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DIET THEN AND NOW

Part of the reason I love economics is that economics is the compassionate science. It’s the discipline that requires us to think hard and to care about how policies affect everyone, not just the people who happen to be standing in front of us. The response to the government shutdown has been as good an example of this as any. Nothing but a [gargantuan] failure of empathy can explain the chorus of voices insisting that the shutdown is a bad thing because government employees might lose their paychecks. It takes a mighty powerful set of moral blinders to care so much about the recipients of those checks and so little about the taxpayers who fund them. It gets even uglier when that same chorus of voices responds “But the government employees are poor and the taxpayers are rich!”. Put aside the question of whether that’s true [LAL: it’s not. Not by a lot.]. If your goal is to transfer money to the poor, and if the poorest people you can think of are government employees, then the well of your compassion is truly dry.

"Exercise, training, working out is NOT an option, it’s essential, just like brushing your teeth… you either do it or you’ll end up rotten and decayed."