junk food in schools

Today's top BBC news item is junk food in schools. The government wants to ban it (more regulation!) But let's look at the land rent angle.

If you ban good food at schools, kids who want junk will just eat elsewhere. So a better solution is to change the kids' eating desires. Statistically, middle class kids are more concerned about eating healthy food than are poorer kids, so why not just increase the middle classes? (Not saying that poor kids don't care, but good food that tastes food costs a lot more than junk food that tastes good.) With land rent, everyone pays rent on where they live, but pay no taxes on work, so there are more jobs, and more incentive to work. Result: more self-reliant families, hence a bigger middle class, hence better food.

Children's nutrition - another problem made better by land rent.