First, I found it odd that someone so opposed in principle to capitalism and the corporate machine in practice works for a company that grossed $54,848,000,000 (just under $55 billion) in 2006, earning it slot number 26 on Fortune 500's list of America's largest corporations by revenue* (putting it just below Procter & Gamble and Dell, but above giants like Costco, Morgan Stanley, and Pfizer).
Second, Karl, in his newfound quest to empower the oppressed masses, has developed a fixation with the cost of foodstuffs as an unfair and disproportionately heavy burden on the shoulders of the working poor (no definition given of "poor"). In particular, he has been focusing on the fast-food industry (no doubt informed by his recent viewing another documentary, Super Size Me), which he claims is both convenient and unfairly cheap. This odious combination, Karl says, proves too alluring to single mothers working 10-12 hour shifts just to make ends meet. Exhausted from the day's work, in this prosaic hypothetical, she opts not for the grocery store, but heads straight to McD's, whose fast, friendly service and ubiquitous franchises are the flame to this weary moth. The pricing scale here at McDonald's (which, incidentally, ranked 109th on the Fortune 500, a full 83 spots and $34,388,000,000 behind Karl's own employer†) induces her to buy, not grilled chicken McSalads for herself and two children, but three double quarter-pounder (with cheese!) meals, complete with french fries slathered in transfats, and diabetes-inducing Coke-a-colas. It should be mentioned here that in this version of reality, the higher cost of the healthy foods is governed not by the laws of supply and demand, but by McDonald's malicious motive: to see that those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder are not just impoverished, but beset by heart disease, hypertension, arterial plaque, type II diabetes, and obesity. Somehow, the extra difficulties and associated costs of keeping fresh salads, well...fresh, and of the need to ship smaller deliveries more frequently (relative to frozen fries and hamburger patties) do not factor into their added cost to consumers.
From here Karl breaks out into his chorus of "tofu is so expensive, I mean, it's like four bucks for a small block, like this big [indicates size with hands]. Who's gonna pay that, when they can get a quick, cheap meal at McDonald's for the same price? I mean, comm'on." This is followed by several verses enumerating the things he purchased recently at the grocery store, complete with prices, fat and cholesterol content, and percent of recommended daily caloric intake. And the show's big closer: "I think the government should really do something about this."‡
"We have nutrition and health classes from kindergarten all the way up through high school," I point out. (And bear in mind, my elementary school was not in the most affluent part of town.) "This is the government teaching its citizens how to eat responsibly and healthfully. The government can't force people to eat their veggies. Once people know what they should do, it's up to them to make their own choices. And we do have programs like WIC and food stamps to supplement the incomes of the working poor. And you're assuming that if that overworked woman had the time and money, she would elect to find a healthier alternative, but that isn't necessarily true. There are plenty of fat rich people in this country." (See charts at the bottom of this entry.)
I fear I have presented myself as more opposed to some of Karl's viewpoints than I actually am. In fact, I admire his concern for the economically marginalized, and I commend him for his work with underprivileged youth. Nonetheless, I find his presentation of certain ideas unpalatable, and solutions like "I think the government should really do something about this," aren't fleshed out enough to warrant serious response or action. My biggest complaint is that his views are so one-sided and ill-presented.α (Okay, please no snickering here, because although I might also have one-sided views, I am aware of that, and try to hedge my arguments accordingly.)
To end this fun series, I have two more of my now-famous-and-beloved charts, created from information I found while writing "By Leaps and Bounds." The data is from Obesity in America, which in turn got it from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a fairly reliable source of information. The charts might be a little confusing, so I'll give an example of how to read the first one: 34.34% of people whose household income was <$20,000 were are overweight, compared to 38.02% of people with household incomes of >$75,000. You can see that the data does not bear out Karl's hypothesis that poverty is highly correlated with higher levels of fastfood eating (at least as measured by obesity). In fact, among all the weight groups, the percents falling in the underweight, healthy, overweight, and obese catergories are nearly identical (with the exception that >$75,000 have fewer obese people, but this is compensated by their larger share in the overweight group).
*Fortune 500 list, 2006. (ranks 1-100)
†Fortune 500 list, 2006. (ranks 101-200)
‡Okay, so maybe I exaggerated about the cholesterol, et al, levels, but it did seem like alot of listing to me. And, in Karl's defense, earlier this year I heard similar complaints on public radio. KPCC's John Rabe interviewed Antronette Yancey, M.D., M.P.H, director of UCLA's School of Public Health Center to Eliminate Health Disparities in a segment aired on both Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She actually describes some of the phenomena Karl did, though with anecdotal evidence and a master of public health to back it up. (Interview here). Nonetheless, the report concludes that cheap, high quality produce is available in poor neighborhoods, albeit convenient transportation to and from the stores offering it is not. If transit service is the issue, I am all in favor of improving southern California's public transportation.
α For example, Karl asserted multinational corporations are evil, because they force people in third world countries to take low-paying jobs with no benefits. While this might be true, he didn't even acknowledge (let alone respond to allegations) that workers in those factories have opted to take the jobs offered to them because they paid better than the alternatives, which in many cases include unemployment. (And a low-paying job is generally better than NO job).
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