World Hunger

The article, "The Scarcity Fallacy" by Stephen J. Scanlan addresses the issue of World Hunger....actually...it doesnt. Instead it addresses what is NOT the issue surrounding world hunger. Scanlan acknowledges that most people believe that the reason for world hunger is an international shortage of food. However, it is actually a result of sociological and environmental factors that in turn result in a shortage of affordable food.
Solutions to world hunger have been approached through the method called "supermarket model". this method works to grow dependence on large global food industries. Unfortunately for the poor and hungry, the "supermarket model" is no productive but rather counterproductive because it causes an increase in the price of food on the market. Thus, hungry families can still not afford to buy food for themselves.
Today, the ratio of amount of food per person is the highest it has ever been. The real issue is the distribution of this surplus of food to areas with people that are poor and hungry. Scanlan addresses the true problems of world hunger as poverty, inequalities, and corrupution in food aid programs.

From reading this article I feel a little skeptical about the whole food aid programs. Why exactly is it that people as a whole havent quite figured out that what we are doing right now is counterproductive towards our goal? seems to me that we would have by now and that some changes would have been made. Yet even if changes were to be made, would it actually be possible to solve world hunger?

Burger King, Not So Cheap

Recently a friend mentioned to me that the most expensive burger in the world was made by Burger King. I immediately expressed my disbelief, asking exactly how Burger King went about making the most expensive burger in the world. He didn't know too much about, just that he knew it existed. When I got home, I immediately went to google....

Turns out, he wasn't kidding. As of 2008, Burger King's "The Burger" is the most expensive burger in the world. My mind was blown, especially by the fact that I personally do not think that "The Burger" looks as good as "The Whopper"....

Go figure...

http://most-expensive.net/burgers-world

The Food Stamp Issue

Last November, The New York Times produced an article regarding the recent incline in need for food stamps by people in the United States. With a brand new economic recession on our hands, many people have fallen to an economic level that puts them in need of food stamps. The people who have most recently began their use of food stamps actually have or had incomes that are or were higher than the poverty level, which just goes to show the intensity of the economic slump. Thankfully, the government has been willing to keep the program in motion and not made the decision to halt its growth. As a result, there is, unfortunately, more debt. Yet, at the same time, the once negative stigma attached to people taking federal aid via food stamps has diminished. The article makes the statement that fewer people felt ridiculed about using food stamps.

Personally, I do not quite agree that the stigma attached to food stamps is fully diminished. However, I believe that it is important that people who need the federal aid, take the federal aid. It is therefore crucial that the government continue to be prepared for an increase in the number of families on food stamps with the continuation of the economic downturn. Many families who were once very well off may suddenly need financial assistance.

Is there any way that the government can possibly change the name of the aid to something that could detach the negative stigma currently attached to it? or maybe make the aid more secretive that it currently is, so that people dont need to publicize their financial situation?

The Big Mac...Is it actually eating us?

George Ritzer's Sociological Odyssey, he scoops out the disturbing details on a sociological phenomenon called Mcdonaldization. Essentially, the name of this phenomenon means to imply that the United States is based solely on efficiency, speed, and rationality. The essay dishes out the driving forces of this idea of rationality in the United States: Efficiency, Predicatability, Calculability or Quantity over Quality, Substitution of Non Human Technology, and Control.

The article donates a section to each of these five categories and provides examples of each in our society. Efficiency is getting things done as fast as possible, which leads to the sacrifice of other aspects of production, such as quality. Predictablity is the idea of keeping production free of any dynamic variables so as to maintain a natural routine and consistency within the production, which in turn supports efficiency and quantity. Calculability or Quantity over Quality is exactly what is says it is. It is better for businesses to make more, poor quality products than for businesses to make fewer, good quality products, because people are willing to pay cheap prices for poor quality food. Substitution of Non Human Technology is in order to support the predictability of a business. By using robots rather than humans, each job done can be executed faster and thus more efficiently, so it creates a financial treat for the business. Finally, Control is the idea of knowing what is going to happen and how. The most important thing that businesses want to control is the people who are buying their product; They run their business to make sure people do what they want and that it is efficient and money saving for them.

Personally I find this sociological evolution to be a epidemic and extremely harmful to society. It seems to me that this is probably the cause of the huge issue of obesity in the United States. Not only that but with robots in the work force, jobs are lost and unemployment rates will rise. Finally, Being surrounded by this sociological way of life almost doesn't even allow consumers to make their own choice about whether or not they want to support quantity over quality, or quality of quantity. Eventually, nothing will have good quality anymore and the production system will yield nothing but garbage for less than a penny. Is that the sort of society we want to live in.

Does the "McDonaldization" of the United States have a spot on the list for why obesity is so prevelant in our country?

In terms of sociological evolution there must be a step that comes after this "McDonaldization"...where do scientists, sociologist, and people in general see where this is headed?