2015-10-27

Things T.C. Hates

Can you spot the misleading - with a dash of misplaced smugness - part of the following quote?

"Nope, the Coalition for Affordable City has other priorities. The group has spent more than $9 million to defeat a single item on Tuesday’s local ballot in San Francisco. Proposition E would impose a tax on sugary drinks -- $0.02 per ounce -- and earmark the proceeds for programs to educate children about healthier lifestyle choices as part of a city effort to reduce childhood obesity." 

Let me help you along. Arguing it's 'just' .02 cents per ounce is an age old marketing tactic. Think 'For just $1 a day' you can help feed a child'.

When I used to sell children's encyclopedias (oh yes I did - for one month! Nice books too. Blue with shiny text and print and dinosaurs and shit) I was trained to say stuff like 'it's just $2 a day! and "Take loose loonies and put it in a jar!' as a way to "shame" customers into believing they were depriving their children of education.

What that guy did is no different.

.02 cents in of itself is peanuts. But on 24 ounces that's essentially .48 cents. And for a low-income individual who probably buys, say, six, that's $2.88 of added costs to the household budget.

They feel the pinch more than those in a better financial position. Usually the ninny-nannies pimping stupid taxes designed to discourage consumption (which they don't. Arguably, they just drive products into a black market).

Taxes are an unfair and poor way - excuse the pun - to change habits.

What else do you expect from a non-critical thinking group like modern journalists?

 To people who think this way, it's (apparently) the price to pay for fighting obesity and civilization. It's how property taxes slowly over time got to be so high. 'They went up Mr. and Mrs. Privileged Property Owner because the cost of maintaining civilization went up!'

Fairness you can believe in.

And it's all bull shit. 







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