Big graph. And it makes a pretty big point: That there are rational explanations linking Americans getting poorer and Americans getting fatte. As Dan Mitchell of The Big Money explains, there was a time when having less money meant eating less food. But our modern industrial food system has managed to produce so much cheap, so that having less money sometimes means (per the above graph) a banquet of butter and corn syrup. McDonald's has a dollar menu, and it's absolutely thriving. Whole Foods doesn't, and it's not.One thing to say about this, as I tiptoe around that rail, is that a junk food tax is really not a terrible idea. I am sympathetic to the more libertarian argument that the government doesn't know what's good for me, but at the same time, it also seems like the industrial food system had created a price structure that doesn't come close to factoring in the externalities of obsesity that can follow from a diet that feasts on the cheapest strands of the graph above.
As my colleague Conor Clarke and Matt Yglesias have pointed out, there are good and bad ways to do this. One commonsense way would be to tax the sinful part of the product. That is, index alcohol taxes to the amount of alcohol in the product, or soda taxes to the amount of corn syrup per serving, or White Castle Chocolate Shakes to...well, that's pure lard, so the size of the cup. The Senate Finance Committee might have the wrong idea, but I still think it's on the right track.
Question:
Why are fruits and vegetables getting so much more expensive?
Is it agricultural scarcity? Environmental stress factors?
Increased demand? (I think this is unlikely) Or conversely, decreased demand, turning fresh produce into "niche" products?
Even domestic, northern climate products like cabbage have become outrageously expensive, to the tune of $1/pound in most parts of the country. In poor urban neighborhoods, the price disparity is even more exaggerated.
Short of taxing the naughty stuff we could at least stop subsidizing the overproduction of naughty stuff.
In a word, no. As I wrote to your colleague Derek (who's work Conor Clarke was responding to in his article), any action anyone takes can be construed as having a negative effect on someone else. Negative externalities are part of the price of freedom. Should we slap a tax on Weekend Warriors for the cost of their broken bones? How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? Should we tax people based on genetic predispositions to disease, too? Do fat people not pay into the healthcare system?
Your liberty to live as you choose is predicated on my willingness to tolerate that liberty whether I like or agree with it or not, and vice versa. In other words, in a free country, whether you like it or not, fat people have a right to be as fat as they choose to be and eat whatever they damned well please.
Oops, sorry Derek. I didn't realized until after I posted that it was you who wrote this. My original response was to you.
I'm sorry I absolutely disagree. This country is based upon limited freedom, that is, you are (oversimplifying) free to do as you want so long as you don't infringe on the freedoms of others.
Sure, fly in a plane or take the subway if you choose to be a fat 500lb disgrace of a person. But you're taking up 4 seats, so you can pay for 4 seats, while I, mostly due to regular vigorous exercize and a semi-reasonable diet, only take up 1, and hence, only pay for 1.
Any pigovian taxes and/or subsidies should be analyzed holistically; Don't punish people because they indulge in a Big Mac or a 6-pack of Beer; Punish them for OVER-indulging to the point where they infringe on the well-being of others.
That is all.
Anal_yst
http://1-2knockout.typepad.com
I find your smug sense of superiority offensive. I would suggest that your arrogance makes you more of a disgrace than a fat person, but let's not quibble over your bad manners.
There is no guarantee that a fat person will in any way infringe upon your rights or well-being. It is a probability that a fat person may use more healthcare services, but it is by no means certain. Just as it is by no means certain that a superman like yourself will use up more medicare and social security benefits than the average person by living to 114. Maybe we should tax you for the possiblity of excessive longevity.
See, it works both ways. There are all kinds of ways to nickel and dime away liberty. Your post is just another example of the "freedom for me, but not for thee" mentality.
Great point re social security. For the argument taken to its logical extreme, read the novel "Boomsday" by Christopher Buckley. Plot spoiler: baby boomer longevity imposes an unacceptable and unsustainable cost on society because of all the government goodies we've promised old people over the years, so the novel's heroine suggests a policy response: a government sponsored financial incentive to commit suicide.
Quite the contrary my friend. You've confused arrogance with (endeavoring to) accept the consequences of my actions and decisions and their impact on others, which I make many efforts to do, although I've still much room for improvement.
Chances are the 400lb gentleman on the Subway who sandwiched me into near-oblivion the other day wasn't/isn't too concerned for my well-being, or his imposition into my freedom (to breath, etc).
I agree with your point that a fat person is not 100% guaranteed to impose on my freedom. However, there is a decidedly non-zero probability that a morbidly obese person will eventually do so on both an absolute and relative basis. Do you disagree?
Also, I think more often than not, someone who eats 5,000 calories a day (avoids exercize, smokes 5 packs a day, drinks a bottle of jack, etc) is generally less concerned about their impact on others than those who generally avoid such gluttony. Would you care to disagree with this?
In no way, shape, or form is what I suggest "freedom for me, but not for thee."
On the contrary, it is "freedom isn't free;" it is earned.
Anal_yst
http://1-2knockout.typepad.com
It seems you're offended by a very minor smidgen of my outlook, and my point (which you've conveniently ignored for the most part).
What you don't realize is that you and I don't have such differing views, after-all.
I encourage people to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions and decisions, an extension of which is to impose as little as possible upon others. That would include maintaining sufficient insurance, for example, such that my lifestyle decisions "bad or "good" don't (or are unlikely to) become thrust upon "society."
Anal_yst
http://1-2knockout.typepad.com
I'm all for reducing subsidies on unhealthy food. On the other hand, if people are eating unhealthy food because it's cheaper, it sounds cruel to raise the price of it through taxes to get them to eat the more expensive, healthier stuff.
Of course, no one seems to see the direct relation of this line of debate to our debate over national health care. That's tragic, because if you think the nanny state should get out of the way and let people get fat if they want to, you should be shouting at the top of your lungs that more government healthcare is a slippery slope to fascism. Once the government is the primary provider of health care to most of the country, EVERY personal lifestyle decision will become the government's business. We won't just be debating "fat taxes". Nanny state health advocates will be promoting endless laws and taxes to "nudge" people to exercise, take vitamins, and eat leafy greens and others to make people avoid red meat, risky sports, and alcohol. All of this will be done in the name of reducing the government's healthcare bill. You think I'm exaggerating? Go take a walk through a London tube station and take a look at all of the nanny state exhortations to clean living. That's just the beginning. It's going to be a brave new world my friends, and they won't let up until we are all fun-hating, hybrid driving, vegan fitness freaks.
Sadly, I concur. This is what happens when a nation predicated on liberty forgets who they are.
Forbidden donut...
I agree with your point that a fat person is not 100% guaranteed to impose on my freedom. However, there is a decidedly non-zero probability that a morbidly obese person will eventually do so on both an absolute and relative basis. Do you disagree?
No, I don't disagree and I think this is the crux of what we're talking about. It comes down to the meaning of the word "infringe" or "impose". These two words connote the curtailment/cancellation of, or a direct negative impact on, something. In this case, freedom. The problem is that now we as a society seem to have decided that an infringement is any impact whatsoever. Sort of like the PC "right to never be offended", especially by the exercise of a liberty we with which don't agree.
As I said in my original post, anything anyone does can be construed to impact someone else. That's different than actually directly infringing on someone else's rights. Unfortunately, we seem to have decided that there is no difference. We are no longer interested in tolerating anyone's exercise of liberty to which we personally object, and we will justify such intolerance using the most grotesquely convoluted agenda-driven reasoning.
Take the smoking issue, for example. Somehow it has been commonly accepted that giving people a choice between patronizing a smoking or non-smoking venue infringes on the rights of non-smokers, so a blanket ban is required. This is complete nonsense, but is now largely accepted as gospel only because smoking is unpopular.
Further, the criminal level of taxation on cigarettes is justified by the "cost of smokers to society". This is also rubbish based on the fact that only 1 in 3 smokers will ever develop so-called "smoking-related illness" and even a reasonable tax on tobacco more than covers such a cost.
Also, I think more often than not, someone who eats 5,000 calories a day (avoids exercize, smokes 5 packs a day, drinks a bottle of jack, etc) is generally less concerned about their impact on others than those who generally avoid such gluttony. Would you care to disagree with this?
This I would disagree with. I think that neither the person with unhealthy habits nor the health nut spends much time considering their impact on other people.
It seems you're offended by a very minor smidgen of my outlook, and my point (which you've conveniently ignored for the most part).
What you don't realize is that you and I don't have such differing views, after-all.
I encourage people to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions and decisions, an extension of which is to impose as little as possible upon others. That would include maintaining sufficient insurance, for example, such that my lifestyle decisions "bad or "good" don't (or are unlikely to) become thrust upon "society."
I jumped to an erroneous conclusion based on what I interpreted as the tone of your comment. I offer you my apologies for my bad manners in response.
I would also agree that people should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. This too is part of the price of freedom. I also think that we largely have been. It's gotten to the point, however, that we now use the claim of a negative impact on society, no matter how small or arrived at through the most arcane calculations or indirect reasoning, to justify gov't intereference in others' personal choices. It is not the redress of this impact, though, which is the goal of such tactics, but the justification to interfere itself.
As I said before, I believe we are nickel and diming away our liberty and I believe this is due to the idea that somehow we shouldn't have to put up with other citizens' liberties we don't like. Further, I think this intolerance of freedom is the natural result of the PC culture which took root back in the '90s.
Appreciate your apology, although its not necessary.
I'm glad we're having this discussion as I find myself more and more in agreement with your analysis, presuming of course that my interpretation is accurate.
And, if I am, you're just as unhappy with the direction in which we're moving as a society, towards PC-dom and institutionalized "make nice" policies.
Also I think I was too specific, and failed to craft the argument I'd intended when I began my comment(s); work getting in the way of "work" or something.
I believe in liberty and free will to the greatest practicable degree (however one chooses to define that is another conversation). Unfortunately, due to political expediency and short-sighted, perceptibly self-serving decisions we've found ourselves increasingly subject to nonsensical regulations (e.g. cigarette taxes, non-smoking blanket laws) which summarily have pushed us further into the seemingly inescapable abyss of Government intervention into private matters.
Scenes of several sci-fi-ish films and novels come to mind, none of which present a desirable outlook, sigh...
How much freedom do you have when you cannot guarantee that the food you were eating yesterday is the same food today. When 30% of the population is obese that has gone beyond diet, exercise and genetics. Through the food industry our food is subjected to poor farming methods, Irradiation, Pasteurization, Emulsification, Over refining, Genetic Modification, and via the animals Steroids and Antibiotics. Then before it gets to us they add Aspartame, MSG, Artificial colors, Sodium nitrite, Hydrogenated oils, High-Fructose Corn syrup, Acesulfame K, BHA, BHT, Olestra, Bromate, Sulfites, Seomyx, and I could go on and on. Good grief, what do they think we are? You and I know that this is not right, our food should not degrade into something chemically unrecognizable. Food should have food value and nourish us not be a mystery that is turning us into an obese sickly country, you know it, I know it and they should know it. Maybe a little intelligent anger directed at the food industry can get us some changes without a raise in cost.
How about a one day fast where nothing is purchased at the market to see if that will wake them up.