I am finding much in the news today discouraging and even disparaging the idea of personal responsibility and self ownership. Here are but three examples:
First, if you have a fat kid, or if you are a fat kid, it is not your fault. The blame lies with television advertising that encourages unhealthy eating choices. A report issued yesterday by the government-chartered Institute of Medicine called for a greater emphasis on more healthful products in advertising on the part of food and beverage manufacturers and restaurants, adding that if they don’t, Congress should intervene with advertising regulations (in addition to the current level of regulations already in place).Second, if you are suffering due to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, and if you are also a member of a racial minority, it is not your fault. The blame lies with America’s omnipresent racism. According to congressional testimony yesterday before the House Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, victims of the hurricane in New Orleans are similar to Holocaust victims in Europe. Deaths in both circumstances resulted from abject neglect, noted New Orleans community activist Leah Hodges.
And third, if you feel guilty about not saving as much as your parents did, well, it’s not your fault. The blame lies with the fact that saving is less fun today than it used to be. According to the reliably-sound economics blogger Jane Galt, saving was much easier back when life involved “one television, no stereo, no VCR, no cable, one (used) car, six rooms for four people, no eating out, no cell phones, no vacations other than visiting relatives, stretching meat out with egg and bread and noodle rings, jello as a salad….”
Question: In what ways have government programs encouraged childhood obesity, a lack of preparedness following national disasters, and a decline in savings rates? Feel free to discuss in the comments section. (Extra points given for answers involving moral hazard.)
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Taking your last paragraph in order, the Department of Agriculture and FDA subsidizing high-volume high-carbohydrate consumption, FEMA preempting and preventing private efforts, the very real awareness that money spent today will be worth less tomorrow because of inflation.
Moral hazard? It’s all about control.
Following up on Curt’s comments, I have a hypothesis that monetary inflation (i.e., its effects) is one of the most pernicious social forces on earth.
Blameless leads to mindless.
Inflation is pernicious, but is surpassed in this regard by deflation.
Blameless also leads to complacency.
Speaking of blameless, this just came in by email, emphasis added:
Rapper Shoots Himself With Pen Gun
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
ST. PARIS, Ohio — Steven Zorn had put the pen gun to his head and clicked before, apparently thinking it was jammed and would not work.
But on the third try, the tiny silver pistol went off as the 22-year-old budding rap artist was drinking to celebrate an impending record deal. He died at a hospital.
The Nov. 18 shooting at Zorn’s home in this rural village of 2,000, about 50 miles northeast of Dayton is believed to have been accidental, according to family, friends and law enforcement officials.
“Steven had a career and his dreams all ahead of him,” said Zorn’s mother, Lisa McCoy-Horn. She said she wants lawmakers to outlaw pen guns, which are small-caliber, single-shot weapons that resemble pens.
Zorn had taught himself to play the keyboard and record tracts using inexpensive software on his home computer. He tracked down rap artist Miracle in Georgia and urged the crunk artist to listen to a CD of his original recordings.
“The lyrical content was awesome,” Miracle said. “He had a lot of skill. I took a liking to him, took him under my wing.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177807,00.html
Curt Howland,
I know it is crude to write it, but this is just Darwinism at work.
CJ,
Only in the bizarro, upside-down world of Keynesian economics can deflation be considered more pernicious than inflation.
The half-poisoned well is nearby and free. The clean and clear water involves a walk and some work. The problem is that government displaces things, yet charges me for them. They build roads and provide a substandard public transport system so driving is less a choice than a necessity. Between GPS, cell phones, and computers, a mass transist system would be cheap, easy, and nicer than rush hour (note that Rosa Parks showed logistics can be done when the will is there – they provided rides without the bus system back then without all the high-tech). Were I to do it I would be thrown in jail.
Is it my fault I consume so much fuel, or the governments’?
In NOLA, the area with engulfed housing might have been a marina or with something like houseboats, but the government built levees and implicitly guaranteed a section well below sea level would be dry. But eventually big brother must bow to mother nature. No one could choose to build a house proper to the environment there.
When government eliminates the wise choices, we are left to pick which kind of foolishness to engage in.
Nice response to a different idea. The biggest proof of the weakness of your ideas is the deletion of mine.
keto,
Try again. I doubt your post was pulled due to a contrary idea. Could there have been some other reason, such as your post looking like spam?
Rarely are comments deleted for content except that which is downright offensive to all standards of civility. Keto’s post certainly was not deleted.
Regarding your question about a lack of preparedness following disasters, the government’s (crappy) safety net has totally messed up the way people evaluate risk and how to plan for it. I’m a great fan of insurance, and a believer that you never own too little to need it. Ideally, if you cannot get insurance against a risk (such as flood damage to your home), that should send you a message (that you cannot afford the risk of living in that flood zone!). I’m a grad student and renter, but I find $150 a year in my budget to have my possessions insured so I won’t be destitute if my house burns. It’s so simple, and yet it seems to me that an amazing number of people don’t do it because someone else will pay the bill if they lose everything. The government encourages people to think that they don’t need to hedge against risks because there will always be a safety net there, and so it becomes an unreasonable hardship to expect them to provide it themselves. The whole idea that you either insure against a risk or assume that risk yourself, and that insurance against risks is part of what it costs to live, has become totally alien.
Neither inflation nor deflation are pernicious, they merely are. It’s pretty basic that wealth has grown on average 3% per annum worldwide since Roman times, and that ignoring momentary jogs of strife that inflation worldwide has tracked that. Could there be a correlation?
The European Union’s heath commision released some frightening, but not very surprising numbers, regarding childhood obesity today: More than 400,000 children become overweight each year in Europe (!). The numbers for North America is no better. The 2 leading causes of this epedemic is: poor eating habits combined with a lack of activity. No surprise there either. This is, of course, a very complex problem and not easy to solve. If you are interested, please visit (and leave me feedback if you wish) my recent blog regarding this:
http://roadrace1.blogspot.com/2005/12/more-on-new-lifestyle-of-youth.html
Mags
http://roadrace1.blogspot.com/
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