Suggested Discussion Outline

[johnkarls]

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Subject: All Hands On Deck This Wed Evening April 10th
From: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Date: Sat, April 6 4:06 am – 5:11 am
To: Our Approximately 150 E-mail Recipients
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Dear Friends,

Our next meeting is THIS WEDNESDAY evening, April 10th, at the Salt Lake Public Library (200 East 400 South) in Conference Room E (formerly labeled Conf Rm L-1), accessible by the REGULAR elevators.

Please plan to join us for socializing from 6:15 pm > 7:00 pm or, if you prefer, come solely from 7:00 pm > 8:55 pm for our formal discussion. We provide coffee/decaf + chocolate chunk cookies & peanut butter cookies -- or bring a sandwich/quiche/dessert from the Library Branch of the Salt Lake Roasting Company just inside the EAST entrance -- or bring your own snack/beverage.

[John Karls is always available afterwards to continue the discussion or just socialize half a block south at Cannella's over drinks -- everyone is welcome but Dutch treat.]

Our focus is Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss. Michael Moss was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2010, and was a finalist for the prize in 2006 and 1999. He is also the recipient of a Loeb Award and an Overseas Press Club citation. Before coming to the New York Times, he was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, New York Newsday, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has been an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia School of Journalism.


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RATIONALE FOR ALL HANDS ON DECK

Ordinarily, our policy is that only first-time attendees are welcome to come and participate if they have not read the suggested reading materials.

However, the book did not contain any Big Surprises -- sugar is bad, fat is bad and too much salt is bad.

Therefore, the big challenge Wednesday evening is how to design one of our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns to America’s decision makers such as President Obama which, with only a few computer keyboard key strokes, can be sent by each of our members (1) to the decision maker, and (2) to all of the member's friends and acquaintances requesting them to do the same in an unending chain.

The reason why this E-mail Campaign is unusually difficult is described in the Suggested Discussion Outline below.

Accordingly, we need All Hands On Deck, especially those with any political “street smarts”!!!


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SUGGESTED DISCUSSION OUTLINE

1. As an initial matter, we should afford an opportunity for anyone who did read the book to broach any matter of significance, particularly if it relates to the E-mail Campaign.


2. The E-mail Campaign is necessary because the food industry is barred by the anti-trust laws from devising a solution on its own.

2-a. Moreover, when members of an industry do lobby Congress to provide a solution to a problem (for example, chemical companies with regard to the Super Fund to finance the clean up of waste sites), their “solutions” screw the public and hold the companies harmless (the Super Fund Tax was, effectively, a uniform sales tax on chemicals and other petroleum products and economists will confirm that the burden of sales taxes falls on the consumer).


3. What should we request?

3-a. The Danish experience shows that a tax on sugar and/or fat will have to be withdrawn due to unpopularity (which in Denmark was probably instigated and fanned by the food industry).

3-a-1. A tax on the offending food ingredients would have to comprise a formula because the food industry is famous for substituting, say, sugar for fat and vice versa, in order to maintain an addictive taste.

3-b. The private-company health-insurance plans that impose a higher employee-premium contribution for unhealthy conditions (overweight, high cholesterol, etc.) have not produced significant attacks from the food industry.

3-c. Even if such a penalty were imposed in the context of Obamacare, it would probably be perceived from a PR & political viewpoint as the equivalent of a user tax, such as an entrance fee for a national park. Though there may have to be exceptions for unhealthy conditions beyond the individual’s control (e.g., a thyroid condition producing obesity).

3-d. How do you impose a penalty for unhealthy conditions without a national ID system which will probably produce objections from both Left and Right???


4. To whom should the campaign be addressed???

4-a. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius probably has authority to incorporate such a requirement in the Obamacare regulations her department is promulgating.

4-b. First Lady Michelle Obama has led since 2009 a Campaign Against Obesity.

4-c. President Obama has overall authority and responsibility.


5. Miscellaneous consideration --

5-a. Does an attack on obesity really make sense??? After all, typical statistics regarding obesity are appallingly inadequate --

5-a-1. Obesity statistics usually estimate how many deaths or illnesses a particular policy will “prevent” but the statistics typically fail to recognize that there is only a “deferral” until other diseases (including the final fatal disease) occur.

5-a-2. The most common maladies caused by obesity are diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes.

5-a-3. Although macabre to contemplate, isn’t a heart attack the least painful (at least in terms of duration) and least costly way to die???

5-a-4. And although diabetes is costly over long periods, how many individuals “saved” from obesity are saved from heart attacks rather than diabetes??? And what other diseases will they now encounter and at what cost???


6. Another miscellaneous consideration --

6-a. For our 2/14/2008 meeting, we focused on Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank’s “Homo-Politicus: The Strange And Scary Tribes That Run Our Government” and long-time Business Week Columnist Robert Kuttner’s “The Squandering Of America: How The Failure Of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity”

6-b. The central theme of both books was that America has “the best government money can buy”!!! In other words, both authors believed that “campaign contributions” (aka, bribes) dictate everything that happens (or doesn’t) in the cesspool known as Washington DC!!!

6-c. Attacking obesity, particularly if done within an Obamacare regulatory framework, will provide Democrats a Golden Opportunity to “shake down” the insurance industry (and perhaps even the food industry) for “campaign contributions” which should make this approach attractive to them!!!


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We hope to see all of you on Wed evening April 10th!!!

Your friend,

John K.

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