- Americans on average visit quick service restaurants 17 times a month. An annual survey ranks the top 10 cities in the USA by average number of visits to fast food restaurants. Citizens of McAllen, Texas average 25 monthly visits per person.
In completely unrelated news, the proportion of obese people (BMI > 30) increased 24% from 2000 to 2005.
I’m not saying Canada is any better. Childhood obesity rates in Canada mean that children today have lower life expectancy than their parents for the first time in our history.
- Nearly half of all workers in the USA have less than $25,000 in savings. This is a slightly different stat than discussed here previously, but with similar consequences. How much are taxes going to have to go up as people with no assets retire?
- Kurt Vonnegut has passed away. If you haven’t discovered him yet, please do. It may not help your retirement savings or your waistline, but I guarantee it will be rewarding.
Jessie - In light of this post, I think this quote is rather apt: “Vonnegut once suggested carving the following into a wall of the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures, ‘We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard… and too damn cheap.'” May he rest in peace.
Kel Parsons - Does $25,000 refer to cash at hand, or can it refer to liquifiable assets? I’m trying to figure out just how feckin’ irresponsible I am . . . .
Danielle - In a wonderfully written obit for Kurt Vonnegut that I read today:
Kurt Vonnegut was a good man, a kind man, a
mensch. Our world is a shallower, drearier place without him. But
anyone who has enjoyed any of his work, or been lucky enough to bask
in his twinkle, can still rejoice, because we will always have him, in
all his idiosyncratic twisted-chess perversity. The world is less
without him, but it will always be more because of him.
— Andrew Leonard