Bloomberg: Eating Trans Fat = Speeding
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New York City's philosopher-king is defending the Board of Health's potential war on free markets:
It's quite simple really, at least for people who, unlike Bloomberg, are not flaming idiots: Speeding, at least reckless speeding, generates unreasonable externalities — both certain (i.e., people have to be especially alert drivers in the presence of others who are speeding) and probabilistic (i.e., the heightened risk of a major accident).
And this is functionally equivalent to eating a doughnut — how?
The only externalities that are generated by unhealthy eating are those that the government itself has created, by implementing socialized medicine. The government creates an externality, and then creates a nanny state to correct the externality?
Madness. Sheer madness.
I will never — never — understand why people take this buffoon seriously.
The city has as much of a right to ban trans fats from restaurant menus as to impose speed limits, Mayor Bloomberg insists.First off, we'll leave that gun law remark for another day.
Continuing his campaign to stamp out the artery-clogging oils, the mayor said yesterday that City Hall should intervene when lives are at stake.
"Nobody seriously thinks we shouldn't have a speed limit ... [or] gun laws," he noted.
It's quite simple really, at least for people who, unlike Bloomberg, are not flaming idiots: Speeding, at least reckless speeding, generates unreasonable externalities — both certain (i.e., people have to be especially alert drivers in the presence of others who are speeding) and probabilistic (i.e., the heightened risk of a major accident).
And this is functionally equivalent to eating a doughnut — how?
The only externalities that are generated by unhealthy eating are those that the government itself has created, by implementing socialized medicine. The government creates an externality, and then creates a nanny state to correct the externality?
Madness. Sheer madness.
I will never — never — understand why people take this buffoon seriously.
Related Posts (on one page):
- New York Times Curses and Damns the Free Market in the Same Editorial
- From the Archives: When Will "Trans Farce" Be Banned?
- Is KFC Bowing to Market Pressures?
- Restaurants Cook Up a Contradiction
- Bloomberg: Eating Trans Fat = Speeding
- When Will "Trans-Farce" Be Banned?
- Like Food for a Starving Authoritarian
- Paternalism May Be Hazardous to Your Health
Posted by Kip on
1 October 2006
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