Author: hankkalet

I wrote about this last week, but today’s report on food prices adds emphasis.

The worst drought in the United States in nearly a half-century is expected to drive up the price of milk, beef and pork next year, the government said Wednesday, as consumers bear some of the brunt of the sweltering heat that is driving up the cost of feed corn.

Poultry prices are expected to rise more immediately, the government said in a report. It estimated that consumer price indexes for chicken and turkey would rise 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent later this year.

“The poultry category is the smallest animal category, and we expect to see more of an effect this year because they grow the fastest and will be first to be impacted by higher feed prices,” said Richard Volpe, an economist with the Department of Agriculture.

Figures released Wednesday by the department showed the largest percentage increase next year in its price indexes is expected for beef, a rise of 4 percent to 5 percent. The price of dairy products will increase 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent and eggs by 3 percent to 4 percent. Pork is expected to rise 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent.

We are facing a climate crisis that is having tangible effects on our lives, including our wallets. We no longer can pretend the problem doesn’t exist.

The pay rate, explained Maia Davis, a spokeswoman for 32BJ, the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union, is either based on the wage set for a job sector via collective bargaining or, if there is no large collective bargaining agreement, at 150 percent of the federal minimum wage.

In city owned buildings, janitors’ pay would jump from $10.50 an hour to $14.15 an hour, as per the standard pay already set in Hudson County through collective bargaining in the private sector, and they would be provided with $649 per month in family coverage for benefits. This standard would also be set for janitors in city-subsidized buildings who weren’t previously covered by the living wage ordinance and who were making significantly less.

Similarly, security officers in city-owned buildings would see their pay go up to 150 percent of the federal minimum wage, currently set at $10.88 per hour, because there is no standard set in the county. Davis, however, said the union is working on achieving this. The officers’ benefits would be unchanged, and is worth $3.10 per hour. By comparison, those who work in city-subsidized buildings were often only making minimum wage. They too will now be covered in future projects economically subsidized by the city.

Clerical and food service workers would also see a wage increase of 150 percent of the federal minimum wage, and their benefits would bump up to the $3.10 per hour supplement the security officers already receive. Prior to the bill’s passing they received $2,000 in health benefits for the year. These employees would not be covered in city subsidized buildings, however.

Jersey City is the first in the state to pass a living wage ordinance, so it will be a test case here. Research on other living wage ordinances is mixed, though most show a reduction in poverty and an increase in wages for the lowest-wage earners in cities where the wage has been imposed.

The hope is that Jersey City will ignite a small brush fire that will lead to more living wage ordinances in the state.

Gas prices have been in a moderate flux so far this summer, but they remain below last year’s level.

Thanks to the brutal drought covering more than half the nation, we are not going to be able to say the same about food prices.

An analysis released on Thursday by the United States Drought Monitor showed that 88 percent of corn and 87 percent of soybean crops in the country were in drought-stricken regions, a 10 percent jump from a week before. Corn and soybean prices reached record highs on Thursday, with corn closing just over $8.07 a bushel and soybeans trading as high as $17.49.

This is likely to mean not just higher prices for produce, but for meat and milk, as well, even as their quality decreases.

The withering corn has increased feed prices and depleted available feeding land, putting stress on cattle farmers. A record 54 percent of pasture and rangeland — where cattle feed or where hay is harvested for feeding — was in poor or very poor condition, according to the Department of Agriculture. Many farmers have been forced to sell their animals.

Because feed can account for nearly half of a cattle farmer’s costs, consumers could see a rise in the price of meat and dairy products, experts said. The high sustained heat has led the key components in milk, like fat and protein, to plummet more than usual, said Chris Galen, a spokesman for National Milk Producers Federation.

The drought appears to be caused by natural weather patterns, though man made climate change has sped its spread and deepened its impacts. The natural defenses that have mitigated past droughts have been eroded, leaving us far more susceptible to weather shifts than in the past.

Richard Seager, a professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, and a prominent drought researcher, told Climate Central that the drought’s “origins can be traced to the tropical Pacific Ocean, where a periodic cooling of sea surface temperatures — a phenomenon known as La Niña — helped reconfigure global weather patterns during the past two years.” Global warming, however, has played a major role, as well.

Unlike the droughts of the 1930s, this one is occurring in a much warmer climate, a byproduct of manmade global warming. Seager said that although it most likely didn’t trigger the drought, it’s possible that global warming is making this drought worse than it would otherwise be.

“I think what we’re seeing is largely a naturally occurring event, but it’s occurring against the background of a warming environment,” Seager said.

Mark Svoboda, at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb., said soil has been dry and, because of that, there is little evaporation. This can help accelerate warming and droughts. Essentially, he says, it is the drought “feeding on itself.”

Kevin Trenberth, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., points the finger at climate change, saying “global warming helps make droughts hotter, and therefore drier, than they would be without a human influence.”

Manmade global warming, he said via email, “. . . means more energy that has to go somewhere. In dry conditions it amplifies drying and goes into heating, creating heat waves. It is small on a day-to-day basis, but is always in one direction and it creates stronger, more intense, and longer-lasting drought. No doubt about it.”

Our failure to address climate change — and even to acknowledge it as one of the greatest threats we face — is not just an environmental problem. As the impact on he food supply and prices makes clear, it is an economic one, as well.

Unemployment in New Jersey is not getting any better.

According to a report today on NJ.com, the state’s unemployment rate jumped a half point in May, from 9.2 percent to 9.7 percent, making it clear that the state is not — contrary to what Gov. Chris Christie has claimed — in the middle of a miracle recovery.

The state’s unemployment rate stood at 9.6 percent in October, just weeks before the election that brought Christie into the Statehouse. It peaked at 9.7 percent during the first couple of months of his term and then dipped to the low 9s where it remained until today’s report.

And it has remained well above the national figure for quite some time.

Christie avoided commenting today — the numbers had not been released when he spoke at a news conference — but his M.O. generally has been to blame the “Corzine Democrats” for the state’s economic woes, for everything bad, in fact, while taking credit for whatever good news comes along.

At some point, however, Christie has to take responsibility for the stalled state economy — just as President Barack Obama must take responsibility for the stagnant national one. Christie is nearing the end of his third year in office and, by virtue of the state constitution, commands a level of executive authority that almost no other governor commands and that the president can only wish for.

Instead, he has colluded with his Democratic opponents in approving a budget with unrealistic revenue expectations that are based on the false promise of a major recovery in process.

That’s not straight-shooting. That’s just B.S.

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The student debt bubble has continued to inflate.

According to Slate, student loan debt is now at $900 billion, two and a half times what it was just seven years ago, and large numbers of those carrying debt are falling behind.

The Fed’s numbers show that a startling 12 percent of borrowers aged 40 to 49 are at least 90 days behind. That’s a demographic that should be in the prime of their careers and free of such stress. The unemployment rate for that group is probably under 7 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, significantly below the national average of 8.2 percent. Moreover, though joblessness has declined from its late 2009 peak of 10 percent, most age groups are experiencing higher rates of student loan delinquencies.

We are faced with the prospect of an entire generation, working to get ahead by getting degrees, burying itself under an unmanageable level of debt.

The problem is not, as Mitt Romney says, that students are not shopping around for cheap schools. And it is not just the banks’ outsized role in the student funding racket.

The problem is that we have been forced to borrow because there are few other funding options and school costs have skyrocketed.

We should be moving away from loans to direct grants to students and a massive infusion of direct funding to the schools themselves.