What was it that Von Mises said about "Middle of the road"?
The best is the last paragraph - that should have been the first.
I think the Heart and Stroke Foundation probably gets government grants to write this sort of stuff - please write a study showing how more taxes can help society.
Read below
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An expert panel commissioned by the Heart and Stroke Foundation is urging governments to slap a tax on sugared soft drinks, subsidize the poor to eat fruit and vegetables and give farmers incentives to grow more fresh produce, in a novel new take on Canada’s obesity epidemic.
The price of food has a proven impact on weight, and economic sticks and carrots should be invoked to combat the growing weight crisis, the panel concludes in a 79-page report.
The group’s fiscal-policy approach to the obesity issue is bound to generate controversy. Its lead author insists, however, that the soda-tax and other proposals do not represent nanny-state intervention into diet and behaviour.
“We’re not banning these items. It is trying to signal to the consumer that you should try to consume less of it,” said Guy Faulkner, a University of Toronto professor of health and exercise psychology. “If we think that obesity is a serious public-health issue ... then ultimately economic measures will have to be part of the arsenal.”
While other health groups and experts have advocated a tax on soda pop, the new report takes a wide-ranging look at the economic aspects of obesity — and how to address them. The falling cost of food over recent decades has “reduced the price of calories,” while higher wages, long work hours and sedentary jobs have “made physical activity more expensive.”
“Standard economic theory predicts that these price changes would rationally lead individuals to increase caloric intake and reduce caloric expenditure,” says the report, presented this week at the Canadian Cardiovascular Society conference in Montreal.
Dr. Marco Di Buono, the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Ontario research director, said the charity is considering the recommendations as part of a broader anti-obesity strategy it is developing.
New approaches are needed to getting Canadians to eat less and more healthily, he said.
“The days of preaching to individuals to change their behaviour: ‘You need to eat more fruit and vegetables ...’ We simply know that is not effective.”
The head of the soft-drinks industry association was dismissive of the soda-tax idea, saying it is unlikely to work and unfairly singles out a small part of the problem. A 2004 federal survey suggests that sugared pop accounts for just 2.5% of Canadians’ caloric intake, said Justin Sherwood of Refreshments Canada.
Meanwhile, sales of full-calorie drinks have dropped about 20% in the past decade — replaced largely with diet beverages — while at the same time the prevalence of weight problems has only increased, he said.
“Everyone recognizes obesity is a complex issue and is a difficult issue to tackle ... but simply targeting one product category is nothing more than a tax grab,” said Mr. Sherwood. “Our products fulfil a niche, fulfil a function. People enjoy our products.”
The Heart and Stroke report acknowledges the evidence shows only a “modest” impact on weight as a result of boosting soft-drink prices, but suggested that a real effect requires more substantial tax hikes than have been tried in some jurisdictions. Prof. Faulkner pointed to tobacco, where the majority of the cost of cigarettes now is made up by levies, and evidence suggests that price hikes have helped curb smoking rates.
A reasonable soft-drink tax would probably be about 10 cents per ounce of sweetener, he said, likely boosting the price of a can of pop by about 15 cents.
There is better evidence that eating more fruits and vegetables actually translates into lower weight, said Prof. Faulkner.
The report suggests that lower-income families be subsidized to buy fruit and vegetables, perhaps through special credit or debit cards that could be used in supermarkets, but would avoid the stigma of food stamps. It also calls for providing free produce to at least some children in schools, as is done in Europe.
It recommends research and development subsides and other help for farmers to encourage increased production of fruit and vegetables, while lowering tariffs to boost the supply of imported produce.
“Farmers should be engaged as ‘anti-obesity’ partners,” the panel says.
On the other hand, the report says research from the United States suggests that some agricultural policies — such as subsidies for certain types of farmers — will lead to cheaper, more plentiful high-calorie food and higher weight. It suggests that governments consider health issues first when developing farm policies.
So the government's gonna create obesity by subsidizing corn and sugar, then it's gonna fight it by subsidizing "healthy stuff"? The government created this problem.
I believe public school is a much bigger factor than anything else in creating obesity, because it takes away people's self-worth, causing depression and obesity.
I like what Penn and Teller said on the subject(paraphrased):
Soda is not healthy for you, lots of them contain high-fructos corn syrup because its a cheap-ass way to add sweet flavor and improve shelf-life. And why is it so cheap? Because the government subdizes it, they pay farmers to grow corn, so theres more farmers growing more corn, which lowers the price of all sorts of corn-based products, including high-fructos corn syrup.
And now some people want the government to put a tax on soda in order to try and raise the price of something they themselves made cheap. Does this strike anybody else as ****ing crazy?
Does this strike anybody else as ****ing crazy?
Insane in the sense that they are promoting it and trying to punish it? Yes.
But it doesn't surprise me at all. They're trying to help farmers AND they're trying to help people from becoming obese. Clearly, the HFCS in soda does promote obesity and diabetes and liver dysfunction. According to the actions of government, it only causes these things when it's in soda. Or maybe they'll have some kind of cultural bend to it: "Our democracy has decided that some foods have HFCS and that's ok, but drinks like soda are degenerate and promote obesity by being cheaply available"
Murray Rothbard wrote many wonderful pages about all sorts of fallacities which are part of his great legacy. But sometimes I wish he was still with us just to read what he would have replied to such masterpieces. It has it all: sin taxes, interventionism, humanitarianism...
On a related note I sincerely wish the Heart and Stroke Fundation exactly what befells on everyone who chums up with the State to push his own ideas or junk at the point of a gun. Feeling sorry once they have a taste of their own medicine.
Crazy like a fox - this shows clear as day why we need to shrink government to a size as small as possible.
It almost seems like it is done on purpose, but there are legions of bureacrats whose only job it is is to attempt to manipulate our behavior, restrict our freedoms, and figure out how to raise revenues.
Murray Rothbard talks about his kind of stuff in all of his lectures.
The way that government is always working at cross purposes - it can never do ANYHTING rationally, because it's revenues are based on coercion, so it never has a true price that it can calculate based on.
Would anyone ever willingly pay for the services this government is supplying?
Add to that the 10-100 bureaucrats they would have to add to create and administer the tax.
$.15 would do absolutely NOTHING to reduce intake of these products.
make a standard soda pop can $5.00 and you would reduce it, but then I am guessing there would be a black market in unlicensed soda pop, so the government would have create a special bureau of soda pop enforcement agents, and maybe start something like
"the war on Soda"
What do you think?
Maybe they could break down doors to find soda stills!
Better yet, outlaw the growing of corn.
This is the best line
which Standard Economic Theory would that be?
I seem to recall that there's some kind of tax on sugar, which is less harmful than HFC. I tried Googling it but I couldn't find a solid answer. Anyone?
What there are are the following
You have a centrally planned and controlled sugar market in the USA.
Canada on the other hand has an 8% inmport duty on sugar - it is far cheaper here.
We still use HFCS in our drinks - with the corn subsidies in the USA, it is probably still cheaper.
Read up on it in "The Sugar racket" from the CATO Institute.
It is estimated that these three things cost americans 2.5 Billion Dollars for overpriced sugar in 2009
4. If sugar quotas were eliminated, and American consumers and business had been able to purchase 100% their sugar in 2009 at the world price in 2009 (average of 22.1 cents per pound) instead of the average U.S. price of 38.1 cents, they would have saved almost $2.5 billion. In other words, forcing Americans to pay 38.1 cents for inefficiently produced beet sugar instead of 22.1 cents for efficiently produced cane sugar, costs Americans an additional 16 cents per pound for the 15.4 billion pounds of American sugar produced annually, which translates to almost $2.5 billion. (Note: This is an estimate based on the assumptions that: a) the amount of sugar consumed in the U.S. and b) world prices, wouldn't change.)
Redmond:This is the best line “Standard economic theory predicts that these price changes would rationally lead individuals to increase caloric intake and reduce caloric expenditure,” says the report, presented this week at the Canadian Cardiovascular Society conference in Montreal. which Standard Economic Theory would that be? You don't believe a lower price increases quantity demanded? "I'm not a fan of Murray Rothbard." -- David D. Friedman | Post Points: 20
You don't believe a lower price increases quantity demanded?
"I'm not a fan of Murray Rothbard." -- David D. Friedman
Maybe I was misunderstood, I mean the very idea that a $.15 tax on a can of pop would do anything to stem consumption is a ridiculous one.
And in terms of food, I eat when I am hungry - adjusted for inlflation maybe food has gotten marginally cheaper, but enough to create an obeisty epidemic? I think not. and yes, if I am richer, I can buy more beer etc.
My friends have often said "increase gas taxes to cut pollution" but of course they were talking a small amount, they weren't talking about tripling the cost of gas - that would actually lower consumption. but it would increase the cost of everything else in our society as well.
The fallacy is that with these minor tweakings of cost, that they could actually do anything about obesity - and I have my doubts that HFCS really does all that much damage.
I have met "economists" see themselves as would-be social engineers, putting their theories into the practice in the pursuit of "incentivising" certain behaviors.
What really ends up happening is that they make life harder for a bunch of people and give the Government more revenue to waste on unproductive schemes.
Just look at the "War on Salt" that is just getting into gear.
The Nanny-Statists are all over it - just another thing to tax and regulate. All in the name of "protecting you" - from yourself.
Never mind the dangers of NOT ENOUGH SALT! So a few people for whom too much salt is an issue might be assisted marginally, but what about the people who get a healthy amount of salt, but no cut back because they are worried about their salt intake?
A re you worried about congestive heart failure? Liver or kidney failure? Chronic fatigue? Pneumonia? Blood vessel health? Alzheimer’s or the loss of other cognitive abilities? Do you experience muscle cramps or have high cholesterol? Perhaps you suffer from Gitelman’s syndrome or Type-2 diabetes, low libido or insomnia. Maybe your glucose metabolism isn’t what it should be. If any of these medical conditions applies to you, then maybe you should ask yourself if you’re getting enough salt in your diet. These and numerous other conditions — some of them potentially fatal — could be triggered or exacerbated by a diet low in sodium. We hear a lot from governments about the dangers to our health of consuming sodium. Governments are also subjecting us to an increasing array of sodium-related regulations, much of it geared to protecting those suffering from hypertension, a condition associated with heart attacks. This sodium-is-dangerous theory (it is only a theory because no proof for it has yet materialized) is credible and worth considering. But before the government’s regulatory apparatus expands, it and we should consider the far-reaching danger in cutting back on our salt, a danger that — ironically — fully applies to those who suffer from hypertension. Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/05/01/lawrence-solomon-shake-that-salt.aspx#ixzz13b6L1Bfr
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re you worried about congestive heart failure? Liver or kidney failure? Chronic fatigue? Pneumonia? Blood vessel health? Alzheimer’s or the loss of other cognitive abilities? Do you experience muscle cramps or have high cholesterol? Perhaps you suffer from Gitelman’s syndrome or Type-2 diabetes, low libido or insomnia. Maybe your glucose metabolism isn’t what it should be.
If any of these medical conditions applies to you, then maybe you should ask yourself if you’re getting enough salt in your diet. These and numerous other conditions — some of them potentially fatal — could be triggered or exacerbated by a diet low in sodium.
We hear a lot from governments about the dangers to our health of consuming sodium. Governments are also subjecting us to an increasing array of sodium-related regulations, much of it geared to protecting those suffering from hypertension, a condition associated with heart attacks. This sodium-is-dangerous theory (it is only a theory because no proof for it has yet materialized) is credible and worth considering. But before the government’s regulatory apparatus expands, it and we should consider the far-reaching danger in cutting back on our salt, a danger that — ironically — fully applies to those who suffer from hypertension.
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/05/01/lawrence-solomon-shake-that-salt.aspx#ixzz13b6L1Bfr
Opposing such a tax by arguing that it cannot achieve some alleged social engineering goal is an automatic victory for statism even if you get everyone to agree with you.
On a side note, Obesity is a physiological malfunction of the feeding regulatory system.
"You are what you eat" is a myth. It's more accurate to say: "You eat what you are".
Short of creating widespread shortages of food or causing food to become severely scarce, no obesity problem will ever be solved by such statist nonsense.
The feds created the obesity problem in the first place, as had already been pointed out. When they spent enmormous amounts of taxpayer money on studies trying to link dietary fat with heart disease, food processing companies scrambled for cover, despite the science (and logic) being tenuous at best. And so, fat was removed from foods but replaced with sugar and high fructose corn syrup for palatability. By 1980, our diets contained much more sugar than before. "Low-fat" foods are anything but, as they typically contain 2-3 times as much sugar as the regular brand.
And sugar AND high fructose corn syrup are incredibly bad for you. [WARNING: long but informative]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
In short, sugar is everywhere (condiments, dressings, peanut butter, bread, etc...to say nothing of soft drinks and fruit juices) when fifty years ago it was not. It is bad for you, for the reasons Dr. Lustig outlines. It interferes with the body's hunger signals, disrupts normal blood sugar levels, produces uric acid (which causes gout), and overall causes us to consume more calories.
No joke, I've suffered from gout for about 5 years, typically having 3-4 attacks a year. I drastically reduced my sugar intake and have been fine since January.
It's not that it will kill you, but we consume far too much of it. Obviously, there are other dietary and health factors and risks, but for me, reducing my sugar intake caused me to lose about twenty pounds and feel healthier.
If the government really wanted to reduce obesity they would remove all the current food subsidies which make eating unhealthy more affordable than eating healthy.
Thanks much for all the info, Redmond!
Agreed - give them no quarter.
A side point - I think obesity has less to do with the cost of Calories - at one point in time weght was associated with the rich, and skinnyness with the poor
Now the poor are fat and the rich are thin.
As much as I hate corn subsidies and sugar tarrifs, HFCS isn't actually any worse for you than a comparable ammount of sugar. Fructose is fructose and sucrose is sucrose, it doesn't matter what plant it came from.
Yeah Lustig goes into this a bit in the video. Fructose is the real culprit, and it's contained in both. HFCS has only slightly more. The whole sugar-HFCS battle appears to be a case of the two industries fighting to prop up their market share through the political lobby. The sugar producers have their tariffs, but with subsidies for corn they now have to convince the public that somehow their product is better. It's a lot of whining back and forth. A good example of how the state makes crybabies out of many industries.
When they spent enmormous amounts of taxpayer money on studies trying to link dietary fat with heart disease, food processing companies scrambled for cover, despite the science (and logic) being tenuous at best. And so, fat was removed from foods but replaced with sugar and high fructose corn syrup for palatability.
Yup - everything had to be low-fat in the 80s. I remember the numerous public health ads - to this day many people including my wife think of it as something to worry about - never mind the French Paradox.
Agreed though - sugar is added to a lot of things that it was once not.
I used to drink Gin and Tonics until I read the Label and found that tonic Water had as much sugar as a Coke! WTF...
Now I drink Bourbon.
A good example of how the state makes crybabies out of many industries.
They don't call it the Nanny State for nothing.
Of course the social welfare state makes dependents of individual citizens.
Are you sure? These are rats, but 1 serving of sugar versus 1/2 serving of HFCS, everything else being equal, resulted in the HFCS rats becoming more obese than the sugar rats:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/
That is what should be expected. Being overweight indicates lack of drive and it doesn't help you make money either.
I would need to post a scheme about the metabolitic pathways linking dietary carbohydrates and fat metabolism but I am far too lazy to scan it and post it...
Suffice to say that in vertebrates (cows, pigs, monitor lizards, us etc) the fructose pathway of utilization through the liver bypasses phosphofructokinase regulation and may account for the ease with which dietary sucrose (which when hydrolized yields fructose) is converted to fat.
No need to post your charts, though that would be nice. Lustig has it all in the video I posted. He shows in great detail how fructose is metabolized. There's lot of nice little flow charts with molecules, etc...for all you biochemist buffs.
And he discusses (and shows) why HFCS is no better or worse than regular sucrose.
Redmond:Now the poor are fat and the rich are thin.
What does this prove exactly?
We are obviously beyond the threshold where cost is an issue in access to calorie rich food.
So is it due to access to cheaper junk food as many social engineers would like you to believe? Not very likely.
There is likely to be found a more genetic causal relation to why there are more obese among the poor, but this is another one of those taboos that makes anyone who suggests such a thing a Nazi or or something.
Wow. That first photo is painfully non-candid.
Bardock:If the government really wanted to reduce obesity they would remove all the current food subsidies which make eating unhealthy more affordable than eating healthy.
You are almost embarking on a major "socialist" fallacy here. Food production is still mostly directed by consumers. That production is not in accordance with the B.S. recommendation of the government only proves that. Yes, there is some distortion here and there due to subsidies. But overall, consumers are still directing production. That pyramid is such because that's how people want it to be.
Food production is still mostly directed by consumers. That production is not in accordance with the B.S. recommendation of the government only proves that. Yes, there is some distortion here and there due to subsidies. But overall, consumers are still directing production. That pyramid is such because that's how people want it to be.
Yes that may be, but if meat were twice as expensive as it currently is if there were no subsidies, then less of it would be purchased.
In fact when I was a student, and my wife was unemployed just after she moved to Toronto, we subsited on mainly rice, beans and chicken once a week.
Once I became employed, we bought steak on a regular basis.
So what about the exceedingly high price of sugar and exceedingly low cost of HFCS both created by government intervention?
Is the consumer directing the production of HFCS? I think not - Companies use a sweetener, and they use the cheapest one available - it happens to be HFCS because of intervention in the free market of sweeteners.
Redmond:Yes that may be, but if meat were twice as expensive as it currently is if there were no subsidies, then less of it would be purchased.
Look, the point is warranted. There are distortions. But I would refrain from bare assertion statements about how much meat would be in a free market and what the alternatives would be.
The point is this: The food industry is incredibly huge and versatile. It is absurd to blame such intervention on things like obesity.
As far as sugar vs corn sweeteners, I agree that those who cry corn is bad, sugar is better, should be informed that government is making one cheap and the other more expensive. However, there is no basis for the claims that one causes more obesity then the other. I don't care if Ron Paul or Lew Rockwell claims it. It's absolutely baseless.
I would need to post a scheme about the metabolitic pathways linking dietary carbohydrates and fat metabolism but I am far too lazy to scan it and post it... Suffice to say that in vertebrates (cows, pigs, monitor lizards, us etc) the fructose pathway of utilization through the liver bypasses phosphofructokinase regulation and may account for the ease with which dietary sucrose (which when hydrolized yields fructose) is converted to fat.
You nailed the most important point here, Kakugo. Without an understanding of the metabolic pathways and processes, you're just shooting in the dark to find out what is good/bad for you.
I stick to a very low carb diet and try to get around 50% of my energy from saturated fats. :)
Anyone who can be as critical of the mainstream as an austrian and at the same time have a curiosity of nutrition would in short time have found things like "the optimal diet" and the "paleo diet" and are on their way to great health if they aren't already there.
However, there is no basis for the claims that one causes more obesity then the other
Other than the fact that fructose is more damaging to the liver than glucose, and liver damage/impairment is one of the factors (if not the largest factor) in how much insulin you get into your bloodstream.
"In fact when I was a student, and my wife was unemployed just after she moved to Toronto, we subsited on mainly rice, beans and chicken once a week."
Good luck doing any decent physical training with that.
But fructose is contained in sucrose (table sugar), which is 50-50 fructose and glucose. HFCS contains (usually) about 55% fructose. Fructose is very damaging, but its a misconception to presume that regular table sugar does not contain fructose.
True. I was speaking in terms of gram of fructose vs. gram of sucrose. If I had to choose one for ingestion, I know which one I'd pick.
I agree on you first point but not the second. The tariffs and subsidies are only part of the story. The point is that the federal goverment spent a bazillion tax dollars on a study and campaign which scared people into thinking that saturated fat was practically lethal. Consumers then demanded low fat alternatives (which were loaded with sugar) to which food companies responded. So, yes, your point is correct about food production responding to consumers. What I'm saying is that the federal government has provided faulty information to the public which has caused them to eat more sugar than before. So while tariffs or subsidies can't make someone like a food they find revolting, the process of sugar serving as an alternative to fat was almost certainly instigated by government disinformation.
But I would refrain from bare assertion statements about how much meat would be in a free market and what the alternatives would be.
Agreed - we can't know - if without gov't intervention, say beef was still highly demanded and to compete economies of scale were created - such as factory farms are now(not justifying factory farms) and the price of beef became lower - and more was comsumed versus tofu, that would be driven by consumer demand.
And since humans are omnivores, I would imagine we still continue to eat meat.
However, there is no basis for the claims that one causes more obesity then the other.
Agreed - Everything in moderation, including moderation. Get your fruits and vegetables!
I was focused on my education, paying my rent and eating.
I didn't have time for a gym membership.
The point is that the federal goverment spent a bazillion tax dollars on a study and campaign which scared people into thinking that saturated fat was practically lethal. Consumers then demanded low fat alternatives (which were loaded with sugar) to which food companies responded. So, yes, your point is correct about food production responding to consumers. What I'm saying is that the federal government has provided faulty information to the public which has caused them to eat more sugar than before. So while tariffs or subsidies can't make someone like a food they find revolting, the process of sugar serving as an alternative to fat was almost certainly instigated by government disinformation.
This is a huge factor over the last 20-30 years.
Now we have the war on sugar, and the nanny statists are starting up the war on salt.
soon all we will eat is cardboard.
From Middle of the Road leads to Socialism - Von Mises - he lays it all out in 1950.
The interventionists emphasize that they plan to retain private ownership of the means of production, entrepreneurship and market exchange. But, they go on to say, it is peremptory to prevent these capitalist institutions from spreading havoc and unfairly exploiting the majority of people. It is the duty of government to restrain, by orders and prohibitions, the greed of the propertied classes lest their acquisitiveness harm the poorer classes. Unhampered or laissez-faire capitalism is an evil. But in order to eliminate its evils, there is no need to abolish capitalism entirely. It is possible to improve the capitalist system by government interference with the actions of the capitalists and entrepreneurs. Such government regulation and regimentation of business is the only method to keep off totalitarian socialism and to salvage those features of capitalism which are worth preserving. Continuing No branch of industry can be omitted from this all-round fixing of prices and wages and from this obligation to produce those quantities which the government wants to see produced. If some branches were to be left free out of regard for the fact that they produce only goods qualified as non-vital or even as luxuries, capital and labor would tend to flow into them and the result would be a drop in the supply of those goods, the prices of which government has fixed precisely because it considers them as indispensable for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses. But when this state of all-round control of business is attained, there can no longer be any question of a market economy. No longer do the citizens by their buying and abstention from buying determine what should be produced and how.
The interventionists emphasize that they plan to retain private ownership of the means of production, entrepreneurship and market exchange. But, they go on to say, it is peremptory to prevent these capitalist institutions from spreading havoc and unfairly exploiting the majority of people. It is the duty of government to restrain, by orders and prohibitions, the greed of the propertied classes lest their acquisitiveness harm the poorer classes. Unhampered or laissez-faire capitalism is an evil. But in order to eliminate its evils, there is no need to abolish capitalism entirely. It is possible to improve the capitalist system by government interference with the actions of the capitalists and entrepreneurs. Such government regulation and regimentation of business is the only method to keep off totalitarian socialism and to salvage those features of capitalism which are worth preserving.
Continuing
No branch of industry can be omitted from this all-round fixing of prices and wages and from this obligation to produce those quantities which the government wants to see produced. If some branches were to be left free out of regard for the fact that they produce only goods qualified as non-vital or even as luxuries, capital and labor would tend to flow into them and the result would be a drop in the supply of those goods, the prices of which government has fixed precisely because it considers them as indispensable for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses. But when this state of all-round control of business is attained, there can no longer be any question of a market economy. No longer do the citizens by their buying and abstention from buying determine what should be produced and how.
Paleo Diet?
What was the average lifespan in the paleolithic era? I am guessing about half of what it is today.
Redmond: Paleo Diet?
Where you limit your food options to roughly what was available to people in the paleolithic era.
Redmond: What was the average lifespan in the paleolithic era?
What was the average lifespan in the paleolithic era?
No idea.
Redmond: I am guessing about half of what it is today.
I am guessing about half of what it is today.
Where did you come up with that?
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.