Weekend Reading

The Dark Side Of Recycling
Lies, Damned Lies, And Recycling
RIP, Paul Adolph Volcker
Trump's Tax Cut Was A Mammoth Fraud
Is College Worth It? A Georgetown Study Measures Return On Investment
How Business Leaders Caused Black Poverty
Economic Errors: Right-Wing Edition
How Oil Companies Avoided Environmental Accountability After 10.8 Million Gallons Spilled
Jillian Michaels Says We Shouldn't 'Celebrate' Lizzo's Body
The College Wealth Premium Has Collapsed
Popularity Of CBD Oil Vexes Regulators And Researchers
Deceased GOP Strategist's Daughter Makes Files Public That Republicans Wanted Sealed
Trump's Biggest Fox News Boosters Suddenly Stop Railing Against 'Deep State' Intelligence
Damning New E-Mails Show Trump Knew He Was Breaking The Law On Ukraine
Ex-Apprentice Staffer Noel Casler Speaks Out: 'Trump's A Raging Drug Addict'

Weekend Reading

Republicans Have Rigged The Maps And Manipulated Elections - Why Won't Democrats Talk About It?
Gerrymandering Is Built On Lies
100-Year Bonds Can Fund Big Infrastructure Projects
No, You Don't Get To Keep 100 Billion Dollars For Yourself
The Green New Deal Is Cheaper Than Climate Change
Vape Safety Requires Legalizing Marijuana
Our Food Is Killing Too Many Of Us
The Looser A State's Gun Laws, The More Mass Shootings It Has
"Unions For All": The New Plan To Save The American Labor Movement
How A Trump Tax Break To Help Poor Communities Became A Windfall For The Rich
The Real Reason General Motors Workers Are On Strike Nationwide
The Future Of U.S. Jobs Look Bleak. Unions Are The Answer.
Trump Just Asked The Supreme Court To Let Him Fire The CFPB's Head. The Implications Are Enormous.
Why Rigged Capitalism Is Damaging Liberal Democracy

Weekend Reading

Federal Report: Vegan Diet Best For Planet 
Fish Oil Claims Not Supported By Research
Why The Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked
How Medicare Reduce Spending By $315 Billion Without Even Trying
No, The Estate Tax Isn't Destroying Family Farms
Obesity Is Hurting The U.S. Economy In Surprising Ways
Get A Job? Most Welfare Recipients Already Have One
Debunking The Myth Of The Job-Stealing Immigrant
Corporations Now Spend More On Congress Than Taxpayers Spend Funding Congress

The Unhealthiest States

The top 10 unhealthiest states are all Republican. Big surprise.

Who needs health care!

Unhealthiest States

Indiana
South Carolina
Alabama
West Virginia
Tennessee
Oklahoma
Kentucky
Louisiana
Arkansas
Mississippi

What The Fast Food Industry Costs Taxpayers

[source]

Midweek Reading

You Give Religions More Than $82.5 Billion A Year

Walmart's Latest Scheme - Replace The Middle Class With An Underclass Forced To Buy It's Shoddy Goods

This year, Walmart is back with a new "Buy America" program. In January, the company announced that it would purchase an additional $50 billion worth of domestic goods over the next decade. This week, Walmart is convening several hundred suppliers, along with a handful of governors, for a summit on U.S. manufacturing .

This sounds pretty substantial, but in fact it's just a more sophisticated and media savvy version of Walmart's hollow 1980s Buy America campaign. For starters, $50 billion over a decade may sound huge at first, but measured against Walmart's galactic size, it's not. An additional $5 billion a year amounts to only 1.5 percent of what Walmart currently spends on inventory.

Worse, very little of this small increase in spending on American-made goods will actually result in new U.S. production and jobs. Most of the projected increase will simply be a byproduct of Walmart's continued takeover of the grocery industry. Most grocery products sold in the U.S. are produced here. As Walmart expands its share of U.S. grocery sales — it now captures 25 percent, up from 6 percent in 1998 — it will buy more U.S. foods. But this doesn't mean new jobs, because other grocers are losing market share and buying less. What it does mean is lower wages. As I reported earlier this year, Walmart's growing control of the grocery sector is pushing down wages throughout food production ...

In a way, Walmart's Buy America program represents the home stretch of the economic transformation the company set in motion decades ago, when it set out to replace the American middle class, rooted in small business ownership and unionized jobs, with a vast underclass that has little choice but to rely on theshoddy, short-lived products sold at big-box stores to get by.

The Reason Americans Are Less Healthy Than Other Developed Nations 

Back in 1990, shouts a new study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the United States ranked a lowly 20th on life expectancy among 34 major industrial nations. The United States now ranks 27th — despite spending much more on health care than any other nation... 

Just how does inequality translate into unhealthy outcomes? Growing numbers of researchers see stress as the culprit. The more inequality in a society, the more stress. Chronic stress, over time, wears down our immune systems and leaves us more vulnerable to disease.

Weekend Reading

The Addiction
Inequality Is Holding Back The Recovery
Manufacturing Jobs Use To Pay Well. Not Anymore
More Bogosity From Michelle Rhee
This Is Why You're Fat, America
12 Scientific Reasons Humans Are Irrational
2nd Amendment Ratified To Preserve Slavery
What We Know About Video Games & Violence
When Public Outperforms Private In Services
Where The U.S. Imports Its Oil From
World Needs $57 Trillion Infrastructure By 2030

Weekend Reading

Barbecue Styles Across the U.S.
Economics In The Crisis
Free Trade Blinders
A Milwaukee Jobs Act
More Than 15% Obese In Nearly All U.S. Metros
School For Quants
Scott Walker Sets Up Legal Defense Fund
U.S. Cities With The Best Urban Policies
Wisconsin Employment Climbs...To 12,500 Below 2011 Levels

Weekend Reading

Are Doctors Leaving Canada to Practice in the U.S.?

Beastly Numbers

In and Out of School

In Defense of Canada

Obesity Balloons Health Care Costs

The Truth About Health Care: Government Works

Would Tort Reform Equate to Cost Control?

Your Commute is Killing You

How U.S Health Care Compares Internationally

I Eat Therefore I Am

Great to see Superior rising to the occasion to defend hapless parenting and obesity amongst our youth. Superior councilors rejected a ban on fast food toys. They felt this was too much government interference in "parental matters."

Greg Mertzig, one of the councilors proposed the ban, "To get rid of the rewards of eating unhealthy foods as many youngsters struggle with being overweight." Seems logical enough, but no. This would have been yet another example of our Muslim leader(s) establishing Sharia law and turning our nation communist.

Yes, being an American is about being able to stuff your face, no matter the health consequences to yourself or society. Health care costs in the U.S. are twice as much as the next advanced country. These costs are primarily driving the deficit our country faces. And, although we spend double what other countries do, our health care outcomes are much worse. Is there a chance some of our health care costs and outcomes might correlate with our horrendous food options and gluttonous consumption habits?

For the Pollyannas among us, citizens are making great choices and the government should sit idly by as obesity affects more of the population, health care costs continue to rise, and we, as a nation, all suffer the consequences of poor dietary practices and standards.

Update:

My stating that the government should be able to set healthy dietary standards in our society, and be able (even within communities) to ban rewarding unhealthy behavior, is not comparable to a beautiful versus ugly battle as a commenter opined. Nor was it meant to be a statement on some sort of societal beauty standard. It's a health care issue: efficient delivery (living a healthier life) and cost containment (spending less per capita on health care).

My apologies if I was unclear in my earlier posting. Health care costs are driving our deficits. Supposedly Tea Baggers, Republicans, Democrats, nearly everyone seems (suddenly) to be crying about getting spending/debt under control. Our poor eating habits and our generally unnatural, sugar-filled, sodium-laced food are a huge reason for our chronic illnesses and high health care costs. By eating better, being healthier, we save ourselves health care dollars and enjoy a higher quality of life.

My position isn't that everyone must look like a Hollywood star. My concern isn't for beauty and vanity. I'm not asking for some government-mandated mold everyone must fit into. [Although, insurance companies "discriminate" against smokers, I imagine overweight persons - as measured by something like the BMI - will be next.] But, whatever we, as government, can do to dissuade and nudge people away from making bad health choices, we must do that.

One can be skinny and still, relatively speaking, ugly (which is more than a superficial quality). Obesity has costs for the obese person and on society. I'm glad to allow people to pursue their own happiness, until it infringes upon mine and others. Obesity has societal costs beyond the obese person. And, hence, government rightly should step in to discourage such.

Are we really going to argue that we don't want people to be healthier? We don't want to decrease the amount we spend on health care? Is being overweight and unhealthy really pursuing personal happiness?

Aside: eating habits and income can go hand-in-hand. In general, the poorer you are, the worse food (nutritionally speaking) you eat. We not only have to help people make better eating choices, but we need to create good jobs. The loss of the middle-class in the U.S. has closely tracked with increasing obesity. There seems to be an inverse relationship between our earnings and our waist size.

For Further Reading:

Economic Consequences Of Obesity

Health Effects Of Obesity

Health Risks Associated With Obesity

Overweight & Obesity