Yeah, same here.
So why, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, are insurance companies investing close to $2 billion in the fast-food industry? Why are the same companies that are selling us life, disability and health insurance simultaneously placing their bets on the very thing — cheap, unhealthy food — most likely to make us die sooner, or suffer a disability like diabetes, or rack up massive bills in healthcare?
I already mentioned the study in my piece about the sustainable food movement, but it’s worthy of further press because it exposes yet another example of corporate irresponsibility run amok in a casino economy, of money-making schemes that are playing both sides of a transaction. First, there was the “great vampire squid“–er, I mean Goldman Sachs–making a fortune by betting against the same toxic crap assets it sold to investors. Then came the news that regulators had approved the creation of a futures market for movie box office receipts, which even Hollywood slams as “an online gaming platform that could be easily manipulated”–Hollywood must remember the plot line of “The Producers,” after all.
And now this from the insurance industry, which is fretting about profits in a post-healthcare-reform world, no doubt. Their investments in fast food seem counterintuitive, at first. But if you channel the spirit of Leo Bloom, it makes perfect sense: If you can’t sustain your profits by keeping people healthy, then sustain your profits by making people sick.
