Quote:What's the difference between this and making people pay extra on health insurance if they smoke or drink or are obese? It's the same thing. You are forcing them to pay more to be healthy and do what you want them to do and not live how they want to live. Either way, the middle and lower class are always slaves to the system of the rich, powerful people making the rules.
It's not the same thing...Americans can eat what ever they want, use tobacco, drink if they so choose, or even become obese if they don't care and should not be taxed because what they do is unhealthy...Should we give tax credits to those who ride bicycles to and from work? Give tax credits to anyone who lives over the life expectancy age? give corporations tax credits to fast food retailers who sell more salads than burgers? How about give tax credits for those who use paper instead of plastic bags at the grocery store? It's unfair and unjust to tax unhealthy things in the hope that the price goes high enough for people to not want to buy it...In my book that is extortion and price gouging...
Quote:Such nonsense. You can eat fresh veggies and fruit from a mid-scale store like Publix for 20$
a week or less. People eat poorly because they can because we are a wealthy society suffering a crisis of overabundance.
No you can't...$20 won't get you a weeks worth a veggies or fruits, not even for a single person...People eat poorly because it's cheaper and easier to access (fast food)
Quote:You're so full of it. You must have no clue how poor people actually live. Are people supposed to eat nothing but fruits and vegetables? If you add that cost onto the rest of a grocery bill the cost is very high. Just by buying the basics anymore of bread, milk, cheese, cereal, juice, and some kind of meat for one meal or two will cost over $25 at Walmart and that is the cheapest grocery store around where I live. When you figure that some people get paid once every two weeks (if they have jobs) and you need to eat at least one meal a day, not to mention the gas it takes to get to the grocery store, there goes a large part of the paycheck of someone making on average of $15/hr. and that's a pretty good paying job where I live.
where I live if you make $10 an hour it's considered to be doing well...tomatoes are $3.99 a pound for the cheapest (in season) more out of season, potatoes are $5 for 5 pounds, regular hamburger is nearly $4 a pound and close to $5 for the lean stuff, a 3 pound chuck roast is $21 a family pack of chicken breasts are at least $20, a gallon of milk is over $4. cauliflower is $3.99 broccoli is a little cheaper... Oranges are $1 each or $8.99 for 5 pounds...
Quote:It'll never come down until the price of the unhealthy stuff goes up. Yes, healthy food should be cheaper, but it isn't because they know people want it and television and media keep telling us that we must eat healthy or we will live shorter lives. This drives the demand up and the price goes up. People who can, spend the extra money on healthy foods do it out of fear of dying early. As long as they keep shoving that fear of death down people's throats the demand will be there and the price will stay high. It's a vicious circle, but an ingenious marketing campaign (if you have no morals.)
If the price of one goes up, the price of the other will too...People eat unhealthy because it's cheaper and they can stop anywhere and have a meal to eat in less than 5 minutes...When you can start doing that with healthy foods for a competitive price to unhealthy foods, people will eat healthier...
Quote:I meant not to tax the consumers, but to tax the companies making the unhealthy foods. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
taxing the companies is taxing the consumers. It's passed on in the form of higher prices.
Quote:You're so full of it. You must have no clue how poor people actually live. Are people supposed to eat nothing but fruits and vegetables? If you add that cost onto the rest of a grocery bill the cost is very high. Just by buying the basics anymore of bread, milk, cheese, cereal, juice, and some kind of meat for one meal or two will cost over $25 at Walmart and that is the cheapest grocery store around where I live. When you figure that some people get paid once every two weeks (if they have jobs) and you need to eat at least one meal a day, not to mention the gas it takes to get to the grocery store, there goes a large part of the paycheck of someone making on average of $15/hr. and that's a pretty good paying job where I live.
This is the most absurd argument in the history of mankind. For the first time in history we are literally talking about people being too poor to not become obese. This is so asinine it makes my head hurt. And I say this as someone who is on the heavy side.
When I wanted to get married I cut my portion size in half and ran 3 miles a day. Somehow, my waist size shrank without massive bureaucratic intervention against high fructose corn syrup. This crap about romanticizing poverty is the gateway drug to Marxism. IT doesn't help anyone, it doesn't promote upward mobility, and frankly its rabidly dishonest.
Don't believe me? Think about it. The truly indogent have access to supplemental nutrition (food stamps) free medical care (Medicaid) free housing in some cases (section 8) and 3500 per year per child of other peoples money. The total amount of government benefits available to citizens of this country already stands at nearly 40k per year and that's before we get to the next stage of nationalizing healthcare should the conservatives fail major reform.
So people have no problem asking me and my wife to each work nearly 80 hours a week to be able to have some kind of life after the state comes in with a gun and a calculator to take a third of what we earn but its too much to ask the people who receive our money to read the back of a @#$^&* label!!!
Do you understand how sick that is?
A child born today has roughly 200 trillion dollars of unfunded federal liability at the time of their birth. That's disgusting.
Quote:Just stop. You dont need a government middleman. Instead of all this how about we just remove the market distortion and move on?
I agree. I swear, this conversation is turning me back into a conservative.
The whole idea of taxing unhealthy food, or taxing companies that make unhealthy food, or using the tax system or government regulation to influence lifestyle choices is so cumbersome and unworkable it's ridiculous. It would be a morass of regulations, lobbyists, bureaucrats, arguments over whether sweet potato fries are healthier than regular fries, over whether we're taxing poor people for buying coca cola, it would be a nightmare.
There is no doubt that the most effective and efficient and cheapest way to regulate lifestyle choices is to let people suffer the full consequences of their choices. You want to eat bacon every day? Fine. You pay for your own cancer. Don't ask me to subsidize it.
The free market works very effectively.
So, here's a solution! Are we willing to do this?
Repeal Obamacare, and let the free market rule. Give poor people a subsidy if they buy health insurance. Let insurers charge rates that correspond to risk. Educate people about the risks they are taking with their lifestyle choices.
I guess I'm just getting tired of the country arguing about the health care system. And it doesn't affect me at all, except for the extra Obamacare-related taxes I am paying. I'm healthy (knock on wood). Why are all these
stupid people eating french fries and drinking milk shakes?
Quote:where I live if you make $10 an hour it's considered to be doing well...tomatoes are $3.99 a pound for the cheapest (in season) more out of season, potatoes are $5 for 5 pounds, regular hamburger is nearly $4 a pound and close to $5 for the lean stuff, a 3 pound chuck roast is $21 a family pack of chicken breasts are at least $20, a gallon of milk is over $4. cauliflower is $3.99 broccoli is a little cheaper... Oranges are $1 each or $8.99 for 5 pounds...
How are those stores staying in business selling products at prices no can afford to pay?
Quote:![[Image: ca23aa7cbfcb6fed55bf222e7a0a7269f2ef8dc1...777479.jpg]](http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/ca/ca23aa7cbfcb6fed55bf222e7a0a7269f2ef8dc17e78226b5ee3f661e6777479.jpg)
Yeah, it's not their fault they are lazy and dum. We should totally pay for everything for them.
(I can make stupid statements that don't advance the discussion too ya know.)
Quote:Yeah, it's not their fault they are lazy and dum. We should totally pay for everything for them.
(I can make stupid statements that don't advance the discussion too ya know.)
It's not stupid when it's true though. Our welfare system is being abused and nothing is being done about it.
Quote:
Expect your Hyperbole tax bill in the mail soon.
Quote:where I live if you make $10 an hour it's considered to be doing well...tomatoes are $3.99 a pound for the cheapest (in season) more out of season, potatoes are $5 for 5 pounds, regular hamburger is nearly $4 a pound and close to $5 for the lean stuff, a 3 pound chuck roast is $21 a family pack of chicken breasts are at least $20, a gallon of milk is over $4. cauliflower is $3.99 broccoli is a little cheaper... Oranges are $1 each or $8.99 for 5 pounds...
A 6-pack of tomato seedlings is $3.99 at Jones & Hall nursery. So, 75 cents for a tomato plant which with a little care will yield 30 or 40 medium tomatoes in a 3 month season. A 6-pack will yield roughly 200 tomatoes, call it 100 lbs of tomatoes if they average 8-oz each. Your $3.99 seedlings will grow $400 worth of tomatoes. Try a determinate variety first. They are much easier to grow than indeterminate varieties.
Quote:Convenience and abundance. We're facing something unheard of in history and our medical sector is still increasing the average lifespan every year.
I wrote a long post about price pressure on the poor and inability to cook etc, but the board ate it up and deleted it.
So basically I will summarize it: The poorer you are the more you tend to view food in terms of quantity, not quality. If your family (not individual) makes only 20k a year, you may feel that it is unacceptable to pay 15 bucks at subway vs. 7 dollars at McD (on the dollar menu). One is far healthier than the other, but the cost is apparent. And sure you could cook at home for fairly cheap, but most people under 35 really don't know how to cook anymore as home economics class was killed long ago, and their parents probably didn't cook either (also the generation above being relatively more wealthy also enabled them to eat out more).
So bad long term choices are made on immediate short term savings directly related to price pressure. The thinking goes:
I need to put food on the table
I don't really know how to make things from scratch (nor do I have time or energy to learn)
The cheapest things that I can do are premade or on the dollar menu (but invariably have the cheapest/worst ingredients)
I want to stretch my dollars so I avoid the 'outside' of the grocery store where single vegetable items can cost multiple dollars without yielding a complete dinner.
If you really want people to eat healthier, the easiest way is make more wealth. People will make better choices when they have opportunity (money). Also mandating cooking classes in highschool could help a bit too.
I see lots of comments that it is individual choice and that people could cut down their portions etc. This is correct, but it still ignores the underlying problem that food that is unhealthy is basically subsidized. Sure I can get my calories in line by cutting portions, and I can lower weight by exercising, but if the food you eat is junk you still end up unhealthy. And yeah the exercising definitely helps, but you can't just eat processed corn and potatoes and expect to be healthy (i.e. disease free long term).
Quote:I wrote a long post about price pressure on the poor and inability to cook etc, but the board ate it up and deleted it.
So basically I will summarize it: The poorer you are the more you tend to view food in terms of quantity, not quality. If your family (not individual) makes only 20k a year, you may feel that it is unacceptable to pay 15 bucks at subway vs. 7 dollars at McD (on the dollar menu). One is far healthier than the other, but the cost is apparent. And sure you could cook at home for fairly cheap, but most people under 35 really don't know how to cook anymore as home economics class was killed long ago, and their parents probably didn't cook either (also the generation above being relatively more wealthy also enabled them to eat out more).
So bad long term choices are made on immediate short term savings directly related to price pressure. The thinking goes:
I need to put food on the table
I don't really know how to make things from scratch (nor do I have time or energy to learn)
The cheapest things that I can do are premade or on the dollar menu (but invariably have the cheapest/worst ingredients)
I want to stretch my dollars so I avoid the 'outside' of the grocery store where single vegetable items can cost multiple dollars without yielding a complete dinner.
If you really want people to eat healthier, the easiest way is make more wealth. People will make better choices when they have opportunity (money). Also mandating cooking classes in highschool could help a bit too.
I see lots of comments that it is individual choice and that people could cut down their portions etc. This is correct, but it still ignores the underlying problem that food that is unhealthy is basically subsidized. Sure I can get my calories in line by cutting portions, and I can lower weight by exercising, but if the food you eat is junk you still end up unhealthy. And yeah the exercising definitely helps, but you can't just eat processed corn and potatoes and expect to be healthy (i.e. disease free long term).
They have a choice: buy cheaper healthier food and look up how to cook it on their smartphones. No sarcasm. I learned shade tree mechanics because I couldn't afford a mechanic. People can teach themselves. They should learn to use technology for something other than gaming and social media.
Quote:How are those stores staying in business selling products at prices no can afford to pay?
the majority of jobs in this area is retail, so many minimum wage jobs, which means lotsa food stamps