Weird stuff inside the food, and enticing, persuasive words about the food: Both in their own distinctive ways are responsible for the overwhelming wave of obesity that has engulfed society.
Actually, nowadays, words are pretty superfluous, except to identify where to get the stuff. People who sell just about anything tend to rely mainly on pictures to do the convincing for them. Matters in that realm are definitely advancing. Still, in certain situations, like in cars where they are not supposed to have their attention fixed on screens, people are still quite able to be influenced by words alone.
When it comes to pouring enormous amounts of money into the economy, visual and auditory stimuli both play their parts. Every little purchase of a convenience-store doughnut, glimpsed by someone who just went in there to pay for gas, performs its role in the overall ascendency of food.
Or maybe automotive fuel has nothing to do with it. Maybe somebody pulled off the highway after listening to a radio advertisement for McDonald’s. Even if this isn’t Mickey D’s place, the ad has elicited hunger pangs in the driver, who is not taking any chances on the odds of spotting yellow arches any time soon. He or she will happily chow down on whatever they can get right now.
Children grow up to be that driver, and that driver produces more children who will take after him or her. They become accustomed to hearing constant demands that they drop whatever they are doing, and lay their hands on something that can be quickly conveyed to their mouths. Like devout zombies, they hear and obey.
Two for the price of one
The bizarre chemicals added to food and the words said about food both play their parts to account for enormous expenditure by individual members of the public. Additionally, we pay even more via the government agencies and bureaus that exist to try to stem such evils as the damage caused by obesity.
All these financial demands could be alleviated by more widespread awareness and a stronger resolve on the part of the public to do something about them. There is no need to arm ourselves with pitchforks, like the townsfolk in an old-time monster movie. We are not asked to roam beneath a full moon to hunt down the entrepreneurs who make and peddle the chemicals, or the ad agency moguls who sell us sugar and bright colors and substances that could only with the most lavish addition of imagination be described as nourishing.
One way for members of the public to effectively react would be to band together, raise our voices, and demand that the government Do Something. Of course, as always, when the government is asked to, or assumes the right to, intervene in the sale of a product or service, differences of opinion may arise.
For instance, when any market commodity is in short supply, should the government allow another company to also sell it? For how long? But what if Company B offers it to customers at a lesser price than Company A, the one that invented the stuff and holds the patent on it? Should the government then intervene again, and put a stop to that seemingly unfair practice? After all, it was that first corporation that hired all the scientists and bought all the test tubes so the product could be deemed fit for consumption.
However, in the business world, “shortage” has more than one meaning. There may be a worldwide shortage of titanium, for instance, because mining companies can’t locate accessible deposits of it in the earth, or dig it up fast enough to meet the demand.
But — the ingredients of GLP-1 agonists are not as rare as titanium. In manufacturing those drugs, the unavailability of the raw materials is not a factor. Any company that can lay its hands on the raw materials can make some. They just can’t sell it unless the government says okay. However, critics believe that to prevent them from doing so — in order to give one pharmaceutical giant a monopoly — is wrong.
This is why Thomas L. Knapp wrote the accusatory article, “Semaglutide: Artificial Shortage is Novo Nordisk’s Business Model.” The fact that other companies — if allowed — can whip up a batch of the same potion any day of the week, and sell it at a fraction of Novo Nordisk’s price, looks like a conspiracy against the vast public who clamor for medication that helps them lose weight without losing the deed to the house, their kids’ college funds, and great-grandma’s wedding ring.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Semaglutide: Artificial Shortage is Novo Nordisk’s Business Model,” TheGarrisonCenter.org, 02/10/26
Image by kaboompics/Pixabay
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