Bloomberg to ban something yet again.

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That's naive. These people are not clones of each other. Each one is a person with different opinions, agendas, intelligence and past histories. A few might be willing to accept help from foreign powers, others will be violently against it.



And starting a new government isn't like opening a McDonalds.



How did you jump to that conclusion from what I said?

You send money. The governments use it instead to buy fast cars, bigger and better weapons and renovate their mansions. Or maybe the people do get the money and they spend it on frivolous things like fake iPods and counterfeit clothes. Keep in mind, a lot of these people have the same education as a 5th grader. Or maybe a thousand different scenarios.

You send food. The drop zones are taken over by local druglord/governments and used as leverage. The people are told it belongs to said druglord/government. Or maybe it really does get to the people, they eat it all. What then?

You make an attempt to take over the country by force. The government spouts propaganda. They control the flow of information. These people don't have internet so they have no way of proving that the government is wrong. It's unlikely they have TV and even if they did, what they see in the news is probably propaganda. Plus you have these things that happened in the past that the government/news can't help but remind the people of and it just reinforces the confirmation bias that's happening in the population. Soon you have a sizable military and a population that doesn't want you there. They riot, hold protests, attack your soldiers. Back home, people see that the population doesn't want your help. Your political opponents use this as leverage and use propaganda of their own to see that your days in office is numbered. Your political opponents have allies who profit from the country as that government spends a lot of money on the products of those allies. So your political opponents have a lot of money and a large support team prepared pounce on you if your back is turned. You could try propaganda of your own but then people don't know what to believe. Soon there's many sides to an already complex situation.

This is only one side and it doesn't take into account of thousands of other things like the countries allies, international laws, our own countries laws, the economy of our country, their economy, specific historical events, the varying beliefs of the people, etc. Imagine what it would be like from the eyes of another person involved.

When it comes to politics, you need more the an admirable position and an upbeat attitude. If the problems were so easy to fix, they'd be fixed. Like I said before, fixing these problems is like playing chess against a grandmaster. You have to be on your toes and planning your moves very, very carefully.

Bloomberg is a little dictator, god help us when he moves beyond just NYC.

I'd be on the side that bets more people would actually die from the subsequent wars than from starvation itself.

Hey, we'll just drive all these trucks full of food into a sovereign nation; see how far they get before they catch an IED or RPG (and the drivers/workers executed/held for ransom); enter the military. Lots and lots of shooting and dead people later. Food doesn't end up going to those who actually need it in the end, rather to those who exploit it for profit.

Back to square one.

I thought we were talking about banning styrofoam
???
The world will be a better place without it.

I used to live in NYC for a year. Michael Bloomberg is power hungry he has been in the office for many years and New Yorkers just don't care like many other things. Banning large sodas is not going to help people will just buy another. Smoking ban actually helps but since there is a reastraunt etc on almost wery block its hard for them to find a spot a 100 ft away. Did I mention Bloomberg was a billionaire and owns a lot of the city and stocks he has his own stock. I don't smoke.

That's a massively oppressive piece of law. I suspect it means that smokers will actually decide not to spend money at restaurants or even near them if they feel demonised. The ban bans smoking in large parts of outside areas of NYC. Even the ban in the UK isn't quite as manically demented as that, but it comes close.

Personally, I don't think people should really want to smoke in restaurants, but I leave it up to the restaurateur.

People are always complaining about the government keeps in getting involved in our business! But the people elect the same people who screw things up. I think the right to vote should only go to people who are educated. The founding fathers were right most people are too dumb to vote for the president

But they are smart enough to vote for the Electors?

ruveyn

I'm not sure that a ban is the best approach in this case.

I would far prefer to see government use its taxation authority to disincentivize practices which it seeks to curb. With styrofoam packaging, we have a clear basis on which government should be capacitated to act: government is responsible for the collection and storage of solid waste. That responsibility carries an ongoing cost. So, tax styrofoam containers (say, 5 cents per) and then direct the money to mitigate the costs of operating landfills.

While bans can be attractive, elegant solutions to some of government's problems, they tend to focus opposition. But when your choices carry a public cost whether it is garbage collection and landfill operation from non-recyclable waste, or increased public costs for health care from poor consumption choices, it seems to me that government should be free to step in and say, "your conduct is going to cost public money--it is your obligation to defray those costs."

There is also the point that if tax is too high then in practice for many it's essentially a ban anyway if most are completely out of the market for it. Taxation becomes coercive, and in many instances (like with tobacco) many people find ways to avoid paying the astonishingly high taxation rates. You can end up causing more problems than you solve if you punish people too much.

The purpose of taxes is supposed to be to collect money to run the government and public functions, not as a tool of punishment.

Don't be naive. Taxes are used to show what the government and society does not approve of. Ever heard of "sin taxes"? They also show their moral opinions in making criminal law and in its spending decisions. It's well-established that tax regimes must be calibrated to incentivise desired behaviour and de-incentivise undesired behaviour. That is considered to be completely legitimate. This idea that the only purpose is to blindly collect revenue is not accepted. Even so, the decisions as to who to tax and how much, that's based on the moral codes of society and government.

I see, so when food rots it would otherwise feed the rich and not the poor. The rich are lacking food and the poor are not.

Somalia (except Somaliland and Puntland with their own governments) had a government over five years ago, united under the Islamic Courts. A certain superpower didn't like that and arranged for Ethiopia to invade, plunging the country back into this disaster.

The problem is that governments are unresponsive because it's accepted that people only have a say at election time and otherwise it's only the very wealthy that have the right to access the politicians and they give the orders and if people were to say protest in the streets the riot cops carry out mass arrests in the name of Order.

If I were to write a constitution of some new country, I would put this in it. No sin-taxes.
Now Dutch people stock up on alcohol and sigarettes in Germany, fireworks in Belgium, and they come here for the weed. What is all that good for?