Social Europe: The Italian Election And US Underpinning Of Populism

Five Star, the biggest party in Parliament, sees itself as an anti-corruption movement and advocates many economic reforms championed by the Left in Italy. These include a reform of pensions and a guaranteed minimum income and a rejection of austerity.  The Lega, formerly the secessionist Northern League, now concentrates on a more narrowly racist and Eurosceptic agenda. More experienced than their allies, the Lega served in government during the Berlusconi years and at the time advocated many traditional conservative economic policies. The two parties have little in common beyond their dislike of the EU and their claims to populism, but they have somehow managed to cobble together a governing program including restoration of pensions, tax cuts, and a basic income for Italy’s poor. [...]

After the Second World War the US made an effort to set up a trading system that lowered tariff and non-tariff barriers, initially facilitating the dominance of American industry as Europe and Asia began to rebuild. They were extremely successful in setting up an open world economy, championing free market economic policies and doing as much as possible to undermine statist approaches in Europe and elsewhere. In the early postwar period the CIA did what it could to finance European conservatives, to set up pro- market trade unions and undermine Western European communists. European trade unionists facilitated these efforts by fighting among themselves, as did left wing parties [...]

The economic sectors that could not easily be outsourced were services. Developed economies came to be dominated by this sector. These were not only the infamous low-wage industries such as fast food or hotels, but also high-end sectors like financial services, scientific research, and not-so-highly paid education. This led to bifurcated labor markets in developed economies as manufacturing was hollowed out, eroding middle class jobs. The gap between rich and poor became exaggerated, especially in countries where income taxes were less progressive, or where much of the taxation was indirect (sales and VAT taxes), as in Italy.

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Quartzy: Plastic straws are the new plastic bags

Long a default offering in restaurants and takeout joints, plastic straws have of late become antennae for the ire of environmentalists, like plastic bags before them. And rightfully so. The Ocean Conservancy’s 2017 International Coastal Cleanup Report (pdf), which contains data from cleanup efforts in 112 countries, found plastic straws to be consistently in the top 10 discarded items, contributing to some 18 million pounds (8 million kg) of ocean trash collected. If the data alone doesn’t inspire you to give up straws, an excruciating story and video of a sea turtle with a four-inch (10 cm) straw stuck in its nostril might. [...]

Like the plastic bag, the straw is swiftly becoming a symbol for the toxic and persistent scourge of single-use plastic, and an everyday item that can be eliminated to reduce its use. Organizations such as the Surfrider Foundation, the Plastic Pollution Coalition, and the Ocean Conservancy are all campaigning to get concerned citizens—and the restaurants that serve them—to skip plastic straws entirely.  

Some companies and municipalities are taking note. On Monday (May 21), Alaska Airlines announced it would replace plastic stir straws and citrus picks with “sustainable, marine-friendly alternatives” on all its flights and in lounges. (Fun fact: This change came after the urging of a 16-year-old Girl Scout named Shelby O’Neil.) A day later, New York City councilman Rafael L. Espinal Jr. introduced a bill to outlaw plastic straws in the city’s restaurants.

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Vox: A radical proposal to fight poverty in the developing world: tax the rich more than the poor

But new data on taxation and spending in the world’s poorest countries suggests that progressive tax-and-transfer systems are far less common than you would think. In general, taxes are less progressive in those countries, financial transfers are much smaller, and the bulk of social spending is soaked up by broken health and education systems. The net effect is often that tax-and-transfer policies leave poor people worse off, not better. [...]

That happens in two ways: The income of the well-off is reduced by higher taxes (this accounts for about a quarter of the reduction in inequality) while the poor get payments like Social Security as well as family, housing, disability and unemployment benefits. The latter accounts for three-quarters of the reduction in inequality. The US is an outlier in seeing less redistribution than most rich countries, but even there, the net impact of taxes and transfers is to reduce inequality. [...]

The Gini coefficient measures the level of inequality in a group: A measure of 0 implies complete equality (everyone gets the same income) and 100 is perfect inequality (one person gets all of the income). Before government taxes and transfers, the Gini for the 29 developing countries in Lustig’s study is 47. (It stands at 45 in the United States). Fiscal redistribution reduces the Gini coefficient by more than 7 points in the US and European Union. [...]

In the rich world, the poorest citizens tend to be net financial recipients from the government — they get more in transfers than they pay in taxes. But that’s not true in some developing countries. First, tax regimes in those countries aren’t very progressive, partly because the revenue authorities tend to rely on indirect taxes like the value-added tax (VAT) — which fall on all consumers — rather than direct taxes on high personal or corporate incomes. (A VAT is similar to an American sales tax but applies to all firms, not just retail businesses.)  

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The Atlantic: Vaccines Alone Won’t Beat Ebola

In the Congo, if you’re sick, you’re usually surrounded. Medical services are thin, so family members shoulder the burden of nursing their loved ones back to health. At one hospital I visited (well before the current outbreak), a family had camped outside a treatment building, waiting for their relatives inside to recuperate. Their laundry was drying on a washing line. “In an outbreak, you want to separate sick and healthy people, but here, if people are sick, everyone’s there,” one survivor told me. “Here, for we who live in communities, it is solitude that kills us.”

That mindset continues after death. Families will clean and dress the bodies of their loved ones. They’ll caress, kiss, and embrace them. Spouses might even spend a night next to their deceased partners. Through these bonds of affection, Ebola, which spreads through bodily fluids, can easily jump from one host into an entire family. The worst thing about the virus is not its deeply exaggerated bloodiness, but its ability to corrupt the bonds of community. It is a pathogen well-suited to a world where sickness and death are met with touch and affection. [...]

By that she means: finding infected people and tracking their contacts; ensuring hygienic practices that keep infections from spreading; and engaging with communities. These are old-school measures. Public Health 101. But they’re also the bedrock of any outbreak response. They’re vital for diseases that have no available vaccines or treatments, like Lassa fever which is currently breaking out in Liberia, or Nipah which has risen again in India. And they’re still vital when vaccines are available. [...]

For a start, there’s a language barrier. The Congo has upward of 200 languages. In Bikoro, around 90 percent of people speak Lingala, the main local dialect; to reach the people who don’t, the ministry is also translating its messages into N’Tomba, which is spoken by 40 percent of the region.

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The Atlantic: How the U.S. Became the World’s Largest Food-Aid Donor

Every December, Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” rings out at malls and holiday parties across the United States and the United Kingdom. But that earworm of a song was actually originally written in response to the devastating famine in Ethiopia in the early 1980s—and it’s far from the famine’s only legacy. Both the hunger and the relief effort were so enormous that they defined a generation, and forced a major reevaluation of how food aid works. After Ethiopia, many countries decided that handing out cash or vouchers was a cheaper, quicker, and more effective way to feed the hungry, as opposed to literally giving food. Experts began to focus on whether the food itself was the right kind—whether it contained the right mix of nutrients to help malnourished kids recover. And an increasing number of governments refocused their aid efforts exclusively on emergency relief, rather than development.

The United States, however, remained committed to giving food as aid. This episode, we talk to Barry Riley, the author of The Political History of American Food Aid: An Uneasy Benevolence, in order to understand why the United States overcame its initial reluctance to feeding the hungry overseas, and explore the impact of its more recent career as the world’s largest food-aid donor. From surplus grain stored in retired battleships to Cold War maneuvers, America’s history has set up its enduring role as the largest provider of food, rather than money. Meanwhile, we check in with the seasoned food-aid professionals Bea Rogers and Patrick Webb at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University to investigate what the latest science can tell us about the best way to feed hungry people.

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