Month: October 2009

New York passed a law requiring restaurants to post caloric information. A new study on fast food establishments in New York suggests the information is not helping individuals make healthier choices and may be doing the opposite. Jonah Lehrer wonders why:

[T]he brain…receives rewarding input from metabolic processes that have nothing to do with the tongue. When you eat at McDonald's, or order that venti mocha latte, a big part of the pleasure comes from the fact that the food is sustenance, fuel, energy. The end result is that even mediocre food is a little rewarding. In fact, I wonder if part of the reason the calorie information led to the consumption of more calories (and not less) is that people subconsciously chose items that would give them more pleasure. If that's the case – if we are implicitly aware of this second reward pathway in the brain – then nutritional information will often backfire, as people are drawn to the precise foods they should avoid.

Further thoughts from Drum, Sager, and McArdle.

David Frum is all sunshine and rainbows:

1) Those in the Obama administration betting on a roaring Reagan-style recovery seem to be heading for a nasty surprise, economically and politically.

2) The horrifying unemployment numbers will not improve soon. Unemployment hit 9.8% in figures released Friday. Job-seekers are finding it takes more than 26 weeks to gain a new job, the worst number since record-keeping began in 1948. Unemployment among those 16-24 now exceeds 50%. And the number of those who have lacked work for more than six months has also hit a post-Second World War high.

3) With the private economy remaining so weak so long, U. S. tax collections will not improve any time soon — meaning more terrible budget deficit numbers and more accumulated government debt.

4) The next U. S. “up” cycle will look very different from the growth cycles of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Taxes will be higher, to repay the big accumulated debts from this crisis. Young workers will begin their careers with a nasty scare — and therefore probably much less optimistic expectations than previous generations. Look for more saving and less consumption.

5) Slow recovery for the economy means slow recovery for America’s troubled financial institutions. Government support for –and control over –banking will not end soon.

6) Those of us who criticized the Obama stimulus plan for stretching into 2010 may have to eat our words. Government looks likely to be the only source of increased economic demand for at least the next half year.

Politically, the months ahead will be unhappy times for incumbents. Look for Democrats to lose seats in Congress in 2010 and for President Obama’s poll numbers to decline further.

Economically, however, the impact will be even greater. The great era of private sector achievement and confidence that opened in 1983 abruptly ended in 2008. America has entered a very different era, in which government predominates — and will continue to predominate for months and maybe years to come.

I have no idea if he's right. But if he is, does David really think the American public will be up for ten more years in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Today on the Dish we put out an especially varied mix, given the lack of news. The president's poll numbers looked up, both at home and abroad, while anti-gay forces in Maine continued their awful campaign. (And speaking of awful.)

In punditry, Andrew owned up to the McCaughey affair, Conor went another round with Breitbart, Reihan defended Rove, Bartlett received a great review (buy his book!), Beck talked to Newsmax, Cohen countered Galston, AL reeled in Greenwald,  readers revolted against an anti-atheist post, and Andrew discussed why he prefers Ptown to DC.

For such a slow day, it's no wonder that this post was our most popular.

— C.B.

via videosift.com

Bob Kaplan's view of the war in Afghanistan:

Everyone keeps saying that America is not an empire, but our military finds itself in the sort of situation that was mighty familiar to empires like that of ancient Rome and 19th-century Britain: struggling in a far-off corner of the world to exact revenge, to put down the fires of rebellion, and to restore civilized order. Meanwhile, other rising and resurgent powers wait patiently in the wings, free-riding on the public good we offer. This is exactly how an empire declines, by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions.

Kipling understood. At some point, the American people will ask why their kids and their money are being leveraged to help China win the race for the 21st century.

Steve Fainaru and William Booth report:

Almost all of the marijuana consumed in the multibillion-dollar U.S. market once came from Mexico or Colombia. Now as much as half is produced domestically, often by small-scale operators who painstakingly tend greenhouses and indoor gardens to produce the more potent, and expensive, product that consumers now demand, according to authorities and marijuana dealers on both sides of the border. The shifting economics of the marijuana trade have broad implications for Mexico's war against the drug cartels, suggesting that market forces, as much as law enforcement, can extract a heavy price from criminal organizations that have used the spectacular profits generated by pot sales to fuel the violence and corruption that plague the Mexican state.

Now imagine the blow to the Mexican drug cartels if prohibition were lifted. But we couldn't do that, could we?

(Hat tip: Reason)

A reader writes:

Don’t you think your Creepy Ad Watch from today ought to acknowledge (1) that you linked this very same VW advert in January 2005, and (2) that you also discovered in January 2005 that it is a fake. It still amuses me, in its dark way, so I’m pleased if a new generation sees it because of your re-post today. 

Yes, now you remind me, I do remember it. When you've been blogging a couple hundred posts a week for ten years, total recall of every link or post, especially when you are always absorbing new material, can elude you, Apologies.