UFCW has a great new ad campaign in DC for Smithfield Justice. I'm hoping that one of us can get pictures of the ads up on this site this week, but on a similar note in terms of food, I ran across a Time article posted on Yahoo. What's interesting about this is that I noticed this last week when I went grocery shopping. I noticed that I'm paying the same for less stuff. And I mostly noticed this when I left my local union store Giant with less stuff in the bag and fewer bags than I would have just a few months ago.

So, have you ever wondered why?

Reducing the size of products as a way of increasing prices is not new. Frito-Lay cut the amount of chips in their bags and Poland Springs reduced its water cooler jugs from 6 to 5 gallons years ago, all while keeping prices the same. Still, says Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federal of America, "What's going on now is definitely reflective of rising food costs and rising fuel costs." Waldrop says he doesn't blame manufacturers for taking the step to protect their bottom lines, but says the food companies should be honest with their customers about it. "If they're transparent and open, consumers are less willing to think [manufacturers] are trying to pull one over on them," says Waldrop. The changing product sizes are part of the reason the Bureau of Labor Statistics says groceries cost 5.8% more than the same time last year. Price checkers in the department measure more than 2,000 food items to determine overall food inflation, and when they notice product size changes, they adjust the inflation index accordingly, according to Ephraim Leibtag, an economist with the Economic Research Service of the Department of Agriculture.


When a product amount drops below a benchmark like "1 pound" or "1 gallon" consumers often take note, according to Gourville. But after that, it's much easier for manufacturers to further whittle down amounts. It's all about taking away consumers' ability to compare apples to apples. The best way to compare food products if you're not sure if sizes have changed is to look at the "unit price," which breaks down the cost per ounce or per quart.

I always look at the unit price to compare products. I also try to shop for items that are union made, which is a bit harder in terms of food items, especially locally grown produce. However, because of these habits, I don't shop at Trader Joe's. And why is that important in terms of talking about food? Well, it has to do with the death of Maria Isabel Vasquez and how Trader Joe's sells wine produced by Frank Franzia who co-owns the farm where Isabel died:

Trader Joe’s assertion: The company employing the young farm worker has no more of a relation to Trader Joe's than they do to any other wine retailer or restaurant.

Reality: The facts in this case are clear: Maria Isabel Jimenez died a tragic death while working on a farm--West Coast Farms--co-owned by Fred Franzia. Mr. Franzia is also the owner of Bronco Winery, which produces Charles Shaw wines. It is widely reported that 5-13 million cases of Charles Shaw wine is sold at Trader Joe's stores per year.

We are not denying that Maria was paid through a farm labor contractor. As attorney Robert Perez who is representing Maria's family in a wrongful death lawsuit told the Sacramento Bee, "The reason why corporate farms hire labor contractors is not to have to deal with farmworkers themselves and to shield themselves from liability."

So, Trader Joe's uses contractor's to get around unionized farms and farm labor. So, as consumers, we're paying the same for less, and the farms where Trader Joe's gets their stuff has relationships with heartless bastards who take advantage of the poor to the detriment of the men and women working in the fields. Less stuff at a much higher price, the price of a human life. It's not a perfect connection between the two issues, but when it comes to putting food on my table, I'd like to think that the workers creating it or harvesting it are at least paid a fair price and aren't toiling themselves into the grave. That's just not an acceptable cost for anything I buy.

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Okay, that’s a little spun for a headline here, but right now, it sure feels right.

You see, Republicans in the Senate blocked further consideration of a bill that would have allowed the Justice Department to pursue OPEC members for price fixing, from the Post:

The bill also would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue members of OPEC for alleged price fixing and required oil traders to put up more cash on futures exchanges to address speculation, which many observers believe is contributing to the unprecedented run-up in world crude oil prices.

The bill did a few other things as well, like taxing oil company windfall profits as well, but the goal here is that they want to drill. Yep, the Republicans in the Senate, with their heads up their asses, continue to deny global warming and their idea on global warming is to drive more, burn more and drill more. Again, from the post:

They said the nation could combat high fuel prices more effectively by increasing domestic oil supplies by permitting new exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in waters on the Outer Continental Shelf. Most congressional Democrats oppose drilling in those areas.

But for once, I have to agree with Kay Bailey Hutchison on this one:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) added: "Anyone in America who is filling their gas tank must think that Congress is fiddling while Rome burns. The idea that we would bring up a bill that is called an energy plan, that has no energy production in it, is ludicrous."

Of course, her stand would make more sense if she also supported tax breaks for renewable energy, ah but there’s no need for that sort of thing. Of course, I think that Sherrod Brown hit the nail on the head in this Politico piece by way of CBS News (BTW, Politico, do you also note all the conservative Senators? I’m guessing, you don’t…good thing that Sherrod doesn’t mind being labeled).

Brown, a liberal freshman senator whose home state of Ohio has been particularly hard hit by manufacturing job loss, seemed almost apologetic for voting against the bill. He called global warming "the moral question of our time" and said he supported a cap and trade system. But Brown said he feared that the cap and trade system as written would allow the United States to "export emissions" rather than reducing them because foreign countries without tough pollution standards would take the U.S. jobs eliminated under a cap and trade mandate.

Gee, that’s what Brazil, Poland, China and Mexico have been doing for years. Wait, I wonder what the oil executives view all of this is? The NYTimes posted a little ditty on their testimony before Congress and I had to chuckle as the same White Men’s chorus has been sung out loudly by Republicans in Congress lead by the solos of Mitch McConnell:

The executives politely but just as firmly insisted that Congress should focus its efforts on allowing more drilling and exploration for domestic oil — in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, offshore in the Atlantic and Pacific, and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. They insisted that they were investing heavily in search of new oil supplies.

And they strongly warned against other measures: any new tax on profits would put American companies at a disadvantage and only further decrease oil supply; a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would increase demand and only raise prices more; lawsuits against foreign nations would do nothing to lower prices.

I was really worried that the CEO’s that make more than I can even think of could actually sit before Congress and tell them and the world that lower profits is bad for the world because it means more money paid by the little guy. I’d probably buy this argument if one of them even knew what it meant to be a little guy.

On the issue of Fuel costs, Food Costs and drilling in ANWR, Republicans are dead wrong. Their half assed backwards and wrong. But what’s worse is that any of us in this country could even have illusions that anything is going to bring down the price of oil. Oil isn’t the future, it’s the past and we need to invest in renewable sources for energy. If we don’t, there will not be roads to repair, crops to harvest or houses to heat. Life as we’ve known it over the past 100 years is over and we need to find the next great thing, we need to find our next “oil” to meet our energy needs.

Oil is finite and until we all realize this, we’re all screwed. I suppose that's what Oil Executives love, screwing consumers. And it Oil Execs love it, you know thier lap dogs, Congressional Republicans, can't wait to help them do it.

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