Sugar Giants Shove Their Sweetener

by Chris Tenove

Jul/Aug 2003 Issue

What does anybody know about the sugar industry? The people who put the frosting on the frosted flakes keep a low profile and are happy when folks are too busy eating to ask a lot of questions. Now, though, a dust-up with the World Health Organization (WHO) has flushed them into the limelight, where they're pitting profits against public health.

The conflict was inflamed by a new set of dietary guidelines drawn from two years of research by the WHO and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. The guidelines are part of a worldwide strategy to tame the swelling epidemic of obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases. One recommendation is that free sugars (i.e. sugar added to foods) should make up no more than 10 percent of our daily caloric intake. The sugar lobby reacted to that suggestion like a toddler asked to hand back his Halloween booty...

'It was particularly stupid for them to put in writing that they're going to try to get Congress to take away WHO's money,' says Michael Jacobsen, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. 'It gave consumers a chance to see the kind of bullying that is usually done behind closed doors.' [Adbusters]

Democrats Should Stop Battling Over Health-Insurance Mandates

The major Democratic candidates, along with some left-leaning pundits, are battling over whether to require people to buy health care. That’s unfortunate because mandates are the least important and least popular parts of their plans.

The current Democratic consensus on health care is striking. In fact, given the myriad ways universal health insurance might otherwise be organized – single payer, employer mandate, vouchers, tax credits – it's astonishing. All of the major health insurance proposals require employers either to provide coverage to employees or contribute to the cost of coverage; create purchasing pools that will offer insurance to anyone who doesn’t get it from an employer; preserve freedom of choice of doctor; cover children; and aim to save money through more preventive care, better management of chronic disease, and standardized information technology. And all subsidize lower-income families with revenues coming from letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

Mandates are a sideshow. All their plans would cover a large majority of those who currently lack insurance. A big chunk of the remainder are undocumented immigrants, who aren’t covered by any of the plans. So mandates are relevant to only around 3 percent of the population.

Hillary Clinton thinks this 3 percent is mostly young and healthy and should be required to buy insurance in order to bring costs down for everyone who isn’t. Obama thinks they’re mostly people who won’t be able to afford even subsidized premiums, so they’d just ignore any mandate. As a practical matter, the difference comes down to timing and sequencing. Clinton wants to start with a mandate. Obama says if it turns out most of this remaining 3 percent are young and healthy, he’ll go along with a mandate, too.

It’s only to be expected that gloves will come off in the last months of a primary campaign. But by warring over mandates, Democrats are leading with their chins. It’s the least important aspect of what they’re offering. It’s also, to many Americans, the least attractive because it conjures up a big government bullying people into doing what they’d rather not do.

The public is ready for universal health insuranc, but to get it enacted after January, 2009, Democrats need to start building a movement in support of the big and important reforms universal health insurance requires – on which they happen to agree.

There Was a Reason They Called It... The Casino Economy

by Thomas Croft

02 Jul 03

In the last three years, a 'perfect storm' of rising energy costs, record consumer and corporate debt and massive trade and current account deficits joined with unsustainable investment practices, and resulted in an economic collapse. The first recession since 1929 to be primarily caused by over-investment, these 'collateral damage' investing schemes-in overseas boondoggles and sweatshops, extreme mergers, absurd dot-coms and derivative scams-all came home to roost. Enron used all of these investment tricks and more. The corruption scandals of 2001-2 completed the melt-down. Now, the world is probably in a double-dip recession, thanks partly to the scandal and continuing international disruptions.

The problem with casino bets and Russian Roulette is that somebody always loses. [CounterPunch]