I must say, I lean libertarian and this concept both stimulates my libertarian tendencies and yet feels rather dark and hollow.
Accepting your computation of $1 trillion, I wonder how many other “rather useless” wastes of public funds at the $1* trillion level we could identify and eliminate before we get to fluoride.
1 trillion over what time frame? Spent how by whom?
You've got a lot of homework to do just narrowing down the possible ways by which any number could be arrived at. Then you can figure out what the number realistically is.
People eat a bunch of sugar too, ask Hershey, Mars, and the bakers of Wonder Bread, the makers of basically all pasta sauces, salad dressings, breakfast cereals, etc. There is a much broader-based consumption of sugar than the drinks, though they may account for a lot of the sugar.
There may be truth to the idea that fluoridation was a giant scam, since "oil companies need subsidies", "ceos need outsize pay" and "the presidential vote was rigged but not senate house or state elections" are current examples. The idea that fluoridation could be better targeted is interesting.
1 trillion over the course of American history, since when, like very light flourination in the 1950's then stepping up the doses against all those cavities out of nowhere like in the 1970's, maxing it out ever since. So toothpaste which is accountable for ppm of flourine, says there's 1650 ppm of sodium flourine in every toothpaste you can buy at any mainstream pharmacy or supermarket. I checked every one in Líder (Walmart subsidiary), I was only comparing how F'ed up they were, they were all equally F'ed up at 1650 ppm, which in America would require a prescription, supermarkets and pharmacies in America sell 250 ppm. Ended up going to a homeopathic pharmacy (which in general I don't care fore) to buy F-free toothpaste.
A trillion is a lot of money, come on, it's a line item. If you're 25 would you like a $2500 check from the US Government in exchange for not paying like $38000 in bottles and cans, meaning have your cake and eat it too?
This is not the traditional subsidy accusation. I came up with it myself. The presidential vote was not rigged--in this election, in 2016 I can say it was, I was impeded from voting. These are not stereotypes I'm repeating.
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So the tragedy is the government is in practice, by subsidizing salt in the water, all because of trust in dentists, trusting that cavities are children's worst health problem when really bullying is worse and F'ing leads to being bullied...with all those wrong assessments, really it's the government subsidy for an expensive poison that Coca-Cola could never afford or be able to carry out itself and that is 99% wasted because it is watered on plants or flushed or showered in and never touches teeth, that subsidy is the cause of Americans being busted and overweight, sedentary, addicted to all kinds of crap sugar salt methamphetamines crack (yes) or on a good day ADD medication, because the government wants that. Crack epidemic was only possible with F'ed up water, stimulants including meth don't work properly without F'ing up the water, they need to create demand for these addictions before supplying the white poisons (as salt and sugar are called in the East, because they're both white grains, but this includes crack and often meth, and stimulants, mostly white granules). Can't address a market need without creating a market need.
Government subsidizes all these addictions, in the only way that it can, with something ubiquitous and inescapable by all but the very rich, who do in fact drink endless bottles and cans.
Apparently they don't actually realize this all in one sitting, they don't get the panoramic view of the whole thing in one shot, they have to be progressively corrupted as government workers into buying one piece at a time. Or a specialist must become a dentist before having any say, that means buying into it and getting into educational debt beholden to the system. It's actually not that nepharious in a single shot of ill intent.
It is a trillion but not that that impressive because it took some 30 years...or 50 years really...to get to that amount. But if you pair that refund with being able to drink tap water freely, delicious pure tap water like bottled water out of a pipe. That's called the latte factor, how much Americans spend daily on liquids stedda the tap water like they would if they were smart. Or bulletproof or something, like not even Superman can deal with getting poisoned, this is kryptonite. Flourine is kryptonite. If kryptonite fucks Superman up flourine will too because it reacts with kryptonite--like it does with all but three noble gasses, kryptonite isn't a noble gas.
The name for it is latte factor, means spending on Starbucks coffee and liquids in general that are totally needless. In Smart Couples Finish Rich, it said just drink tap water and save money. Yeah. Impossible, everybody naturally reacts by craving and caving for bottles and cans at crazy prices. Higher than gasoline, by a lot. Reason the middle class has no savings, according to that book, because they waste so much on latte's because they're stupid. Yeah stupid.
Like where's all the Germans in Germany and French in France and English in England getting obese because they are stupid? White Americans are those same nationalities in ancestry, and if you go inland, it's insane how fat they get. Insane. But the Chileans in Chile morbidly obese? Yeah obese children all the way, because they flourinate there, not in Europe but in Chile yes, very aggressively.
Accepting your computation of $1 trillion, I wonder how many other “rather useless” wastes of public funds at the $1* trillion level we could identify and eliminate before we get to fluoride.
You have given me some homework to do!