Thursday, March 5, 2015

OBESITY. GLUTTONY, SLOTH AND OBAMACARE AND THE TRUE FIX THAT WOULD END THE BURDEN OF OBESITY

So today, Bloomberg editors published yet another article on fat Americans. What caught my eye is the chart near the story's top.



A bit ago, in a talk with a friend, I said to her that during my youthful days, maybe one of every 10 would have been considered fat for the times. The chart confirms seems to confirm my recollection.

You see it was closer to 15%, so 15 out of 100 rather than 10 out of 100 as I recall, but that is because I didn't live in the Midwest or the South. Thus, I didn't see the extra five fat ones.

As you can see from the chart, fatness has skyrocketed exponentially since the 1980s though it looks as if it is levelling off. My guess is that all those who want to be fat are fat and beyond that percentage people likely die from fat illnesses before that growth line can continue.

The Bloomberg story links all kinds of reverberation from having this many Americans obese including an estimate of as many as one billion gallons of gasoline burned along with associated pollution generated because of the obese.

Some would like to excuse anyone of his or her character flaws and errors. They would like to blame hormone imbalances, though they ignore overeating as a cause of those imbalances; or they would like ot blame sugar addiction, as if sugar is alive and forced anyone to consume it.

Obesity arises from gluttony and sloth. To believe in any other causality is to deny reality. In short, those who become obese fail to earn their calories. Their food intake far exceeds their energy needs.

Back on September 3rd, 2012, the New Scientist reported that a large body of evidence supports the belief that Alzheimer's is primarily a metabolic disease with some scientists calling it Type 3 diabetes.

In America, no one talks about how the chronically overweight and the obese effectively free ride on everyone, getting full on medical bailouts with Medicare and sometimes sooner with Medicaid. Because no one talks about this, no one talks about how the chronically overweight and obese should pay substantially higher medical bills insurance premiums including those deducted through FICA for Medicaid and Medicare.

Since Chief Robe Roberts wrongly blessed Obamacare,  everyone must buy medical bills paying insurance, politically called health care because Congress pays the medical bills. Health care is Washington, D.C. political-speak for Medicaid and Medicare. That is why you hear pols say "the cost of health care."

The way Obama and his cronies see it, the fit and the healthy should subsidize the unfit and the sickly. They have it all wrong.

There should be at least two pools of the insured. The fit and the unfit. In short, those who are unfit ought to pay substantial premiums as it is inevitable, nearly so, that the chronically overweight and the obese shall need substantive medical care for a good part of their lives. There is no reason why the fit ought to carry the heavy weight of the chronically overweight as well as the obese.

The pool of the unfit ought to pay for unfit others. The pool of the fit ought to pay for the fit others.

Twice a year, at the expense of the insured rather than the insurer, anyone could get test for height, weight, heart rate and blood pressure. Depending upon how far from fitness anyone is ought to govern what shall be that one's premium rate.

Actuarial scientists can figure out all of this and project their true costs and thus what their realistic premiums ought to be. As it is now, though, the chronically overweight and obese are freeloading at the all-you-can-eat buffet of life at the expense of the fit.

Obama is Americans' foremost preacher about people paying their fair shares. One would think Obama would call for the willingly slothful and gluttonous to pay their fair shares, shares that are calculable by actuarial science.

As long as Americans demand that welfare medicine exist, future Medicaid and Medicare recipients should pay substantially higher taxes for those programs based on their lack of fitness. The onus ought to get placed on those who voluntarily turn themselves into fatties through their own depraved gluttony and sloth.

Yet, many weak-minded foolish ones clamor for sin taxes on bad foods as the means by which to stop the Battle of the Bulge. However, why should responsible Americans who can eat sugar, processed meats and the like in moderation pay the price too?

The right answer of course, is to end all welfare medicine (Medicaid, Medicare). Involuntary association is violence expressed. And all violence is immoral. Forcing some to hand over their earnings, calling such stealing income taxes so others can live depraved lives, effectively getting a bailout for their behavior, is immoral.

For that is all welfare medicine is, a bailout for each recipient. Many Americans never exercise and thus never achieve max heart rate; or they smoke, drink alcohol excessively, overeat, eat a diet mostly of petro-chemical laden factory foods, or eat mostly junk carbs. After years of abuse, they sign up for their welfare medicine, provided free-to-them and paid for through immoral forceful taking with the sugary sweet name income taxes.

Here is how it ought to work. Those who want to live longer can decide to do so and thus eat right, exercise, buy medical bills paying insurance (wrongly called health insurance as a rhetorical means of deception) as a risk hedge against their unknown future. Those who don't want to live longer can get as fat as they want and die younger without the means to sustain themselves physically or financially.

Among the real world, legislator meddlers insist on forcing adults with threats of violence (fines, imprisonment), claiming that they're saving those adults from themselves while they justify robbing others to pay themselves for their rheotrical Utopian crusades.

Weight gain comes from excess calories. No other causality exists. This is inescapable biological physics.

It's time to do some food mathematics.

one pound = 3500 calories ( 0.45 kg = 3500 calories; 0.07 stones = 3500 calories)

If someone eats a mere extra 50 calories a day over their daily caloric needs, within 70 days, that one shall gain one pound. What amounts to an extra 50 calories?

• 4 ounces of Coca Cola (4.28 oz; 118.3 ml)
• one-third of one ounce of a Nestle Butterfinger Bar (0.38 oz; 10.9 g)
• one-third of one ounce of a Kit Kat bar (0.34 oz; 9.65 g)

In one year, that one would gain a bit more than five pounds ( 5.2 lbs; 2.36 kgs; 0.37 stones). In five years, that one would gain a whopping 26 pounds (11.8 kg; 1.86 stones) and in ten years, the gain comes to lardy 52 pounds (23.6 kg; 3.71 stones).

If you are unsure about how your weight measures up, check out this easy to use calculation:

Maximum Weight Limit (MWL) - Screening for Obesity-Over weight by George Fernandez

It's my hope for all who need to do so, to awaken to their personal errors, to feel sorrow and then to turn, working to effect their own salvation. Until all do, nothing shall change.

Here is how I recall what Americans looked like during my youth, especially American women.

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Friday, November 14, 2014

INTERNATIONAL INVESTORS LOSE FAITH IN CENTRAL BANKERS DRAGHI, YELLEN AND KURODA



Yesterday, November 13, Bloomberg's Rich Miller reported on survey results from international investors who use Bloomberg services. According to the survey, Miller claims international investors believe the economies of the world are in bad shape, in fact, the worst shape in two years.

From the chart above, this should be everyone's take away:


  • 75% of Bloomberg customers say Mario Draghi doesn't know what he is doing at the European Central Bank. 
  • 50% of Bloomberg customers say Janet Yellen and friends don't know what they're doing at the Federal Reserve. 
  • 45% of Bloomberg customers say Haruhiko Kuroda doesn't know what he is doing at the Bank of Japan.
  • 37% of Bloomberg customers say Canadian Mark Carney doesn't know what he is doing at the Bank of England.
The results are clear. Many to most international investors believe central bankers are clueless and don't know much about commercial banking.




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Monday, June 30, 2014

WHO NEEDS A CAR AND A 747 WHEN YOU CAN'T BUY A GALLON OF GAS?





So yesterday, a dialogue of sorts opened up between Tim Worstall of Forbes as well as the Adam Smith Institute and myself. Forbes published a piece of work by Worstall in which Worstall makes these claims about gasoline prices in America:

  • "Futures speculation doesn't change the price of gasoline one whit"
  • Americans do not set the price of gasoline in the USA
  • The global balance of supply sets the price of gasoline in the USA 
  • Futures trading does not affect the price of physical commodities
  • David Ricardo rendered an Iron Law of One Price 
Worstall addressed me and said this bit of foolery,


"[A]t the more general level gasoline prices are set by the international price of crude oil. If this were not true then gas prices would not move in lock step with that price of international crude. Given that they do therefore they must be so influenced...There are significant gasoline exports from the US: so the market is so integrated."

Worstall's beliefs are quite absurd. Worstall believes that crude oil prices set the price of gasoline. Worstall tries to defend the false belief that input prices set output prices. In so doing, Worstall expresses the fallacy that costs set price.

It was Worstall's beloved David Ricardo who is well-known for having started that fallacy. It is Karl Marx who is well-known for perpetuating that fallacy in is his foolish “Labor Theory of Value”.

If it were true that crude set gasoline, that is, if the fallacy of costs set price were true, then why do refiners go out of business? Why do retailers go out of business?  Why wouldn’t businessmen merely charge costs to avoid bankruptcy? Why wouldn’t businessmen merely raise prices at will to cover increasing costs to avoid bankruptcy?

Crude oil prices do not set gasoline prices, ever. Gasoline prices for gasoline bought by retailers are set by futures markets players. To believe anything else is to reveal profound confusion on the matter.

Futures speculation sets prices of refined gasoline purchased by retailers. At the delivery date of a futures contract, someone must take physical delivery of that refined gasoline at the settlement price of the contract.

The entire purpose of futures speculation is to set prices of commodities. In so doing, futures markets players keep the flow of gasoline to retailers both in times of glut and in times of shortage.

Speculation into graded contracts creates a steady, active market for property of all kinds without respect to on-the-spot winning bids for what is on offer at any moment. The purpose of organized futures speculation is to give rise to consistent profit from transmuting property as capital into property as wealth under efficiency.

Gasoline retailers are price takers of the gasoline price set by futures markets players. Oil refined into gasoline is the product they sell at retail. Gasoline retailers are retailers the same as supermarket operators who sell milk, eggs, bread, meat.

All prices adhere to the one and only true law that governs all of commerce — the Law of Prices. The Law of Prices holds the winning bids of purchase and sale in the face of what is on offer sets the price.

It is drivers alone who buy gasoline who set the retail price from their winning bids.  Once futures players set the price of gasoline for retailers, retailers try to make a go of it by accepting prices set by drivers who buy gasoline.

The whole trick of business is producing so that one can adhere to the Axiom of Profit on given prices set by winning bidders. The Axiom of Profit holds the sum of sales on prices set by winning bidders must at least equal the cost of production, otherwise the seller goes to ruin.

If drivers drive less, buying many thousands fewer gallons of gasoline, retailers shall be forced to accept lower winning bids for what they have on offer.  For some, owing to inefficiency, they shall sell at a loss and get forced into bankruptcy. That is the great Axiom of Profit in action.

In 1994, there were 202,800 retail sites for the sales of gasoline. In 2012, that number had fallen to 156,065. The total number of sites has fallen -29.9% falling at a rate of -1.4% a year.

Thus, it can be seen that between 1994 and 2012, many retailers could not make a go of it profitably on extant prices for gasoline set by futures speculators. Therefore, these unprofitable retailers exited the field.

Worstall is quite wrong about all of it, as usual from my experiences reading his work. Perhaps Worstall should find another occupation as he seems to be wrong, consistently on all matters of commerce.

Reality thoroughly contradicts Worstall. As to prices of gasoline, the EIA reports prices in the USA differ by region. As well, Bloomberg reports prices for gasoline differ by country. Thus, it can be seen there is no fictitious global balance of supply and demand that sets the price of gasoline in the USA as Worstall so wrongly believes.

Further, imports of refined gasoline can come into the USA profitably only if outlays to refine elsewhere are low enough such that when combined with transport outlays, foreign producers can at least break even on prices set here in various regions of the USA. As can be seen here by PADD (Petroleum Administrative Defense Districts) region, most foreign exporters of crude to Americans do not also export gasoline likely because it is not profitable to do so.

David Ricardo never wrote about an “iron law of one price.” Germans academicians stuck Ricardo with the phrase, “the Iron Law” and they did so because Ricardo had written something about wages only and not other prices.

Specifically, Ricardo claimed there is a tendency for population to rise as soon as wages would rise above bare necessaries to sustain living thus. This thought became known as the "Iron Law of Wages."

Worstall tries to make an appeal to authority by mentioning Bank of Sweden laureate, Paul Krugman. According to Worstall, Krugman claims futures trading doesn’t affect the price of commodities.

Krugman is an expert in academic economics. However, Krugman appears not to know anything about commerce.  Like Worstall, Krugman is a shop-talker and not a man who deals in profit and loss from selling stuff. Krugman works at think tanks and he teaches.


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Thursday, March 20, 2014

BLOOMBERG ESTABLISHMENT CHEERLEADERS SPREAD THEIR PROPAGANDA CHEERING FOR A GROWING WORLD ECONOMY

Over at Bloomgberg, Elizabeth Campbell and Luzi Ann Javier have written a positively Pollyana piece about how copper as a global bellwether has faded owing to the Chinese buying and presumably hoarding copper. Unquestioningly, Campbell and Javier, not once, but twice cite the jokers of the IMF and their claim the world economy will expand 3.7% in 2014, "the fastest pace since 2011." 

Since April 29, 2011, this is what prices look like for key stuff needed put into products as measured by ETFs, which track price indexes. The magnitudes of the declines do not reflect a flood of new producer-sellers, nor do those magnitudes reflect out-sized improvements in efficiency.

Prices have fallen to tremendous degree in the face of massive quantitative easing by central bankers of the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan. The USA is 22.3% of World GDP. Japan is 8.3% of World GDP. The USA and Japan together account for 30.6% of World GDP.

WORLD (Materials)
• FOIL -49.98%
• NINI -42.99%
• OLEM -13.68%
• LIT -39.05%
• PPLT -22.55%
• REMX -69.11%

WORLD (Transport)
• SEA -16.96%



And reality doesn't look much better for Americans, except for those with property in S&P 500 traded shares.

USA (Energy)
• USL -15.61% (since 2011-04-11)
• UNL -42.99%
• UNH -11.73%


Even when we look at cocoa and sugar, potential surrogates as treats for many in the "second world," even lower income Americans, the picture doesn't look good.

WORLD (Treats)
• CHOC -12.32%
• SGG -25.56%




As well, the belief in a "world economy" is silly. There is no such thing. There are hundreds of arenas of trade, consisting of people who get governed by laws and regulation that amount to trade agreements unique to their respective arenas, whether domestic or pan-national. 

Sales = quantity times price. GDP equals the sum of sales. GDP can rise merely on higher prices owing to excessive creation of bank liabilities (credits and cash) needed to support trade. It's hard to believe purported world GDP is growing when prices have dropped like an avalanche since 2011, even in the face of massive quantative easing.

Should World GDP grow in 2014, it shall be owing to unwarranted bank lending supported by excess reserves that lead to higher prices but not significant growth in output property in stuff that people the world over would like to gain, if they could.

So who do you trust? Bloomberg cheerleaders? IMF  jokers? Or, do you trust your own eyes?
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