Posts by Bart Janssen
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Tim Darlington,
I don’t have to be one to know genetic factors don’t work like that
Sorry but you are wrong. Genetics does work like that. You have a base frequency of a specific genotype, in this case tendency towards obesity.
You then change environmental conditions, in this case availability of calories. What happens then is the frequency of obesity goes up AND those people who are obese have a common genetic makeup.
The best analogy I heard was this - think of a swimming pool with a shallow and deep end. Your genotype defines where in the pool you stand. Now add another metre of water and people who were standing before are drowning now.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to James Butler,
then taxing sugar is going to hit the people with the least money hardest
Guess what - that is exactly the same argument used against raising taxes on cigarettes. more poor people smoke therefore taxing smokes is targeting the poor unfairly.
If you tax the companies they respond by raising the price and you create a more complex tax system with more loopholes.
The whole point is to make the choice for people simple buy expensive sugary products or cheaper non-sugary products.
That approach has been shown to work for tobacco.
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I'd laugh at The New Zealand Initiative if they didn't have so much political power. I'd find them funnier if my alma mater (University of Auckland) had not seen fit to endorse them - a WTF moment if there ever was one.
I can imagine them meeting forty years ago and concluding taxing cigarettes and banning smoking in public places would have no benefit to society.
The evidence is clear (mostly from cigarette taxation), increasing the price of a product via taxation or duty is a tremendously powerful tool for changing consumer behaviour.
For me then, there are two remaining questions.
Is there a health problem associated with high sugar foods?
All the data in the literature show a very high correlation between such foods and a number of serious health problems. I'm sure someone can find industry-funded "research" showing no such association, but I believe those studies as much as I believe the studies from the tobacco companies "proving" tobacco is harmless.The second question is:
Should our representatives in government act to improve the health of the population and thus reduce healthcare costs?
That of course is an ideological question. For me the answer WTF else should they be doing?????? But then I'm not paid by soft drink companies to have another opinion and nor is my opinion for sale like my alma mater's. -
Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Sacha,
If a substance is harmful, why not ban it rather than taxing it? Sugary drinks have zero nutritional benefit and many proven harms.
Because prohibition really does not work.
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Polity: A short history of half-baked…, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
The Home Truths series didn’t address the following, which I think are crucial elements in the existence of property bubbles:
You also forgot the effect of weekly stories in that same newspaper highlighting the enormous amounts of wealth that could be generated by investing in the Auckland housing market.
Not criticizing that wealth gain but promoting it with all the fervor of a real estate agent whose just fallen in love with the latest model Porsche.
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Polity: A short history of half-baked…, in reply to andrew001,
the seeds of this were sewn
This enraged me unreasonably.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Paul Campbell,
we’re planning on spending it all
I'd start to worry that they plan on cashing in early when they start gifting you Mt Everest expedition and base jumping holidays.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Rob Stowell,
Which is part of the problem but not the whole problem because the data strongly suggest a lot of money is coming into NZ from overseas as well.
Hence as so many have already pointed out multiple solutions are needed.
But as Ben has rightly noted voting for policies that reduce the value of your home seems silly. And all of those policies WILL reduce the paper value of our homes.
It's almost like we need a government that makes policy that is good for us, not merely popular.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to BenWilson,
That would never happen!! No way would that get voted in by anyone who already owns a house.
Which of course is the problem because any action that genuinely seeks to fix the housing problem WILL result in a drop in current house prices.
But I own my house and I would vote for policies that would drop the dollar value of my house. The real value would of course remain exactly the same. The reason isn't altruism at all it's the knowledge that this inflated house price market is damaging New Zealand - possibly irrevocably.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Luke Williamson,
And I guess we have a PM at the moment who is physically and philosohically more comfortable with rich people from overseas than poor people in NZ.
I hadn't actually thought of that, but yes he is distinctly uncomfortable with poor people.