. At the meeting of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, beginning on March 13 in Doha, the E.U. and U.S. will push for a ban on international trade of the bluefin. Japan has already said it would oppose the ban, but Tokyo faces an uphill battle. "A ban is the only possibility to prevent a total collapse of this species," says Sergei Tudela, Atlantic bluefin tuna expert for the World Wildlife Fund.
But there is more than just fish politics and food culture at stake for Japan when it comes to whaling. Even though few Japanese ever sit down to a plate of whale sashimi, they still resist viscerally the idea that the international community could force Japan to stop whaling. A country that arguably never returned to full sovereignty after World War II — its constitution greatly limits its military, and U.S. armed forces are still based throughout Japan — can get tired of the world telling it what to do. As a Japanese chef told me at that whale festival in 2005, "If other people don't want to eat whale, that's fine. But we should be allowed to do what we want." A side of national pride makes a blubbery dinner go down a lot easier.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
On Leadership: A step-by-step plan for the Catholic Church
Bill George, a management professor at Harvard Business School, has some management advice for Pope Benedict.
Q: Pope Benedict XVI's efforts to deal with the Church's sex scandal raises this question: Can a leader hold managers to account on an issue where his own past performance is in question?
Pope Benedict XVI is facing the greatest crisis of his long career. It's not just his leadership of the Vatican that is on the line, but the reputation of the entire Roman Catholic Church. If the Pope fails to face the reality that problems of pedophilia by priests have brought on the church, many Catholics may lose faith that their church leaders practice the same high moral standards that they preach. This situation is ironic for a Pope whose hallmark has been enforcing moral and sexual standards for one billion of the faithful. Does he have any choice but to require his priests to do the same?
Why is it so hard for the Vatican and especially this Pope to face reality? Is it denial? A cover-up? A double standard? Or simply a desire to protect its own leaders?
First of all, doing so means acknowledging that the church in not dealing as harshly with sexual deviants as civil law and basic morality would require. To suggest that these problems are limited to very few priests or a distant problem corrected long ago only accentuates public denial of the depth of these problems and widespread knowledge of them throughout the church hierarchy.
While addressing a crisis of this magnitude is painful, it must start with the Pope admitting mistakes the Vatican has made, including his own. Next, the Pope needs to deal as aggressively with past defenders as would be expected in a court of law. Then, he needs to install a compliance system that will prevent future occurrences and ensure the early identification of offenders. Finally, Pope Benedict XVI needs to make the Vatican itself much more transparent in order to prevent covering up problems in the future.
These steps, which are similar to what would be expected in government, public corporations, or other religious denominations, are required to protect children who believe in their church. Their protection is far more important than preventing wayward priests from being held to high moral standards.
Q: Pope Benedict XVI's efforts to deal with the Church's sex scandal raises this question: Can a leader hold managers to account on an issue where his own past performance is in question?
Pope Benedict XVI is facing the greatest crisis of his long career. It's not just his leadership of the Vatican that is on the line, but the reputation of the entire Roman Catholic Church. If the Pope fails to face the reality that problems of pedophilia by priests have brought on the church, many Catholics may lose faith that their church leaders practice the same high moral standards that they preach. This situation is ironic for a Pope whose hallmark has been enforcing moral and sexual standards for one billion of the faithful. Does he have any choice but to require his priests to do the same?
Why is it so hard for the Vatican and especially this Pope to face reality? Is it denial? A cover-up? A double standard? Or simply a desire to protect its own leaders?
First of all, doing so means acknowledging that the church in not dealing as harshly with sexual deviants as civil law and basic morality would require. To suggest that these problems are limited to very few priests or a distant problem corrected long ago only accentuates public denial of the depth of these problems and widespread knowledge of them throughout the church hierarchy.
While addressing a crisis of this magnitude is painful, it must start with the Pope admitting mistakes the Vatican has made, including his own. Next, the Pope needs to deal as aggressively with past defenders as would be expected in a court of law. Then, he needs to install a compliance system that will prevent future occurrences and ensure the early identification of offenders. Finally, Pope Benedict XVI needs to make the Vatican itself much more transparent in order to prevent covering up problems in the future.
These steps, which are similar to what would be expected in government, public corporations, or other religious denominations, are required to protect children who believe in their church. Their protection is far more important than preventing wayward priests from being held to high moral standards.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Mother Jones: The Man Who Almost Killed Health Reform
Rep. Bart Stupak, while sincerely committed to the pro-life position, was sincerely determined to see health reform pass. In the case of Richard Doerflinger, a senior analyst with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a key architect of their anti-abortion campaign, the commitment to health reform is much less clear, as Mother Jones magazine reports. An excerpt:
Like many other Catholic groups, the bishops have long advocated for universal health care. But as abortion moved to the forefront of the health care debate, a schism occurred. As the health care bill neared a vote in the House last November, Stupak claimed that by providing tax credits to help people buy insurance, the legislation would result in government money being used to pay for abortions. With Doerflinger’s help, he drafted an amendment that required women to purchase a separate "rider" policy with their own money if they wanted abortion coverage. When the action shifted to the Senate, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) inserted slightly different anti-abortion language requiring women who receive tax credits to cut a separate check to pay for the part of their insurance policy that would cover abortion. Many Catholic groups who favored health care reform decided that the Senate anti-abortion provisions were acceptable. By late March, Catholic nuns, the Catholic Health Association, and many individual pro-life faith leaders had admitted publicly that the Senate bill would not fund abortion, and expressed support for the Democrats' plan.
But the bishops wouldn't budge. Doerflinger insisted that the Senate bill would still lead to federal financing of abortion, and that only the House version would do. Soon, the ostensibly pro-reform bishops had joined forces with a coalition of conservative groups who had no desire to see a health care bill pass. These included Focus on the Family and the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), which attacked the Democrats' plan as "death care" and warned that it would lead to the "rationing" of medical treatment.
Before long, liberal Catholics were questioning the motives of Doerflinger and the bishops in aligning themselves with these right-wing groups. In mid-March, the National Catholic Reporter slammed the bishops for embracing a "red herring" argument served up by the NRLC that the Senate bill would allow community health centers to fund abortions. In fact, community health care centers have never performed abortions and there was no plan for them to do so in future. "The bishops have to be clear that some of their talking points might lead honest observers to question their competence—or worse," the National Catholic Reporter concluded. (Doerflinger declined to respond to follow-up questions regarding the community health centers issue.)
...
Stupak pushed Doerflinger's position almost until the very end. On March 17, he told Fox News that he didn’t listen to nuns when drafting pro-life language, and instead relied on "leading bishops, Focus on the Family, and The National Right to Life Committee." But four days later, on the day of the final vote, he abruptly changed course. Over the bishops' objections, he accepted the White House’s compromise: an executive order reiterating that no government money would be used to pay for abortions.
In the days since Stupak voted for the bill, relations between his bloc and the bishops have soured. "The church does have some work to do in dealing with frayed nerves and divisions on policy questions," Doerflinger told Catholic News Service. Last week, Stupak attacked the bishops and other anti-abortion groups for "great hypocrisy" in opposing Obama's executive order after having supported former President George W. Bush's executive order banning stem cell research in 2007. He told the Daily Caller he believed the bishops and the groups they were allied with were "just using the life issue to try to bring down health-care reform." In other words, he suspected he was wrong to trust that his former allies were acting in good faith.
Like many other Catholic groups, the bishops have long advocated for universal health care. But as abortion moved to the forefront of the health care debate, a schism occurred. As the health care bill neared a vote in the House last November, Stupak claimed that by providing tax credits to help people buy insurance, the legislation would result in government money being used to pay for abortions. With Doerflinger’s help, he drafted an amendment that required women to purchase a separate "rider" policy with their own money if they wanted abortion coverage. When the action shifted to the Senate, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) inserted slightly different anti-abortion language requiring women who receive tax credits to cut a separate check to pay for the part of their insurance policy that would cover abortion. Many Catholic groups who favored health care reform decided that the Senate anti-abortion provisions were acceptable. By late March, Catholic nuns, the Catholic Health Association, and many individual pro-life faith leaders had admitted publicly that the Senate bill would not fund abortion, and expressed support for the Democrats' plan.
But the bishops wouldn't budge. Doerflinger insisted that the Senate bill would still lead to federal financing of abortion, and that only the House version would do. Soon, the ostensibly pro-reform bishops had joined forces with a coalition of conservative groups who had no desire to see a health care bill pass. These included Focus on the Family and the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), which attacked the Democrats' plan as "death care" and warned that it would lead to the "rationing" of medical treatment.
Before long, liberal Catholics were questioning the motives of Doerflinger and the bishops in aligning themselves with these right-wing groups. In mid-March, the National Catholic Reporter slammed the bishops for embracing a "red herring" argument served up by the NRLC that the Senate bill would allow community health centers to fund abortions. In fact, community health care centers have never performed abortions and there was no plan for them to do so in future. "The bishops have to be clear that some of their talking points might lead honest observers to question their competence—or worse," the National Catholic Reporter concluded. (Doerflinger declined to respond to follow-up questions regarding the community health centers issue.)
...
Stupak pushed Doerflinger's position almost until the very end. On March 17, he told Fox News that he didn’t listen to nuns when drafting pro-life language, and instead relied on "leading bishops, Focus on the Family, and The National Right to Life Committee." But four days later, on the day of the final vote, he abruptly changed course. Over the bishops' objections, he accepted the White House’s compromise: an executive order reiterating that no government money would be used to pay for abortions.
In the days since Stupak voted for the bill, relations between his bloc and the bishops have soured. "The church does have some work to do in dealing with frayed nerves and divisions on policy questions," Doerflinger told Catholic News Service. Last week, Stupak attacked the bishops and other anti-abortion groups for "great hypocrisy" in opposing Obama's executive order after having supported former President George W. Bush's executive order banning stem cell research in 2007. He told the Daily Caller he believed the bishops and the groups they were allied with were "just using the life issue to try to bring down health-care reform." In other words, he suspected he was wrong to trust that his former allies were acting in good faith.
Health Reform Watch: First administrative problem with health reform
Ezra Klein, who blogs on the Washington Post, reports that insurance companies initially tried to weasel out of the requirement to immediately. cover all kids regardless of pre-existing conditions. They agreed that, for kids they actually insured, they could not exclude pre-existing conditions. However, they argued that they were not subject to guarantee issue requirements and that they would not need to offer insurance to sick kids.
Clearly, Congress intended to have all kids covered. The insurers read the law correctly but they would not have been following the spirit of the law. This is irrelevant: the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, was infuriated and threatened to clarify in regulation that the insurers were subject to guarantee issue. The insurers have folded. If they had been willing to accept a PR disaster, the substantive consequences would not have been terrible, since most such children would be eligible for the Children's Health Insurance Program, the publicly-sponsored kids' insurance program which covers uninsured children. In any case, the insurers would have found it difficult to justify not covering children for obvious reasons - kids are ahead of even the military, small businesses and kittens in terms of public sympathy.
This does highlight the considerable challenge that HHS and other government entities will face in the years to come. It's simply not possible to write a law to cover every contingency - and some folks were already complaining about the 2700-page bill. We clarify a lot of the law in regulations. However, when the exchanges are up and running, a lot more wrinkles will surface at the exact same time. HHS and state agencies will need to be on their collective guard. Consumer representatives will need to hold their governments accountable.
Clearly, Congress intended to have all kids covered. The insurers read the law correctly but they would not have been following the spirit of the law. This is irrelevant: the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, was infuriated and threatened to clarify in regulation that the insurers were subject to guarantee issue. The insurers have folded. If they had been willing to accept a PR disaster, the substantive consequences would not have been terrible, since most such children would be eligible for the Children's Health Insurance Program, the publicly-sponsored kids' insurance program which covers uninsured children. In any case, the insurers would have found it difficult to justify not covering children for obvious reasons - kids are ahead of even the military, small businesses and kittens in terms of public sympathy.
This does highlight the considerable challenge that HHS and other government entities will face in the years to come. It's simply not possible to write a law to cover every contingency - and some folks were already complaining about the 2700-page bill. We clarify a lot of the law in regulations. However, when the exchanges are up and running, a lot more wrinkles will surface at the exact same time. HHS and state agencies will need to be on their collective guard. Consumer representatives will need to hold their governments accountable.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Health Reform Watch: The Tax Foundation: How Health Reform is Financed
The Tax Foundation is an anti-tax foundation in DC. I disagree with many of their positions. However, they do have an informative graph of how the taxes in the health reform bill break down.
Main Components in Net Cuts to Medicare ($416.5 billion)
Reductions in annual updates to Medicare FFS payment rates = $196 billion cut
Medicare Advantage rates based upon fee-for-service rates = $136 billion cut
Medicare Part D "donut hole" fix = $42.6 billion increase
Payment Adjustments for Home Health Care = $39.7 billion cut
Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Payments = $22.1 billion cut
Revision to the Medicare Improvement Fund = $20.7 billion cut
Reducing Part D Premium Subsidy for High-Income Beneficiaries = $10.7 billion cut
Interactions between Medicare programs = $29.1 billion cut
Main Components in Other Provisions ($149 billion)
Associated effects of coverage provisions on revenues = $46 billion
Exclusion of unprocessed fuels from the cellulosic biofuel producer credit = $23.6 billion
Require information reporting on payments to corporations = $17.1 billion
Raise 7.5% AGI floor on medical expenses deduction to 10% = $15.2 billion
Limitations to the use of HSAs, MSAs, FSAs, etc. = $19.4 billion
Other Net Spending Cuts ($52 billion)
Education reforms = $19 billion cut, which is the difference between approximately $58 billion in spending reductions via reform of the student loan program and approximately $39 billion in greater spending on higher education programs, most notably Pell Grants
Community Living Assistance Services and Supports = $70 billion in cuts
Category is netted lower by increases in other health programs such as public health programs and spending on community health centers
Main Components in Net Cuts to Medicare ($416.5 billion)
Reductions in annual updates to Medicare FFS payment rates = $196 billion cut
Medicare Advantage rates based upon fee-for-service rates = $136 billion cut
Medicare Part D "donut hole" fix = $42.6 billion increase
Payment Adjustments for Home Health Care = $39.7 billion cut
Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Payments = $22.1 billion cut
Revision to the Medicare Improvement Fund = $20.7 billion cut
Reducing Part D Premium Subsidy for High-Income Beneficiaries = $10.7 billion cut
Interactions between Medicare programs = $29.1 billion cut
Main Components in Other Provisions ($149 billion)
Associated effects of coverage provisions on revenues = $46 billion
Exclusion of unprocessed fuels from the cellulosic biofuel producer credit = $23.6 billion
Require information reporting on payments to corporations = $17.1 billion
Raise 7.5% AGI floor on medical expenses deduction to 10% = $15.2 billion
Limitations to the use of HSAs, MSAs, FSAs, etc. = $19.4 billion
Other Net Spending Cuts ($52 billion)
Education reforms = $19 billion cut, which is the difference between approximately $58 billion in spending reductions via reform of the student loan program and approximately $39 billion in greater spending on higher education programs, most notably Pell Grants
Community Living Assistance Services and Supports = $70 billion in cuts
Category is netted lower by increases in other health programs such as public health programs and spending on community health centers
CSRWire: Does greater equality benefit the rich?
Corporate Social Responsibility Wire asks if greater economic equality benefits the rich, as well as the poor:
By Jeffrey Hollender
“We want bigger houses and more cars, not because we need them, but because we use them to express our status. Material goods are how we show the world we’re keeping up, and in a more hierarchical society that’s more important. Status competition becomes more intense, and that increases our need to consume… We came across a website in England called ‘Ferraris for All,’ making the point that if everybody had a Ferrari, there would be no status in owning one.” -Kate Pickett
For years, I have worked to create a more just and equitable society, knowing that it would lead to a more sustainable world but also deeply believing that it was a moral imperative. If you are one of the globe’s vast majority of citizens who live daily with the adverse impacts created by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few, chances are you agree with this point of view. However if you are part of the wealthy and powerful 1% of the population that controls 90% of the world’s wealth, you’re likely to think this point of view reeks of a liberal disorder.
But what if increased justice and equity was also the key to greater happiness and fulfillment for the wealthy as well, and would mean less pollution, higher levels of educational achievement, lower health care costs, less crime, more vibrant local communities, and declining rates of cancer and depression? What if the bad stuff we all want less of and all the good stuff we want more of was exponentially achievable if we lived in societies where the spread between the rich and the poor was reduced?
A brilliant and critically important new book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, provides compelling evidence that, in fact, each of eleven different health and social issues-physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage births, and child well-being-fare substantially better in more equal societies.
Until I read the research assembled in The Spirit Level it was difficult to argue that the problem of income inequality in modern societies is about anything other than fairness. But Wilkinson and Pickett methodically compare the scale of income differences in both different countries and different states within the U.S. to reveal just how much the fabric of society is affected by high levels of inequality. Research carried out since the early 1990s shows that many of our most pressing problems are worse in more unequal societies, and that societies with bigger income differences suffer more from a very wide range of health and social ills.
Statistics comparing countries with very high-income inequality like the U.S., the U.K., and Singapore to countries with very low-income inequality like Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark tell a stark story:
When being asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “most people can be trusted,” people in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark agree 50% more often than citizens of the U.S. and Singapore.
Comparing levels of foreign aid, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands spend on average 400% to 500% more of their national income than does the U.S.
60% more individuals suffer from mental illness in the U.S. and U.K. than in the Netherlands and Belgium.
If you live in Sweden or Norway you’ll live on average 2 to 3 years longer than if you live in the U.S. or Singapore.
Infant deaths per thousand are 100% higher in the U.S. than in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
Obesity is 200% higher in the U.S. than in Sweden and Norway.
What can we do to erase these and many other remarkable disparities? Here are 10 ideas that would go a long way toward that critical goal:
Develop a national economic plan that places a priority on investing in health, education and welfare over military spending.
Raise income taxes on the wealthiest individuals and families and close loopholes.
Eliminate estate tax deductions.
Change capital gains tax rates to provide aggressive incentives for long-term investments. Short term rates (investments for under 1 year) may need to increase to as much as 90%, with long term rates declining to zero over a twenty-five year time horizon.
Mortgage deductions must be eliminated on second homes and limited to $200,000 for primary residences.
Charitable giving needs to receive even greater financial incentives.
Limit deductions for executive compensation to $500,000.
Minimum wage requirements must be transitioned to “Livable wages.”
We must ensure that “green jobs” are only funded and incentivized in sustainable businesses and industries.
Small Business Administration loan guarantees and tax credits for job creation must be aligned with the interests of local sustainable economies.
For more information on the issue and impacts of inequality, please visit the Equality Trust, Wealth for the Common Good, and Fair Economy.org.
An Inequality Index from the Institute for Policy Studies
Percentage of U.S. total income in 1976 that went to the top 1% of American households: 8.9. Percentage in 2007: 23.5.
Only other year since 1913 that the top 1 percent’s share was that high: 1928.
Combined net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007: $1.5 trillion.
Combined net worth of the poorest 50% of American households: $1.6 trillion.
U.S. minimum wage per hour: $7.25.?· Average hourly wage in 1972, adjusted for inflation: $20.06.?· In 2008: $18.52.
From 2006 through 2008, the top five executives at the 20 banks that have accepted the most federal bailout dollars since the meltdown averaged $32 million each in personal compensation. One hundred average U.S. workers would have to work over 1,000 years to make as much as these 100 executives made in three years. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2009)
About Jeffrey Hollender
Jeffrey Hollender is co-author of the recently published book, The Responsibility Revolution and Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Seventh Generation, the leader in green household products. He is also the author of Inspired Protagonist , the leading blog on corporate responsibility and a co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council and the Sustainability Institute.
By Jeffrey Hollender
“We want bigger houses and more cars, not because we need them, but because we use them to express our status. Material goods are how we show the world we’re keeping up, and in a more hierarchical society that’s more important. Status competition becomes more intense, and that increases our need to consume… We came across a website in England called ‘Ferraris for All,’ making the point that if everybody had a Ferrari, there would be no status in owning one.” -Kate Pickett
For years, I have worked to create a more just and equitable society, knowing that it would lead to a more sustainable world but also deeply believing that it was a moral imperative. If you are one of the globe’s vast majority of citizens who live daily with the adverse impacts created by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few, chances are you agree with this point of view. However if you are part of the wealthy and powerful 1% of the population that controls 90% of the world’s wealth, you’re likely to think this point of view reeks of a liberal disorder.
But what if increased justice and equity was also the key to greater happiness and fulfillment for the wealthy as well, and would mean less pollution, higher levels of educational achievement, lower health care costs, less crime, more vibrant local communities, and declining rates of cancer and depression? What if the bad stuff we all want less of and all the good stuff we want more of was exponentially achievable if we lived in societies where the spread between the rich and the poor was reduced?
A brilliant and critically important new book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, provides compelling evidence that, in fact, each of eleven different health and social issues-physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage births, and child well-being-fare substantially better in more equal societies.
Until I read the research assembled in The Spirit Level it was difficult to argue that the problem of income inequality in modern societies is about anything other than fairness. But Wilkinson and Pickett methodically compare the scale of income differences in both different countries and different states within the U.S. to reveal just how much the fabric of society is affected by high levels of inequality. Research carried out since the early 1990s shows that many of our most pressing problems are worse in more unequal societies, and that societies with bigger income differences suffer more from a very wide range of health and social ills.
Statistics comparing countries with very high-income inequality like the U.S., the U.K., and Singapore to countries with very low-income inequality like Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark tell a stark story:
When being asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “most people can be trusted,” people in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark agree 50% more often than citizens of the U.S. and Singapore.
Comparing levels of foreign aid, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands spend on average 400% to 500% more of their national income than does the U.S.
60% more individuals suffer from mental illness in the U.S. and U.K. than in the Netherlands and Belgium.
If you live in Sweden or Norway you’ll live on average 2 to 3 years longer than if you live in the U.S. or Singapore.
Infant deaths per thousand are 100% higher in the U.S. than in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
Obesity is 200% higher in the U.S. than in Sweden and Norway.
What can we do to erase these and many other remarkable disparities? Here are 10 ideas that would go a long way toward that critical goal:
Develop a national economic plan that places a priority on investing in health, education and welfare over military spending.
Raise income taxes on the wealthiest individuals and families and close loopholes.
Eliminate estate tax deductions.
Change capital gains tax rates to provide aggressive incentives for long-term investments. Short term rates (investments for under 1 year) may need to increase to as much as 90%, with long term rates declining to zero over a twenty-five year time horizon.
Mortgage deductions must be eliminated on second homes and limited to $200,000 for primary residences.
Charitable giving needs to receive even greater financial incentives.
Limit deductions for executive compensation to $500,000.
Minimum wage requirements must be transitioned to “Livable wages.”
We must ensure that “green jobs” are only funded and incentivized in sustainable businesses and industries.
Small Business Administration loan guarantees and tax credits for job creation must be aligned with the interests of local sustainable economies.
For more information on the issue and impacts of inequality, please visit the Equality Trust, Wealth for the Common Good, and Fair Economy.org.
An Inequality Index from the Institute for Policy Studies
Percentage of U.S. total income in 1976 that went to the top 1% of American households: 8.9. Percentage in 2007: 23.5.
Only other year since 1913 that the top 1 percent’s share was that high: 1928.
Combined net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007: $1.5 trillion.
Combined net worth of the poorest 50% of American households: $1.6 trillion.
U.S. minimum wage per hour: $7.25.?· Average hourly wage in 1972, adjusted for inflation: $20.06.?· In 2008: $18.52.
From 2006 through 2008, the top five executives at the 20 banks that have accepted the most federal bailout dollars since the meltdown averaged $32 million each in personal compensation. One hundred average U.S. workers would have to work over 1,000 years to make as much as these 100 executives made in three years. (Institute for Policy Studies, Executive Excess 2009)
About Jeffrey Hollender
Jeffrey Hollender is co-author of the recently published book, The Responsibility Revolution and Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Seventh Generation, the leader in green household products. He is also the author of Inspired Protagonist , the leading blog on corporate responsibility and a co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council and the Sustainability Institute.
NPR: Microlending comes to the US
When I was an undergraduate, I wrote a paper on microlending. Everyone, including me, admires the concept. As practiced in the Global South, it relies on social networks to guarantee credit - microloans are made to groups of women, under the assumption that if one defaults, the others will pressure her to make good on her promise, since they too will be considered in default. I thought microlending would not take off in the US because social norms would not allow for that business model, and the legal system might not support it.
Well, microloans are starting to come to the US, but they aren't guaranteed by the group lending model. National Public Radio has a good story on how non-profits are doing a lot of micro loans in the US, and how they have become a significant source of credit for small businesses in this recession.
Basically, large traditional lenders in the US mainly work with your credit score, which is a summary measure of how well you've repaid your debts (both secured, like mortgages and car loans, and unsecured, like credit cards) in the past. For the big banks, their business model is based on doing a lot of mortgages quickly, which is why they use the credit scores. However, the credit scores miss a lot of new immigrants and a lot of poorer people who haven't been banked in the past. They may also miss small businesses who don't have a track record of credit, but have a good business model and need funds to expand. This describes Ryan Folcher of Arlington, Virginia. A traditional bank was about to extend him a loan before the recession hit - then they pulled their offer. Folcher was nearly forced to liquidate until a local nonprofit microloan corporation (that was incorporated to help Hispanics but extended him credit anyway) worked with him.
The radio segment described that the loan process was quite labor intensive. The loan officer worked with Folcher in detail to understand his financial situation and how much cash flow he was generating. Businesses development assistance is one prominent feature of microlending which is harder to translate to commercial banking because of its labor intensity; Self Help Credit Union is a community development credit union which offers such services (disclosure: I have some money on deposit with them).
When I was an executive VP at a student housing cooperative, we worked with a local for-profit bank. We were refinancing a loan, and our loan officer took the time to understand our unique and quirky business model, and the fact that we could, in a worst case, liquidation scenario, pay the loan off. He said that he'd heard a case of a local businessman working with a larger commercial bank. He, too, had a slightly unusual financial situation. He had always been good on his debts, but some newly-minted MBA loan officer came in, took a look at the documents, and called in his loan. He had to shut his business down, but a loan officer who had taken the time to go through the business would likely not have made that call.
In the US, business opportunities are readily available. I suspect that non-profits will continue to dominate the micro-loan space in normal times; we had a credit glut not so recently, but the big banks are being very careful now. The smaller amounts involved in working with small businesses and the time it takes to offer business development assistance and to work intensively with clients probably rules the big banks out from being major suppliers of small loans. The microloan person interviewed on NPR said that his goal was to eventually be put out of business by the bigger banks, but I still think we will need to rely on nonprofits and smaller community banks to fill this gap in.
Well, microloans are starting to come to the US, but they aren't guaranteed by the group lending model. National Public Radio has a good story on how non-profits are doing a lot of micro loans in the US, and how they have become a significant source of credit for small businesses in this recession.
Basically, large traditional lenders in the US mainly work with your credit score, which is a summary measure of how well you've repaid your debts (both secured, like mortgages and car loans, and unsecured, like credit cards) in the past. For the big banks, their business model is based on doing a lot of mortgages quickly, which is why they use the credit scores. However, the credit scores miss a lot of new immigrants and a lot of poorer people who haven't been banked in the past. They may also miss small businesses who don't have a track record of credit, but have a good business model and need funds to expand. This describes Ryan Folcher of Arlington, Virginia. A traditional bank was about to extend him a loan before the recession hit - then they pulled their offer. Folcher was nearly forced to liquidate until a local nonprofit microloan corporation (that was incorporated to help Hispanics but extended him credit anyway) worked with him.
The radio segment described that the loan process was quite labor intensive. The loan officer worked with Folcher in detail to understand his financial situation and how much cash flow he was generating. Businesses development assistance is one prominent feature of microlending which is harder to translate to commercial banking because of its labor intensity; Self Help Credit Union is a community development credit union which offers such services (disclosure: I have some money on deposit with them).
When I was an executive VP at a student housing cooperative, we worked with a local for-profit bank. We were refinancing a loan, and our loan officer took the time to understand our unique and quirky business model, and the fact that we could, in a worst case, liquidation scenario, pay the loan off. He said that he'd heard a case of a local businessman working with a larger commercial bank. He, too, had a slightly unusual financial situation. He had always been good on his debts, but some newly-minted MBA loan officer came in, took a look at the documents, and called in his loan. He had to shut his business down, but a loan officer who had taken the time to go through the business would likely not have made that call.
In the US, business opportunities are readily available. I suspect that non-profits will continue to dominate the micro-loan space in normal times; we had a credit glut not so recently, but the big banks are being very careful now. The smaller amounts involved in working with small businesses and the time it takes to offer business development assistance and to work intensively with clients probably rules the big banks out from being major suppliers of small loans. The microloan person interviewed on NPR said that his goal was to eventually be put out of business by the bigger banks, but I still think we will need to rely on nonprofits and smaller community banks to fill this gap in.
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