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Tuesday, January 11
John Drury: Stewart's Super Sized Smokescreen
by
John Drury
on Tue 11 Jan 2005 04:08 PM CST
 Stewart's Super Sized Smokescreen
by John Drury
It would be very easy to jump on the bandwagon and write a column on
the upcoming legislative session and the spirit of cooperation that
they all claim to be embarking on. Instead, I want to use this week’s
column to point out and respond to a “Guest View” published in the
Mason City Globe Gazette on Sunday, January 9, by Republican Iowa Senate Leader Stewart Iverson from Dows.
In this
“Guest View,” instead of talking about his goals for the upcoming
session and his vision for the future of Iowa, he—for some
reason—decides to write a review of the film Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock.
Super Size Me
is a documentary on our nation’s eating habits, the growing obesity
problem in the United States, and the role that fast food plays in it.
In the film, Morgan Spurlock sets out on a 30-day mission to eat
nothing but McDonald’s. Three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner,
all at McDonald’s. He only eats value meals and he only “super sized”
the meal if asked. He also got the amount of exercise that the average
American gets. He consulted with three doctors and tracks the decline
of his health on a high fat, low exercise, and fairly typical American
diet.  There are many chilling statistics in the film but for those of
you who haven’t yet seen it, I won’t mention most of them. Suffice to
say that America is the number one fattest nation in the world with more than 60%
of adults either overweight or obese. Obesity is second only to smoking
in preventable deaths in America. And there are 400,000 deaths per year
in overweight or obesity related illnesses.
In
Senator Iverson’s view, the movie is “radical activism taken to a new
level.” He expresses concern about Mr. Spurlock’s plan to tour the
nation’s high schools with this film, specifically his upcoming stop in
Ames on September 30 of this year. He sums it up by saying “what
parents need to know about this film is that it not only undercuts the
most important single element in health and nutrition education, being
personally responsible for making healthy choices for balanced diet and
maintaining an active lifestyle, it brings with it a disgusting view of
profanity, sexual content and gross imagery.”
I would
think that parents would rather know that according to a professor at
the Yale University Center for Eating Disorders, we live in a toxic
environment. He defines a toxic environment as one where there is
constant access to cheap, fat-laden foods, one where gas stations sell
more candy than gas, and one where there are 3 million soda vending
machines; one for every 97 Americans. They should also know that if
current trends continue, one out of every three children born in the
year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetimes. Oops, I wasn’t
going to mention more statistics.
In one
of the more telling parts of the movie, there is an interview with a
lobbyist from The Grocery Manufacturer’s of America, a very powerful
lobby with two main objectives in mind: no government agency is going
to even suggest that anyone eat less of their products, and no
government is going to pass unfavorable legislation for the food
industry. The lobbyist interviewed admitted that they are part of the
problem.
Perhaps
we now know why Senator Iverson spoke out on the movie. It’s a classic
example of throwing up a smokescreen. Instead of talking openly about a
very important issue, he is suppressing the discussion by calling the
movie a “so-called documentary” full of filth and not worthy of
watching. He closes the guest view by asking people to “join me in
doing everything you can to reject this brand of “education” and
instead pursue genuine health education that equips our kids with the
tools they need to make smart choices and lead active, healthy lives.”
Senator,
I agree, and I expect you to introduce legislation this session that
will accomplish this noble objective. There is only one state in the
nation that requires mandatory physical education in K-12 and that is
Illinois. Strangely enough, fund-raisers and private donations mostly
fund that program.
For
anyone that’s curious, the movie is rated PG-13. In the Senator’s view,
the disgusting parts of the film are scenes showing Spurlock vomiting,
receiving a rectal exam, and his girlfriend’s descriptions of their sex
life post McDiet. There is also footage of a gastrointestinal bypass
surgery. Granted, I could have done without the brief rectal exam
footage but overall, the film is an eye-opening look at a very big (no
pun intended) problem in America.
Learning By Example: Why "Privatization" Equals the Death of Social Security
by
Chad Thompson
on Tue 11 Jan 2005 12:40 PM CST
 Learning By Example: Why "Privatization" Equals the Death of Social Security
Just as
I was planning to listen in on Tom Vilsack's "Condition of the State"
address, work gets in the way of tuning in to WOI Radio's live
coverage. There will be all types of important things to discuss
coming out of Des Moines, but there is also this continuing anti-Social
Security campaign of the past few weeks.
There has been considerable talk about "other countries trying 'privatization schemes' and today Atrios presents a pretty decent roundup
of various experiments that other nations have tried that are worth
studying. I've taken his lead and provided a few sources to
expand on this notion.
From the UK:
For
all the fanfare that surrounds the Bush administration’s efforts to
present a bold new idea on pension reform, the truth is that it is not
new at all. In fact, the proposal looks suspiciously like the plan set
in train during Thatcher’s first term in 1979 and which has since led
Britain to the brink of a crisis. Since then, the nation’s basic
pension, which is paid for out of tax receipts, has shrunk
dramatically. The United Kingdom has the stingiest state pension
program of any G8 nation, and there is growing consensus -- even among
British conservatives -- that reform is needed. And ironically enough,
considering that America is on the verge of copying Britain’s mistake,
most experts seek reform in the direction of a more generous, and
simpler, basic state pension -- one similar in design, in other words,
to America’s Social Security program.
From Argentina:
In July of 1994, with the strong support of the World Bank, Argentina
partially privatized its Social Security system.[2] In December of last
year, Argentina finally removed its currency from its peg with the
dollar, and halted payments on its debt, after four years of recession.
These moves came in response to a situation that had clearly become
untenable. The nation was paying ever higher interest rates to finance
a debt that was continually growing, due to the country's extraordinary
interest burden.[3] By December it was clear that there was no way out
of this vicious circle without both a devaluation of the currency and
some reduction of the interest burden. Argentina is currently
negotiating with the IMF to allow for a resumption of normal credit
relations, but regardless of the outcome of these negotiations, it is
generally expected that Argentina will see a further large decline in
its GDP.
While the decision to peg its currency to the dollar would have created
problems in any case, the decision to privatize Social Security made
Argentina's situation more precarious. The reason is simple—Social
Security privatization deprived the government of a large amount of tax
revenue. Payroll taxes that had gone to the government to support the
old pay-as-you-go Social Security system were instead diverted to
private accounts. As a result, the government lost an amount of revenue
that has been estimated at 1.0 percent of annual GDP (the equivalent of
$100 billion a year in the United States) (International Monetary Fund,
1998, p 9).
In Sweden:
Sweden,
a country whose name is almost synonymous with "welfare state," decided
in June to partially privatize its retirement pension system. The
country's leaders were finally forced to admit its cradle-to-grave
benefits system was just too expensive and had damaged the economy.
However, there is something else about Sweden to point out:
Under the new system, Swedish workers will set aside 18.5 percent of income for retirement.
Two
and a half percentage points of that will go into personal retirement
accounts where it will be invested by a professional fund manager
selected by the worker.
Even the
"non-private" portion of Sweden's Social Security system is a full 2%
higher than our FICA tax rate. (So, yes, Sweden has "private
accounts" and "higher taxes".)
The one
case that has been touted as a "success" has been the improvement of
retirement conditions in Chile - but you also have to recall that the
old purely-public system was thoroughly gutted by the large scale
corruption of the Pinochet government. This is hardly an example
that would apply to the United States. (We would hope.)
So - why do we want to copy such obvious failure? Donald Luskin writes in the National Review
the answer: if there is to be salvation for "supply side" deficit
spending, the federal government will have to default on the Treasury
Bonds that have been purchased by the Social Security actuaries since
1983 (and before).
This is why Paul Krugman continuously mentions the spectre of the United States government going the way of Argentinia:
Just
ask the Argentines: their version of Social Security privatization was
also supposed to save money in the long run, but all it did was move
forward the date of their crisis.
A
responsible administration would reverse course on tax cuts and the
botched 2003 Medicare drug bill, both of which pose much greater
threats to the government's solvency than the modest financial
shortfall of the Social Security system. But Mr. Bush has declared his
tax cuts inviolable, and he says that his drug bill will actually save
money. (The Medicare trustees say it will cost $8 trillion.)
There's an iceberg in front of us, all right. And Mr. Bush wants us to steam right into it, full speed ahead.
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