People, it's no mystery why we are fat. We are fat because the costs of being fat have fallen.
We don't have to be in shape to do our jobs and live our lives.
Calories have never been cheaper.
It has never been harder to die from a heart attack.
If you clog up your arteries they give you a pill, or router out the clogs, or just put in replacements. Hell, they'll even just give you a new heart if you destroy the one you have.
As a wise man once said, "solve for the equilibrium". All the Cass Sunstein's and Miguel Bloombitos, and Sarah Conly's of the world don't stand a chance.
Fat is the new skinny.
PS: should the opposite should be true for drugs and alcohol? Discuss
3 comments:
If you put artificial price floors on drugs (alcohol is a drug) then you create/expand the black market. We tried raising the price of alcohol to infinity and people started making it in their bathtubs. We have the war on drugs and we have meth labs in every town.
A big part of the reason our poor people are fat are thanks to subsidies. It is more expensive to buy an ear of corn than a can of Coke loaded with corn sugar. Even bottled water--one of the most abundant resources on Earth--costs more than a Coke.
Obamacare will make the costs associated with being fat much higher, the problem is it will be distributed cost with concentrated benefit, actually making it cheaper than ever to be obese.
It's a little more complex than simply price:
http://www.amazon.ca/XXL-Obesity-Limits-Neil-Seeman/dp/0772786275
This book was shortlisted for the Donner Prize for best book on Canadian public policy.
It is more expensive to buy an ear of corn than a can of Coke loaded with corn sugar. Even bottled water--one of the most abundant resources on Earth--costs more than a Coke.
Not true carrots and water are cheaper than coke and nothing, which has zero calories BTW, is cheaper yet.
link here
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