This morning on DemocracyNow!, I got to talk a little about Newt Gingrich’s poisonous comments on Obama being the food stamp president. First, the facts. Under George Bush, the number of people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (what food stamps are more properly called in the US) rose by 14.7 million. Under Obama, the number rose by 14.2 million. It’s true, however, that much more money is being spent by Obama. As part of the stimulus bill, entitlements rose to a whopping average of $134.
The entitlements help, to some extent, to dampen in the impact of poverty. And in the teeth of the recession, it’s hard to argue against strengthening the safety net when so many Americans were falling into it.
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I’ve been working away on a big academic article on the “Green Revolution”, which I hope will be finished soon. Meantime, here’s a lecture based on the research so far, courtesy of the good folk at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Listen here.
It’s Martin Luther King day in the US today, and I managed to catch King’s “Birth of A New Nation” speech on KPFA’s Africa Today show this evening. The full speech is here but if you’ve a few minutes, it’s always heartstopping to hear Dr King preach.
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(A shorter version of this piece appeared on Marketplace today)
Bigger isn’t always better. By 2030, half of Americans won’t just be overweight, but obese. By then, nearly a fifth of our healthcare dollars will be spent treating the diseases that come with being bigger. Our lifestyles, rich in fat, sugar and inactivity, are creating a debt that’ll become the planet’s most expensive public health issue.
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Here’s a piece I wrote for Foreign Policy, updated with Tuesday’s news about revised population estimates for the rest of the century. Keep Reading »
Before the Soccer World Cup last year, I was asked to write a foreword to an anthology of life stories told by South African pavement dwellers, living on Symphony Way, near Cape Town. The stories blew me away. It was very easy to write the short introduction below, just as it’s easy to encourage you to take a look at it now. The book is called No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way, and it’s available here.
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I wrote this yesterday for the NY Times’ Room for Debate series, before today’s momentous news. Watch this space for more on Egypt…
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Here’s a piece that I wrote for The Guardian about the global rise in food prices. Think of this inflation as a neutron-bomb-style inflation: a kind that goes after workers, but leaves their homes and places of work intact. Trouble is that the responses to this inflation that might protect the poor – government feeding and public works programmes – are the ones in the deficit hawk’s cross-hairs. It’s entirely possible to balance a budget and have large public works, but that means taxing the rich. In this political climate, that’s unlikely. So, watch out for more food rebellions in 2011. Keep Reading »
