Denmark Dumps Fat Tax After Food Prices Rise
Taxes make stuff more expensive? Who knew?
The Danish government has said it intends to abolish a tax on foods which are high in saturated fats.
The measure, introduced a little over a year ago, was believed to be the world's first so-called "fat tax".
Foods containing more than 2.3% saturated fat - including dairy produce, meat and processed foods - were subject to the surcharge.
But authorities said the tax had inflated food prices and put Danish jobs at risk.
The Danish tax ministry said it was also cancelling its plans to introduce a tax on sugar, the AFP news agency reports.
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Sadly, America displayed its remarkable resiliance to learning from failure on November 6th. I won't be holding my breath for this incident to slow the growing fad of government "health" regulations.
It's really frustrating that the nation seems intent on enrolling in the school of hard knocks instead of just learning from Europe's mistakes.
It's hard to figure; the lefty love-affair with all that's really screwed up with the Euros, and the blindness to the failures.
Tony Judt (of all people) made it clear in "Postwar" that Europe can't afford its fantasies and no one on the left can seem to understand that.
what i find amazing is not that they are tyrannical about private choices. thats a given for leftist do-gooders.
what i find amazing about this is that they couldnt forsee this outcome. its blatantly obvious that this will discourage some parts of the economy (bad food) and encourage others (govt spending from delightful new tax revenue).
that they couldnt see the job loss in advance is apalling.
these are real morons. they have the policy of master sithlord liberals, but the foresight of 2nd graders. how did such advanced and immature forces merge?
"its blatantly obvious that this will discourage some parts of the economy (bad food) and encourage others (govt spending from delightful new tax revenue)."
This is also hard to understand. The left presumes the negative incentive of higher taxes will direct people away from the targeted good, but they're stupid enough to ignore the more obvious side effects of the positive incentives.
Willfully ignorant? I can find no other explanation.
Strange. The arguments for abolishing the fat tax would hold JUST as strongly for abolishing tobacco taxes. When American cigarette taxes escalated they had a problem with that pesky "consumer price index" inflating, so they just removed tobacco from the calculation and pretend that people didn't smoke!
It would work for fat in Denmark too!
And when Brits complained that high cig taxes were increasing crime and smuggling (about 1/4 of UK cigs are now thought to be illegal) the antismoking groups stated with scientific certainty that increasing cig taxes had nothing at all to do with people smuggling untaxed ones from across the Channel. Do you think the Antismokers would LIE??
As for jobs being lost? That's as ridiculous as claiming that people lost jobs when the smoking ban closed 6,000 pubs! All those pub workers are now happily working, and drinking, and smoking, safely at home where they belong!
The fat tax should have been TRIPLED to come into line with tobacco taxes, and if fatsos eating fattening foods in public places were fined heavily and stores that served them closed down, then everything would have been fine! It's called "the level playing field" -- something health advocates and Antismokers have been calling for for years!
Don't eat, don't drink, don't smoke, and definitely don't be merry.... and tomorrow you'll wish you would die.
Michael J. McFadden,
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Contraband Twinkie sales incoming.
High fat diet helps weight loss
New England Journal of Medicine Volume 348:2082-2090 May 22, 2003 Number 21:
A Randomized Trial of a Low-Carbohydrate Diet for Obesity
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/co.....48/21/2082
63 obese men and women were randomly assigned to 2 different diets
(i) Low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diet
(ii) Low-calorie, high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet
for one year. Measurements were recorded for their changes in weight and the beneficial high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.
The high fat diet produced a greater weight loss and was associated with a greater improvement in HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels and therefore lowered the risk of heart disease.
1. Make food more expensive.
2. Food prices increase.
HOW IS THIS NOT OBVIOUS