OK, the statistics don't lie. Indeed, they are consistent with everyday observation. Essentially, in wealthy western societies (and some others too) poorer people, starting in childhood, tend to be fatter than their richer peers. Hardly news. But the conclusion reached here, that poverty CAUSES obesity and the solution is to eliminate poverty, is simply preposterous. The good folk who earn their living by researching such matters need to look more deeply into the third class of factors that could provide the causal linkage between being poorer than others and eating too much. Of course they won't. The political incorrectness of such a probe would have them sacked before they opened their Excel spreadsheets.

Junk food is cheap. Very cheap. I've heard it claimed that a healthy diet is more expensive than a rubbish diet but I don't know if that's true: vegetables are also very cheap. I think the best thing to do is put up the taxes on junk so that it becomes unaffordable to those on low incomes and they are forced to live on a diet of mostly vegetables which is what nutritionists generally recommend.

Exactly!

And given we fight this war successfully, actually, improve everyone's circumstances and myriad wealth creation opportunities!

And we can achieve most of this without ever ratcheting up pay scales. But rather, effectively ending the no win never ending price wage spiral!

First to go must be the do bugger all, profit demanding middleman.

And none more urgent than those who represent officialdom/entirely unnecessary red-tape!

Simply eliminating the middleman and replacing that with a direct producer to consumer model, would in the first instance, literally halve the cost of living and or, doing business!

And considerable savings/time and money can be made/saved, simply by removing entirely counterproductive and nonessential state governments!

The second element is more than halving energy costs; and very doable if rolled out as publicly provided not for profit models; albeit, as small competing for customer share models, rather than self defeating monopolies.

And if government monopolies are bad, private ones are ten times worse!

The third piece of this puzzle needs to be a return to affordable housing and given a supply and demand construct, err of the side of supply!

And we have two tax laws, negative gearing and capital gains; that could be finally and effectively harnessed to do just that; and explained more fully in another post!

Other than that, we need massive tax reform to massively simplify and even more massively lower it; and doable, if we can finally oblige everyone doing business here, to finally pay a fair share/the same as everyone else!

Meaning many of the currently passed on costs can be eliminated and consequent prices lowered!

I have no objection whatsoever to the industrious earning a decent quid, just those who expect others to do all of it for them; or just price gouge; and just because they can or are allowed or actively encouraged to do so!?

We need a New Deal that reestablishes the idea of a fair go and a fair days pay for a fair days pay!

After all, wages are just 16% averaged of the cost of doing business!
Rhrosty.

Wages around 16% of the bottom line, tax 30%?

If you could lower either one but not both by around 40%, which would have the greatest impact on the bottom line? Well?

Wages averaging 16%, energy bill around 32% of total costs?

If you could halve the cost of one or the other, which would you chose as having the largest impact on the bottom line/transport/water? Well?

Yet we have this myopic focus on wages and as they're reduced in real terms, so also is the wealth creating discretionary spend!

Some folks just need to lift their heads out of the warm and comfortable if eternally dark places some of them have oh so clearly placed them!
Rhrosty.

I just did my week's shopping, and I was struck how cheap vegetables were, considering you can spin them out quite a bit: you can knock up a decent meal, with silver beet (cheap and good quality at the moment), a bit of lettuce, tomato and zucchini, and a couple of sausages, or a bit of steak, or a couple of chicken legs, all for well under $ 5.

I notice that bloke on 'Struggle Street', with $ 39 to blow from selling scrap metal, blew the lot on a meal for himself and his mate and a few chocolate bars. They could have fed the whole family for $39. Then the dipstick son pinches something from his dad and they have to go off in their cars, looking for him.

Yeah, it's a struggle getting of the couch from watching daytime Tv, and having to physically manhandle all that gut.

Tough. Hard lives. Struggle.

A bit like Bangla Desh ? I don't think so.

Jeez, in my day .......

Yes, I agree we should have much higher taxes on junk food from fast food outlets and high calorie foods sold in supermarkets. Obesity is a health epidemic.

We can't be seen to just pick on the smokers and over-eaters though, when alcohol consumption causes at least as much health problems as the other two.
We need much higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes too.