US is getting fatter again

[Aeson]

aeson, real question

if i have say $250k-500k to spend, could i get a phillipine sweat shop started?

and how much to bribe local authorities to not closely inspect my "industrial products"?

What type of sweat shop are you talking about?

There's plenty of room for legitimate business that would make you money while increasing (sometimes dramatically) the quality of life for your workforce, so in any case I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to make it a morally questionable enterprise.

[giblets]

Um ... no. Not anymore than you are by posting here that is. (eg. using your time and money to do something other than getting food to poor people who can't afford it on their own)

There's plenty of food to feed everyone.

What Rising Food Prices Mean For The Fight Against Hunger

It might be theoretically possible to feed everyone without first worlders eating less, but realistically eating more drives up global food prices and leads to more hunger.

[Sava]

I wasn't prepared for a serious answer/discussion

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[Aeson]

What Rising Food Prices Mean For The Fight Against Hunger

It might be theoretically possible to feed everyone without first worlders eating less, but realistically eating more drives up global food prices and leads to more hunger.

It would be rather easy to feed everyone without first worlders eating less. If we wanted to. We spend a more money and effort trying to kill each other than it would require. We leave tons of food on the fields. We grow inefficient crops. We pay farmers not to crop their lands. We throw out perfectly good food all the time.

The price of food is not going to fall if first worlders eat less of it. It would just lead to less production. (Which actually could even result in higher prices, especially given how healthy food production and distribution compares to that of unhealthy food.) Food shocks would still happen when expected production fails to meet targets because supply takes a long time to bring online in the best cases, and infrastructure to allow for it (when necessary) takes even longer (and we lost the will for that it seems).

And of course you're ignoring the "not anymore than you are by posting here"... because the energy and products you use, all are creating more demand for limited resources used as agricultural inputs and transport of food. So regardless of how you believe decreased demand would affect price, my statement was correct.

[giblets]

It would be rather easy to feed everyone without first worlders eating less. If we wanted to. We spend a more money and effort trying to kill each other than it would require. We leave tons of food on the fields. We grow inefficient crops. We pay farmers not to crop their lands. We throw out perfectly good food all the time.

Making the agricultural system more efficient and eating less are not mutually exclusive so this is irrelevant.

The price of food is not going to fall if first worlders eat less of it. It would just lead to less production. (Which actually could even result in higher prices, especially given how healthy food production and distribution compares to that of unhealthy food.) Food shocks would still happen when expected production fails to meet targets because supply takes a long time to bring online in the best cases, and infrastructure to allow for it (when necessary) takes even longer (and we lost the will for that it seems).

Food is traded between countries all the time, so the idea that people in other countries aren't affected by domestic demand for food is simply false. If Americans ate less American exports would increase. If you think close to 100% of the reduced domestic demand for food would translate into reduced production, that's a ludicrous estimate.

And of course you're ignoring the "not anymore than you are by posting here"... because the energy and products you use, all are creating more demand for limited resources used as agricultural inputs and transport of food. So regardless of how you believe decreased demand would affect price, my statement was correct.

The marginal rate of transformation between producing food and building/powering computers is probably not anywhere near as high as the marginal rate of transformation between feeding first worlders and feeding third worlders. Also, getting people to take their own health more seriously is a lot more realistic than expecting them to stop consuming altogether and live a subsistence lifestyle.

[Sava]

Spamming literally kills starving children


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[giblets]

Spamming is very cheap in terms of resources consumed, much cheaper than the grocery bill of a fat person.

[Sava]

spam costs the economy an estimated $20 billion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/10/the-economics-of-spam

"very cheap"

okay

[giblets]

Spamming someone's e-mail address isn't the same as spamming Apolyton. Americans are spending ~$700 billion on groceries for eating at home, if Americans were less gluttonous that could easily be reduced to ~$500 billion.

[Sava]

seems like a food price issue

but then again, i'm not retarded

also, spam is spam

[giblets]

High food prices aren't making Americans fat.

[Sava]

did someone say they are?

or are you playing illiterate again?

[giblets]

Eating a smaller quantity will reduce expenditure.
The average American eats an excessive quantity.
Responding with "seems like a food price issue" is incoherent.

[Sava]

you really have trouble following a discussion

[giblets]

You posted a non sequitur.