I know some Danes are not going to like my tone here, but too bad. Why is it the government needs to tell you how to eat?Have you never learned?
As long as you full grown Danes are unable to feed yourselves, then you deserve all the ridicule the rest of the world can muster. How much more possibly incompetent can one get? This story is from T-Online. Hat-tip DirkH.
Denmark has become the first country in the world to tax fat in foods. According to the law, a fat tax of €2.15 per kilogram is now being levied. The tax is designed to keep the people from eating too much unhealthy food (and to put more money into government coffers).
I ask myself just how incompetent and stupid must the Danes be to not know how to eat. Do they they really need the government to spoon-feed them? Have they been potty-trained yet? I wonder.
It’s coming to your country soon
We may joke about this, but it surely is coming to your country too. Note how the tax is all for our own protection. The Danes ought to throw this law back up.
According to reports, Danes are now rushing to the food markets and buying up fatty foods in bulk. T-Online quotes Sören Jörgensen:
‘We have to fill our stores with tons of butter and margerine in order to be able to serve our customers,’ said Sören Jörgensen Konzern Arla creamery. Christian Jensen, manager of a supermarket in Copenhagen, spoke of a chaotic week: ‘There were many empty shelves. People have filled up their freezers.'”
Many don’t believe this will change eating habits. People will buy what they want to eat no matter the price. But it sure will transfer lots of money from the citizens to government coffers.
Read much more here: http://news.yahoo.com/denmark-levies-worlds-first-fat-tax-001455147.html
Of course its a just a tax scheme. Stupid
Nice cars you got at your site!
It is government control of things they have no business controlling in a free nation, which Denmark isn’t.
Fat, BTW is not what makes you fat – it’s carbohydrates. Ask any Atkins Dieter or any exercise fanatic. You get lean by using your bodies fat-burning capabilities; you do this by first emptying your carbohydrate storage through exercise; then fat burning kicks in. Most people in their daily life re-fill their carbohydrate storage constantly so they never need to burn stored fat, and the body develops metabolic syndrome over time.
Socialist control over people’s life; law of unintended consequences. I could rail for days about this.
They’re going to end up making people sick and mal-nourished. I pity the poor tradesmen, farmers, construction workers etc. who will have to work hard physically on just lettuce and fruit.
Another crazy tax; an old one, but still in force in Germany; maybe interesting for its history – the German Schaumweinsteuer – “bubbly wine tax” –
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schaumweinsteuer
(Sorry, no english wikipedia page about this)
It was introduced by Kaiser Wilhelm II to finance building of a channel linking North sea and Baltic sea, and the German fleet. Later it got removed but then reinstated to finance the U-Boot fleet.
It is raised to this day and raises a yearly revenue of 422 million EUR. Today, there’s no particular reason mentioned to raise it. It just goes on existing and feeds the families of many a bureaucrat whose talents would otherwise go to waste.
You have no rights to decide what you will eat. A court has decided:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/wi-no-right-to-produce-or-eat-food.html
Basic principle of corporativism: supply assigne the demand! Not vice-versa!
I guess Denmark rule the Greenland. How the local Eskimos take it? They feed on the faty seals etc. 🙂
An anthropologist visiting Denmark once noted (so the story goes) that we (the danes) are a tribe. When two danish strangers meet socially they always start by finding a common acquaintance, thereby relating themselves within the tribe.
In this context: What everybody does is everybody’s business, because if you smoke, eat or drink to much you increase your risk of getting ill and thus add expenses to the welfare system.
It’s also interesting to note how the arguments previously applied to the smoking ban now seem to appear in discussions about fat and alcohol.
I think I found out why the Danish government needs the fat tax income.
They offer up to 20,000 EUR tax rebate to buyers of electric cars.
Source:
http://www.dailygreen.de/2011/09/27/kaufinteresse-bei-elektroautos-trotz-finanzieller-anreize-niedrig-26939.html
Do you think there’ll be an increase in border traffic. Danes taking their cars south and returning with boots full of illicit olive oil
Well the butchers, dairy food outlets and confectioners in Schleswig-Holstein are going to profit from this, aren’t they?
Governments everywhere are always ready to respond to exclaimations of “somebody’s got to do something about it!” By imposing a new tax and other regulatory mechanisms that do nothing about the *perceived* problem.
I don’t believe that Danes are so dumbed-down to actually believe that such a tax will do anything about perceived “obesity”. Certainly a tax won’t have any effect, nor will restrictions on availability of nourishing foods.
After all, Sweden’s astronomical taxes and duties on alcohol, and availability restricted to government-run “dispensaries” hasn’t improved the level of alcoholism in that country.
One of the down-sides of a democracy is that the stupid and the feckless are allowed to vote; and (sigh) to be elected. Doesn’t just hold for Denmark. Look at Australia’s Prime Minister.
Scotland is trying to control alcahol consumption.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15125064
“Tesco has told customers they will still get wine offers online because it will dispatch orders from England.”
“The Scottish government plans to go further in its bid to tackle Scotland’s drinking culture by re-introducing minimum alcohol pricing proposals previously blocked by opposition parties.”
>illicit olive oil
Certainly sounds like a fire hazard !
However i fear the idea just might catch on in the EU. I noticed a poll in welt.de where only 68% opposed the idea of a fettstuer, meaning 32% of welt readers actually would approve of it !
Olive Oil contains about 10% water; try to ignite it with a match; doesn’t work.
There’s a reason people in Nordic and subarctic lands eat fat–it’s called winter.