The coming EV batteries will sweep away fossil fuel transport, with or without net zero

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

THE TELEGRAPH
Tue, March 7, 2023

New electric car batteries could lengthen ranges to a thousand miles or more - Michaela Handrek-Rehle/Bloomberg

The Argonne National Laboratory in the US has essentially cracked the battery technology for electric vehicles, discovering a way to raise the future driving range of standard EVs to a thousand miles or more. It promises to do so cheaply without exhausting the global supply of critical minerals in the process.

The joint project with the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) has achieved a radical jump in the energy density of battery cells. The typical lithium-ion battery used in the car industry today stores about 200 watt-hours per kilo (Wh/kg). Their lab experiment has already reached 675 Wh/kg with a lithium-air variant.

This is a high enough density to power trucks, trains, and arguably mid-haul aircraft, long thought to be beyond the reach of electrification. The team believes it can reach 1,200 Wh/kg. If so, almost all global transport can be decarbonised more easily than we thought, and probably at a negative net cost compared to continuation of the hydrocarbon status quo.

The Argonne Laboratory in Chicago is not alone in pushing the boundaries of energy storage and EV technology. The specialist press reports eye-watering breakthroughs almost every month. America, Europe, China and Japan are all in a feverish global race for battery dominance – or survival – and hedge funds are swarming over the field.

I highlight this paper because US national labs have AAA credibility. The study is peer-reviewed and has just appeared in the research journal Science. Their solid-state battery has achieved the highest energy density yet seen anywhere in the world. And sometimes you have to pick on one to tell a larger story.

The science paper says the process can “theoretically deliver an energy density that is comparable to that of gasoline”, a remarkable thought that slays some stubborn shibboleths. It is not for today, but it is not for the remote future either. It typically takes five or so breakthroughs of this kind in battery technology to reach manufacturing.

Professor Larry Curtiss, the project leader, told me that his battery needs no cobalt. That eliminates reliance on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which accounts for 74pc of the world’s production and has become a Chinese economic colony for the extraction of raw materials.

Beijing has already gained a lockhold on the supply chain through ownership or control over three quarters of the DRC’s major cobalt mines. Russia is the world’s third. It is planning to raise that share by tearing up the marine bed off the Pacific coast.

Reports by the United Nations and activist groups leave no doubt that cobalt mining in the DRC is an ecological and human disaster, with some 40,000 children working for a pittance in toxic conditions for small ‘artisanal’ mines. It has become a byword for North-South exploitation.

Needless to say, the horrors of the cobalt supply chain have been seized on by fossil “realists” (i.e. vested interests) and Putin’s cyber-bots to impugn the moral claims of the green energy transition. The Argonne-IIF technology should make it harder to sustain that line of attack.

Prof Curtiss said the current prototype is based on lithium but does not have to be. “The same type of battery could be developed with sodium. It will take more time, but can be done,” he said. Switching to sodium would halve the driving range but it would still be double today’s generation of batteries.

Sodium is ubiquitous. There are deposits in Dorset, Cheshire, or Ulster. The US and Canada have vast salt lakes. Sodium can be produced cheaply from seawater in hot regions via evaporation. There is no supply constraint.

This knocks out another myth: that the EV revolution is impossible on a planetary scale because there either is not enough lithium, or not enough at viable cost under free market conditions in states aligned with the Western democracies. (The copper shortage is more serious, but there may be solutions for that as well using graphene with aluminium).

The International Energy Agency estimates that demand for lithium will rise 20-fold by 2040 if we rely on existing battery technology. The Australians are the world’s biggest producers today. But the greatest long-term deposits are in the Lithium Triangle of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, which are in talks to create an OPEC-style lithium cartel. China’s Tianqui owns 22pc of the Chilean group SQM, the world’s second-biggest lithium miner.

A lithium recycling industry will mitigate the problem. In the end, lithium can be extracted from seawater. It is highly diluted at 180 parts per billion but research suggests that it could be isolated for as little as $5 a kilo. If so, the lithium scare is just another of a long list of seemingly insurmountable barriers that fall away with time. The march of clean-tech is littered with such false scares.

For readers with a better grip on chemistry than me, the Argonne-IIF uses a solid electrolyte made from a ceramic polymer based on nanoparticles. This does require expensive materials.

It achieves a reaction of four molecules at room temperature instead of the usual one or two. It is able to extract oxygen from the surrounding air to run the reaction, solving a problem that has held back development for a decade. It can operate over a thousand cycles of charging and discharging. It is safer and less likely to catch fire than today's batteries.

What the Argonne-IIF battery and other global breakthroughs show collectively is that energy science is moving so fast that what seemed impossible five years ago is already a discernible reality, and that we will be looking at a very different technological landscape before the end of this decade.

Germany and Italy last week succeeded in blocking EU’s plans for ban on petrol and diesel sales by 2035. They might just as well bark at the moon or command the waves to recede. Moore’s Law and the learning curve of new technology has already sealed the fate of the combustion engine – with or without net zero.

The legacy companies cannot save their sunk investment in fossil motors – unless the EU retreats into fortress protectionism, which would be economic suicide. To try would be to guarantee the total destruction of Europe’s car industry. The only hope of saving it is to go for broke on electrification before global rivals run away with the prize.

The coming battery technology kills the case for hydrogen in cars, vans, buses, or trucks, and perhaps also for trains and aircraft, whether it is “green” from wind and solar via electrolysis or “blue” from natural gas with carbon capture. The energy loss involved makes no sense. It is much cheaper and more efficient to electrify wherever possible.

Clean hydrogen is too valuable to squander. We need it to replace dirty hydrogen used in industry. We need it for fertilisers, green steel, container shipping, and long-term storage in saline aquifers to back up renewables during a windless Dunkelflaute. We do not need it for road transport.

My advice to corporate bosses and ministers: keep up with the world’s scientific literature, or you will be massacred.

Scientists named a fungicide after Keanu Reeves because it's extremely effective at killing — just like his characters


Hannah Getahun
Sat, March 4, 2023


Scientists discovered a compound in pseudomonas bacteria that can effectively kill certain fungi.

The fungus killer was named after actor Keanu Reeves by German researchers.

The study authors say that the fungus could be used to effectively treat both crops and humans.

Like John Wick, new compounds discovered by scientists are effective killers. But instead of killing bad guys, they kill fungi.

Researchers at the Leibniz Institute in Germany found certain bacteria naturally contained compounds effective at killing fungi that affect plants and humans. The scientists named them keanumycins A, B, and C — after actor Keanu Reeves.

The three keanumycins — lipopeptides in bacteria of the Pseudomonas genus, commonly found in soil and water — were isolated by scientists, who tested their deadly properties. They found that the compounds got rid of amoebas and fungi.

"The lipopeptides kill so efficiently that we named them after Keanu Reeves because he, too, is extremely deadly in his roles," the study's main author Sebastian Götze said in a press release. The scientists released their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in January.

The keanumycins were most effective at killing Botrytis cinerea — a fungus that produces gray mold rot. The fungus ruins crops like strawberries and wine grapes, and farmers usually use chemical fungicides to prevent it from growing.

The study authors are currently testing the theory that a fungicide containing keanumycins could kill fungus on crops, and provide a biodegradable option that won't leave chemicals in the soil or on fruit.

The scientists also say it can help with another crisis — human fungal infections that are becoming less resistant to anti-fungal treatments. Keanumycins are effective at treating the human-pathogenic fungus responsible for yeast infections and are not toxic to humans, the study authors note.

"We have a crisis in anti-infectives," Götze said in the release. "Many human-pathogenic fungi are now resistant to antimycotics — partly because they are used in large quantities in agricultural fields."

So far, 2023 has seen multiple significant scientific discoveries named after celebrities.

Recently, biologists in Ecuador found a mystical stream frog and named it after fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien.

Another pair of biologists discovered five new species of snakes in Central and South America. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio named one of them — an orange-eyed, snail-eating snake that produces a "musky and distasteful odor"— after his mother, Irmelin Indenbirken.

How socialism became un-American through the Ad Council’s propaganda campaigns

Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, Teaching Professor of American Studies, Miami University

THE CONVERSATION
Sun, March 5, 2023 

Bernie Sanders was asked at a CNN-sponsored town hall about socialism. CNN screenshot

This article was published in 2020 Bernie Sanders has emerged as the Democratic front-runner in the race for the presidential nomination.

Yet even some left-leaning pundits and publications are concerned about what they see as Sanders’ potential lack of electability.

Sanders is a Democratic Socialist. And the label “socialist” is a political liability in American culture. According to a Gallup poll released on Feb. 11, 2020, only 45% of Americans would vote for a socialist.

I am a scholar of American culture with an interest in the relationship between political ideologies and popular culture. In my research, I have found that this antipathy toward socialism may not be an accident: American identity today is strongly tied to an image of capitalism crafted and advertised by the Ad Council and American corporate interests over decades, often with the support of the U.S. government.

A screenshot from one of the corporate Cold War-era cartoons linking the Bill of Rights to free-enterprise ideology. Internet Archive, Prelinger Collection

Business and government solidarity

In 1942, a group of advertising and industry executives created the War Advertising Council, to promote the war effort. The government compensated the companies that created or donated ads by allowing them to deduct some of their costs from their taxable incomes.

Renamed the Ad Council in 1943, the organization applied the same wartime persuasive techniques of advertising and psychological manipulation during the Cold War years, the post-war period when the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S., the USSR and their respective allies raged. One of their goals: promoting the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise in America while simultaneously demonizing the alternative – socialism – which was often conflated with communism.

Government propaganda at home portrayed the communist USSR as godless, tyrannical and antithetical to individual freedoms. As a counterpoint, America became everything the Soviet Union was not.

This link between capitalism and American national identity was advertised through a sophisticated, corporate effort as efficient and ubiquitous as state-driven propaganda behind the Iron Curtain.

The campaigns used the ideological divisions of the Cold War to emphasize the relevance of their message. In a 1948 report, the Ad Council explained its goal to the public: “The world today is engaged in a colossal struggle to determine whether freedom or statism will dominate.”

Extolling capitalism’s virtues

The campaigns started as a public-private partnership. At the end of World War II, the government worried about the spread of communism at home. Business interests worried about government regulations and about the rising popularity of unions. The Cold War provided both parties with a shared enemy.

In 1947, President Truman asked the Ad Council to organize the Freedom Train Campaign, focusing on the history of America’s political freedoms. Paramount Pictures, U.S. Steel, DuPont, General Electric and Standard Oil provided financial support. For two years the train crisscrossed the nation, carrying original documents that included the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

One of the Ad Council’s messages about capitalism in America. 

Outdoor Advertising Association of America Archives, Duke University Libraries

The following year, the Ad Council launched a business-led campaign, called “The Miracle of America,” intended to foster support for the American model of capitalism, as distinct from its Western European version, which was more friendly to government intervention. It urged increased productivity by U.S. workers, linked economic and political freedom and, paradoxically, asserted capitalism’s collaborative nature.

“Sure, America is going ahead if we all pull together,” read a brochure. Another flyer, “Comes the Revolution!,” cast its support of American capitalism in the language of global struggle: “If we continue to make that system work…then other nations will follow us. If we don’t, then they’ll probably go communist or fascist.”

In its first two years, the Miracle of America message reached American audiences via 250 radio and television stations and 7,000 outdoor billboards. Newspapers printed 13 million lines of free advertising. The Ad Council boasted that the campaign made over 1 billion “radio listener impressions.”

American factory workers received about half of the 1.84 million copies of the free pamphlet “The Miracle of America.” One-quarter were distributed free of charge to schools, and 76 universities ordered the booklet.

This pro-business propaganda, expressed in the language of Cold War patriotism, had reached roughly 70% of the American population by the end of the campaign.

Cartoon capitalism

The efforts produced more than just print and billboard messages.

In 1946, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded by the former head of General Motors, paid the evangelical Harding College to produce “Fun and Facts about American Business,” a series of educational cartoon videos about capitalism, produced by a former Disney employee.

Between 1949 and 1952, Metro Goldwyn Mayer distributed them in theaters, schools, colleges, churches and workplaces.

The films promoted the same messages as the Ad Council campaigns, although they were not part of the project. They continued a decade-long effort by the Sloan Foundation to start, in the words of its executive director, “a bombardment of the American mind with elementary economic principles through partnering with educational institutions.”

To both Sloan and the movement’s backers, business interests were synonymous with the national interest. The free-enterprise system was a shorthand for freedom, democracy and patriotism. Unlike in Europe, the videos suggested, class struggle – of the kind that required unions – did not exist in the U.S.

In the cartoon “Meet the King,” Joe, the archetypal American worker, realizes he is not an exploited proletarian. Instead, he’s a king, “because he can buy more with his wages than any other worker on the globe.”

Conversely, government regulations of, or interventions in, the economy were described in the cartoons as socialist tendencies, bound to lead to communism and tyranny.

“Make Mine Freedom,” and “It’s Everybody’s Business” presented the state as a perpetual threat. A money-sucking tax monster, the government reduces everyone’s profits, crushes private enterprise and takes away individual freedoms: “No more private property, no more you.”

According to an estimate from Fortune magazine, by 1952, American businesses spent US0 million each year, independent from any Ad Council campaigns, promoting free enterprise.
‘Peanuts’ pushes freedom

In the early 1970s, business responded to rising negativity about corporate power with a new campaign coordinated by the Ad Council.

“The American Economic System … and Your Part in It” was launched alongside the bicentennial national celebrations. It was the largest centralized pro-business public relations project thus far, but only one of many independently run by corporations.

Part of a page from the 1970s booklet that used Charles Schultz’s ‘Peanuts’ comic strips to explain the benefits of America’s economic system. Amazon

The media industry donated million in free space and air time in the first year of the campaign. The Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor contributed about half a million dollars toward the production costs for a 20-page booklet.

That booklet used data provided by the departments of Commerce and Labor and Charles Schulz’s ‘Peanuts’ comic strips to explain the benefits of America’s economic system. The system was again presented as a foundational freedom protected by a Constitution whose goal was to “maintain a climate in which people could work, invest, and prosper.”

By 1979, 13 million copies had been distributed to schools, universities, libraries, civic organizations and workplaces.

Echoes now?

For four decades, the Cold War provided a simple good-vs.-evil axis that consolidated the association between freedom, American-ness and free-enterprise capitalism.

The business community, independently and through the Ad Council, funded massive top-down economic education programs which shaped American perceptions of business and government and of capitalism and socialism.

The Cold War ended 30 years ago, but its cultural structures and divisions endure – perhaps, even, in the responses of some Americans to Bernie Sanders’ socialism.

Editor’s note: The Conversation has received grant funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

It was written by: Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, Miami University.

Read more:

Americans are drowning in a sea of polls

What 1860 and 1968 can teach America about the 2020 presidential election

Could a woman defeat Donald Trump? What political science research says

Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy received funding from the Fulbright Commission and The Library of Congress.

Israel president says judicial compromise 'closer' as protests escalate


Mon, March 6, 2023
By Steven Scheer

JERUSALEM, March 6 (Reuters) - Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday said a compromise in the government's judicial overhaul plan could be imminent even as protests against the reform continued to spread.

Local media circulated a letter by 10 former air force chiefs to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of the "grave and tangible" threat posed by the judicial overhaul plan, a day after reservists said they would not turn up for training in protest.

In a statement late on Monday, Netanyahu criticised the threats to refuse military service, which he said endangered Israel's existence.

On the battlefield, soldiers have stood united "throughout all of Israel's wars, regardless of the struggles and disagreements among us," he said, speaking from a Border Police base in the occupied West Bank settlement of Beit Horon.

"There is room for protest, there is room for disagreements, for expressing opinions, but there is no room for refusal."

Although the presidency is a ceremonial post, Herzog convened 100 heads of authorities for an emergency meeting designed to come up with a solution to proposals that have split the country and led to mass nationwide protests.

"We are closer than ever to the possibility of an agreed outline. There are agreements behind the scenes on most things," Herzog said in a statement, without giving details.

Herzog's comments sent financial markets sharply higher even though there was no immediate sign of a deal between the government and opposition.

He said it would now depend on leaders of the ruling coalition and opposition to "put the country and the citizens above everything else" and implement it, adding that his plan works to placate both sides.

Heads of the opposition Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz issued a joint statement in response, commending the president's efforts to reach a compromise but demanding that Netanyahu halt the legislation process to allow for "honest and effective dialogue".

"Israel is on the brink of a national emergency - and Netanyahu refuses to stop," they wrote on Twitter.

Netanyahu did not immediately respond to Herzog's efforts.

Herzog last month floated a compromise plan to spare the country what he described as a "constitutional collapse".

The judicial overhaul plan, which has already received initial parliamentary approval, would give the government greater sway on selecting judges and limit the power of the Supreme Court to strike down legislation.

Critics of the planned law changes say Netanyahu - on trial on graft charges that he denies - is pursuing steps that will hurt Israel's democratic checks and balances, enable corruption and bring diplomatic isolation.

Proponents say the changes are needed to curb what they deem an activist judiciary that interferes in politics.

Lapid has called for compromise talks and a freeze of the legislation for 60 days but Netanyahu said he would only agree to negotiations without preconditions.

Optimism over a possible compromise riled financial markets and sent the shekel up 2% on Monday to 3.59 per dollar - its strongest level since Feb. 21. Similarly, Tel Aviv share indexes were up 1.5% and government bond prices were also up close to 1%.

Since the proposals were introduced in late January, the shekel has slumped against the dollar, alarming investors wary that Israel might be joining the growing list of emerging markets taking a more authoritarian stance to decision making.

By last week, the shekel had fallen nearly 10% against the U.S. currency in just one month, and was trading at a three-year low.

 (Reporting by Steven Scheer and Henriette Chacar; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Christina Fincher)

Israeli reserve pilots ditch drill in protest at judicial overhaul

Sun, March 5, 2023 
By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Dozens of Israeli air force reservists said on Sunday they would not turn up for a training day in protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial reforms, a jolt for a country whose melting-pot military is meant to be apolitical.

As Israel's strategic arm, the air force has traditionally relied on reservists in wartime and requires crews who have been discharged to train regularly in order to maintain readiness.

But in a letter circulated in local media, 37 pilots and navigators from an F-15 squadron said they would skip drills scheduled for Wednesday and instead "devote our time to dialogue and reflection for the sake of democracy and national unity".

The religious-nationalist government seeks changes that include curbs on the Supreme Court, which it accuses of over-reach. Critics worry that Netanyahu - who is on trial on graft charges he denies - wants excessive power over the judiciary.

Weekly and increasingly raucous demonstrations have swept the country, with some protest leaders - among them former military chiefs - saying that a non-democratic turn in government would warrant mass-disobedience within the ranks.

The 37 air force reservists said they would suspend their one-day protest if required to carry out actual operations.

A military spokesperson declined to comment on their letter but said top commander Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevy "is aware of the public discourse and division but will not allow any harm to the IDF's (Israel Defence Forces) ability to carry out its most important mission - defend(ing) Israel's security".

Officers had been instructed to speak with subordinates on the issue, said the statement, which also reiterated the "importance of maintaining the IDF’s impartiality".

Israel does not publish military personnel figures, making it hard to judge to impact of the air force reservists' protest, or of similar pledges by some reservists from other branches.

"These irresponsible Israeli media are playing up any reservist who makes some kind of statement," Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Channel 12 TV.

"There are tens and hundreds of thousands who will continue to enlist for the military and serve in the reserves and understand that we are brothers and bear responsibility for the great miracle that is the Zionist enterprise."

Netanyahu, a former officer in Israel's most prestigious commando unit, tweeted a photograph of himself at conscription age with the caption: "When called up for reserve duty, we always turn up. We are one nation."

Meanwhile, Israel's N12 News reported that El Al Israel Airlines was having trouble finding a crew to fly Netanyahu on a state visit to Italy this week, because of a boycott by pilots over the judicial overhaul.

Netanyahu's office did not respond to a request for comment.

El Al said it would not support boycotts "particularly against the prime minister of Israel", and that the flight had been staffed and would depart as planned.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Christina Fincher and Alexander Smith

Poor nations' leaders unleash anger and despair at UN summit

Tim Witcher
Sun, March 5, 2023 


Leaders from the world's poorest nations poured out their disappointment and bitterness at a UN summit on Sunday over the treatment of their countries by richer counterparts.

Many made pointed calls for the developed powers to come good with billions of dollars of promised aid to help them escape poverty and battle climate change.

Central African Republic's president told the UN Least Developed Countries meeting in Doha that his resource-rich but impoverished nation was being "looted" by "Western powers".

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres followed up an attack he made a day earlier on the "predatory" interest rates imposed by international banks on poor states.

He said there could be "no more excuses" for not providing aid.

But the opening day of general debate at the once-in-a-decade summit saw no major announcement of desperately needed cash -- apart from $60 million that host Qatar said it would give to United Nations programmes.

Leaders of the world's major economies have been markedly absent from debate, which will last five days, on the turmoil in poor nations.

At a meeting with LDC leaders on Saturday Guterres called for $500 billion to be mobilised for social and economic transformation.

Leaders also used the first day of public debate to renew demands that industrialised governments hand over a promised $100 billion a year to support their efforts to counter global warming.

Presidents and prime ministers from Africa and the Asia-Pacific region made calls for financial action.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose country of 170 million is scheduled to graduate out of LDC status, said poorer nations "deserve" certainty over financing for development and climate.

"The international community must renew its commitment for real structural transformation in LDCs," Hasina said.

"Our nations do not ask for charity. What we seek are our due international commitments."

- 'Epic battle' -

Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema said providing the finance was "a matter of credibility".

"LDCs cannot afford another lost decade," declared Narayan Kaji Shrestha, deputy prime minister of Nepal, which is also to leave the LDC club for the Middle Income Countries division by 2026.

Shrestha said that in the five decades since LDC status was established to give countries trade privileges and cheaper finance, they had been "fighting an epic battle against poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy."

He highlighted that only six countries had so far escaped the LDC status that some nations consider a stigma.

Central African Republic's President Faustin-Archange Touadera used his speech to lash out at sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council and other institutions against the huge but sparsely populated nation that has seen decades of instability.

Touadera said the country's 5.5 million people could not understand how, with vast reserves of gold, diamonds, cobalt, oil and uranium, it "remains, more than 60 years after independence, one of the poorest in the world".

"Central African Republic has always been wrongly considered by certain Western powers as a reserve for strategic materials," he added.

"It has suffered a systematic looting since its independence, helped by political instability supported by certain Western powers or their allies."

The country has been under a UN arms embargo for a decade, while the EU imposed sanctions against the Russian mercenary group Wagner over its activities in Central African Republic and other neighbouring countries.

One sanctioned Wagner official was a "security adviser" to Touadera, according to the EU.

Gold and diamond companies linked to Wagner in Central African Republic and Sudan were also hit by EU sanctions.

The LDC summit lasts until March 9 while hundreds of business executives are attending a parallel private sector forum.

tw/it

'Truth serum' drugs do exist. Here's how medicines like sodium pentothal and scopolamine can manipulate the brain.


Jessica Orwig
Sun, March 5, 2023 

The Datura stramonium plant contains poisonous seeds that can be used to make scopolamine.Orest Lyzhechka / Getty Images

The term "truth serum" refers to a number of mind-altering drugs.

These drugs make you incapable of lying, or so the theory goes.

Such mind-altering drugs do exist, but their effect isn't enough to stop a person from lying.

Humans have known since the time of the Roman Empire that we're more readily truthful while under the influence. That's where the idea behind the term "truth serum" comes from.

Truth serum refers to a number of mind-altering drugs that are supposed to make you incapable of lying, but the reality is no drug is powerful enough to grip the human mind so tightly as to make it impossible to lie.

Some truth serums, like sodium thiopental, slow the speed at which your body sends messages from your spinal cord to your brain.

As a result, it's more difficult to perform high-functioning tasks, such as concentrating on a single activity like walking a straight line or even lying. It's this concentration you need to think up a lie that truth serum removes. So in that way, lying can be more difficult, but not impossible.

The same thing happens when you're nodding off and reaching that twilight state where you're in between consciousness and sleep. If you're not a compulsive liar, then it's likely more difficult for you to lie than tell the truth.

As the famous American author wrote in "Mark Twain's Notebook" (published posthumously in 1935): "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

That said, there's no way to really know if someone is telling the truth, ever.

Numerous accounts and scientific reports suggest that you're more prone to tell the truth under the effects of truth serum drugs, but the drugs have other side effects. Most concerning among them is that they might make you say something to please someone else, even if it's not true.

Furthermore, not only are truth serum drugs not all that useful, they are illegal under certain circumstances, including interrogation.

Although many of the first drugs that the CIA, police, and Nazi interrogators used throughout the '20s, '30s, and '40s are still around today, they have other uses, including ingredients in medicines that prevent motion sickness and for lethal injection.

Here's a list of the most common mind-altering, manipulating medicines that have used as truth serums.

Sodium Pentothal

Marlyn Monroe died from acute barbiturate poisoning, the same type of drug as sodium pentothal.Baron / Stringer / Getty Images

Sodium pentothal is a type of barbiturate, which is a series of drugs that are central nervous system depressants, colloquially known as "downers." Downers slow your body's process to transmit information to your brain and are common prescription medicines for pain relief, sedation, muscle relaxation, and lowering blood pressure.

An overdose of barbiturates can be lethal and has led to a number of celebrity deaths, including Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Jimi Hendrix. The drug was also one of the first used in lethal injections in the US and is most often administered intravenously.

Until 2011, it was sometimes used as an anesthetic because patients usually pass out within 30-45 seconds after taking the drug. But the US has stopped using the drug.

In 2011, the Italian company that produced the drug announced it was ceasing production, The Guardian reported at the time. The company was worried that Italian authorities would use it in executions and as a result, the US lost its only viable supplier.

There are still accounts of this drug's use as a truth serum. In 2007, police in New Delhi, India administered sodium pentothal to a wealthy businessman, Moninder Singh Pandher, and his servant, Surinder Koli, who were suspects in the infamous Noida serial murders. While under the influence, they confessed to luring children to their home, raping, and then killing them. The servant, Koli, was given the death sentence and is still in jail, and Pandher received a seven-year sentence.

Scopolamine

The dark seeds from the Datura stramonium plant used to make scopolamine.

Rosendo Serrano Valera / Getty Images

Scopolamine was first promoted by Dr. Robert House as a truth serum in the early 20th century, and was the first drug to adopt the name "truth serum."

Throughout the 1920s and '30s some police departments in the US used scopolamine on suspects, and — in some cases — judges permitted the statements the subjects gave up while under the influence.

Scopolamine was the truth serum drug of choice for many back in the day because it also wiped a subject's memory clean so they didn't know what they said after waking up, Gizmodo reported.

The drug comes from the seeds of a tree, which locals in Colombia where it grows call the "get-you-drunk" tree. While some Nazis used it in interrogation, today it's in many medicines to help prevent motion sickness and tremors of Parkinson's disease. It's also used as a date-rape drug.

Scopolamine can be ingested orally through a pill, or in one bizarre case, as a rub. Reports recount three young women in the Colombian capital, Bogota, who smeared the drug on their breasts luring men to lick it off. Once the men were incapacitated, the women would drain their bank accounts.

Sodium Amytal or Amobarbital

World War II soldiers were known to take sodium amytal for anxiety.

Mirrorpix / Contributor / Getty Images

Sodium Amytal is also a type of barbiturate, or downer. It was widely used during World War II as an anti-anxiety drug for soldiers with the psychological disturbance called shell shock.

But like all truth serum drugs, sodium amytal is a powerful sedative, and that side effect combined with the dis-coordination and cognitive impairment it induces is why soldiers stopped using it.

Moreover, sodium amytal is highly addictive. This drug is sometimes used to treat insomnia and is often administered intravenously, although it can come in powder form for oral ingestion.

Take too much of this drug and it can be lethal. The maximum dose for an adult is one gram.

This drug is no longer used as a truth serum because subjects sometimes develop false memories after the fact.

Ethyl Alcohol

Wine contains ethyl alcohol, which can help relax you and feel more inclined to tell the truth.Getty Images

That's right. Booze!

The Italian phrase "In vino veritas," which is Latin for "In wine there is truth", is attributed to a Roman philosopher known as Pliny the Elder.

So, humans have known for roughly 2,000 years about alcohol's ability to loosen the tongue.

Whether you're drinking it down or taking it intravenously in pure, ethanol form, ethyl alcohol can make you more prone to spilling your secrets.

But as you probably know, it doesn't make you incapable of a little white lie every now and again.

Do truth serums work?

Like lie detector tests, truth serum drugs aren't a full-proof solution either to determining if someone is lying, or not.Jose Luis Magana/AP

As Washington Post reporter David Brown wrote in 2006: "The answer appears to be: No. There is no pharmaceutical compound today whose proven effect is the consistent or predictable enhancement of truth-telling."

Despite the fact that truth serum's magical capabilities seem to be mostly fictional, US courts have in special cases allowed their use.

One example was with with suspect in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, theatre shooting — a judge allowed the use of sodium pentothal to determine if his claims of insanity were real.

Just because no truth-inducing drug exists today, doesn't mean there couldn't be one in the future, according to Mark Wheelis, a professor and expert on the history of biological warfare and biological weapons control at the University of California Davis.

"There is a large number of neural circuits that we are on the verge of being able to manipulate — things that govern states like fear, anxiety, terror and depression," Davis told the Washington Post in 2006. "We don't have recipes yet to control them, but the potential is clearly foreseeable. It would absolutely astonish me if we didn't identify a range of pharmaceuticals that would be of great utility to interrogators."
A truth serum experiment

To find out if truth serum works, TV journalist Michael Mosley experienced it for himself in 2013.

To investigate sodium thiopental, one of the more popular truth serum drugs, Mosley took two different doses of it. After administering the first dose, a doctor asked Mosley what he did for a living and — through fits of giggles — Mosley managed to lie and say he was a world-famous heart surgeon.

In less than a minute after the drug was administered, Mosley was all laughs from the light-headed, tipsy feeling he said he experienced from the drug. He said the feeling was akin to drinking a glass of champagne.

After the second, larger dose of sodium thiopental, Mosley experienced something he was not expecting. When the doctor asked him what he did for a living he immediately responded:

"I'm a television producer. Well, executive producer, well, presenter, some, mix of the three of them."

Mosley explained later that when asked the question, it didn't even occur to him to lie, so he didn't.


But is this evidence that truth serum works? Not exactly.

One of the biggest problems with using truth serum for interrogation, is the warm, friendly feeling it gives the subject toward their interrogator. Combined with a state of severe disorientation, this can lead a subject to tell their interrogator what they think the interrogator wants to hear, which could be true or not.

This is partly why any statement made under the influence of a truth serum drug is inadmissible in US courts and has been for 60 years. In 1963, the US Supreme court ruled that confession statements made under the influence of truth serum drugs were "unconstitutionally coerced" threatening citizens' rights under the Fifth Amendment and were therefore inadmissible.

So, when it comes to drugs that alter your state of mind, disorient you, and loosen your tongue, believe what you will about their abilities to enhance truth telling. The evidence shows that statements revealed under the influence have a chance of being more complacent or outright false than true.

Moreover, truth serums are mostly "useless", Esther Inglis-Arkell wrote for io9, "not because no one could get information, but because everyone could get too much." And sifting through the statements trying to pull out the ones that are true versus complacent is, frankly, impossible.

But researchers continue to look for something more reliable.

The future of truth-telling drugs

There may be a more powerful truth serum drug out there that researchers have yet to discover.Jackyenjoyphotography / Getty Images

As we learn more about the brain and discover new drugs we could be on the verge of a new type of truth-telling and trust-enhancing drug.

One of the more recent drugs examined for its truth-telling affects is oxytocin, known to women in labor as Pitocin.

In 2005, two researchers at the University of Zurich examined the trust-promoting effects of the drug by studying 128 college students, some of whom were given a snort of oxytocin while the others received a placebo.

They were asked to play an investing game in which they had to trust a stranger to give them back a portion of their winnings. The students given oxytocin were more trusting and transferred more money, on average. More importantly, 45% of the students on oxytocin transferred all of their money, showing maximal trust, twice as many as students who took the placebo.

These new drugs that increase trust could be a next-level advancement in truth serums — they would actually encourage truth-telling instead of just making the teller say whatever makes their questioner happy.

Don't worry too much — your secrets are safe for now.

Business Insider

Women deal with added burdens of Turkey's quake disaster

Fulya OZERKAN
Tue, March 7, 2023


The shelves of the makeshift clinic -- little more than an orange storage container -- offer everything women are too shy to ask for on the streets of Turkey's quake zone.

From underwear to period and contraception products, doctor Meltem Gunbegi reconnects women with the basics they feel uncomfortable discussing in the crowds of mass aid distribution centres.

She also offers a receptive ear, helping the women of southern Turkey's destroyed city of Antakya to start processing the grief and death they have been subjected to in the past month.

The toll from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake now stands at more than 46,000 in Turkey and at nearly 6,000 in Syria, making it one of the world's 10 deadliest of the past 100 years.

A top United Nations official said on Tuesday that the damage alone amounted to more than $100 billion, with extra money needed for recovery costs.

"Many are shy when it comes to asking for basics, such as bras, wax bands and tweezers, so they come and visit our container," said the 33-year-old doctor.

More women are having genital issues because of poor hygiene conditions in the tent cities set up across the 11 quake-hit provinces, Gunbegi said.

But she also sees women who are clearly still in shock and too traumatised to start thinking about their own bodies -- even when they are pregnant.

"They experienced a lot of death, a lot of destruction," said the doctor. "They really don't seem to think about the baby. They are in a state of trauma."

Semire Duman, 51, an earthquake survivor who has been living in a tent for a month, said women have a lot of needs.

"We have no shower, no toilet, no water, nothing," she told AFP, and then almost whispering: "We don't have underwear."

Gazele Sumer, 57, complained of lack of privacy in tents.

"We are six people in one tent," she said. "We sit here, we eat there, we sleep here," she added.

- 'Insecure' -

Selver Buyukkeles, an earthquake survivor who works with the Mor (Purple) Solidarity, said women bore the brunt of daily burdens -- such as doing chores and taking care of family -- even before the February 6 quake.

Now, they are trying to do the same while dealing with personal pain and an acute sense of insecurity that comes with life out on the streets.

"Women queue to get food at distribution centres. They cook, they take care of the children and the elderly. They do the dishes. They do the laundry," the 28-year-old said.

"Women feel responsible for their family's situation. They fear a new earthquake and the communal life in tents makes them insecure," she said.

At this stage, activists and doctors interviewed by AFP have not observed more cases of domestic violence or abuse, despite Turkey's poor record on the issue.

Fidan Ataselim, secretary general of the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, has called for "safe shelters" and "prevention centres" to be set up for women in damaged regions.

We Will Stop Femicide publicises the murder and abuse of women in the mostly Muslim but officially secular state.

In 2022, at least 327 women were killed and 793 injured, according to data compiled by the platform.

- 'Safe zone' -

Back at Antakya's Dostluk (Friendship) park, not far from Gunbegi's makeshift clinic, volunteers work in shifts making sure that some 200 women sheltering in dozens of tents are safe.

Others are keeping vigil outside toilets and shower cabins.

"Safe zone for women and LGBT+ here," proclaim posters in Turkish and Arabic.

The Arabic is a nod to the millions of refugees and migrants who have been living across stretches of southern Turkey since the start of the civil war in neighbouring Syria 12 years ago.

"We have a security system for both women and LGBT+, who are more vulnerable in such disasters," said Aslihan Keles, 23, one of the volunteers in the park.

Turkish women often join marches on March 8 -- the official International Women's Day -- demanding better lives and protection against domestic violence.

But this year, things are different in the quake zone, Keles said.

"Here, there is an emergency," she said. "This time, we are in field -- but for a very good cause."

fo/zak/ea

As Turkey's earthquake death toll grows, so does anger at government



Elif Ince and Leila Sackur
Sat, March 4, 2023 

GAZİANTEP, Turkey — The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been accused of contributing to the devastation caused by last month’s earthquakes by undermining long-established construction safeguards, which allegedly helped to pave the way for the disaster that unfolded.

The death toll in the massive Feb. 6 earthquakes stands at more than 45,000, according to Turkey’s disaster management agency, making it the worst national disaster in a century. Some 214,000 buildings containing 608,000 apartments either collapsed or suffered heavy damage, Erdogan said, as quoted by the state-run Anadolu news agency.

The tragedy has brought to light decades-old urbanistic mismanagement and placed the ruling AK Party under intense pressure.

“The most important reason why this disaster caused such great destruction is the government not showing the will to bring the fragile building stock up to safety standards,” said Gencay Serter, the president of the Chamber of Urban Planners, a powerful association that has clashed with Erdogan and the AK Party in the past.

NURDAGI, TURKEY - FEBRUARY 13: A man walks past a destroyed building on February 13, 2023 in Nurdagi, Turkey. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit near Gaziantep, Turkey, in the early hours of Monday, followed by another 7.5-magnitude tremor just after midday. The quakes caused widespread destruction in southern Turkey and northern Syria and has killed more than 30,000 people.

 (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images) 

While the Ministry of Justice has arrested more than 230 people —mostly contractors — in connection with the building collapses, many have focused and cast the blame on existing building regulations. Of particular note is a 2018 “amnesty” law legalizing hundreds of thousands of structures across the country that did not have planning permission or had disregarded building codes, including earthquake safety measures.

Under the amnesty law, the owner of an unauthorized construction could just pay a fee and have it legalized without extensive inspection. In other words, according to critics, the new regulation allowed builders to skirt building codes while the government collected fees and fines.

The government collected 23 billion Turkish lira (about $4 billion at the time) after the 2018 legislation went into effect, Murat Kurum, the minister of environment, urbanization and climate change, told parliamentarians in 2019.

“The amnesty is murder,” the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects said in a 2021 statement. “It should be assumed that all buildings legalized under this amnesty have not received any engineering services, and should be inspected,” the organization added.

Professional chambers, which defend the interests of some 650,000 engineers, architects and urban planners, play an important role in Turkey, with the Constitution stating that the organizations “function as public institutions” in order to “protect professional discipline and ethics.”

Also in 2021, a parliamentary report found that close to 8 million buildings constructed before the year 2000 were very vulnerable to earthquakes.

Erdogan, who cultivates a pro-business reputation, campaigned on the amnesty legislation.

At an election rally in 2019 in Hatay, one of the cities that suffered the most damage in the earthquakes, he said, “We built 8,000 residential projects and solved the problems of 205,000 Hatay residents with the amnesty,” a reference to the amnesty granted to unlicensed buildings.

According to Kurum, more than 7 million units were legalized thanks to the amnesty.

Neither Turkey’s Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change nor Erdogan’s office responded to requests for comment on this story. On Feb. 8, during a speech in Hatay, Erdogan said it was “not possible to be prepared for a disaster this big.”
Building boom

Turkey’s central government and local municipalities both play a role in shaping cities. The reason the ruling AK Party has come under so much criticism is that it holds the most seats in Parliament and can pass critical legislation such as the amnesty. It also controls the public housing authority, which carries out urban development projects.

Local municipalities, some run by the ruling party and some by the opposition, also play a major role, as they are responsible for creating zoning plans that determine building rights, such as deciding which areas are open for construction and imposing floor area caps and height limits. Additionally, municipalities are responsible for inspecting construction projects in their districts and issuing permits if they are up to code.

Laws like the 2018 amnesty fueled the building boom, giving developers throughout the country hope that the government would support the sector, experts say.

“Turkey’s economic growth since the late 2000s has relied heavily on construction,” said Bengi Akbulut, associate professor of geography, planning and environment at Concordia University in Montreal.

“This is reflected in the growth rate of the construction sector between 2002-2014, which has exceeded the rate of GDP growth, and even doubled it at times,” added Akbulut, who has written widely about Turkey’s economy and government.

Massive development projects, wide highways, bridges and airports have been showpieces of the AK Party, advertised during rallies and covered by pro-government media.

Construction workers are seen at the top of a building under construction during their weekend shifts in Ankara on April 22, 2018. Turkey prepares to go to the polls for the early presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24. ( Altan Gocher / NurPhoto via Getty Images file)

Construction peaked after the introduction of another much-debated law in 2012, which addressed the transformation of areas at risk from natural disasters. While the government promised to use the legislation to rebuild unsafe buildings, the new regulations granted the government expanded powers to designate entire neighborhoods as “at risk” and forcefully seize property through eminent domain.

Renewing old and unsafe building stock has been one of AK Party’s most well-known pledges over the years. But, despite the expanded powers granted by the 2012 law, critics like Gencay Serter, from the Chamber of Urban Planners, say authorities did not focus on rebuilding older structures to make them earthquake-safe and instead gave priority to new construction.

Also, allegations of widespread corruption that undermine building safety have long dogged the construction sector in Turkey.

Building regulations, enforced at a local level, have often not been followed because of “cozy relationships between construction firms and the government,” according to Howard Eissenstat, an associate professor of Middle East history at St. Lawrence University in New York.

Another factor that contributed to a lack of proper supervision was a building inspection system put into place in 2011 and in force until 2019, according to the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects. Under this system, contractors could choose any inspection company they wanted and pay the inspectors themselves.

This “led to some illegality in the system,” said Mustafa Erdik, a professor in the department of earthquake engineering at Istanbul’s Bogazici University.

The law was revised in 2019 so that the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change began assigning inspectors to contractors. Announcing the revision, the ministry wrote the most important goal was to eliminate “shortcomings in inspections” caused by “illegal commercial ties established between building contractors and inspection companies,“ something “all actors agreed was the biggest problem of the system.”

Zoning changes made by central or local government authorities were also an issue.

“Areas that were not safe for construction, such as river beds and other unstable areas, underwent zoning changes and were opened up for construction,” said Serter.

Over the years, the Chamber of Architects and the Chamber of Urban Planners have sued the government many times objecting to the safety of construction projects. They have won in some of the cases, delaying projects and angering Erdogan himself.

“These chambers, their names are architects, engineers,” Erdogan said in 2016. “But their goal is to demolish, not to build.”

Two outspoken critics of the government’s construction policies, architect Mucella Yapici and urban planner Tayfun Kahraman, have been jailed since April over their involvement in the Gezi park protests, which were sparked by the government’s plan to build a shopping mall in what is now a park in Istanbul.

Yapici, a vocal proponent of rigorous earthquake proof standards, asked her lawyers to send a tweet from her account on Saturday.

“After the search and rescue is over, prosecutors and experts must come to each wreck,” Yapici wrote. “Concrete/iron etc. samples must be taken as evidence from the wreckage!”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

‘Erdogan is responsible’ – resignation calls grow after Turkey earthquake


Nataliya Vasilyeva
Sat, March 4, 2023 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan (foreground) has had to make an unusual admission of guilt while visiting areas affected by the earthquake - Murat Cetinmuhurda/Reuters

As residents of Turkey’s once prosperous south east waited for help amid the rubble of their own homes in the immediate aftermath of last month’s horrific earthquake, there was one question that kept coming up: “Where is the government?”

The disaster on Feb 6 killed nearly 45,000 in Turkey alone, left millions homeless and wiped out buildings across an area almost as large as Germany.

In the days and weeks that followed, fury at the government’s slow pace of assistance and the lack of properly enforced building regulations has spread well beyond the earthquake zone and increasingly focused on the country’s strongman leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Last weekend, fans of the two country’s two major football clubs – including the president’s favourite team – chanted “Erdogan resign!” and “lies, lies, lies” at games in Istanbul. Hundreds of soft toys were thrown onto the pitch for disaster victims at one match.

The two teams have since been ordered to play to empty stands, but the scale of the anger in the country is clear.

With elections due in May, Mr Erdogan is clearly worried.

This week, while visiting affected areas in the city of Adiyaman, the Turkish president hugged children and stopped politely to listen to tearful old ladies. He even made an unusual admission of guilt by asking the locals for “helallik”, an Islamic term loosely meaning “to forgive and forget”.

Last month’s horrific earthquake has led to anger in the aftermath at the government’s slow pace of assistance - Orhan Cicek/Anadolu/Getty

During the 20 years he has ruled Turkey as president and prime minister, Mr Erdogan has built an image of himself as a hands-on strongman with a broad mandate to fix the country, regardless of what the international community thinks.

But the earthquake has exposed his government’s fatal failings, and with many seeking to hold him personally culpable, he is facing the most serious challenge to his grip on Turkey yet.

“Erdogan is responsible for this disaster because he wanted to be responsible for everything in this country,” said Sera Kadigil, an Istanbul lawmaker from the Workers’ Party of Turkey.

“He told us: I will be in charge of everything, just give me power. Now you see the results.”

Ms Kadigil has been living in the badly affected region of Hatay for over 20 days, coordinating volunteer efforts seeing the devastation first hand.

Speaking by phone from Antakya, she said the government response had been chaotic and insisted the only option was for Mr Erdogan to either resign or be beaten at the ballot box.

“We spent 20 years with this person. We don’t have any patience. We need to put our cities back on their feet,” she said.

“We have to change this system, we have to replace Erdogan. This is the most urgent task for us right now.”

She is not alone: every prominent opposition politician has sought to pin the disaster on Mr Erdogan personally.

This week, the Workers’ Party of Turkey filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor General’s Office, seeking charges on 14 different counts, including murder against 24 top officials, including the Turkish president.

Former interior minister Meral Aksener (pictured) is backing Mansur Yavas, mayor of the capital Ankara, as an opposition candidate - AP

“The Turkish public is devastated and in shock because there’s a sense that the system is crumbling but there is no guarantee that it can be replaced by anything else,” Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at Brookings Institution, told The Telegraph.

“Erdogan’s Islamist-nationalist coalition, its hyper-centralised decision-making system, autocratic powers – all of that is no longer delivering for the Turkish public.”

But converting that widespread dissatisfaction and disillusionment into an electoral defeat for Mr Erdogan and his AKP party remains a huge task, particularly given the fractured state of what is left of Turkey’s opposition.

Even before the earthquake, various political groups mounted a rare campaign to unite in the face of the upcoming presidential elections on May 14, which are widely seen as a make-or-break moment for Mr Erdogan.

The so-called Table of Six brings together the leaders of six opposition parties – from one accused of pushing a xenophobic agenda to a party standing up for the marginalised Kurdish minority.

But they have been unable to agree on a joint candidate to challenge Mr Erdogan at the polls.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu is seen as a safe choice as opposition candidate, despite criticism that he lacks the charisma needed to rally the country behind him - Adem Altan/AFP/Getty

The front-runner had been Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the Republican People’s Party. An elderly, old-time party functionary, he is seen as a safe choice, despite criticism that he lacks the charisma needed to rally the country behind him.

On Friday, however, one of the other candidates, former interior minister Meral Aksener, unexpectedly refused to back him, saying a popular regional leader such Mansur Yavas, mayor of the capital Ankara, would be a better choice.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the charismatic mayor of Istanbul, who has a strong following across the country, has been officially barred from running after a Turkish court convicted him in December of insulting public officials.

“The problems that the opposition faces – in terms of uninspiring candidates and difficulty of pulling the Table of Six together ideologically – were always there,” said Ms Aydintasbas of Brookings.

On Saturday, Mr Erdogan dismissed the threat posed by the opposition.

"We have already set our goal," he said. "Whatever they do, we continue to work on our plan, on our road map."

With vast swathes of the country still in ruins, some have suggested it would be prudent to push the election back, something Mr Erdogan has vowed not to do.

Opposition hopeful Mr Kilicdaroglu this week agreed, saying Turkey could not lose any more time with Mr Erdogan and his party in power.

“We don’t have a year, not even a day to give you,” he said. “We can’t endure any more of your incompetence.”

Aynur Tekin has contributed to this report

Walmart, Target, Kroger, and more major retailers go head-to-head in an escalating 'labor hoarding' war over hourly employees

Dominick Reuter
Sat, March 4, 2023 

Walmart increasing its minimum wage to $14 per hour was followed by an avalanche of similar moves from other retailers.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

As companies of all stripes tighten their budgets, retailers are still spending big on hourly workers.


Big hourly wage increases of the past three years are here to stay, and more are in the works.


Kroger is the latest to join other major brands like Walmart and Target in the "labor hoarding" war.

There's a quiet war being waged among America's largest retailers, and the winner might be the previously under-appreciated hourly worker.

Slower sales growth, rising interest rates, and increased uncertainty are compelling companies of all stripes to tighten their operations and hunt for cost savings.

Tech employers have shed more than 120,000 workers this year alone – per a count maintained by Layoffs.fyi – in order to boost profitability and satisfy investors, but the word coming out of retail C-suites this past earning season paints a strikingly different picture.

Retail executives are saying that the substantial investment in their front-line workforce of recent years is here to stay, and that any cost savings will have to be found elsewhere. Many are even doubling down with billions of dollars in commitments to further improve compensation, extending the ongoing trend of "labor hoarding" in the industry.

Labor hoarding is when an employer keeps workers they might otherwise cut in a downturn, since hiring and training replacements could lead to missed opportunity or market share when things start to improve.

And that's exactly what's happening here.

Supermarket giant Kroger announced Thursday it would spend $770 million on raising wages in 2023 after having previously spent $1.9 billion on hikes since 2018. CEO Rodney Mullen pointed out that the company's average hourly rate is now more than $18 following a 6% increase in 2022.

Costco, which came into the pandemic era already paying industry-leading wages, delivered three off-cycle wage increases in the past 15 months, CFO Richard Galanti said during that company's earnings call, also on Thursday.

"Competitive compensation continues to be table stakes," Best Buy CEO Corrie Barry said Thursday, adding that the electronics giant has raised hourly pay roughly 25% over the past three years. She too gave no suggestion that any of those costs would be rolled back as demand falls for expensive TVs and other high-tech products.

Indeed, Barry spoke about the key role front-line teams play in the success of the company.

"Sometimes I want very rapid fulfillment of my product — I want to pick up in store and have the confidence of grabbing that product. Sometimes I want a deeper, more immersive experience," she said of the brand's shoppers. "It's why we are investing more in our front line associates who are the ones who are right there, meeting the customer in the moment."

These companies have plenty of incentive to hoard all the labor they can, as the battle over labor translates directly to the larger war for market share.

"Customers also decide where to shop based on the freshness of product and the friendliness of associates. And that's part of the overall value equation." Kroger's Mullen said. "I really think it's important for you to look at all those together."

Kroger, Costco, and Best Buy join a list that previously included Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's, who have expressed similar sentiments this earnings season.

In January Walmart announced it would increase its minimum wage from $12 to $14 per hour, bringing the US average hourly wage up to $17.50.

Then in February, Home Depot said it will spend $1 billion to increase wages for hourly workers, bringing its starting wage to at least $15 an hour nationwide. The company said it would pay commensurate raises to current employees.

Lowe's followed this week, reporting that employee compensation increased by $3 billion since 2018, and would grow by another $1 billion over the next three years.

And while Target did not announce a pay hike, the company said cuts to "the best team in retail" were off limits as the company hunts for $2 billion to $3 billion in operations cost savings over the next several years.

With two job openings per unemployed worker, staffing the front lines has become a zero-sum game for retailers who say they've learned hard lessons about how sales suffer when stores are short-handed.

To be sure, the pay is still comparatively low, the work often physically demanding, and the hours inconsistent, but these developments reflect a major change in the way retail employers think about their workforces.

It's not yet clear which company will get the edge in this battle, but it's workers who are poised to win in any case.

Kroger to spend $770 million more on employee pay and benefits this year amid ‘labor hoarding’ trend


Lauren Justice—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Steve Mollman
Fri, March 3, 2023 

Last month we learned that Kroger has been texting and emailing former employees who had quit their jobs to ask them to come on back. Now the supermarket giant says it will spend $770 million more this year to raise hourly wages and improve health-care benefits for its workers.

Kroger made the announcement Thursday after surprising Wall Street with strong fourth-quarter results, partly a result of streamlining its supply chain to reduce costs.

Kroger isn’t the only retailer upping wages and benefits. Faced with the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years, Walmart, Home Depot, and others are also paying workers more.

The pay boosts are part of the “labor hoarding" trend, in which companies, afraid they’ll be unable to fill positions if workers leave, try harder to keep them.

And companies have reasons to be fearful. The latest jobs report showed the retail sector adding about 30,000 jobs in January. Nonfarm payrolls overall increased by 517,000, crushing the market estimate of 187,000, and wages posted solid gains as well. The leisure and hospitality sector alone added 128,000 jobs.

In other words, workers stocking shelves or helping customers in a Kroger or Home Depot have plenty of options if they decide to leave—and companies know it.

Home Depot said last month it’s spending $1 billion on wage increases for workers in North America. Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said in January it would raise its minimum wage for store employees from $12 to $14 an hour.

Of course, fears of a looming recession remain; interest rates and credit card debt in the U.S. are rising while savings dwindle amid high inflation; and many Americans are struggling to make their car payments. Headlines about mass layoffs at big-name firms, meanwhile, have been inescapable in recent months.

Those layoffs, however, have often been concentrated in the tech industry, where many companies over-hired to meet surging demand for their products and services during the pandemic. In January Amazon began firing 18,000 people, Microsoft let go of 10,000, and Google parent Alphabet slashed 12,000 jobs.

More broadly, “We are still in a jobs market where labor demand far outpaces supply, with 3 million fewer workers than before the pandemic,” Becky Frankiewicz, president of ManpowerGroup, the world’s third-largest staffing firm, told Fortune last month. “Pandemic paranoia has set in with employers who remember how hard it was to bring back workers.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com