Obesity Tax
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I think he means to say shitty markets host shitty market places. But I'm sure in some regions there has to be a Sav-A-Lot or the equivalent, even then would have produce, milk, cheese, eggs, chips, dog food, yada yada yada. But for some people why spend 10$ or so getting together ingredients for a meal when a couple can probably spend 4$ getting 4 double cheese burgers.
Fortunately my wife has a bit more sense than that (since in the long run McD is more expensive), when we do have money we drive about 45 minutes to McCoors which has a lot of produce and meats and such from the local farmers and butchers. We stocked an entire meat freezer of various meats with a 150$ meat package (hamburger, sausage, chicken, pork, in just about every part and such. came in 3 boxes) which should last us til maybe February/March. As for everything else well just gota keep an eye out.
But for some people if you only got like 10$ cash on you... 8 of that is probably going to keep your car from hitting E, and the other 2$ is going to McDees getting a double cheese, small fry and small water.
A little off topic, but I think it was LA that recently passed or tried to pass a bill prohibiting the development of various fast food chains in lower income communities. (but that just means people will walk or drive an extra mile to get fast food, or get to work for that matter).
Time and time again people always prove themselves to be too stupid, lazy, manipulated, corrupt and just overall low quality to ever take care of themselves and put their life into their own hands. Consequently we always see people giving their power over to others and then complaining when it all turns to shit. Just another day really.
Probably one of the most distracting comments that can be made. Sure the air sucks, and in fact in this part of Wisconsin the air is not that great thanks to the factory's in IL and WI on the Lake Michigan shore. It all blows up here and we know it.
However water is handled by the municipalitys and a very much easier thing to control than all the factorys polluting our air, as there isn't as much "private interest" at stake.
I'm not trying to say air isn't a problem but your trying to justify a much harder problem to solve by blaming something that would be harder to stop than another problem.
I know plenty about how bad fluoride is for you, and how toxic it is, and to throw it overboard is irresponsible. If you can't stop the easier (fluoride) problem how could you stop the factory air pollution problem? Eugenics at it's best.
I think you grossly missed the point, someone saying something is bad because its toxic and should not be consumed... Well Oxygen is actually toxic to the human body when in excess volume than what we breath in our atmosphere, pressured oxygen can cause nervous system damage, excess % of oxygen in the air at normal pressure can break down body tissue and other effect of oxidation. Scuba divers for example have to be careful not to have too much oxygen in their mix. So nothing to do with pollution, just a simple fact that oxygen is... toxic.
So to simply say fluoride is highly toxic isn't much of an argument when other basic elements are also highly toxic to the human body when exposed to the full amount of it.
Note that I said 'oxygen' is toxic, not 'air'.
I agree that we have the right to our own bodies (not getting it to the property argument at the mo). But...
Is their really a big difference between taxing cigarettes and supposedly unhealthy foods and say refusing treatment to smokers and fat people for economic reasons? (I guess in the US that only applies to the old folks who's healthcare society pays for, but plenty of them are overweight too.)
Cheers for posting that, was looking for the info. Fairly certain they (at least used to) add it where I grew up but luckily it's not added here. (and my teeth are shit... but that's more down to our so-called universal healthcare system neglecting certain parts of the body).
So does this mean that they'll also lift the corn-subsidies that cause soda to be made from corn syrup here instead of actual sugar? Since I'm already paying $17 a case for Mexican Coke, I would hope I don't have to tack on another 18% to that, seeing as how I'm neither obese nor a child.
Getting things accomplished via taxation should be a last resort. This is like using a sledgehammer to put a screw in a wall: wrong tool, wrong power-setting.
Getting things accomplished via taxation should be a last resort. This is like using a sledgehammer to put a screw in a wall: wrong tool, wrong power-setting.
kblessinggr, it was a very general statement to get a rise. I'm not ignorant, I know every situation isn't going to be the same. That being said, I stand by the lazy part, because eating well doesn't have to be expensive. When faced with choice, it's human nature to go the easiest route.
Why isn't it a priority? Feeding yourself and your family and staying healthy should be at the top of everyone's priority list. It's one of the most important aspects of feeling good about yourself, both physically and mentally and gives you what you need to be more successful in other aspects of your life.
I was just looking at some grocery flyers for the LA area. I've lived in Europe for over 4 years and forget just how ridiculously CHEAP groceries are in the US. Raw ingredients AREN'T expensive. Processed food on the other hand is.
Buy a 5 pound bag off potatoes for $2 or premade potato salad for $4 a pound.
Buy a bunch of fresh veg at cents a pound, or buy 18oz of frozen veg for $3.
Buy fresh beef roast at $2.99 a pound or buy a 16oz package of beef hotdogs for $4.
It's about making smart decisions. People perceive processed food as being cheaper, but it isn't.
Let's see, a 2lb bag of washed salad, $1.49, add a pound of chicken breast at $1.99 (or a couple pounds of leg or thigh for less), grab a tomato, and a carrot (if the salad mix doesn't already have shredded carrot), plus perhaps a couple bananas and a couple navel oranges for desert (a nice bowl of sliced fruit) at 39 cents and 50 cents a pound respectively, and you have yourself a pretty nice meal for 2 for less than $5.
Someone mentioned french fries. A 5lb bag of potatoes is about $2. You could be eating home fries all week for the same price of two servings of fries at McD's.
For $10 I could put together a fantastic pot of healthy vegtable stew with chicken or a cheaper cut of beef. Doesn't matter that the beef isn't the best cut, any lean choice will do, it will get tender while it cooks. Plus, there would be enough in the pot for three meals for a couple, or you could feed a family of 4 and send the kids to school with the leftovers.
Pasta, salads, casseroles, these things aren't expensive to make but they do take a bit of time and planning.
Why isn't it a priority? Feeding yourself and your family and staying healthy should be at the top of everyone's priority list. It's one of the most important aspects of feeling good about yourself, both physically and mentally and gives you what you need to be more successful in other aspects of your life.
I was just looking at some grocery flyers for the LA area. I've lived in Europe for over 4 years and forget just how ridiculously CHEAP groceries are in the US. Raw ingredients AREN'T expensive. Processed food on the other hand is.
Buy a 5 pound bag off potatoes for $2 or premade potato salad for $4 a pound.
Buy a bunch of fresh veg at cents a pound, or buy 18oz of frozen veg for $3.
Buy fresh beef roast at $2.99 a pound or buy a 16oz package of beef hotdogs for $4.
It's about making smart decisions. People perceive processed food as being cheaper, but it isn't.
Let's see, a 2lb bag of washed salad, $1.49, add a pound of chicken breast at $1.99 (or a couple pounds of leg or thigh for less), grab a tomato, and a carrot (if the salad mix doesn't already have shredded carrot), plus perhaps a couple bananas and a couple navel oranges for desert (a nice bowl of sliced fruit) at 39 cents and 50 cents a pound respectively, and you have yourself a pretty nice meal for 2 for less than $5.
Someone mentioned french fries. A 5lb bag of potatoes is about $2. You could be eating home fries all week for the same price of two servings of fries at McD's.
For $10 I could put together a fantastic pot of healthy vegtable stew with chicken or a cheaper cut of beef. Doesn't matter that the beef isn't the best cut, any lean choice will do, it will get tender while it cooks. Plus, there would be enough in the pot for three meals for a couple, or you could feed a family of 4 and send the kids to school with the leftovers.
Pasta, salads, casseroles, these things aren't expensive to make but they do take a bit of time and planning.
Surprised nobody has mentioned it but there already is an obesity tax in insurance. Call and get a quote for yourself at 200 & 280 and check out the difference. The sugar in coke thing is just an extension of this since Obama is going to push the country's medical expenses more on tax payers.
To be honest here, IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME, they've been taxing my nicotine for years and nobody stands up and screams for smoker's rights except smokers. Obesity is a MUCH LARGER & MORE EXPENSIVE issue.
It's sad, but the old cliche stands true "united we stand, divided we fall". Big gov't has been picking us apart for years as minority groups. When you don't share the exact same views as another person, you don't feel bad about them losing their rights to do something. When it's time for your rights to be taxed or banned ... they certainly are not going to stand up for you.
How many kilos are there in a case?
To be honest here, IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME, they've been taxing my nicotine for years and nobody stands up and screams for smoker's rights except smokers. Obesity is a MUCH LARGER & MORE EXPENSIVE issue.
It's sad, but the old cliche stands true "united we stand, divided we fall". Big gov't has been picking us apart for years as minority groups. When you don't share the exact same views as another person, you don't feel bad about them losing their rights to do something. When it's time for your rights to be taxed or banned ... they certainly are not going to stand up for you.
SniperRyan said:
How many kilos are there in a case?
This is bullshit, and I have called you on it before.
Roads and turnpikes were built in North America (and presumably in Oz as well) before government took control. People built roads because they wanted to go some where, and businesses built roads so customers could buy from them. Do the history.
Affordable hospitals?
How Government Solved the Health Care Crisis
Decent Armed Services? To invade, to bomb etc? Switzerland seems like a pretty fucking decent place, because everyone is armed to the goddamn teeth, and they take a neutral stance.
When was the last time Australia defended herself? Or has it always been for mercantilism and imperial agendas that her services were needed? Do the history.
Who needs massive nation states? A flag's a flag. It's what's behind it that matters, not that someone is waving a flag.
You're missing the point. Walmart is everywhere, it doesn't need a nation state to allow it to be in so many places. We don't have long distance telephones, or intercontinental shipping due to nation states. PEOPLE DO THAT. Humans, by nature, self organize.
I think Ron Paul through meetup.com should be proof enough of what viral self-organization disregarding party or state (or even international) borders is capable of.
We're all here, self organizing. The entire aff businesses, is exclusively organized by people, from all over the world. Go through your town, how many shops are there because the state said we needed a place to buy lollies, and a couple bakeries for pie?
Read a book.
Speculation. Why would crime skyrocket? It's proven that when people are armed, that's a serious deterrent to crime.
When people start taking care of their own security, that's where safety begins.
Nonsense. All taxation is coercion. It has to be taken by force. If you asked people to pay voluntarily, you would collect fuck all.
It's not because people don't like to help other people, it's because they know government is a scam and a ripoff, and they know they could spend the money better themselves.
In order to make the tax argument, you have to say that it is morally just to do harm. That it is right to tax the middle class family that can't afford private health care, to provide free health care to the welfare bum. To levy a one time property assessment on a single mother raising two kids for $10,000 to build a highway, that no one wants, but will please the unions by making jobs.
Property rights are the key to a civilized world. When you tax people for who they are, how they live, and earning to survive and prosper, you have removed the right of the individual to own their own property, and by extension, themselves.
Very well said.
The incentive for people to lose weight shouldn't be taxes, but death. The natural incentive. That's what government does with taxes, it distorts the natural incentives we have to save, to defend ourselves, to get along, and to maintain our own health.
I never particularly contested that you couldn't eat healthy with some responsible thinking (some people just assume that a double cheese is cheaper, as I mentioned its actually more expensive in the long run), but was more addressing the direct comment of people being poor because they are lazy.
Ron Paul talks about that all of the time. I think the income tax only amounts to 40% of gross revenue.
Still, the idea of taxation is ridiculous. And the ability to print money (control of money and credit) means they can just go endlessly into debt anyways.
None of the bailout would be possible if people actually were going to see their taxes go up for it. There would be tax revolts like during the depression. People would just tell the government to go pound salt because they need the money to keep their houses and to eat.
But while people protest the bailout, the debt is being put on their kids and grandkids. They don't feel it, so they don't hold politicians accountable for it.
Remember, Saint Obama was a big time cheerleader for the bailout, and he has positioned every Enron, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and Wall Street scammer he could find, in his cabinet.
The only change you can believe in jingles in your pant pocket.
Still, the idea of taxation is ridiculous. And the ability to print money (control of money and credit) means they can just go endlessly into debt anyways.
None of the bailout would be possible if people actually were going to see their taxes go up for it. There would be tax revolts like during the depression. People would just tell the government to go pound salt because they need the money to keep their houses and to eat.
But while people protest the bailout, the debt is being put on their kids and grandkids. They don't feel it, so they don't hold politicians accountable for it.
Remember, Saint Obama was a big time cheerleader for the bailout, and he has positioned every Enron, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and Wall Street scammer he could find, in his cabinet.
The only change you can believe in jingles in your pant pocket.
HarveyJ
He is - THE CACTUS!
Actually, as a former penal colony, Government has always been here and in control of pretty much the entire land mass.
All our roads, and for that matter, most other forms of infrastructure were built by the government primarily to service government needs in the beginning. That includes our electrical and telecommunications grid.
In the last decade, a lot of our national infrastructure was split up and sold to foreign investment groups. The services have notably degraded, and the prices have gone up further than the reduction in the levies and surcharges.
And I beg to differ on the crime rate issue.
We've got some of the lowest fire arm ownership stats in the world, but our crime rate is also substantially lower. A shooting here makes front page news. An armed hold up generally makes it to page 3. They're uncommon here, and very few people are armed.
Australia is a society that has been lightly regulated by a federal government, with state governments underneath it. Until the last decade or so, the system has actually worked VERY well.
You need to live with a system like this in order to see the benefits it really can provide if it's managed well. Clearly in the USA, this is not possible due to vested interests.
All our roads, and for that matter, most other forms of infrastructure were built by the government primarily to service government needs in the beginning. That includes our electrical and telecommunications grid.
In the last decade, a lot of our national infrastructure was split up and sold to foreign investment groups. The services have notably degraded, and the prices have gone up further than the reduction in the levies and surcharges.
And I beg to differ on the crime rate issue.
We've got some of the lowest fire arm ownership stats in the world, but our crime rate is also substantially lower. A shooting here makes front page news. An armed hold up generally makes it to page 3. They're uncommon here, and very few people are armed.
Australia is a society that has been lightly regulated by a federal government, with state governments underneath it. Until the last decade or so, the system has actually worked VERY well.
You need to live with a system like this in order to see the benefits it really can provide if it's managed well. Clearly in the USA, this is not possible due to vested interests.
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