garland

Nah, I think we all know that gluttony and Wall Street have nothing to do with each other.

I don't see anything in Kluge's comment that is anti- jobs or tax revenues. I do hope, though, that this little rule doesn't cause mass unemployment and budget crisis. Is that expected?

zoosermom

Being reflexively anti-business is anti-job and anti-tax revenue.

Funny part of the ban is that it's intended to target street vendors first.

interesteddad

Orange juice is no healthier than Coca Cola. It's the same thing. Massive doses of sugar in a concentrated form that totally swamps the liver's capacity to metabolize the fructose. The excess is converted directed to fat (triglycerides) and is a prime contributor to insulin resistance.

One of the keys to the obesity/diabetes "epidemics" was the development and introduction of fruit juice concentrates in the 1950s, making it possible (and cheap) to consume mass quantities of very unhealthy fruit juice.

One of the real nutrition myths is that fruit juice is good for you. It's not. Sugar drinks, in all forms (fruit juice, sweetened milk, soft drinks, sweet tea, and sports drinks) are probably the single worst thing most of use can consume. They should be the very first thing to go in a truly healthy diet.

kluge

OK, Zoos - I'll dumb it down: Big corporations would indeed take all our money and freedom if there wasn't another player in the game big enough to stop them - that's one of the jobs of our government. (The reverse is true as well, but I don't think we're as close to a Stalinist dictatorship as MaimiDAP is convinced we are.) That's been one of government's primary roles for a long time. When government gets too lax in its regulation of business, you get things like the meltdown of the savings and loans in the 1980's, Enron's energy rape of California in 2000-2001, and the recent financial crisis. Each of those was a corporate-driven exercise in unfettered greed unbalanced by adequate government regulation. Do you remember Ford's corporate bean-counting which led the company to deliberately leave a part out of Pintos to save a few bucks per car, knowing that it would result in the incineration of dozens of people? (Maybe you're too young for that.) They did a formal cost/benefit analysis which showed that corporate profits were better if they left the part out, figuring each person burned to death would cost $200,000 and each person burned but not killed would cost $67,000. There's a reason we have government; preventing the strong from taking (too much) advantage of the weak is one of them. In the end, everyone benefits, even if the short-term profit motives of some blind them to that fact.

Driving down to southern California to visit my kids a few weeks ago looking out the window at the agricultural workers made me remember the howls of outrage when California's government outlawed the short hoes the farm workers were required to use - they called them "cortitos" and they put incredible strain on the backs of the workers. And you know what? Long hoes work just as well; they're just not as harmful for the workers. Decades of "cortitos" for no reason. Next thing you knew, there were porta potties and handwashing facilities in the fields, too. It took government acting as a counterweight to agribusiness to do that. As a consumer I check the dietary information required by government on the food products I buy, to see the ingredients, the fat, the fiber, the calories. I rely on inspections of meat packing plants and the (less frequent) checks of agricultural products to lessen the likelihood that I'll be poisoned by what I eat. If it weren't for government regulations we'd have less information, less safety, and no recourse.

"Counterweight" has a pretty clear meaning, I think; we need balance. Without government we'd have none. I don't denigrate the role of private enterprise; I never have, "reflexively" or otherwise. I just think that those who cling to the holy grail of "free enterprise" without any appreciation for the consequences of unregulated capitalism have to be blind to history.

So - that's what I "handed" you. What you chose to see instead is your own thing.

garland

Well said, Kluge. Anyone read "The Jungle" lately? That was food, and working conditions, without nasty government regulations.

I think a lot of younger folk don't know what our water quality--including the waterways that flow around where Zoos and I live--was like before the Clean Water Act. Strangely, no one seemed to hesitate to pour poisons into the Hudson and New York Bay until that regulation stopped them--the waterways in the NY/NJ area are so much cleaner now than when I was a kid. And air--the smog of the sixties? Clean Air Act--a beautiful thing-I wonder how many people are alive that would have died because of the crap that was in our air back then.

People are what they are. Profits are what they are. A significant number of people, put in the position of being able to reap a profit, will do so with whatever means is allowed them. Food, water, air, work conditions, living conditions, the ground we walk on--are held hostage to the ethics (or lack of them) of others, unless some entity sets some rules. Would that it were not so, but experience shows otherwise.

lizard

Yikes, orange juice is no healthier than Coca Cola? Hard to believe drinking carbonated soda is the same as drinking orange juice. In fact, some experts believe it is possible components of orange juice may protect against increased blood triglyceride levels and decreased insulin sensitivity.

It's time fruit juice loses its wholesome image, some experts say - latimes.com

Consolation

Clap, clap Kluge.

zoosermom

My daughter's master's thesis was on the oyster trade. Believe it or not, it was utterly fascinating. And incredibly sad.

Yes Kluge, counterweight. Balance. Not hysterics, not demonization. Balance. Based on the post I quoted earlier, that concept seems to escape you.

And, as usual, you twist, spin and insult. I never said anything about no government. You made that up. What I said and what I stand by is that the government, in the person of Mayor Bloomberg, needs to BALANCE his priorities and the priorities of our local government. In light of the very serious problems we are facing in this city and the silliness of this particular edict, BALANCE is not achieved. Exactly the opposite.

As for "clinging" that's all you. Clinging to your tired, admittedly-uninformed opinions no matter what the circumstances. In this thread, I called for appropriate government intervention, you called names. This particular topic is not the one for you to plant your flag on because it's utterly ridiculous.

parent56

UAB News Blog: Will a NYC supersize soda ban help obesity battle?

blankmind

The government stepping in and dealing with big issues is what one wants and expects their government to do. Micromanaging the minutiae of every day life is not what one wants nor expects the government to do.

Enron, Ford Pinto, cortitos, water quality? Big issues.

16oz sodas? Minutia.

zoosermom

The latest update is that the city council (not Bloomberg) has met to plan a further ban on super-sized popcorn at movie theaters and super-sized milkshakes and coffee/tea containing milk.

zoosermom

I really understand and actually agree that corporations can be predatory. All one has to do is look at tobacco to see that. However, the choice to have a soda of a particular size when buying your hot dog on the street isn't in the least predatory. Fluid is necessary for life and, with the opposition to water bottles added into the mix, I think this is going much too far.

garland

Blankmind--as I said at the start, I don't think this is the biggest issue (certainly not where I "plant my flag") though I maintain that it could have served as a low-cost educational initiative if it hadn't been blown into a huge nexus of outrage.

And that is where the discussion gets interesting to me--the huge barrage of complaint in the media and elsewhere that turns something relatively insigificant into a poster child for "government regulation" and all its ills. It is indeed used for a place to plant a flag by some, but mostly I think as a paradigm as to why government is bad, and corporate capitalism would be heaven on earth, if only it were allowed to be unfettered.

The soda discussion is itself a trivial issue, but it serves as a fascinating entry point (one of countless possible choices, but the one which this thread happens to focus on) to a bigger conflict concerning how we view the forces and entities which affect our lives and the life of the country as a whole.

romanigypsyeyes

Oh zoose, that makes me sad. I like my popcorn! Really, I eat healthy most of the time. I'm a vegetarian and love water. I never eat candy or sweets of any kind really. But darn it, when I go to the movies once every other month (if that) I want my large popcorn smothered in butter. A large drink along with it. Omnomnom.

zoosermom

I'm a vegetarian water drinker, too, and I rarely go to the movies, but there is a home made ice cream shop near my house and a few times a year I get a large salted caramel milkshake and boy do I enjoy it! It may not be healthy, but it improves the quality of my life and I think it should be my decision, just as your popcorn treat should be yours.