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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (56347)	7/26/2004 7:55:35 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 794372

The U.S. Surgeon General, Uppity Women to Blame for Obesity The Agitator blog Some suprising conclusions from a new NBER paper on what's making us fat: According to our research, as much as two-thirds of the increase in adult obesity since 1980 can be explained by the rapid growth in the per capita number of fast-food restaurants and full-service restaurants, especially the former... ...What caused this explosive restaurant growth? The principal driver seems to have been the increases in rates of labor force participation by women. As nonwork time for women became increasingly scarce and valuable over the last few decades, time devoted to at-home meal preparation decreased. Families began eating out more often. Indeed, the economists Patricia M. Anderson, Kristin F. Butcher, and Phillip B. Levine find that the rise in average hours worked by mothers can account for as much as one-third of the growth in obesity among children in certain families. In part, the rise in obesity seems to have been an unintended consequence of encouraging women to become more active in the workforce. That's the first jaw-dropper. Here's the second: Cigarette smoking is still the largest cause of premature death among Americans; pushing smokers to quit will have obvious health benefits. But our results and those of other economists also suggest that these efforts contribute to the rising prevalence of obesity. Whether public policies should be pursued that offset this ignored consequence of previous public policy to discourage smoking, increase market opportunities, and make cheaper food available depends on the costs and benefits of these policies. End Obesity! Fewer women in the workforce! Let's get more people smoking! Who's with me? My point: All of the anti-obesity remedies thrown around by anti-fat activists have real consequences (just as getting people to quit smoking did). Most of them just happened to be more okay with the consequences of, say, taxing fatty foods than they are with encouraging women to drop out of the workforce (I'm actually less convinced of this connection than with the decrease in smoking). But that' doesn't mean the rest of should be. I'm not sure that either of those measures would be less distortive than fat taxes, portion control, or advertising restrictions. And I'm relatively certain that at least one, and maybe both would be more effective at preventing obesity. Also, it oughtn't surprise you that as more people quit smoking, more people put on weight. But it is pretty amusing that the same government that's going into hysterics about obesity may have a caused a good deal of the problem when it went into hysterics about tobacco. I'm not sure why it's so hard for some people to understand (or accept) that some folks simply need a little something extra to get through life's monotonies and disappointments. Rob them of cigarettes and they'll turn to comfort food. Rob them of comfort food and watch 'em take up drinking. My question for the anti-fat activists: If someone suspects that by losing 25 pounds and eating twigs and berries, they could potentially add 10 years to their life, but concludes that they're willing to forfeit that 10 years in exchange for enjoying the years they have left by eating rich, satiating, flavorful meals, should we be spend taxpayer dollars to convince them they're wrong? What if they'd rather get drunk every day than live that extra 10 years? Smoke? Is extending people's lives really that important? Does quality of life matter? And how exactly does extending people's lives -- particularly those on public assistance -- save taxpayers money? Here's my radical idea: Who not stop this endless game of unintended consequences? Why not let people live their damned lives free of government meddling? Why not free them up to make their own choices, but make it clear that they (and only they) will need bear the consequences of those choices? Posted by Radley Balko on July 26, 2004 theagitator.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (56347)	7/26/2004 8:48:56 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 794372

re: Be realistic, John. Osama is a symbol, but in a way, I am glad he is still out there. If he were gone, the left would really be demanding we shut down our actions. All this concern with missing Osama is really a "red herring" from the left, IMO. OK, that's the obligatory partisan speech. I imagine you wouldn't celebrate if they got bin Laden before the election? The reality is that it would have been a great political victory to kill all those guys in Afghanistan; and a great strategic victory. re: The real planning by Al Qaeda has been done by his Muslim Brotherhood "brains" out of Egypt. I disagree with that... and would like to see more information, in case I'm wrong??? re: The Muslim extremist movement is a loose federation of Sunnis and Shites, with the core muscle coming out of the Wahhabis in Saudi Araba. You keep tracking down and killing the leadership as it pops up, and keep the forensic accountants on the money trail. Stop cold any of the Countries that support them. Meanwhile, globalization changes the societies that spawn the problem. That I (mostly) agree with. I didn't see "Iraq" in that paragraph. I impressed by most of you folks... I didn't get whacked for not supporting Bush. I think the man has made a lot of HUGE mistakes; I think he is a really lousy administrator. As a CEO he wouldn't last 15 minutes. But I really don't want to debate a dozen people, so I will wish you all good evening and good luck. Catch Clintons speech tonite if you can <g>. John