HAMBURGER TAX

Hamburger tax, as they would say in Bucharest (which will become a Hungarian village yet), because this has been in effect in Romania since 2009 in the form of a special tax. The law is doing well in our Romanian neighbor, and we should be thankful for it too, because it was high time to take institutional action against the completely unnecessary and totally unhealthy junk foods, the only reason for their existence being that they are supposedly delicious.

Special tax on cigarettes, chips, fast food, colored drinks, and sweets. That is, on everything that can calmly be called a terrorist attack against our bodies. I don't understand what the problem is, but we can tell it's an excellent idea because everyone involved protests against it, except doctors, hospital directors, and non-profit organizations and civilians who advocate for a healthy lifestyle. If the MSZP also started protesting, then we would be sure that it's not just a good proposal, but also a well-functioning, profitable system. Because as long as Csaba Csontos can declare that "there is no unhealthy food in Hungary, only unhealthy eating," then there are serious conceptual problems here. Oh, this smart guy is the corporate director of Nestlé Hungaria, by the way.

Let's see who is, or rather who is not, interested in the adoption of this bill.

As I mentioned, on one side is the healthcare profession, but who could be on the other side? Has anyone really thought about who might be interested in getting as much unhealthy food as possible, preferably crammed with as many preservatives and artificial ingredients as possible, onto store shelves? It would be too obvious to answer that it's the manufacturers and distributors. But that's not the real big business. I won't beat around the bush any longer; the answer is one of the biggest mafias, called the pharmaceutical lobby. They are the ones who have an interest in stuffing people with all sorts of crap, causing diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, cardiovascular catastrophes, because otherwise, the huge profit wouldn't materialize, and they wouldn't be able to sell every box of blood pressure medication or post-stroke pills. Every company takes care of its own consumer base, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are no exception. They produce their patients, thus ensuring their survival. After all, someone is more likely to fall into a pit if they are pushed into it.

Oh, you mean conspiracy theory production. Uh-huh. I would ask a simple question. Why isn't it possible to market, if not exclusively, then largely healthy foods and drinks? People buy what is put in front of them. If nothing else were available, they would eat and drink what they could buy, what ends up in the store. Extra profit could be made from this too, and in fact, it's constantly being said that healthy food and lifestyle are much more expensive, and healthy, vitamin-rich nutrition is some kind of upper-middle-class gentleman's amusement. So then? No one has an interest in it, except for us. If there are no sick people, there's no profit. This is usually met with the cliché argument that the state has to treat the sick, so the extra money collected is lost. Specifically, the Hungarian state spends 3500 billion a year on maintaining healthcare. So it's not such a big business after all? Yes, but the trend is not exactly towards every citizen being insured and public healthcare being an inherent right. So the horror money flowing in from cigarettes will not have to be reinvested in healthcare, as it will no longer be financed by the state after a while, but by private insurers and personalized insurance systems. (Does anyone remember the 2008 referendum? The stakes were similar there, and it was far from just 300 forints.) I'm thinking of global trends here, USA, Australia, Japan, Netherlands, Canada, Finland, just to name a few examples. But to give a tangible example. In 2008, Denmark wanted to introduce almost exactly the same special tax, and then a Danish giant pharmaceutical company called Novo Nordisk came along and uprooted and prevented the whole idea. The strange twist of fate is that Novo Nordisk also has interests in Hungary. I eagerly await developments in this matter.

The alarm bells have already started ringing, of course, but let's stay with this guy named Csaba Csontos for another minute. He says.

"We consider the imposition of the tax to be a wrong direction. The free movement of goods is important in the European Union, this would be a stigmatization of certain products, and could mean a change in consumer habits."

"It could mean a change in consumer habits." Yes, they might even quit smoking and fast food that simply ruins the body. That would indeed be terrible. And of course, as is usually the case, the threat of job losses and the relocation of the almighty multinationals also came out of the toolbox.

This will simply make certain products more expensive; the only one who can be harmed is the consumer. Since the tax would mean an increase in costs for companies, this cannot be tolerated for long, so prices would rise, or labor would have to be cut.

This statement was made on February 11, 2011. Now let's go back in time, all the way to January 7, 2010, when a certain Dragos Frumosu tried to cause similar panic at the end of 2009, at the same time as the introduction of the hamburger tax. A panic whose preliminary winds are already being felt here too. Mr. Frumosu, incidentally, is the president of the National Federation of Food Industry Trade Unions of Romania. 

I don't know if anyone noticed that there is some similarity in the statements of Csaba Csontos and Dragos Frumosu. The only problem is that Dragos made this statement in January 2010, more than a year ago. The law has since entered its second year in Romania. The law worked, it's effective, the multinationals stayed, and there were no reports of layoffs, especially not on a massive scale.

Everyone has the right to be stupid. This is Darwinian evolutionary selection, because if someone wants to smoke for 2500 forints, let them. If they want to pay 1200 forints for a bag of chips, go ahead, they can buy it. Everything has a price, including retardation, and if someone wants to exercise their constitutional right, in this case, to be stupid, they should not be denied the opportunity; among other things, this is one of the important achievements of democracy. Because otherwise, József Debreczeni will be right in the end, and then no one will truly save us from complete idiocy. [youtube-embed id="qqebzAWv0hI"]