Originally Posted by Lewis
Smokers and pissheads have to pay fairly high taxes to get access to their vices, though. Make it the same for the chubsters.
Smokers and pissheads have to pay fairly high taxes to get access to their vices, though. Make it the same for the chubsters.
Well sports also have major health benefits so I'm not sure that really works as an example (being a big old fat boi doesn't). Injuries are also an unfortunate risk rather than a fairly certain and predictable outcome, which things like type 2 diabetes are if you're dramatically overweight. People who engage in risky sexual behaviour is probably a better one and I agree it's a fairly difficult and ultimately arbitrary line to draw. But then I'm not really advocating for 'punishing' or charging people for their lifestyle in the first place, I genuinely hope we can do things that make people healthier and have longer, better lives.
I'd be interested if caring for someone because they are old actually is more expensive on average than caring for someone with a bad lifestyle. Given the amount of money diabetes and it's sequelae cost the NHS (I've heard quoted something like a third of the total budget) I doubt it.
Yeah I'm not sure I agree with this particular measure (although I'm not sure whether there's evidence either way), I'm more talking about the general principle.
If the 'general principle' is 'fighting obesity' then that is probably worth trying. Some sort of tax on shit food won't help with that at all though.
It was more "I don't mind a bit of 'interfering' if the motive is to improve things for people', but yeah in this case it's trying to reduce obesity.
If we offed people at sixty-five we could save so much money (even more so in the future) that we could guarantee a much better standard of living for everyone up to their death date. If the average life expectancy in Britain is eighty-one, I would argue that sacrificing those last shitty sixteen years in return for a vastly improved first sixty-five is the ultimate in collective altruism (no pensions as well so literally everyone is balling here), and that genocide is relatively small price to pay.
Equating paying a bit more for takeaway pizza to the genocide of tens of millions of people is an interesting position to take.
Eventually people will just kill themselves rather than suffer the indignity of having the police root them out of their homes on their birthdays, so it's not actually 'interfering' as such.
The viagra lobby will never allow it.
All of the cashed-up younger people would need it for their alcoholism/obesity-induced impotence.
Got it. That's a rock-solid principle. The one society/government is based on. Doesn't prevent everyone for resorting to 'what about my freedomz?' Every time something they like might be restricted though, whether it is gun nuts and their love for the 2nd Amendment, or the pro-abortion crew with their 'my body my choice' nonsense.
@Mahow.
Who exactly gets to decide what makes things better to justify that interfering? The problem is that we are not nearly as clever as we think we are and cause all sorts of unintended consequences. All government approaches should be as simple as possible. The poor’s problem is that they are poor and we should just give them money. Instead, we decide we know so much better and interfere on their behalf. We trap them in situations where they can’t share housing to pool wealth, or force certain work requirements, or whatever moralizing nonsense we think is good for them.
Agreed.
Someone gave me a pack of Piper's today. I'll never buy them myself as it's 85p for a small pack, but they're pretty good.
What crisps have people been eating lately?
Those spicy Walkers Strong ones, the jalapeño and cheese flavour especially.
I rarely eat crisps. I don't mind a bag of Quavers every now and then.
I didn't know you could still get them, but I found Quarterbacks in that weird brand shop aisle you get in Tesco. Big 10-packs of cheeseburger and rib flavour, stocked up for summer now.
These were very briefly on offer in the co-op near me some time ago. I only managed to enjoy a pack or two before they got pulled, and I haven't seen them anywhere since. A modern tragedy.
I've just bought one of those Walkers 'Flavours of the Decades' multi-packs. The 'BBQ Rib' ones are just off smokey bacon, and they come with the following description:
What? Did it? I dread to think what the curry flavour says (or rather, what it tells me to think).In the 1990s American-style fast food hit the high streets across the nation and BBQ Rib became a new Saturday night favourite.
I've had the rib ones and their shitness is only surpassed by the cheese fondue ones.
There must be loads of people out there with fond memories of Saturday night BBQ Rib who are loving them.
The chicken tikka ones have some shit about how Indian food 'took the nation by storm.'
Those are indeed brilliant.
The chicken tikka ones actually the best I've had so far, but I doubt I'll bother with the others, as I've just been into Tesco and they have massive 'share' bags of prawn cocktail walkers for a quid.
How does cheese fondue flavour differ from normal cheese flavour?
It's fonduey...
Is there a normal cheese flavour? They taste like how your fingers smell after you pick your toe nails.
You get plain cheese crisps, I'm just not sure how you convey 'melted' as a flavour.
Anyway, to answer the question: I don't normally go in for wanky flavours but those Lime Pickle poppadom things are the business.
You have to put them in the microwave.
I haven't got one, this must be what racism feels like.
I'm into the chicken tikka ones, and the information is simply 'Enoch Powell was a racist', followed by that dubious statistic about how the Indian economy 'shrank' during British rule. Into the bin, and I'll be writing to Crisps letting him know.
No TV and now no microwave. Jeez Louise.
I'm a twit
If these cunts really were interested in 'health' and 'wellbeing' they'd ban the shitty food and smoking, etc. But that doesn't bring in the quids. Lip service and taxation.
Well that'd never get passed. It's not like it's never been suggested.
We will definitely end up with tobacco-like warnings and pictures on booze before long, and food won't be far behind.
They should probably be using the extra money coming in from the sugar tax to subsidise some healthy stuff, but for the moment the drive to stop children eating shit seems to be Jamie Oliver shouting about cheap pizzas and Obergruppenführer Sturgeon asking what she can do to appease him.
Surely the biggest problem with people eating unhealthy food instead of healthy food is convenience?
This always seems to be overlooked. It's easy for Jamie Oliver or Hugh Fearnley-Shittinghall to spend two hours making healthy and delicious food because they literally cook for a living and probably have plenty of free time to do it.
If you're working all day every day and then have to come home to your kids, you don't want to be spending an hour cooking and half an hour cleaning up as well as all the extra shopping you'd have to do for fresh ingredients.
People eat shit food because it tastes better, mostly.
If I’ve got a 12 inch Pepperoni pizza in the freezer, or a stir fry mix and pre cut chicken in the fridge, I’m having Pizza for dinner.
What RL said about there being no merit to the ‘taxing shit food impacts on poor people’ argument is utter bollocks though and you just need to visit Iceland to prove it. Frozen ready meals are a quid a pop, healthy food you cook yourself is not. Levelling the prices by increasing the price of the cheaper option is, quite fucking obviously, going to hit people that are struggling. You don’t need a research paper to work that out.
That's not what I said at all?
In response to Pepe saying ‘taxing shit food makes poor people poorer’.
I was saying I don't know if there's evidence that it actually improves people's health - maybe if crap, convenient food is too expensive people start cooking more again. Maybe they just struggle more. I have no idea.
It obviously disproportionately impacts poorer people.
I've seriously no idea how you came to the conclusion that what you said is what I meant given what you've quoted.
You said you’re not sure you agree. Well, it’s pretty simple; cheap food is cheap, expensive food isn’t. If cheap food is no longer cheap then.......
Other food is cheap. Ingredients for something like a week's worth of Shepherds Pie are not expensive at all - I actually wouldn't be surprised if it's cheaper than buying ready meals and shit. But then you obviously have to cook.
Still, I have no idea how you got from "I'm not sure I agree with this measure" to saying I said the argument it will impact poor people "has no merit". It's not even remotely close to the same thing.
Last edited by randomlegend; 17-05-2018 at 08:29 AM.
You’re wrong. Mince, potatoes and herbs/ready made mix for a couple of days dinner is about a fiver alone. That’s 5 pizzas or ready meals. The shite Iceland flog at basement prices is far cheaper than anything you can knock together that can be considered ‘healthy’.
In reality the only way taxing ready meals can work is if that money is then used to subsidise fresh food, but I don’t see that happening.
Anyway, if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick with your point, then fair enough.
Fair enough, I've never been to iceland I don't think.
Good call.
Potatoes are about a quid for a million kilos. Dried herbs are ridiculously cheap if you buy supermarket branded stuff.
Mince is fairly expensive, but if you're willing to grind it yourself (my mum used to when we were fairly poor), again, it's pretty reasonable because you just buy the cheap crap that you wouldn't normally eat otherwise.
Which defeats the point, surely? If you’re going to use the cheap crap then you just buy a frozen Shepherds pie for a quid.
Cheap cuts of meant aren't necessarily shit. They they need prep work, and are only suitable for stuff like stews, pies, etc.
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