Shocker: FLOTUS’s plan to weed out “food deserts” failing to bear much fruit
posted at 2:41 pm on May 7, 2012 by Erika Johnsen
As a part of her “Let’s Move!” campaign, the government-funded endeavor to curb childhood obesity within a generation, First Lady Michelle Obama has lectured upon the necessity of eliminating “food deserts.” Mrs. Obama argues that these urban and rural communities, where the supply of wholesome foods and fresh produce is ostensibly very limited, are a direct cause of unhealthy lifestyle habits. If we would only subsidize easier access to more nutritious foods, she reasons, the people in these communities would use their newfound options to diversify their dinner plates, and hey, problem solved! Unfortunately, like most centrally-planned projects designed to impose top-down virtue, the First Lady’s plan isn’t really taking root, reports Bloomberg:
After vowing to open more than 1,000 stores selling fresh fruit and vegetables in underserved urban neighborhoods, or “food deserts,” grocers have opened a fraction of them, putting in jeopardy Michelle Obama’s effort to improve food choices for low-income Americans.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), which said last July it would have 300 food-desert stores nationwide by 2016, has opened 23 and delayed opening some locations after a backlash from activists. Supervalu Inc. (SVU), which pledged to double to 2,376 its Save-A-Lot stores, has slowed the pace of openings amid declining sales and scarce financing for its licensees. Meanwhile, grocers are opening stores in wealthier urban enclaves.
Food desert locations, by definition, aren’t profitable, according to Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California at Santa Barbara. …
Shoppers who live in low-income city neighborhoods “don’t fill up a basket and spend $100, they buy $10,” said Lichtenstein, who wrote “The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.”
This is yet another example of nanny-state bureaucrats ignoring the laws of supply and demand and attacking the symptoms instead of the disease. First of all, last month the New York Times reported on a study that not only dismissed a correlation between food-desert locations and obesity rates, but also demonstrated that low-income neighborhoods are typically awash in food options, including nutritious foods. So, that’s your basic premise out the window right there.
Secondly, if there really aren’t many healthy foods to be found in these areas, it’s only because there isn’t a market for them. For whatever reason, people in these areas do not want to buy fresh-caught scallops and broccoli sprouts. The likeliest over-arching explanation is indeed low-income levels — having the time and money to plan, shop for, and cook nice healthful meals is a luxury that comes with prosperity — but spending taxpayer money to merely improve access to these communities’ foods isn’t going to change that.
If the Obama administration really wanted to improve Americans’ nutritional intake, they’d stop with the costly small-beans band-aids and instead look for ways to support the robust, flourishing economy that is the only true full-scale remedy for weeding out the problems of poverty. Hint: higher taxes, an unprecedented regulatory agenda, and meddling legislative hack jobs like ObamaCare don’t make the list.
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Since he always makes it about his race…….let’s remind everyone of the obvious.
He’s only 1/2 black, and 1/2 Vulcan.
PappyD61 on May 20, 2013 at 9:24 PM
You must not have heard the parts I did which were racist to the bone.
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 9:26 PM
But does Obama mean any of those lofty pronouncements, does he really believe in them?
I can’t find myself willing to accept it as fact.
Liam on May 20, 2013 at 9:26 PM
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 9:28 PM
Indeed.
visions on May 20, 2013 at 9:29 PM
Libdie was in the front row jerkin’ off.
bazil9 on May 20, 2013 at 9:29 PM
BTW nailed people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
Resist We Much on May 20, 2013 at 9:30 PM
Martin Luther King: “I have a dream”.
Barack Hussein Obama: “I have an endless dependency”.
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 9:31 PM
Lol.
“Morehouse College”
Is that what happens when you can’t get a GED?
tetriskid on May 20, 2013 at 9:34 PM
Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand for everyone can see but few can feel. – Niccolo Machivelle
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 9:35 PM
I cannot bear to watch these two jerks, much less read long quotes from their speeches. But while scrolling down my eye was caught by Mrs. Jerk’s comment
Who makes that slander? This reeks of Mr. Jerk’s constant use of strawmen.
GaltBlvnAtty on May 20, 2013 at 9:39 PM
As I explained, this is actually a problem in the black community. Michelle Obama was not indicting anyone else in this sentence. Also, you could actually read before getting all bent out of shape about being wronged via strawman, huh?
Mary Katharine Ham on May 20, 2013 at 9:43 PM
The guy who should have given the address.
bazil9 on May 20, 2013 at 9:43 PM
Someone does..as I heard many a black kid say it to another black kid, when I was in school.
bazil9 on May 20, 2013 at 9:44 PM
Is that where he ‘teaches’? Morehouse?
jimver on May 20, 2013 at 9:45 PM
jimver on May 20, 2013 at 9:45 PM
Bugs bunny voice*
could be
Ham Hammers lurking.
bazil9 on May 20, 2013 at 9:47 PM
Love Sowell…thanks B9
CoffeeLover on May 20, 2013 at 9:48 PM
The man doesn’t even care about the race he has chosen to represent.
Leaving out the social injustice parts, and there were plenty; this was a speech that a First Black President of the United States should have given to inner city high school, middle school, and kindergarden graduates. If Morehouse is the “Harvard” of black colleges, these men have already “made it”.
CTSherman on May 20, 2013 at 9:48 PM
Sure thing Coffee.
A fave of mine too.
bazil9 on May 20, 2013 at 9:50 PM
How does Obama “support” his family. Has he ever had an actual job?
happytobehere on May 20, 2013 at 9:51 PM
May I suggest that minor marijuana possession is made possible only by criminals and killings? That landlords who find that the floors have rotted out of the houses they rented to nicely dressed young couples who converted those houses into grow farms? The Mexicans lined up and murdered on the roadside? The farmers killed so their land could be taken?
I have no sympathy for those who use. They are the welfare recipients of tomorrow.
unclesmrgol on May 20, 2013 at 9:55 PM
Just once, I wish she’d talk to me like that.
/hearts
CurtZHP on May 20, 2013 at 9:55 PM
Do any of you for one second believe I read any of that drivel?
Ms Ham what are you thinking??!!
I forgive you :-D
Scrumpy on May 20, 2013 at 9:59 PM
Oh for crying out load, standard liberal feel good claptrap and Ham thinks it’s praiseworthy. It must the first time ever a college commencement speech mentioned personal and community responsibility. You know, if you don’t count every other one ever given.
lowandslow on May 20, 2013 at 9:59 PM
While I understand your ability to see the good in everyone, and how there can be times when those on your political opposite can do things you can agree with or get behind, I would say that these speeches ring a bit hollow. I say that because neither have actually lived the lives of those they have mentioned in their speeches. My two favorites are BTW and GWC and both made it by the sweat of their own brow, not by being groomed and handed things.
MarshFox on May 20, 2013 at 10:04 PM
His job is to fleece your pockets and just in general make your life as miserable as he can.
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:05 PM
Science; Tetrahydracannibinol (THC) is the active ingredient in marijuana- what makes you high. It takes the place of nicotine in tobacco, which gives you a buzz.
Both bind to tars. THC is so efficient at it that a typical joint contain roughly four times as much tar as a similar amount of the roughest shag tobacco.
The law of averages states that no matter how sophisticated, mellow and worldly pot smokers think they are compared to evil rednecks who smoke tobacco, they are also at least twice as likely to suffer the same results as tobacco smokers; lung cancer, emphysema, etc.
Once more, we see that stupidity is a self-correcting problem in the gene pool.
PS; I don’t smoke. Anything. And never have.
clear ether
eon
eon on May 20, 2013 at 10:06 PM
I would say that these speeches ring hollow. I say that because neither have actually lived the lives of those they have mentioned in their speeches.
MarshFox on May 20, 2013 at 10:04 PM
bazil9 on May 20, 2013 at 10:07 PM
A man [or women] who wishes to make a vocation of seeing good at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good. – Niccolo Machiavelli
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:09 PM
He wore that leopard lingerie that he heard the REB favors, but no luck for Libby.
slickwillie2001 on May 20, 2013 at 10:11 PM
Yes, and whatever happened to that saying, “Fool me a thousand times, shame on you. Fool me another thousand times, same on me”?
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:12 PM
Put me in the highly skeptical column with Scrumpy and the others. Obama is a scammer.
Fallon on May 20, 2013 at 10:14 PM
If Barack Hussein Obama read for an hour from the New Testament of the Bible, MKH might well nominate him for sainthood. Not me.
By their fruits you shall know them!!!
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:15 PM
The thing is, I don’t have to believe it. What matters is whether the audience believes it and responds to it. In this case, I think merely delivering the message is a step in the right direction down a long, slow, winding road to better outcomes. And, the audience is not going to listen for half a second to me saying it, so I’m glad someone they will listen to is.
If I had quoted the same passages and told you Ben Carson said them, you’d believe it. It’s not all “standard liberal claptrap.” That’s the point. The OSU speech was ONLY statist claptrap. This one had another, far more conservative element. I think it’s interesting he saves it for this audience, and great that they hear it.
Mary Katharine Ham on May 20, 2013 at 10:16 PM
He learned well as the Borgias had him jailed and tortured. Most miss that his Prince was written as a satire against those who did it to him. That said, I am glad there are people in the world like MKH, because it reminds me the world isn’t as bad as I always have to see it.
MarshFox on May 20, 2013 at 10:17 PM
Remember, Barack Obama also said he was outraged at what had been going on at the IRS for the last three years.
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:18 PM
Yes, read my HotAir canon for my nonstop praising of the Obamas. Douche.
Mary Katharine Ham on May 20, 2013 at 10:18 PM
How many more government agencies will Obama have to turn into crime organizations to dampen your outlook?
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:20 PM
Well, I’m not surprised to get a reaction, but I was expecting one a little more subtle.
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:21 PM
“Douche: a word to describe an individual who has shown themself to be very brainless in one way or another, thus comparing them to the cleansing product for v—aginas.”
Yes, that’s what I thought that meant, and here I though this was family programing.
VorDaj on May 20, 2013 at 10:25 PM
You are far better than me, for you have mastered the lesson turning the other cheek, and as I said up thread I am glad for that, for unfortunately my vigilance requires a different view of the world.
MarshFox on May 20, 2013 at 10:25 PM
It takes great faith to be an optimist. It also comes with the eventual disappointment.
nobar on May 20, 2013 at 10:28 PM
Great job MKH!!!It’s really a pity The President and Michelle wasted so much time with Jerimiah Wright, if they hadn’t, the could have been a much more positive influence on the community. It’s quite obvious they still have a lot of the Reverends prejudices within them.
bflat879 on May 20, 2013 at 10:29 PM
He can turn as many as he wants, though I would say that most have already been there long before, I would go back to at least Wilson, to see the government rot take hold. I won’t fault her for a positive outlook, especially since I cannot have one.
MarshFox on May 20, 2013 at 10:29 PM
You all really miss me when I stay away. Yeah, and as usual, you’re massively wrong. I hated the speech and most of my friends and acquaintances in the black intelligentsia were not into it either. A number of folks have written excellent critiques, this is my favorite.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/13/05/how-the-obama-administration-talks-to-black-america/276015/
This one is also quite good, with a touch of humor and emotion.
http://kieselaymon.com/?p=2454
libfreeordie on May 20, 2013 at 10:32 PM
Nothing they say has credibility anymore. Even when they say words that sound correct it seems accidental.
MT on May 20, 2013 at 10:34 PM
So, are you saying that he is a case of ‘do as I preach and forget about my policies’ (and doesn’t this implicit duality puts his audience at risk of cognitive dissonance?) or that he actually found his conservative/individualistic inner voice? I will believe it’s the latter when it translates in sensible policy making, until then I am not giving him the benefit of the doubt just because of yet another speech…
jimver on May 20, 2013 at 10:40 PM
I heard a few clips and he was using that fake southern accent. I don’t take anyone serious when they do that crap. “I don’t feel no ways tarred”
Brat on May 20, 2013 at 10:41 PM
You seem harbor the white guilt. I don’t. Read Michelle obamas thesis.
There are no bigger racsist out there.
The whole premise of this submission is flawed. Like you have some urge or need to agree with him because. He’s (1/2) black.
Content of character.
He’s an effing marxist. I don’t feel a need to assuage.
You are young and naive, and being played by a race hustler.
It’s the the most misguided post you have done.
wolly4321 on May 20, 2013 at 10:55 PM
Urf. They deserve none at all. This is how conservatives fail – falling over themselves when the blind squirrel finds it’s nut and throws a crumb. No thanks.
This response was beneath you and shows exactly how/why the trolls have taken over and turned the comments section into a sewer.
kim roy on May 20, 2013 at 10:58 PM
Douche.. I guess I’m one too, because I find your seemingly desperate urge to agree with dogeater, kinda pathetic.
I don’t know why you do that. Insult posters.
You are the only one that does. I don’t know why Ed stands for it.
wolly4321 on May 20, 2013 at 11:12 PM
Barky’s speech had a far more conservative element.
Mmmkay. If you say so.
wolly4321 on May 20, 2013 at 11:31 PM
You bet, after four years of swallowing the rhetoric of people like Michael Eric Dyson and Mellisa Harris Perry, it is all going to be washed away by the same generic boilerplate commencement speech heard on 95% of the campuses across the nation just because it was given by Obama or his wife.
lowandslow on May 20, 2013 at 11:38 PM
Bravo Ms. Ham! You may have some nonpartisan bone in you still…
nonpartisan on May 20, 2013 at 11:40 PM
heh…just realized my previous comment could be construed in a ‘dirty’ way
nonpartisan on May 20, 2013 at 11:40 PM
About sums ut up.
wolly4321 on May 20, 2013 at 11:47 PM
The students may have learned that over the last four years, but Obama hasn’t!!
Obama is STILL making excuses!
ITguy on May 20, 2013 at 11:50 PM
Dream on, slimeball!
If I were MKH, I would ban you for that comment.
She is a happily married woman, and you are disgusting and rude to suggest that your “nonpartisan bone” would be in her.
I hope she does ban you for that.
ITguy on May 20, 2013 at 11:55 PM
It would be nice if he didn’t change his message based on the skin color of the audience.
ITguy on May 20, 2013 at 11:59 PM
By their fruits you will know them.
Cleombrotus on May 21, 2013 at 12:09 AM
Obama simply played the race card……again. This laggard, lazy, Choomer does not really have another play. Or another thought.
SAFETY TIP: Do not choose Obama as your Bridge or Cribbage partner.
pat on May 21, 2013 at 12:31 AM
Total bullshit.
wolly4321 on May 21, 2013 at 12:34 AM
And Ham thinks it was because of the audience. It couldn’t be that Obama changed up the speech because of the sh*t storm he stirred up after his cynical speech.
lowandslow on May 21, 2013 at 12:43 AM
The Oamas are racists of the first rate.
Plus, his “you have to work twice as hard as a black” b/s – he has never worked a day in his life, and never produced anything, but hot air.
Schadenfreude on May 21, 2013 at 12:59 AM
This isn’t the first time that Barack and Michelle have had very different (and somewhat conflicting) messages for a predominantly black audience vs. a predominantly white audience.
ITguy on May 21, 2013 at 1:00 AM
For those who want a proper analysis of Obama’s “great speech” -
As more and more evidence is uncovered by congress, it doesn’t look good for President Obama. But he does have a couple of cards left up his sleeve – the race card and the victim card. And on Sunday during his commencement speech at the graduation of predominantly black Morehouse College, President Obama decided to go all-in and play both cards at once.
Masked in his personal responsibility speech to the Morehouse College graduates, President Obama clearly identifies himself as being down with the struggle and no less a victim of racist America than any other black man. He told the crowd, “As Morehouse men, many of you know what it’s like to be an outsider, to be marginalized, to feel the sting of discrimination. That’s an experience that a lot of Americans share.” Obama also spoke of his personal mistakes saying, “Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency to make excuses for me not doing the right thing.” But it’s important to understand that the underlying message President Obama is trying to convey to his supporters has nothing to do with responsibility, but everything to do with excuses. More specifically, that he is a victim of racism, and that attacks on his administration in any form are just another attempt to “keep a black man down.”
It’s obvious from Obama’s move that there are more revelations to come from the scandals in the coming weeks and months. So Obama’s playing both the race and victim card is clearly a desperate move on his part. That’s because he knows he needs to win over the low-information voters and win back the liberal media as soon as possible so they can begin to do his bidding in the arena of public opinion. The talking point will be that America’s first black president is under attack. And you can bet that their voices will be heard loud and clear as the liberal media will cover each and every one of their demonstrations, rallies and marches wall-to-wall in conjunction with any possible damaging revelations that come out the Obama administration.
Watch closely the next few weeks as the liberal media begins to latch on to Obama’s victim and racist narrative as more and more damning facts emerge on Benghazi, the IRS and the Justice Department.
VorDaj on May 21, 2013 at 1:29 AM
In his speech to the Morehouse college graduates, Obama was clearly doubling down on the racism meme and rallying the troops. He is meaner than a snake and not only that, he is a cornered snake. That display, amidst the fancy words, is a glimpse of the fangs that are set to tear our country limb to limb if he feels more cornered. That anyone could see his speech as anything else, as positive, is simply astounding.
VorDaj on May 21, 2013 at 1:45 AM
MKH: I, too, appreciate hearing praise for Booker T. Washington and Dr. George Washington Carver. I think they were possibly the most important leaders of their generation. (My history may be a bit off, but I think of Frederick Douglass as being the previous generation.)
In general, if either Obama parent would tell me that water is wet, I would go out and verify, but I think it is important that they a) say the right things from time to time–if not more often–and b) get praised by those of us who fight almost all of their policies. Such praise demonstrates that we actually pay attention to the issues, not the spokesman, and the speakers need to get reinforcement of their “goodspeak”.
Having said that, I think that the President was saying that which he didn’t believe (even though it was really truthful), but Mrs. O probably meant the statement about reading is not acting white, even if the rest of her total speech was not helpful.
Kevin K. on May 21, 2013 at 1:47 AM
I understand that Morehouse College is an excellent college,and is selective in their choice of students.
Kevin K. on May 21, 2013 at 1:52 AM
MKH, do not make the mistake of finding anything this Obama creature says praiseworthy.
Sherman1864 on May 21, 2013 at 2:12 AM
Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly.
VorDaj on May 21, 2013 at 2:42 AM
Listen to me, I have beautiful stories I can spin you
Stories to linger within you
Close your eyes and we’ll ride my carousel
For, you see, stories are the one thing I do well
Come, let’s believe stories can be just as real as they seem
Let’s live on dreams..
PercyB on May 21, 2013 at 2:51 AM
“…typical white woman…”
Barry’s pet name for his blackwashed Grandmom.
profitsbeard on May 21, 2013 at 4:01 AM
Nothing keeps the “Black Man Down” any better than the big government Democratic Party holding on to a large segment of its constituency with dependency and freebies. Barack Hussein Obama is the leader of this institution. The stench of this hypocrisy is worse than July roadkill.
BigAlSouth on May 21, 2013 at 6:04 AM
That’s hilarious. Both “critiques” take issue with the Obamas telling their audiences that Black kids should look beyond being rappers. Coates even blames the fact that they don’t on government policy. That’s “intelligentsia” all right.
Quisp on May 21, 2013 at 6:38 AM
So, when the Devil quotes Scripture, we should assume that the Devil is going down the right road?
Honestly, I never thought you were this naive. You really have to go out of your way to find something good to say about Obama, but you managed to do it. Congrats.
fossten on May 21, 2013 at 7:31 AM
Yes, that part was certainly . . . ironic . . . coming from Obama.
How many white law school graduates get hired as lecturers by major law schools, despite not having a single academic publication to their credit? How many white law school graduates with no significant achievements (other than being law school graduates) get offered book contracts for their autobiographies? How many white law school lecturers at major law schools get offered to be put on the tenure track, even though they have zero academic publications and have received mediocre student reviews for their teaching?
How many white community organizers, with zero executive experience and no knowledge of basic economics, get offered top positions at organizations like the Chicago Annenberg Challenge? How many white junior senators with zero military, foreign policy, or business expertise get nominated for U.S. President after serving just half a term?
As the late one-time Democratic VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro correctly pointed out in 2008, Obama would never have been taken seriously as a presidential candidate if he had been a white man with Obama’s thin resume’.
Obama has spent his entire career getting away with doing far less than the average, similarly-situated white man would have had to do to get the same opportunities that have been handed to Obama because of his skin color.
AZCoyote on May 21, 2013 at 7:51 AM
This speech may be one of the few positive accomplishments of his presidency.
But Schadenfreude’s and AZCoyote’s comments are quite accurate.
talkingpoints on May 21, 2013 at 8:14 AM
Ta-nehisi Coates (sp) isn’t very happy about Obama speaking differently to black groups than to white groups.
http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/
And did anyone notice an irony here? Milhouse? Milhouse? Richard Milhouse Nixon.
MaggiePoo on May 21, 2013 at 9:01 AM
As always, don’t listen to what 0bama says. Watch what he does.
jukin3 on May 21, 2013 at 9:10 AM
Devastating.
Cleombrotus on May 21, 2013 at 9:17 AM
Was Bammie goin all Sister Souljah at Morehouse?
BigAlSouth on May 21, 2013 at 9:46 AM
If so, Why?
If not, Why not?
BigAlSouth on May 21, 2013 at 9:47 AM
If Morehouse is “the Harvard of black colleges”, why didn’t Obama go there? We all know the answer: connections got him in to Harvard, and the connections he made there got him into the White House. Going to Morehouse would have required something like work of him.
UnrepentantCurmudgeon on May 21, 2013 at 10:08 AM
Isn’t there pretty good evidence that Obama not only smoked weed but also took cocaine? And some claim that he also sold cocaine.
J Baustian on May 22, 2013 at 12:41 AM