Michael Carolan, PhD Professor & Chair of Sociology

Transcription

1 Michael Carolan, PhD Professor & Chair of Sociology

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5 Corporate welfare by any other name would smell as cheap

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7 High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) Researchers at Tufts University Had there been no subsidies for corn producers from HFCS would have cost roughly 12 percent more a savings to HFCS producers of US$2.19 billion during this period. As for soda manufacturers: had corn been priced at its full production cost they would have spent an additional US$873 million between If window extended back to 1986, savings to HFCS producers & soda companies US$4 billion & US$1.7 billion, respectively.

8 Advertising and Marketing VS.

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10 Cost shifting from one industry (food) to another (health care)

11 The US Spent $190 billion on obesity-related health care expenses in 2005 that s a whopping 21 percent of all medical spending; Obesity responsible for almost a third of the increase in inflationadjusted health spending between 1987 and 2001; Total annual indirect costs (e.g., absenteeism, premature morality, disability) of obesity placed at over US$65 billion; Annual presenteeism costs attributable to obesity (impact of obesity on reduced productivity at work) calculated to be over US$9 billion; Poor diet is a risk factor for four of the six leading causes of deaths: heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. When combined with obesity, diseases have estimated cost of US$556 billion per year.

12 Europe and the UK Total costs linked to obesity in England could increase by as much as 240 percent between 2007 and Obesity-related healthcare costs for the year 2007 were UK 10 billion. After factoring in for the wider costs to society and business the figure was closer to UK 50 billion. Obesity-related illnesses costs Germany about UK 16 billion a year. Obesity-attributed costs to absenteeism in France have been placed at US$155 million per year. Total indirect costs associated with obesity cost Switzerland approximately US$450 million annually.

13 Australia Overweight and obese adults cost the nation s economy, in terms of total direct and indirect costs, more than AU$56 billion annually

14 Canada Total economic cost of overweight and obese individuals roughly Cdn$300 billion a year: Cdn$127 billion in healthcare; Cdn$72 billion in loss of productivity due to total disability; Cdn$49 billion in loss of worker productivity due to higher rates of death; and Cdn$43 billion in loss of worker productivity due to disability of active workers

15 China Obesity-attributable costs of absenteeism are estimated at approximately US$50 billion annually; Total direct and indirect costs attributed to obesity top 53.6 billion annually or more than 4 percent of the country s total GDP

16 Life expectancy in the US could it go down?

17 Careful at assigning blame

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19 Climate change will lead to high obesity rates Obesity Rates

20 Meat some other costs

21 Foot-and-mouth disease (20 times more infectious than smallpox), if used in an act of agro-terrorism, would costs taxpayers as much as US$60 billion foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the UK cost taxpayers more than US$15 billion. Costs of SARSS to Asian countries taking into account loss of life (human and animal), healthcare costs, losses in productivity due to illness, decreases in tourism and global consumer confidence towards Asian food imports between US$20 billion and US$60 billion in Cost of resistance to antibiotics in the US: US$4 billion annually.

22 Costs to whom

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25 Costs to when Costs

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27 The Vanishing Bee

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29 Expensive is relative

30 Fundamental principle of economists is that it is better to tax bad things rather than things viewed as having societal value. Why not shift taxes away from labor and toward some of the examples of pollution described earlier?

31 Cost Minimization (via Cost Externalization) Capital Intensive = Energy Intensive = Cheap Food Labor Intensive = Affordable Food?

32 Thank You