Major Hedge Fund Manager Goes After NYT Food Guy And His Use Of A Basic Economic Concept
He has taken particular issue with the cheeseburger.
Bittman appropriates some economics 101 jargon to explain his real concerns. From The NYTimes:
"What you pay for a cheeseburger is the price, but price isn't cost. It isn't the cost to the producers or the marketers and it certainly isn't the sum of the costs to the world; those true costs are much greater than the price.
"…Whatever the product, some costs are borne by producers, but others, called external costs - "externalities," as economists call them - are not; nor are they represented in the price. Take litter: If your cheeseburger comes wrapped in a piece of paper, and you throw that piece of paper on the sidewalk, it eventually may be picked up by a worker and put in the trash; the cost of that act is an externality. Only by including externalities can you arrive at a true cost."
The burger truther makes some valid points, but AQR Capital Management's Cliff Asness wasn't having any of it.
Perhaps Asness isn't a fan of Bittman, perhaps he's a staunch defender of cheeseburgers everywhere, or perhaps he just doesn't like a preacher. We'll stop speculating and man his tweets.