Issue 63 Vol III, May 15, 2008

T H I S  O U R  N O R T H  A M E R I C A

Pangs of hunger and pearls of wisdom

HERE is another pearl of wisdom from American president George W Bush amidst global food shortages, soaring prices and alarm over the environment.

George W Bush, the most powerful president of the most powerful country, the United States has offered some food for thought. He says that Indian middle class [perhaps along with Chinese] is responsible for the present food crisis in the world. Bush says, “Just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population. And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.” His Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had earlier made similar comments. She said that improving incomes and prosperity in India and China were responsible for the rising food prices. We are repeatedly told both are admirers and great friends of India. No doubt.

The remarks, made in a speech on economy and trade, earned Bush an immediate rebuke from India where a spokesman for the ruling Congress party said  Bush’s analysis was “completely erroneous” as India is not a food importer but a food exporter. The Congress instead blamed the developed world for the crisis. “Diversion of arable land in the developed world for ethanol production and changes in the climate pattern led to the crisis.” All other parties and media joined the chorus in India.  Well, they had their points of view. It helps the political class in both the countries to ward off any criticism, even if temporarily.

Let us look at the facts as to who is eating what. For an overwhelming people, 80 per cent across the poor countries and smaller number in the rich west are not eating what they were in the nineties. Their calories intake is down. Disease and sickness and early deaths make people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and also in the backyards of the rich Europe and America  suffer.

One reason is that some are getting too much to waste. Total foodgrain consumption — wheat, rice, and all coarse grains like rye, barley etc — by each person in the US is over five times that of an Indian, according to figures released by the US Department of Agriculture for 2007. Each Indian gets to eat about 178 kg of grain in a year, while a US citizen consumes 1,046 kg.

In per capita terms, US grain consumption is twice that of the European Union and thrice that of China. Grain consumption includes flour and by conversion to alcohol.

In fact, per capita grain consumption has increased in the US — so actually the Americans are eating more. In 2003, US per capita grain consumption was 946 kg per year which increased to 1046 kg last year.

By way of comparison, India’s per capita grain consumption has remained static over the same period. It’s not just grains. Milk consumption, in fluid form, is 78 kg per year for each person in the US, compared to 36 kg in India and 11 kg in China. US per capita grain consumption rose from 946 kg in 2003 to 1046 kg last year. India’s per capita consumption remained static in this period.

As far as meat consumption is concerned, the US leads the world in per capita consumption by a wide margin. Beef consumption, for example, is 42.6 kg per person per year, compared to a mere 1.6 kg in India and 5.9 kg in China. In case you are thinking that perhaps Indians might be going in for chicken, think again. In the US, 45.4 kg poultry meat is consumed every year by each person, compared to just 1.9 kg in India.

But the story would not be complete without mentioning the plight of Africa, where food grain consumption in 2007 was a mere 162 kg per year for each person, or about 445 grams per day. They are not getting any meat or milk products out there. These figures are collated by the US Department of Agriculture.

How about another country, close alley of America in its all types of wars, the Britain. every day, Britain throws away 220,000 loaves of bread, 1.6m bananas, 550,000 chickens, 5.1m potatoes, 660,000 eggs, 1.2m sausages and 1.3m yoghurts.

This food thrown away every day by the British public adds up to a record £10bn each year. Each day, according to the government-backed report, Britons throw away 4.4 million apples, 1.6 million bananas, 1.3 million yoghurt pots, 660,000 eggs, 550,000 chickens, 300,000 packs of crisps and 440,000 ready meals.

Yet the rising middle class in India and china can not escape the blame. If one does believe the way this class is wasting, one needs to visit any four or five star hotel, any social party, marriages and all and find out how food is wasted.  There are laws to stop this, but then Indian at least the rich and the powerful care for not laws. They enjoy complete immunity.

President Bush should be addressing his own people, the Americans first who are the biggest consumers of anything and everything. With just 6 per cent world’s population, they consume 46 per cent of world’s resources. They add more than any other people to the environmental degradation.

BACK

America: disturbing income divide

Khushwant Toor
THE gap between rich and poor in the United States has widened exponentially over the past three decades. According to the Congressional Budget Office since 1979, the average income for the bottom half of American households has grown by 6 percent. In contrast, the top one percent of earners have seen their incomes shoot up by a 229 percent during that same period.

Under the Bush administration, the average income of most Americans has fallen, but the average income of top wage earners (those above the 95 percentile range) has increased from $324,427 in 2001 to $385,805 in 2006. Only one other year has seen a comparable income gap: 1928, the year before the Great Depression. Inequality has not been confined to one region or sector but has spread all across the country.  North Carolina and Indiana, two geographically and economically disparate states whose upcoming presidential primaries have brought them to the forefront of the national media, are no exception. With the average income of the richest 20 percent of families 7.2 and 6.7 times larger than the poorest 20 percent of families, respectively, North Carolina and Indiana are a microcosm of a larger national trend. Both of these states are looking for relief from declining wages, sinking job security, and falling benefits.

A cording to Washington based Center for American Progress, “the reasons for this rise in income inequality can be split into three basic components: government policies, tremendous wage inequality, and high investment income. The federal government under Bush, which provides the fundamental rules that guide how economic gains are distributed around the country, has embraced deregulation and an unstructured financial system. Consequently, huge corporations have raked in profits while the economy sags. The administration's tax policies, which lower taxes on the wealthy rather than the middle class, have furthered the problem.”

As billionaire Warren Buffett explained, "The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you're in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent." CEO pay, which has increased by 20.5 percent over just the past 12 months, dwarfs the mere 3.5 percent salary increase for American workers. To put this in perspective, the top 500 American corporate executives earned a combined total of $6.4 billion in 2007, about $12.8 million each and roughly 10 percent of all company profits.

An absence of laws protecting collective bargaining has removed the leverage that unions once had on companies to increase wages quickly. Wage inequality, the shrinking value of the minimum wage, and the all-around decline in manufacturing jobs only intensify the problem.

With less money available, Americans are increasingly forced to make tough choices on how to spend their diminishing disposable incomes. Consumer spending and confidence have fallen to record low levels, causing families to skimp on discretionary spending. U.S. consumers, up until recently the most powerful force on planet Earth, are in retreat.

A recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the largest increases in consumer spending between 2006 and 2007 was on necessities: fuel, food staples, and medical bills. Not surprisingly, the largest decreases were in a newly defined category of "luxury" goods: electronics, toys, home decor and fresh fruits, and vegetables.

The decline in the average middle class wage means that Americans who were once financially comfortable are now feeling the sting. Approximately 158 million Americans enjoy employer-provided health care benefits. More and more workers, however, are opting out of their health insurance because they simply can't afford it. The average cost of those benefits to employees has increased by $1,500 -- from $1,800 to $3,300 -- since 2001.  For a middle class worker, that amount is an entire month's paycheck, which is particularly troubling as national incomes rose only one-tenth that amount during that same period. Center for American Progress estimated “due to a combination of bigger out-of-pocket deductibles and co-payments, higher premiums, and less extensive coverage, medical bills now account for almost one-fifth of average family income.”

BACK

Baisakhi Celebrations in Halifax
Jagpal Singh Tiwana

NOVA Scotia, Canada’s “ocean playground”, is a small province in eastern Canada. It started attracting Sikhs to its beautiful land in the early nineteen sixties. Most of the Sikhs who came here were teachers, engineers and doctors. They mostly settled in Halifax, capital city of Nova Scotia.

They formed a Sikh organization, Maritime Sikh Society, on the Baisakhi day in April 1968 and then by 1978, they had built a Gurdwara. It was the 40th anniversary of the society and was celebrated with great zest all through April.

The cultural evening on May 3 was the climax of the celebrations with Navdeep Singh Bains, the 30 year old  young turbaned Sikh member of Canadian Parliament, as chief guest.

The society organized a great show, highly entertaining and it was their best foot forward. There was excitement and good will all around. Dances; traditional Punjabi gidha and bhangra performances were outstanding.

It was a small Punjab outside its shores that offered delight and young men, women and children were in the best colorful costumes.

In a brief inspiring speech to 350 people, Bains encouraged the parents and grandparents to focus on the participatory aspect of their children's performance and not on perfection.

Baisakhi function reminded him of his own growing up years. He made his first speech at his local Gurudwara Sahib at the age of 10. There were 20 participants and he was placed 19th and the 20th participant did not show up. But then in 2004, he was only 26 when he won his first election to the House of Commons of Canada. He reminded the PunjabiS that they were Canadians for all intents and purposes and should shed any complex of being a minority. `I'm a Sikh by faith, an Indian by background and a Canadian by birth' as he put his own view as a Canadian citizen.

Navdeep Singh Bains and two members of the founding father’s families, Mrs. Surjit Sidhu and Mrs. Rupa Chowdhary, cut the traditional ceremonial cake. Pyara Singh Randhawa, credited with building the Gurdwara in 1978 as president, was given the honour to present the gift to the esteemed guest on behalf of the society.

Bains is the federal Member of Parliament for Mississauga-Brampton South in Ontario. First elected in June 2004, he was subsequently re-elected in January 2006 with a significant increase in number of votes. He served as parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Paul Martin in the Liberal Government.  Though born and raised in Canada, he speaks Punjabi with ease. Mild mannered, soft spoken, a teetotaler, he is a  Gursikh and is pretty active in the Guru Gobind Singh Children’s Foundation of Toronto.

[Jagpal S Tiwana, Director Communications, Maritime Sikh Society, Halifax, Canada tiwana@eastlink.ca]

BACK

Dump-truck drivers vow not to haul loads

DRIVERS of hundreds of dump trucks, members of the Ontario Dump Truck Association, protested in Toronto early this month to draw attention to what their leader called "inhumane working conditions”. This included 12-hour days, overloaded rigs and low wages that have not been increased for the last five years. Most of the drivers hail from India and Pakistan.

On May 8 more than 400 trucks first gathered at a mosque parking lot at Derry and Dixie Rds. to prepare for the protest, but only 150 marched in slow procession head west on Derry to Highway 410,  and went  south to Highway 401 and east across Toronto to the Don Valley Parkway. Trucks then moved south to the Gardiner Expressway, west to Highway 427, and north to Highway 401 and west to Highway 410. From there the convoy moved to Steeles Ave. and then south on Dixie Rd. finally back to the mosque lot.

Many of the drivers remain in a lot in Mississauga even now May 15. Ontario Transportation Minister Jim Bradley  offered qualified  th dump-truck drivers who are refusing to haul loads in the Toronto area until their pay and working conditions improve. He said  it's largely a labour dispute between them and their employers in which he won't get involved, "Their main quarrel is with their employers at this time," he said. "They don't feel they are being paid enough. They feel they're not being compensated. Their costs are going up."

The association spokesman Harsimran Gill said, “It's a safety issue. Our trucks are supposed to carry 21 tonnes. But every time we are pulled on a scale, it's around 28, 29, sometimes 30 tonnes in there. That's dangerous, not only for the driver, but for everyone else on the road. The brake system is designed for a load of 21 tonnes. When the truck is eight or nine tonnes overloaded, the momentum doesn't let you stop unless you really stand on the brakes. Gill said drivers are not allowed to get out at a job site to check and there's no way from inside the truck to determine a load's weight.

Even worse, he said, is that drivers who question overweight loads are often banished from a work site.

Gill asked "When the truck is overloaded and you're going 100 kilometres an hour, how do you expect it to stop? They just send him home and tell him never to come back to that job again”.

The drivers, who truck dirt from new subdivisions and other excavation sites in rigs that can cost more than $200,000, also complain they haven't had a rate increase since it was set at $75 an hour in 2003. Then diesel was 50 cents a liter and its now $1.35 a liter. Repairs and insurance have gone up, too. Every day, the price of fuel and everything else is going up, up and up."

How do these drives who work so hard and help trade and industry blossom survive in this situation. Jim Bradley  has to answer this. Mere sympathy would not do.

BACK

Inequality rots social foundations

Khushwant Toor
Canadians are increasingly becoming accustomed to the sight of sleeping bags on the sidewalk and panhandlers outside stores, restaurants and subway stations.

Community workers had setup food banks as an emergency measure to tide over recession 25 years ago.  Now despite one of the longest economic expansions in Canadian history, these are permanent stuff in almost every town and city.

There is very disbursing widening gap between the earnings of top executives and the capitalist class as a whole. 25 years back corporate executives earned 40 times as much as their employees. Workers felt bad, but still got decent contracts. No longer now. As in America where the top one percent earns 230 times more than rest of 70 per cent, in Canada too top 100 chief executives earn 248 times the average wage. Most workers have no job security, fewer benefits and no union to protect them. Hail this exploitation Bush style?

The 2006 census had confirmed that Canada is turning into a nation of "haves" and "have-nots." Those in the middle are moving down the ladder and their children's living standard would be lower than theirs.

Tragically there is hardly in debate in many of the mainstream media and television networks just ignore. Some think this way that Canadians believe inequality doesn't matter.

Clearly voices of protest are needed. There is an urgent need  for the economists and political science people along with politicians and trade union leaders to participate in a vigorous debate to avoid the danger of autocracy taking over. Significant inequalities are threat to any democracy, more son in developed west including Canada. Smugness is dangerous for all.

Jon Kesselman, economics professor at Simon Fraser University, research is very right when he says: "The further the incomes of top earners diverge from the average, the more divorced more they become from the needs of the average citizen. For example, the push for privatization of health care is driven in part by a minority who can easily afford to pay for their own needs directly."

The poor should have the opportunity to reach the full potential of their talents otherwise the economic growth will suffer. Increased resentment, disaffection, social conflict and crime potentially associated with substantially widened inequality could also reduce the security and breed criminalization.

BACK