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I don't see why this type of government intervention should worry anyone. It's about information transparency. Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels

by robg 18y ago

I don't see why this type of government intervention should worry anyone. It's about information transparency. Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? There are also shelf tags, in supermarkets, dictating price per quantity. How do any of those measures hurt the free market? If anything, it forces food vendors to better evaluate their products in contrast to their competition. And that seems to be exactly what's happening. A little bit of transparency goes a long way. Seems to me, that's a perfect role for government. The government argument for me isn't all or none. It's: How much?

jbert 18y ago
> Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? Well, it's fairly close to an issue which has been controversial: whether to require the labelling of GM milk. Personally, I'm happy for there to be a goodly amount of regulation about consumables. I don't think a raw free market (if you sell food which makes people sick, your brand will suffer) provides enough protection in that case. I was really trying to think about the benefits+costs of forcing sellers to give more information to consumers, and how that might translate to other products. (Warning: - this program is written in C - it may suffer from buffer overruns. - this program is written in .NET/java - it may require a huge download in order to run - etc) Slightly more seriously, how about a govt regulation which required showing typical working set size of your program in operation in Mbytes? How about being required to notify users that your software patches system-level functionality? (no more DRM "rootkits" )?
- cstejerean 18y ago
  If I could create backup copies of myself and/or run copies of myself in a VM I wouldn't really care about labels on food, medicine or even FDA approvals.
  - jbert 18y ago
    You might, if you find out too late that your liver has been compromised and rolling back to a previous snapshot means you're not married anymore.
    - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
      Actually, I think that would be a killer app for many people...
mseebach 18y ago
> Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? Well, there are two factors: 1) If the government mandates that a certain value is indicated on the label, it also vouches to a certain extent that the "better" value (lower for calories) is actually "better". So calories is OK, but it's a slope. How about an Atkins-adherence(or whatever)-index? The problem is that once such a measure is implemented, it is exceedingly difficult to get rid of it, even if it turns out to be bogus or even misleading, because the politician supporting it will be accused of being anti-consumer (why would s/he be against more information?), or just in the pocket of Big Food. 2: It may not be very cost effective to calculate the appropriate value. Consider a restaurant, where the chef that goes to the farmers market every day and gets whats really fresh and in season. The chef now has to commit time, everyday, calculating the calorie-count for each dish. More bookkeeping, less cooking. It may be easy to do for calories (I'm not sure, I'm neither a chef nor a dietist), but what if it requires samples to be sent to a lab somewhere?
shawndrost 18y ago
"I don't see why this type of government intervention should worry anyone." Regulation disproportionately burdens small players. If other drafts of restaurant legislation don't exempt small players, my favorite restaurants (and my friends that run them) get a big headache. Regulation seems to swell unless it is violently opposed. I've been locked out of exciting things by it personally (international trade), and seen it killing the things I love (eccentric houses, innovation, hiking trails) in my few short years of adulthood. I like this regulation. But I'm going to holler mightily if it tries to get any bigger.
- Retric 18y ago
  I think restaurants with 15 or more outlets stopped being the little guy a while ago. There is a lot of poorly done regulation that hinders the little guy but that's more an execution detail than a basic fault of regulation.
- khafra 18y ago
  I feel that critiques of regulation focusing on quantity instead of quality miss the mark. Regulation to protect and empower consumers usually differs substantially from regulation designed to create barrers to entry. Regulation protecting the environment and other third parties can have barrier-type consequences, especially if its creation is influenced by corporate lobbyists, but it's certainly possible to do well. What we need is intelligently designed regulation; more "source lines of legislation" isn't necessarily worse, if it covers edge cases well. The real problem, of course, is the incentive structure for the people who vote on the legislation. It needs fixing, probably by some large, concerted effort of very smart people and a national referendum.
Prrometheus 18y ago
I am against mandatory calorie counts on menus for restaurants. I don't think it passes the benefits-costs test. And, it gives me the impression that I live in a society where everything I do is being watched and regulated. Sometimes I just want to buy a bowl of chow from another human being without justifying my action to some self-righteous bureaucrat.

by robg 18y ago

jbert 18y ago

> Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? Well, it's fairly close to an issue which has been controversial: whether to require the labelling of GM milk. Personally, I'm happy for there to be a goodly amount of regulation about consumables. I don't think a raw free market (if you sell food which makes people sick, your brand will suffer) provides enough protection in that case. I was really trying to think about the benefits+costs of forcing sellers to give more information to consumers, and how that might translate to other products. (Warning: - this program is written in C - it may suffer from buffer overruns. - this program is written in .NET/java - it may require a huge download in order to run - etc) Slightly more seriously, how about a govt regulation which required showing typical working set size of your program in operation in Mbytes? How about being required to notify users that your software patches system-level functionality? (no more DRM "rootkits" )?

cstejerean 18y ago
If I could create backup copies of myself and/or run copies of myself in a VM I wouldn't really care about labels on food, medicine or even FDA approvals.
- jbert 18y ago
  You might, if you find out too late that your liver has been compromised and rolling back to a previous snapshot means you're not married anymore.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
    Actually, I think that would be a killer app for many people...

mseebach 18y ago

> Can anyone seriously argue that ingredient labels are anti-market? Well, there are two factors: 1) If the government mandates that a certain value is indicated on the label, it also vouches to a certain extent that the "better" value (lower for calories) is actually "better". So calories is OK, but it's a slope. How about an Atkins-adherence(or whatever)-index? The problem is that once such a measure is implemented, it is exceedingly difficult to get rid of it, even if it turns out to be bogus or even misleading, because the politician supporting it will be accused of being anti-consumer (why would s/he be against more information?), or just in the pocket of Big Food. 2: It may not be very cost effective to calculate the appropriate value. Consider a restaurant, where the chef that goes to the farmers market every day and gets whats really fresh and in season. The chef now has to commit time, everyday, calculating the calorie-count for each dish. More bookkeeping, less cooking. It may be easy to do for calories (I'm not sure, I'm neither a chef nor a dietist), but what if it requires samples to be sent to a lab somewhere?

shawndrost 18y ago

"I don't see why this type of government intervention should worry anyone." Regulation disproportionately burdens small players. If other drafts of restaurant legislation don't exempt small players, my favorite restaurants (and my friends that run them) get a big headache. Regulation seems to swell unless it is violently opposed. I've been locked out of exciting things by it personally (international trade), and seen it killing the things I love (eccentric houses, innovation, hiking trails) in my few short years of adulthood. I like this regulation. But I'm going to holler mightily if it tries to get any bigger.

Retric 18y ago
I think restaurants with 15 or more outlets stopped being the little guy a while ago. There is a lot of poorly done regulation that hinders the little guy but that's more an execution detail than a basic fault of regulation.
khafra 18y ago
I feel that critiques of regulation focusing on quantity instead of quality miss the mark. Regulation to protect and empower consumers usually differs substantially from regulation designed to create barrers to entry. Regulation protecting the environment and other third parties can have barrier-type consequences, especially if its creation is influenced by corporate lobbyists, but it's certainly possible to do well. What we need is intelligently designed regulation; more "source lines of legislation" isn't necessarily worse, if it covers edge cases well. The real problem, of course, is the incentive structure for the people who vote on the legislation. It needs fixing, probably by some large, concerted effort of very smart people and a national referendum.

Prrometheus 18y ago

I am against mandatory calorie counts on menus for restaurants. I don't think it passes the benefits-costs test. And, it gives me the impression that I live in a society where everything I do is being watched and regulated. Sometimes I just want to buy a bowl of chow from another human being without justifying my action to some self-righteous bureaucrat.