Human Behavior

Telling Stories

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Jonathan beat me to one of the core ideas of a post I’ve been working on for a few days – a post about evil, art, and self-delusion. Here goes anyway.

Concerning the New Deal, John Updike is a poet in the Platonic sense. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.

The impression of recovery–the impression that a President was bending the old rules and, drawing upon his own courage and flamboyance in adversity and illness, stirring things up on behalf of the down-and-out–mattered more than any miscalculations in the moot mathematics of economics.

To which the great Greg Mankiw replies:

When evaluating political leaders, it is better to trust “the moot mathematics of economics” than “the impression of recovery.”

Wise words, but hardly new ones. In the fourth century B.C.E., Plato is said to have uttered pretty much the same thing:

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Evil

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This is quite a good Belmont Club thread. Be sure to read the comments too.

(One of the Belmont commenters mentions this video, which I liked, about evil and The Sopranos. I don’t think I’ve watched the show more than once, in part because I don’t watch much TV but also because I don’t find criminals appealing as subjects of drama. Or maybe I don’t want to find them appealing. Familiarity breeds contempt or at least nonchalance, and the phrases, “there but for the grace of God…” and “don’t go there” come to mind. One way to avoid heroin addiction is to avoid lesser drugs, because once you try the lesser drug and find that you are not immediately disabled by addiction it becomes easier to try heroin. Wretchard and the narrator of the YouTube video apply a variant of this theory to evil behavior. I think they have a point.)

(Cross posted at 26th Parallel.)

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Related posts:
Telling Stories

Even Communists Pack It On

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In a previous post, I discussed how obesity levels might just be an indicator of increasing wealth.

The headline of a recent news item reads “30 Percent of Cubans Are Overweight”. Since Cuba is hardly known as a garden spot so far as economic vigor is concerned, this is a pretty good sign that I might be wrong about how more wealth equals larger waistlines.

The author of the news article states that Cubans average over 3,000 calories a day, 30% of which is subsidized rations provided by Castro’s government. Healthy food such as fresh vegetables are prohibitively expensive, and the diet tends towards fried starches and fatty meat.

It could be that food production technology has just gotten so efficient that obesity is in the reach of just about everyone. Except, apparently, for the North Koreans.

Lean Times Are a Thing of the Past

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The incomparable Megan McArdle (who blogs under the name Jane Galt) posted an essay where she discusses a book she read. The book posited a theory about why it is difficult for some people to lose weight, the problem being that they were genetically predisposed to packing it on, and their bodies sent danger signals if the feed bag was removed.

That was interesting enough, but I found the comments left by her readers to be more revealing. It seems that just about everyone seemed to think that America has the fattest people on Earth.

This is simply no longer true, and anyone who is interested has known about this for years. It seems that at least 7 European countries boast populations that have higher percentages of obesity than levels found in the United States, according to a news report from 2005. It has gotten so bad in recent years that even the glacially slow European Union bureaucracy has decided to lurch into action.

One might think that the rest of the European Union, at least, has a population that is slimmer than that found in the United States. Not necessarily. As this essay by Michael Fumento states, some of the data that was gleaned back in 2005 came from surveys where people were asked to gauge their own weight. Since no one who is overweight likes to admit it, it would be prudent to take any claims of how Europeans are oh-so-svelte with a grain of salt.

Europe has a fat problem, so why the widespread criticism of the American lifestyle and high obesity levels? A report commissioned by the food corporation Kraft might shed some light on this annoying example of cognitive dissonance.

“…Europeans view obesity as a problem that affects others, but not themselves.”

There are a few things about the situation that I find very interesting.

First off, the public perception seems to be that Europe doesn’t have an obesity problem and only the indolent and crass Americans must struggle with their weight. Why this is so puzzles me in light of easily perceived evidence to the contrary, but I have noticed that Europeans tend to try and make themselves feel good by indulging in anti-America bigotry. This appears to be a triumph of European feel-good propaganda.

While high levels of obesity have been recognized as a health problem in America for at least twenty years, it seems to be a recent revelation in Europe. Perhaps coincidentally, Europe also lags behind the US in economic development. In fact, it appears that Europe is 22 years behind the US since they just reached the level of prosperity we enjoyed way back in 1985.

Hmmm. 1985. When did the obesity problem in the US first kick in to high gear, anyway?

One of the fattest countries in Europe is Germany, which enjoys an improving economy. Cyprus also has an obesity problem, and according to the CIA Factbook they enjoy a much higher level of growth than the standard EU rate.

Is there a correlation between GDP and obesity rates? Maybe. I have never studied economics so I am not qualified to say. But it certainly seems possible to this layman.

Quote of the Day

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Reductio ad absurdum done right.

The Upside of Income Inequality

By Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy
From the May/June 2007 Issue of American.com

For many, the solution to an increase in inequality is to make the tax structure more progressive—raise taxes on high-income households and reduce taxes on low-income households. While this may sound sensible, it is not. Would these same indi ­viduals advocate a tax on going to college and a subsidy for dropping out of high school in response to the increased importance of education? We think not. Yet shifting the tax structure has exactly this effect.