In accord with a local (australia), highly unpopular politician's catch cry
could someone out there 'please explain' and without junk economics
I refer to michael gurstein's post 29/9/1989 wherein he forwards the NYT
article covering the UN's 1998 Human Development report. The second last
statistic refers to the US + Europe expenditure on pet food and health.
How would an economist figure it if pets were sudenly outlawed in the USA
and Europe (ignoring the social cost but including the disposal cost!) and
this US$17 billion might be redirected to provide basic health and
nutrition for everyone in the world? how does the ledger look in the these
affluent areas if this industry is dismantled? would there really be $17
billion available?
how do these UN people arrive at their estimates of costs for basic health
and nutrition?
would you feel better making a weekly contribution to a UN fund for this
purpose rather than buying x-number cans of "biffo" or "quick cat" or packs
of "super bird"
maybe even some percentage of their ingredients comes from the LDCs?
regards
Jock McCardell
