At What Cost

At What Cost? The Economic Impact of Tobacco Use on National Health Systems, Societies, and Individuals

An incisive and powerful investigation of corporate impact on human and planetary well-being Freedom of choice lies at the heart of American society. Every day, individuals decide what to eat, which doctors to see, who to connect with online, and where to educate their children. Yet, many Americans don't realize that these choices are illusory at best. By the start of the 21st century, every major industrial sector in the global economy was controlled by no more than five transnational corporations, and in about a third of these sectors, a single company accounted for more than 40 percent of global sales. The available options in food, healthcare, education, transportation, and even online presence are largely constructed by corporations, whose sweeping influence have made them the public face and executive agents of 21st-century capitalism. At What Cost confronts how globalization, financial speculation, monopolies, and control of science and technology have enhanced the ability of corporations and their allies to overwhelm influences of government, family, community, and faith. As corporations manipulate demand through skillful marketing and veto the choices that undermine their bottom line, free consumer choice has all but disappeared, and with it, the personal protections guarding our collective health. At What Cost argues that the world created by 21st-century capitalism is simply not fit to solve our most serious public health problems, from climate change to opioid addiction. However, author and public health expert Nicholas Freudenberg also shows that though the road is steep, human and planetary well-being constitute a powerful mobilizing idea for a new social movement, one that will restore the power of individual voice to our democracy. With impeccably detailed research and an eye towards a better future, At What Cost arms ordinary citizens, activists, and health professionals with an understanding of how we've arrived at the precipice, and what we can do to ensure a healthier collective future.

This book presents the findings of a comprehensive study by the Traveller Law Research Unit at Cardiff Law School of the costs associated with unauthorised encampments.

In 2008 Congress established the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC) in response to increasing indications of widespread waste, fraud, and abuse in gov¿t. contracting. The CWC is charged with evaluating and reporting on America¿s wartime contracting for logistics, reconstruction, and security. This Interim Report describes the CWCs work to June 2009, which includes hundreds of meetings and briefings, analysis of existing reports and audits, hearings on Capitol Hill, and factfinding trips to the theaters of operation. This Report highlights some timesensitive issues, especially given the challenges of the drawdown in Iraq and the buildup in Afghanistan. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.

Why would political leaders shutter entire industries, decimate local economies, and destroy jobs just to clean up the air?

With inflation increasing all over the world, central banks have to consider with some care how quickly to re-establish price stability. A key issue in this context is the short-run cost in terms of foregone output and higher unemployment. The aim of this paper is to determine the 'sacrifice ratio' for the Euro Area and for the United States. The main findings are: the cost of reducing inflation is in most cases higher in the US than in the EA. For example, reducing (headline) inflation by 1% point requires a decline of output of 1.4% in the EU, but 2.3% for the US. Considering core inflation, the sacrifice ratio in terms of output is somewhat higher for the Euro Area (around 4) compared to 3.2 for the US. However, the sacrifice ratios in terms of unemployment are always much larger for the US. Reducing headline inflation by 1% requires an increase in unemployment of little more than 1% in the EA, compared to 8% in the US.However, there is also a long-run 'hysterisis' cost that is specific to the Euro Area since the reaction of unemployment to output depends on the state of the economy. During downturns this relationship worsens. This implies that a recession engineered to combat inflation will have an additional cost in terms of lower unemployment later, even after the recovery of the economy.

In recent years, funding for the conservation of cultural heritage has become increasingly difficult to obtain, and this trend shows no sign of changing significantly in the foreseeable future. The twelfth triennial meeting of the International Committee for the Conservation of Mosaics, held in Sardinia in October 2014, focused on the theme of cost, broadly considered, relating specifically to the preservation and presentation of the world’s mosaic heritage. This handsome, abundantly illustrated volume provides a comprehensive record of the conference. The volume’s sixty-seven papers and posters, comprising contributions from more than one hundred leading experts in the field, reflect the conference’s principal themes: cost, methods of survey and documentation, conservation and management, education and training, backing materials and techniques, presentation and display, and case studies. Papers are presented either in English, French, or Italian; there are abstracts in English and either French or Italian for all entries. The volume will be of interest to conservators, site managers, and others responsible for conserving the mosaic heritage, especially in these challenging times.

If you were fortunate enough to view the movie Erin Brockovich, then reading Profit...at What Cost? will bring back memories of environmental wrongdoings. Those who read the first outline of this novel said it should be made into a movie, as it's even more riveting and eye-opening! Are you paying attention, Hollywood? Follow an environmental reporter and her sidekick photographer as they search for the truth in two highly emotional yet mysterious environmental situations: above-normal births of deformed children in a small town in West Virginia and what finally leads to the death of thousands when an unknown bacterium is unleashed in the Midwest. And since the author actually wrote the terms and conditions, awarded and oversaw the progress of a similar contract, as described herein for the cleansing of contaminated soils at a USAF facility (one that could have unleashed an unknown bacterium into the wild), only its termination after its first test results became known, may have saved the earth from similar disastrous events, as described in this novel! DO NOT MISS READING THIS NOVEL!