Pizza is Now a Vegetable?

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Goliath
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Post by Goliath »

jpanimation wrote:I haven't been in a public school in years but I was under the impression that they already banned unhealthy foods, at least in our local schools (maybe I'm misinformed). I thought that's what we were talking about?
No, we are talking about the Republicans wanting to redefine the definition of 'vegetable' to include pizza, so pizza can be served as vegetables in school cafeteria. That's something different altogether than the government force-feeding every citizen healthy food.
jpanimation wrote:It shouldn't affect society, it should only affect the person.
Yeah, but it doesn't. That's the pesky things about facts and reality: they tend to get in the way of a perfect world.
jpanimation wrote:Like I said, ideally everyone should be armed with knowledge and then be free to make those choices (which includes accepting the consequences, whatever they may be). It's an unwritten contract between the people and the government. Government leaves us alone to make our own choices but in exchange we can't ask them to help us when our choices backfire. Responsibility. Accountability. This is what should be happening.
Yeah, I don't believe in that. Lots of people are either incapable (e.g. due to their financial state, because unhealthy food is a lot cheaper than healthy food) and must be helped; or are plain stupid and need to be educated. Yes, a pretty elitist stance for a socialist, but I'm still taking it and standing by it. But then again, I haven't fallen for the fairytale that "government" is BAAAAAAAAAAAD and needs to be abolished as soon as possible.
jpanimation wrote:Instead, government restricts our freedom to choose in exchange for a little security. This makes the entire country responsible for everyone else's bad choices in addition to infringing in our right to run our own lives. Surging healthcare costs only prove this doesn't work.
No, surging health care costs prove that the current system doesn't work and you need a single-payer not-for-profit (medicare for all) system, like most European countries have, where costs are half what they are in the US and results are twice as good.
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Post by Elladorine »

jpanimation wrote:I haven't been in a public school in years but I was under the impression that they already banned unhealthy foods, at least in our local schools (maybe I'm misinformed).
It varies from state to state. One of my friends went to a high school that actually had a Taco Bell within their cafeteria. Many schools are still allowed to sell sugary drinks under the pretense that they're somehow "healthier" than soda, children are allowed to eat pizza and french fries every day, and the food typically arrives either boxed, canned, or frozen (and is processed all to hell with unnecessary preservatives, fat, sodium, and sugar). Schools that have made an effort to freshly prepare the lunches themselves find that grades rise and behavioral problems are reduced.

Anyway, when it comes to the "freedom of choice" issue that's being discussed here, I'm all for that. In a perfect world, people would be informed so they could make the best choices for themselves, and the government wouldn't be changing what can be considered a "vegetable" in order to conform to what a large company is making their money from. And I'm not talking about taking Twinkies off the shelves or outlawing trans fats, I'm talking about raising awareness, proper labeling, and putting forth a substantial effort into making healthier options available, especially to those in need of financial help. Low-income families are much more susceptible to obesity because they tend to stick with cheap processed groceries or rely on the dollar menu at the local fast food joint.

As an example, here are some actions another country took decades ago to improve the health that did affect their overall society:

Over the past three decades in Finland, deaths from heart disease and stroke have both fallen 75 to 80 percent. As sodium intake has dropped 42 percent, and the Finnish population has made other healthy changes, life expectancy has risen more than 10 percent. By contrast, in the 1960s, Finland suffered the highest heart disease rates in the world. To grapple with the problem, its government launched measures to improve the production and marketing of health foods, passed salt labeling laws, held mass-media campaigns, and conducted school programs and worksite interventions.

A few more examples can be seen in this link: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hphr/c ... index.html

And what has been happening here in the states? Once again, the whole subject of this thread: the government is compromising the health of the public in favor of financial gain. It's no secret that the government has allowed food lobbyists to manipulate such tools as the food pyramid for years, since tweaking the amount of space meat, dairy, grains, etc. take on it can affect sales in the billions. Oh, and people are attempting to sue McDonald's in the same way as the tobacco suits, experts are arguing over whether or not sugar is addictive, people are having surgery to cut out or block off part of their stomachs since they can't make themselves stop eating, and despite us supposedly knowing more than ever about healthy eating, the rising rate of obesity and obesity-related illness is showing no signs of slowing down.

So let's solve all that by making food appear to be healthier than it actually is. :roll:
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Post by jpanimation »

Goliath wrote:Yeah, but it doesn't. That's the pesky things about facts and reality: they tend to get in the way of a perfect world.
It only affects society because the government interferes. If everyone were left accountable for their own problems, then it would be the individual's responsibility to take care of themselves, not society's. Government interference is the facts and in turn causes the reality that gets in the way of the perfect world.
Goliath wrote:Yeah, I don't believe in that. Lots of people are either incapable (e.g. due to their financial state, because unhealthy food is a lot cheaper than healthy food) and must be helped; or are plain stupid and need to be educated. Yes, a pretty elitist stance for a socialist, but I'm still taking it and standing by it. But then again, I haven't fallen for the fairytale that "government" is BAAAAAAAAAAAD and needs to be abolished as soon as possible.
Hallelujah! Government knows best and is our savior almighty. I wouldn't make it one day without them and feel blessed to have them watching over me. Amen (lol you know I just like to have fun with you, since we're practically political polar opposites). Please, I don't want them abolished, I just want them stripped of their overreaching power and back on their intended course.

People may be stupid but it's their right to choose. It's this mentality that people are too stupid to make the right decisions that lead to prohibition. If anything, a few PSAs and clearly marked ingredients is all that's required of government, not straight up bans.

As far as the poor people buying unhealthy food because it's cheaper, could be (I know I buy a lot of unhealthy shit because it's cheaper). Although, a homeless man who basically lived out of the Giant Eagle I used to work at during high school was as fit as a fiddle. I'm not sure what he ate but I do know he carried around a thermos that he would fill up with water out of our soda dispenser and I know he would walk A LOT. I feel the exercise he was getting and the fact that he drank water (as opposed to soda, the #1 cause of obesity) attributed to his health. Seriously, exercise makes a huge difference, as does NOT drinking soda (I constantly remind my dad that it's more healthy to drink alcohol). There are also simple things like eating grilled chicken as opposed to greasy beef that can make a big difference, the price being similar or eating brown rice, which is very cheap (I used to eat a lot of that stuff). I'm sure it helps having money (I worked in produce, I know how expensive it is) but I also know that a lot of it comes down to personal choices (water is cheaper then soda, exercise if free, as is not smoking, etc.). If people aren't accountable for their actions, then what motivates them to make good decisions?

Government certainly doesn't help the matter, as I worked on register at Giant Eagle just one day and noticed about 60% of the people were on some kind of government subsidy and that about 95% of them were overweight (like they're gonna starve without government assistance) and using a mobile cart (they refuse to exercise). Seriously, what about the people who are actually starving or people that cant walk due to an injury or some kind of disease like arthritis? Seeing where my tax dollars go makes me sad.
Goliath wrote:No, surging health care costs prove that the current system doesn't work and you need a single-payer not-for-profit (medicare for all) system, like most European countries have, where costs are half what they are in the US and results are twice as good.
I'm pretty sure medicare is part of the reason we're in this mess. More then half of the people visiting hospitals are using medicare / medicaid. Since these people aren't paying for this stuff themselves, they tend to get worthless prescriptions (USA, prescription capital of the world), worthless procedures, make unnecessary trips, and as a result, hospitals charge as much as they want since these people don't care about the cost. This inflates healthcare costs for everyone else (the same can be said for federal student loans and the increased college tuitions). In a free market, prices wouldn't be inflated due to government interference and people would actually be able to afford it.

http://www.kaiseredu.org/tutorials/Medi ... layer.html

By experience, my grandma was an abuser of medicare. She never worked a day in her life but racked over a million dollars in hospital bills that tax payers will pay for. She was kept on life support, practically a vegetable, for almost half a year (in massive amounts of pain). They kept her alive because we didn't have to pay for it, even though they knew her chances of recovery were non existent and that she was in pain (add to the fact that she had in her Will that she never wanted to be kept alive on life support but the doctors left the decision up to her kids anyways). This is why medicare just isn't sustainable.

Anyways, love talking to you. I'm sure we're both bashing our heads into the wall each time we read each other's posts. We probably ask ourselves: "Why can't I get through to him?" lol At least we come together on movies most of the time.
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Post by Disney's Divinity »

jpanimation wrote:noticed about 60% of the people were on some kind of government subsidy and that about 95% of them were overweight (like they're gonna starve without government assistance) and using a mobile cart (they refuse to exercise).
I'm assuming that if they're using a mobile cart, the motto "just exercise!" isn't going to work for them. You have no idea what kind of damage exercise (even something as simple as walking) can do to a body that out-of-shape/overweight. It takes money to fix the problem if you're that far down the hole, to receive professional help or buy healthier foods or get (plastic) surgery. In the meantime, if you're poor and on gov't assistance, you can only afford the cheapest foods which only contribute to the weight, etc. etc. Vicious cycle.

Also, it's a fact that the impoverished are more prone to depression, which is often a cause for unhealthy eating habits as well. For all you know, these people are controlling their eating habits--now. That doesn't make the fat from before just disappear over night.

I agree that that doesn't negate responsibility, but it's not something as "easy" as it sounds.
Last edited by Disney's Divinity on Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Goliath »

jpanimation wrote:It only affects society because the government interferes. If everyone were left accountable for their own problems, then it would be the individual's responsibility to take care of themselves, not society's. Government interference is the facts and in turn causes the reality that gets in the way of the perfect world.
You're actually, literally, delusional. If goverment didn't interfere, everything would be left to the market, and enigmawing has just so eloquently told why that's a big, big mistake. It would put profit before the health of the people. And how is government interference responsible for the rising obesity among Americans and all the problems and financial burdens on the health care system that go with it? You don't even have a reasoning behind your argument; you're just parroting your libertarian guidebooks. If anything, had the government not set up agencies to control the quality of our food (thank you, Republican president Roosevelt!) we would be eating catfood labeled as a healthy snack. It's okay that you are so naieve and/or brainwashed to think that corporations are there to serve the well-being of the public, but *I'm* thankful people are not being poisoned so that corporations can make an extra buck, because of government regulation.
jpanimation wrote:Please, I don't want them abolished, I just want them stripped of their overreaching power and back on their intended course.
What, pray tell, is their "intended course"? They have no "intended course. Government is what people make it out to be. So when the day finally comes that Americans wake up and realize they've been sold out for the past 30 years and demand their rights and benefits back and elect Dennis Kucinich president, the "intended course" of government will be to actually *care* for its citizens and guaranteeing them health care, a decent pension and a reliable income.
jpanimation wrote:People may be stupid but it's their right to choose. It's this mentality that people are too stupid to make the right decisions that lead to prohibition. If anything, a few PSAs and clearly marked ingredients is all that's required of government, not straight up bans.
Public schools are the domain of the government. They should be able to ban unhealthy food and they should start doing it as soon as possible. Like I said, people eating unhealthy does have its affects on the whole society. You haven't disproven that, you just repeated "government is to blame", without ever giving an explanation. And yeah, lots of people are too stupid to make the right decision and that's why we should protect them against theirselves.
jpanimation wrote:As far as the poor people buying unhealthy food because it's cheaper, could be (I know I buy a lot of unhealthy shit because it's cheaper). [...]
Nice anedotical example. You do know that means nothing, don't you?
jpanaimation wrote:I'm sure it helps having money (I worked in produce, I know how expensive it is) but I also know that a lot of it comes down to personal choices (water is cheaper then soda, exercise if free, as is not smoking, etc.). If people aren't accountable for their actions, then what motivates them to make good decisions?
So working two shitty jobs to making end meet and still not being able to pay for good food, while a CEO is making 400 times as much as the average worker, even when he screws up the company and lets it go bankrupt, is "personal accountability"... how?! Stop voting against your own economic interests and most of all, stop blaming the victims and stop defending the perpetrators.
jpanimation wrote:Government certainly doesn't help the matter, as I worked on register at Giant Eagle just one day and noticed about 60% of the people were on some kind of government subsidy and that about 95% of them were overweight (like they're gonna starve without government assistance) and using a mobile cart (they refuse to exercise). Seriously, what about the people who are actually starving or people that cant walk due to an injury or some kind of disease like arthritis? Seeing where my tax dollars go makes me sad.
You have no idea where your tax dollars go and that's the problem. You use anedotical examples as 'evidence' and you think 'government subsidy' is somehow making people rich. Actually, it's an example of the sorry state in which the "greatest country of the world" is in. Yeah, of course people who are on government subsidy are gonna be more likely to be overweight: they're poor, remember? And as we've established, the poor eat less healthy.
jpanimation wrote:I'm pretty sure medicare is part of the reason we're in this mess.
How? How is medicare the problem and not the ridiculously bloated defense budget, which takes in over 50% of the annual budget and is more than all other countries in the world combined spend on defense?
jpanimation wrote:More then half of the people visiting hospitals are using medicare / medicaid. Since these people aren't paying for this stuff themselves, they tend to get worthless prescriptions (USA, prescription capital of the world), worthless procedures, make unnecessary trips, and as a result, hospitals charge as much as they want since these people don't care about the cost. [...]
Actually, medicare is a very succesfully and efficient government program (and that's also the reason why even crazy teabaggers run around with signs like "take your government hands of my medicare"). In Vermont, they introduced a kind of somgle-payer health care system and it's working great. The same is true of Massachussets, where Republican governor Mitt Romney introduced a 'public option'. The results in both states: healthier people, lower costs.
jpanimation wrote:This inflates healthcare costs for everyone else (the same can be said for federal student loans and the increased college tuitions). In a free market, prices wouldn't be inflated due to government interference and people would actually be able to afford it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! :lol:

How many people can't afford health care now, in this free market wet dream of you? Oh yeah, that's right: 50 million! And how many more people get fucked out of coverage by the insurance companies even when they had insurance? Yes, many millions more! Bake sales or selling your home to come up with enough money to afford cancer treatment; and over 40,000 people dieing every year because they either can't afford health care or did have an insurance but still didn't get treatment... THAT'S your free market. You're constantly defending positions that harm yourself and your fellow ordinary Americans.
jpanimation wrote:Anyways, love talking to you. I'm sure we're both bashing our heads into the wall each time we read each other's posts. We probably ask ourselves: "Why can't I get through to him?" lol At least we come together on movies most of the time.
Yeah, but I have actual facts on my side and you only have fairy tales that people who are out to do you and me harm have told you.
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Post by Rose Dome »

What a pathetic move :evil:

Calling pizza a vegetable is ridiculous, even if it's of the freshly made sort :headshake:

I guess the food rainbow would leave America overrun with famer's markets :roll:
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Post by jpanimation »

Goliath wrote:Yeah, but I have actual facts on my side and you only have fairy tales that people who are out to do you and me harm have told you.
What facts? Seemed more like passionate fabrications from a seriously brainwashed man :lol:
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Post by Semaj »

Pizza is made up of several different food groups, with grain being the basic. It is possible to make pizzas without tomato sauce, or even cheese if anyone tries to define it as dairy.

Obama isn't so much trying to take pizza away from children, since really, kids can eat pizza anywhere outside school. What he's doing is trying to promote nutrition in an educational institution. If anything, this ruling is forcing kids to eat junk food.
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Post by Elladorine »

See, the thing is that when you see someone riding in those carts, you don't know how they got into that situation. A friend of mine told a story about how she started on the grocery shopping in one of those carts while her partner started at the other side of the store. She was a big girl at the time but had recently undergone knee surgery due to a car accident, and wore the brace underneath her sweatpants that day. She often got out of the cart and stood on her good leg in order to reach something, not realizing another customer had been watching her. The other customer finally got fed up and loudly chewed her out in front of God and everyone about how it was so shameful that her fat ass was taking up that cart, ranting that it should be left available for someone that actually needed it. How dare she be such a lazy pig when she was perfectly capable of standing and blah blah blah . . . my friend said not a word, but slowly lifted her pant leg to reveal that she was wearing the knee brace. The customer's face turned red and she ran off, not so much as an apology. My friend cried and cried when she went home, and made sure to wear her brace on the outside of her pants whenever there was a chance she had to use a cart; she didn't feel she could handle that humiliation again.

My mother . . . bless her heart . . . well, riding an electric cart was much easier for her than being pushed around in a wheelchair, and I imagine it would be easy for a complete stranger to make an assumption that she needed to get out of that thing and just exercise. That was back in the mid-90's though, so luckily the bad stigma/stereotype for the users really didn't exist yet. She was fiercely independent and wanted more than anything to walk around like she had before (years before she had fought through a viral infection in her legs by walking through the extreme pain), but having bone cancer had made her femur so brittle that it broke on its own, resulting in having to put a pin put in her leg. She never quite gained her independence again after that.

I've got another friend with fibromyalgia; her lower leg and foot has swollen so badly that she has trouble walking any further than the parking lot to the front of the store (which makes it pretty hard to exercise her lower body). When I used to go shopping with her I'd hear all sorts of snide comments being whispered due to her size. One night when my asthma was particularly bad and slowed my pace, she told me to just grab myself another one of those carts so we could cruise around the store together. Being a big girl myself, I refused since I've always been way too concerned about what others think of me; I mean, I'm already self-conscious enough about my weight without having others sling insults at me or whisper behind my back.

As for weight gain being caused by low income and depression . . . well, people often get in a bad situation and can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Stress and low self-esteem are major contributors as well. It's one thing if someone needs to lose 10 pounds, it's quite another if someone needs to lose 100+. It's completely overwhelming; it can't happen overnight, and those that find themselves so overweight have to work so much harder for a greater length of time than someone with only a few vanity pounds to be concerned with. And all the while, they're surrounded by cynical people rolling their eyes at any given efforts. The same people who tell them to just go on a diet are often the first to also laugh at them for even trying since they just "know" they'll never be able to sustain the effort, and a lot of gym regulars can't wait for January to end since that's when all the "fatties" give up on their New Year's resolutions, who need to stop "uglifying" the place by taking up the machines that "normal" people are more entitled to (I used to work at a YMCA and saw a lot of this). Even many doctors are often unable to look beyond the size of their obese patients and believe that anything wrong with them just has to be weight-related, not bothering to look any further (just ask disneyboy about that one).

The thing is that people often end up at an obese state due to depression, other health issues, or financial problems, and if you haven't been there, it's so easy to say that they just needs to diet and/or exercise. But that can be just as damaging as telling an anorexic or bullemic to just eat a sandwich, especially if they have some sort of eating disorder to deal with. We're starting our kids out early by filling them up with meals that have absolutely no fiber, washed down with sugary drinks . . . in the schools, of all places. More and more families are eating out these days, and it's not just the fast food that's unhealthy. Some kids meals in sit-down restaurants have more calories in them than what an adult should have in an entire day! This is what I've been talking about when it comes to raising awareness. Some are saying just throw in some exercise after a meal like that and all should be good, but no . . . when you consider how relatively few calories you actually burn from exercise (it's less than most uninformed people would assume), you simply can't make up for poor eating choices with a "good workout."

When you're overweight, it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, it seems the whole world is against you. Americans are already the butt of jokes around the world as being the fattest nation, implying that we're a bunch of ignorant, lazy gluttons. But really, who wants to be fat? Who wants to be ridiculed for riding around in those carts? If it really was only a matter of willpower like most seem to believe, wouldn't we have a lot less fat people around? Yeah, we know sugar's bad for us, but research suggests that some carry an addiction comparable to cocaine as it effects the same area of the brain in a similar manner, and that it effects the liver the same way that alcohol does (my dad suffered from cirrhosis of the liver yet did not drink alcohol). And we all know fast food is bad for us no matter how cheap and convenient it is, but how many of us realize how much and why? For decades our govenment was telling us to cut down our fat intake; people did that and it made obesity skyrocket. Why? The low-fat craze they brought upon us prompted food companies to remove fat from their processed foods, but since that also removed flavor, they added sugar and HFCS to make up for it (who here remembers the extreme popularity of Snackwells in the early 90's?). While some people are on the low-carb craze these days, it's still difficult as hell to find products on the shelves that aren't loaded with added sugar. HFCS manufacturers are in a panic over the rising health concerns of the product, so they started airing commercials practically disguised as PSA's explaining that HFCS is fine "in moderation," yet fail to point out that it's in nearly everything in our grocery stores (at least in the US), so it's kinda hard to have it in moderation (it's tasty and is a practical and cheap preservative subsidized by the government). People need to be informed and we don't need our own government covering up the real issues. Exactly what kind of message are we sending our children by classifying pizza as a vegetable? What makes vegetables healthy is the fiber and nutrients, and pizza is processed of course (which robs the food of its nutrients) and has no fiber unless you add actual vegetables to it.

I sincerely apologize if it sounds like I have a chip on my shoulder, but in all honesty I probably do. I've experienced much of this first hand; the low self-esteem, the depression, feeling overwhelmed, barely able to afford rent (let alone proper groceries), nearly putting myself in the hospital at one point for cutting the fat from my diet out of desperation to lose the excess weight I'd put on . . . it's just insane. I was at my highest weight around the time my dad died, when a lot of bad things were going on in my life actually. I've since maintained a loss of 100 pounds, but it remains a struggle; the moment I stop being absolutely strict with my diet my weight goes right back up. I have proof of that from this past summer . . .I'd love to still be able to say I've lost 120 pounds, but I gained 20 of it back due to all the crazy stress I've gone through in the past six months. I haven't even gone crazy with eating, I just held back on being so strict, allowing myself to eat in moderation what everyone else does around me . . . but genes aren't on my side and I guess I was never meant to eat like the current average American (although I know plenty that each much more and much worse than I ever did and never gain an ounce, go figure). Regardless, I'm sick of seeing so much judgment and status issues when it comes to weight, and seeing the government shrug off such a serious problem that effects well over half the US population is outright infuriating.
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Post by Goliath »

jpanimation wrote:What facts? Seemed more like passionate fabrications from a seriously brainwashed man :lol:
Fact 1: The US, with its health care system, where isurance companies make a profit out of denying over 40,000 people a year treatment even though they did pay for coverage; where 50 million people are uninsured; is ranked by the UN as only 37th in the world.

Fact 2: France, with its single-payer, not-for-profit health care system ranks no.1 in the same UN ranking. Also, all other European countries with similar forms of single-payer or 'public option' sytems rank above the US. These countries spend half of what the US spends on health care and get better results (meaning far fewer people dieing).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO%27s_ra ... re_systems


Fact 3: Your system of ultimate free markets and as less government interference as possible has already been tried and failed miserably. Look up Chile, 1973-1990, next time you're on Wikipedia. Chile was used by the Nixon-administration as a labaratory for experiencing with Milton Friedman's economic theories of the Chicago School of Economics, meaning the kind of policies you propose of leaving everything to the market. Of course, to implement this, they had to kill of democratically elected socialist president Allende and install Pinochet as military ruler. Friedman and his students served as Pinochet's economic advisers. Within only a few years of ultra-capitalism jpanimation-style, the country's economy was ruined and its people completely devastated and the junta was reluctantly forced to return more moderate forms of capitalism and more government regulation.

Fact 4: My system of democratic socialism (without abolishing capitalism) has been proved to work. Just look as succes stories like Brazil, Chile and Argentina in the past 10 years. They have had only democratic socialist governments and they've seen their economic growth explode, but, unlike in the US and Western Europe, the wealth was equally distributed among the people and, thanks to many social government programs, the poor and working class and middle class prospered immensely. Literally tens of millions of people were raised out of poverty and became part of a thriving middle class. All this by rejecting Washington-style economic policies; paying off their debts to the IMF and Worldbank and kicking them out; paying off foreign corporations and nationalize their oil and gas companies and keep the profits of their natural resources in their own country and use it to send the regular people to school; give them health care; and create jobs. Argentina was even literally bankrupt in 2001 after their economy crashed the same way the US and the Euro-zone are crashing right now (or even worse). And instead of accepting billions of dollars in emergency loans by the IMF with interest rates they could never have paid off, in exchange for privatization and deregulation of the entire economy (like what's happening in Greece and Italy right now), president Kirchner (see my avatar, may God have his soul) refused and brought the country back to prosperity in a way and within a timepath that nobody would have ever expected to be possible and he did it while slashing poverty and benefiting the middle class and the economy as a whole. Argentina is a wonder-story. If only the US and Europe were willing to learn from my hero Néstor Kirchner...

And the country that started this leftist swing, the often-maligned Venezuela of president Chavez?

Venezuela’s Economic Growth Doubles 2011 Forecast, Grows 4.2% in Third Quarter
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6642

Venezuela Leads on UN Human Development Goals

The 29.8% of people living in extreme poverty in 2003 was drastically reduced to 9.4% in the first half of 2007, and then to 6.8% in 2011, while the overall poverty index fell from 49% in 1998 to 24.2% by the end of 2009.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6646

(more links and source inside!)

Now, where are *your* facts? Or where those two lines all you had left to say?
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Post by Rose Dome »

This is pretty empty, but it's all I have to say:

Great posts Wing and Goliath :thumb:

You sum up very well, why America's health system is in shambles :clap:
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Post by ajmrowland »

jpanimation wrote:
Goliath wrote:Yeah, but I have actual facts on my side and you only have fairy tales that people who are out to do you and me harm have told you.
What facts? Seemed more like passionate fabrications from a seriously brainwashed man :lol:
the problem with brainwashing: people who are brainwashed dont know they're brainwashed, especially those fixed in their beliefs. :wink:

and a tip: healthy food may have higher numbers on the price tag, but it's cheaper because you dont feel the need to consume as much. i got that out of Eat This; Not That! great book.

edit: and both Enigma and Goliath have excellent posts.
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