Ron Paul and Jessie Ventura?

[BobCox2]

Ron Paul winning in Maine

Boston Herald reports that Ron Paul has won. Source Overall, Paul has won the majority (uncomfirmed that he won all 15 delegates at large) of delegates. Note that they are unbound (see below).

Also note that Charles Cragin, who lost the vote to chair the convention, says the Paul delegate violated the rules of procedure and therefore may not be seated at the national convention.

Paul will win ME, and also will have managed to change the leadership of the republican party at the state level in electing a State Chairman who supports Paul. Romney backers and the establishment are not happy about the results. Webster did not say that the Paul supporters were breaking the rules, but did say this situation was emblematic of why they should switch to a primary vote instead of a caucus process for choosing delegates. The establishment's anger and frustration in losing control were exemplified by David Sawicki, in the picture below, who made a motion to halt the delegate confirmation process. His motion was ruled out of order. Source

I am so proud of Maine and all those people who sacrificed their entire day to be there to support Paul. I admire the state for their dedication, respect for others. NH should listen to Maine and live up to their creed, "Live Free or Die."

[BobCox2]

Ron Paul shows he knows how to avoid Debt yet again.




Ron Paul’s long-shot presidential campaign started winding down today — done in by the candidate’s lack of funds, senior aides admit.
“It was a financial consideration definitely,” campaign spokesman Gary Howard said.
The 76-year old Texas congressman’s coffers have dried up recently and actively campaigning in the 11 states yet to hold primaries would have thrown the campaign into debt — something Paul strongly opposes.

Too bad we can only afford what's sold to us by a 2 party system.

Can you say Bad Choices People?

False Alternatives Anyone?

It's Sad I started this thread because of a Mouse that Roared Politically.

Delta is a constant people, and De-Nile is not just a river in Egypt

[jmervyn]

Too bad we can only afford what's sold to us by a 2 party system.

Agreed that it sucks, but Paul simply isn't capable of winning the general election. He'd have the 40% of pro-socialists voting against him plus the 20% ignorants plus perhaps 10-15% GOP Whig/establishment deciding not to show up. So that's 40% against him with only 20-35% for him.

And don't even try to tell me that the OWS filth actually would support him; they pay him lip service the way the media paid McCain lip service, but they'd flock to whichever treasonous puke the Democrats decided to run (Bernie Dohrn, the way things are going).

{EDIT - some think Paul's playing the long game, and that makes some sense}

Steve definitely has lost the battle of wits here. Too bad; I was going to talk about how massively Rachel Sterling pwns his Maggie Lawson chick. But I'll post this bit anyway - "Are we suffering from 'bad religion'?"

This teaching goes back almost literally to the founding of the Christian faith, as the website Catholic Answers shows:

• “The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (Didache 2:1–2 [A.D. 70]).

[Stevinator]

My apologies for the delay. Killer posted first So I'll do that first, and Jmerv, I'll tackle yours soon.

A meaningless platitude. About as meaningful as saying that “a good policy is one that benefits people”. My question is similar to the one before. Who gets to decide if there are limitations in the existing market? Not everything that can be produced is produced; mainly because there is not a market for the product (i.e. not enough people will buy enough of the product to cover the cost of production).

Platitude? Looks like I'm getting ganged up on here. Anyway, I've lost you on this not everything that can be produced stuff. As far as who gets to decide, that would come from people demanding certain protections on the things they plan to put in their mouths. I think it's rather obvious consumer protections have to come from the consumers. The free market failed--many food producers did not label their foods, so the people made it a law. That's actually a good thing, since more laws are there to satiate a very small group who were good at lobbying, whereas everyone eats, so this protects everyone.

Again, who gets to decide what and how much information is good for the Market? As to the cost of labels being negligible, this government site estimated the cost of implementing the current labeling system at “a total quantified cost of $1.5 billion over 20 years for the regulation”. And this cost does not even consider the cost of changes to products, which would require that the product would have to be re-tested, re-certified, and re-labeled.

Your article is arguing FOR the labels. Also, most of that is one time costs like inventory. In the long run, it's more important to know what we're putting in our mouths.

And why can’t they predict a firm’s reaction? Because a firm now has to factor in the cost of obtaining the new label (including the testing involved) before they decide to make changes to their product. The mere switch one vegetable for another in a can of soup (ex. peas for corn) would require that food scientists would have to re-test the soup in addition to put on new labels. Some companies will decide the changes are not worth the cost and there is a good possibility that the some of the rejected changes would have resulted in a healthier product.

Again quoting your own article, over 6,500 foods were rolled out in reduced fat versions in the first three years. I'm sure many many more reduced sodium, natural sugars, gluten free, etc etc etc types of food were introduced into the market because consumers were given the power of more information, and once they started learning what was in their food, they changed their demands on what they'd buy and eat.

The article estimates that 52,105 illnesses/deaths would be prevented due to the enforced labeling, which works out to a cost of $28,788 for each. Estimated deaths that would be prevented were 12,902, which works out to $116,261 per. Not quite support for your ‘significantly larger’ claim.

Yikes, that's how you're measuring label efficacy? You can't quantify the benefits, but you can paint a picture. 59% of consumers have changed their behavior based on the new labeling. That stat is from your article. How can you measure the benefit from that? We can't, but it's clearly tremendous.

---

Absolutely not true. The same government article I mentioned above states:

So for 60% of food brands, the market failed to get them to disclose the contents of their products. Seems like more argument for having to step in.

---

Your whole scenario is based on two very big assumptions. (1) Manufacturers of light bulbs did not already include measurements of efficiency in their advertising and labels, and (2) people only bought the cheaper incandescent bulbs because they did not have the information available to make a better choice. Please show evidence for either.

I know that some people prefer the illumination from incandescent lights while others prefer buying something made in America over something made overseas. Others are worried about the increased risks associated with the new lights due to their components. I, myself, have one light fixture I can’t fix that keeps blowing bulbs long before they’ve reached their normal life expectancy. I put the old bulbs in because it’s the cheapest way to handle the situation. Also, the new bulbs do not work as well as the old ones in very cold temperatures. All of the above are valid reasons for buying the old bulbs no matter what information is on the label.

I actually have to go buy two light bulbs, one in the fridge, and one flood style for the kitchen. when I do, I'll look for what sot of labeling is on the packages. I'm sure they say something, but it's probably marketing flotsam that isn't particularly trustworthy. The nice thing about the nutrition labels is that implied in their existence is that if caught lying, cheating or exaggerating that there would be some sort of government recourse.

You misunderstand the point I was trying to make. Being libertarian is similar to being pregnant; it’s pretty much an ‘all or nothing’ philosophy. You either believe that everyone has the right to pursue his own self-interest as long as he doesn’t directly violate the self-interests of others, or you don’t. The government taking away freedom from people for their own good is ALWAYS a no-no. The fact that you recommend such actions much less than others doesn’t mean you have libertarian leanings.

First, I didn't claim to be a libertarian, i said that my views were closer to that part of the political spectrum than anywhere else (there was a lengthy response because Jmerv keeps trying to name call/label me too). Second, I don't think that that it is true. Didn't the Libertarian party recently spend days fighting about whether their should be a purist or a realist in charge of the party? Clearly, even among those that actually identify as libertarian, there are sharp disagreements. Saying you are or you are not, is no different than making people choose Dem or GOP. People's political stances fall all over the spectrum. they're so hard to nail down that many political scientists use several axis on their graphs, because they feel social and economic are not enough to properly measure the phenomena.

Did you ever take the time to wonder why certain markets have become more ‘oligopolous’? Consider the number of laws and regulations like labeling that a new company has to comply with before it can open its doors. Imagine that you are a new company that makes potato chips. How many local health codes and FDA or Agricultural codes would you have to comply with just to open your shop? Now, if you want to market your product via retail stores, you’ll have to hire a lab to test your chips so that they can quantify the nutritional makeup of the chip. How easy will it be for you to spread this cost over the thousand or so of bags that you hope to sell compared to the millions of bags that a Frito-Lay sells? Now, let’s say that you find an oil vendor that offers to sell you a healthier oil at a reasonable price. You might have to turn him down because of the additional costs you would incur in order to re-label your packaging would be greater than any increased revenue you could earn from the healthier potato chip.

sure it's possible that the testing could cause that. however, the chipmaker is already changing his label to advertise on his packaging that it's "now healthier" or whatever, so he's changing the label anyhow. in the first three years, 6,500 brands rolled out new packaging, so the barrier can't be that bad.

The only true consumer protection is the ability to make decisions based on your own self-interest. If nutritional labeling is important to me, I’ll purchase products that have them. If enough people believe the same, producers that label their products will gain market share. If I’m in the minority, I’ll expect (and should) pay an additional price for such labels. Also, you are misusing the term ‘economies of scale’. It does not equate to being oligarchic. In fact, since it is always related to decreased production costs, it actually benefits the customer since the producer can sell his product for a reduced cost and still make his normal profit.

If I was picking on you, I'd say that first sentence is a platitude. Anyway, I understand your argument, but I don't agree. Markets may be the best system we've found for efficiently managing resources, but they are not perfect, and there are times when we need to step in. (another platitude I suppose). If you'd like, we can make a quick list of times when government did step in and shouldn't have.

Bigger company -> greater scale (hence lower costs) -> competitive advantage. Not misused. Possibly badly worded...I'm no shakespeare.

The fact that some people have benefited for labels is meaningless by itself. For example, why not demand that no cars can be driven except those that meet the highest safety standards in the Market given the fact that that would definitely reduce car accidents and deaths? Looking at benefits without looking at the related costs is a mistake.

Again, your elitism is showing. Because you “know” that it’s beneficial, you believe that the Government interference is justified. You also seem to believe that other people are either too stupid or too lazy to come to the same decision that you have, so you have decided that it’s ok to force them to do so for their own good.

I see what you're saying, but those costs are tiny compared to the amount spent on food. Especially since much of that was a one time thing, and we continue to eat food day in and day out. Also, it's not just me. 59% of consumers changed their behavior because of the label. 40% of brands had labels before they were supposed to. People want this. It's not like the food producers lobbied congress. Give us more regulations! no, it was the consumer rights groups (people) who demanded it. Not so much on the elitist thing.

BTW, I may have to keep track of all the fun things I'm being called here. I have to say my RL friends call me much more vulgar, but less interesting things. With teh exception of Borty, who is now banned. He used to accuse everyone of "snorfling" various terms for genitalia (****snorfler). That was the best insult ever.

You even admit that you’re no expert in the field and that many of your assumptions are based on gut feelings, but you still want to force your views on the rest of Society! The list of studies done so far on the effects of labeling have shown no significant correlation between labels and improved health regarding the main health issues that were behind the labeling (obesity, heart issues, etc.,). In fact, these health concerns have continued to increase after such labels became mandatory, and the one test of mandatory nutritional labeling of food in fast food restaurant showed absolutely no changes in consumer habits.

This is a good point. not the part about my dictating my (and only my) position on the oppressed majority (which I addressed above), but the part about us not getting any healthier. That is true. You can't say labels made us fatter, but you might say they in of themselves were not effective in fighting the obesity epidemic. I doubt they hurt anything, but there's no way to know if the change was too slight to take on the "girth" of the problem. That is a problem, it's hard to measure how effective things are because you can't go back and measure what would have happened. I do want to note that we were already getting fatter before the labels.

There is also plenty of evidence that producers have ‘gamed’ the system (ex. Changing their cereal sweetener from all sugar to sugar plus other sweeteners to make wheat the first ingredient, changed their serving size so that the amount of calories, etc., per serving appear smaller.) Plus, only a slight majority of people say they look at labels, and an even smaller percentage actually change their purchases based on these labels.

No doubt that they try to game them, which is why self-labelling didn't work. no sane producer would put info on their label that made their food look bad. that's why we needed the labels, but also the system for determining what information would be presented and how it would be presented. I argue that 59% is a significant majority. I bet come november, neither candidate has 59% of the vote.

[KillerAim]

Stevinator:

As far as who gets to decide, that would come from people demanding certain protections on the things they plan to put in their mouths. I think it's rather obvious consumer protections have to come from the consumers.

From the consumers? Please link me to articles that covered the consumer outrage that existed before mandatory product labels existed. Point me to political campaigns where the issue of mandatory product labels was covered in the debates, or covered by political pundits, or in op-ed pieces. This was a top-down agenda driven by a bunch of special interest groups. It didn’t come from the people who had already demonstrated their views on this topic (See: immediately below).

The free market failed--many food producers did not label their foods, so the people made it a law.

Bull feathers! More than 60% of the Market had labels before this law was passed. If the consumer felt that such information was vitally important, the sale of products with these labels would have approached 100% of the Market because the non-labeled products would not have been purchased. The will of the consumer was accurately and definitively demonstrated by the Market.

That fact that the results did not reflect your or the special interest groups’ expectations is not any indication of a failure. What it IS evidence of is the fact that certain people like yourself believe that they have the right to impose their point of view on the rest of us in spite of positive proof that a material percentage of people reject this view.

Again quoting your own article, over 6,500 foods were rolled out in reduced fat versions in the first three years. I'm sure many many more reduced sodium, natural sugars, gluten free, etc etc etc types of food were introduced into the market because consumers were given the power of more information, and once they started learning what was in their food, they changed their demands on what they'd buy and eat.

There is no evidence that supports your conclusion that the requirement for labeling product ingredients lead to the growth in ‘healthier’ foods being available. The addition of these food products was almost certainly the result of consumer demand for these products. This is how a free Market works. People became more conscious about the potential benefit of eating foods that contained (or did not contain) certain ingredients and the Market responded.

For example, you will have to admit the Government has never supported the low-carb diet craze; however, many restaurants and food producers sell ‘low-carb’ products. Why? Because there was a Market for them. The same can be said for organic, high-fiber, and non-gluten food products.

59% of consumers have changed their behavior based on the new labeling. That stat is from your article. How can you measure the benefit from that? We can't, but it's clearly tremendous.

Remember, over 60% of the products were already labeled, so you cannot attribute the change of behavior to the labeling of the other 40%. Also, if you look at the study, you would have found that the 59% was the number of people that SAID they changed their habits. The study did not test to see if they actually changed their habits. On top of this, who’s to say that the nutritional labels have caused habits to change for the better? According to this study, the law lowered nutrition:

In the nearly two decades since regulations required food products to contain a "Nutrition Facts" label, the overall nutritional quality of branded food products in supermarkets has decreased while the taste of these same products has improved, according to researchers at Duke University and the University of Maryland….

"We think the main reason for our results is that consumers find taste more important than nutrition, as indicated by consumption trends during this time showing increased consumption for added fats and sugars as well as a 100 percent increase in calories from snacking," said Christine Moorman, professor of business administration at Fuqua.

"And since nutrition is perceived to be negatively correlated with taste, we believe many companies decided to reduce the nutritional value of their food products after the passage of the NLEA," Moorman said. "Since nutrition labels were generally not present before the NLEA, consumers would not be aware of these changes, only that the product competed well on taste."

Here’s another study that shows that people say they overstate how much they read labels:

How often do you look at the Nutrition Facts label on the side of the box? A new study reveals that people say they look at it a lot more than they actually do…

Researchers found a big difference between what the eye tracker said people looked at and what the participants self-reported they typically looked at while shopping. Thirty-three percent of participants said they “almost always” looked at a product’s calorie content on the Nutrition Facts label; 31% said they almost always looked at total fat content (20% said they looked at trans fats); 24% said they studied products’ sugar content and 26% said they paid close attention to serving size.

What the eye-tracking data showed: only 9% looked at calorie count for almost all the items in the experiment; 1% looked at each of the other components, including fat, trans fat, sugar and serving size, for almost all of the products.

-

So for 60% of food brands, the market failed to get them to disclose the contents of their products. Seems like more argument for having to step in.

Wrong figure: less than 40% weren’t labeled. The article also stated why the 40% didn’t label their products: they believed that the cost of labeling exceeded the benefit of labeling. That’s the only logical conclusion for a company to make. You assume that 100% labeling is a good thing. The Market, both the producers and the consumers, said otherwise.

The nice thing about the nutrition labels is that implied in their existence is that if caught lying, cheating or exaggerating that there would be some sort of government recourse.

Repeating myself again, the Market approves of government recourse against those who are caught “lying, cheating or exaggerating” in their advertising. These recourses existed before any labeling mandates and they will exist if all such mandates are overturned.

Didn't the Libertarian party recently spend days fighting about whether their should be a purist or a realist in charge of the party? Clearly, even among those that actually identify as libertarian, there are sharp disagreements. Saying you are or you are not, is no different than making people choose Dem or GOP. People's political stances fall all over the spectrum. they're so hard to nail down that many political scientists use several axis on their graphs, because they feel social and economic are not enough to properly measure the phenomena.

That fact that you equate someone calling himself a libertarian to someone calling himself a Republican or Democrat shows how little you understand libertarianism. Of course there are differences on certain topics (abortion being probably the most contentious one), but libertarianism is still based on a few core principals which do not change over time. The same cannot be said for the two major political parties.

Libertarianism is a belief system. Even the ‘argument’ you mentioned demonstrates this point. The one side argues that there should be no compromise on libertarian beliefs while the other side argues that, in order to obtain libertarian goals, compromises must be temporarily made. Both sides argue for the same eventual outcome. But, as I stated before, your position represents a view that will never be accepted by any libertarian. I defy you to find one libertarian article that approves of the Government intervening with a person’s personal freedom ‘for his own good’.

Again, that fact that many of your positions align with those taken by libertarians is only a happenstance, since you reject our core beliefs. You believe that the Government can interfere with a person’s freedom if it determines that the interference will ultimately benefit that person. This is a belief that is also held by conservatives, liberals, moderates, socialists, communists, and religious or secular authoritarians. The only difference between those groups is what freedoms can be interfered with and to what extent the interference can take place. This position is rejected by libertarianism. The eventual benefit or harm caused by the governmental interference is never a factor that we consider. We reject all governmental interference unless it directly protects individual freedom.

sure it's possible that the testing could cause that. however, the chipmaker is already changing his label to advertise on his packaging that it's "now healthier" or whatever, so he's changing the label anyhow. in the first three years, 6,500 brands rolled out new packaging, so the barrier can't be that bad.

You missed the point. Since the chipmaker can’t afford to change his product due to the cost of the new testing he would have to do, he couldn’t legally change his product to a healthier one. As a result, he could not make a change that would have benefited both him and his customers.

And, I’ve already covered how attributing the 6,500 new brands of products to the new labels is bogus. Did you ever think that both could be the result of the people becoming more knowledgeable about the link between health and what you eat? Manufacturers responded to the increased concern by offering healthier products. Politicians responded like they always do; they came up with a new ill-considered law to show that they were doing something.

You can't say labels made us fatter, but you might say they in of themselves were not effective in fighting the obesity epidemic. I doubt they hurt anything, but there's no way to know if the change was too slight to take on the "girth" of the problem. That is a problem, it's hard to measure how effective things are because you can't go back and measure what would have happened.

Shall I point you to articles that argue that many people confuse low fat with low calorie and end up consuming more calories due to product labeling? What about articles that say that the legal manipulation of serving sizes on the mandated labels has led to people believing that they are eating a low calorie snack of a bag of chips because they didn’t realize that the nutritional guide on the bag reflected two servings rather than one?

[jmervyn]

Wrong figure: less than 40% weren’t labeled. The article also stated why the 40% didn’t label their products: they believed that the cost of labeling exceeded the benefit of labeling. That’s the only logical conclusion for a company to make. You assume that 100% labeling is a good thing. The Market, both the producers and the consumers, said otherwise.

Just for the record, one of the GREATEST BEERS EVER MADE is not openly sold in the United States, solely because of the labeling required (per a conversation I had with the Braumeister back in the 1990's). One can apparently buy it in specialty shops (maybe down in Texas, where the company's official U.S. Army Braumeister during the Marshall Plan had resided), but it has to have stick-on labels applied which increases the unit cost sufficiently that it was uneconomical for Licher.

[BobCox2]

Steve you are smart to concentrate on Killer Aim, His arguments are better, I think you could learn something there, as opposed to Jmervyn where you just poke sticks at each other.

Austrians


FTQ.

[Goryani]

Food labeling:

One requirement of capitalism is an informed buyer. Under capitalism, sellers CANNOT hide details that are on the food label or details of pink slime or any number of other issues. There are no secrets under capitalism.

If a doctor prescribes a soy free diet (due to a sensitivity to the pesticide proteins added to GMO soybeans which make up the majority of soybeans produced in the US and around the world), the patient has tremendous burdens placed on them. Soybeans are a natural product placed on the GRAS list (generally recognized as safe). Even GMO soybeans fit that description since Monsanto said so and because there is no law distinguishing natural soybeans from man altered soybeans. Under small enough quantities, a natural, GRAS ingredient need not be listed as an ingredient other than as "natural flavors." This small quantity can still cause medical distress in certain individuals.

Hiding soy as an ingredient creates a hidden cost for the buyer and a subsidy for the seller. The buyer, if prescribed a soy free diet, would have to undertake a gauntlet of investigation and experimentation just to reverse engineer products to determine if they are safe. The seller doesn't have this cost because they already know the answers. You can't receive patents on the products in question without knowing what, exactly, was novel about them that merits receiving a patent.

How is a buyer supposed to undertake the reverse engineering? Most commonly, the buyer buys something and waits to get sick or not. Can you say decrease in worker efficiency? The system suffers because one entity wishes to erect barriers to break away from capitalism.

Each secret is a barrier of entry placed upon the consumer. Consumers can have barriers placed in front of them. Most barriers are placed on the consumer rather than the seller as that is how business schools teach big business. Industry does not want the consumer to learn of these barriers.

The history of the FDA is an example of breaking down barriers placed on the consumer.

Soybean allergy? Taken care of by the 2004 Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act. No recourse for sensitivity to GMO proteins yet.

Transfat was required to be labeled after companies advertised how healthy their transfat laden products were. The companies switched from saturated fat to trans fat because of a previous round of food label laws. Companies knew that consumers knew that saturated fat wasn't healthy. Requirements to show how much saturated fat was in a product wouldn't be good for business, so sellers changed the recipe. Saturated fat was out and trans fat was in. A change in recipe necessitates a new round of compliance testing costs. The "costs" associated with the new labels were mostly due to recipe changes, which would occur with old label as well. True, the new label caused many more recipes to change in a given time frame, compared to no new label laws, but that doesn't change the fact that the seller chose to change recipes.

"Organic" was finally defined to be something objective.

COOL (country of origin label) allowed consumers to distinguish beef from mad cow areas from beef which has had no mad cow incidents. Unfortunately, it still has too many loopholes to adequately inform consumers.

The oleromargarine act made it illegal for sellers to sell cheap dyed margarine labeled as butter.

"Safe tolerances for unavoidable poisonous substances" is quite the mouthful.

There are uncountable other instances of barriers which need to be town down. Scallops are sold by the pound. Irreputible sellers dope scallops with a chemical that turns scallops hydrophillic. The scallops hold extra water. Buyers are paying $20 a pound for extra water. The typical buyer can't tell the difference between authentic scallops and chemically treated scallops until cooking time - after they have been bought. Not all trained chefs can tell a difference just by looking at the scallop. There are no regulations preventing this practice and there are no regulations requiring a seller to disclose

One can argue about the methods used to disclose those secret details, but not the need for requiring those details be exposed to the public. Is an in store display as good as a label on each item of food? Is a cell phone scanner code "good enough?" How about a website where a seller lists these details and a link to that website is printed on the package. What about an independently produced documentary that's played on a TV screen in the corner of every commercial, kind of like picture in picture? That's what the discussion should be about.

[Technomancer]

Another nice little food labeling disaster is sugar alcohol. It has all the harmful, diabetes inducing/aggravating goodness of regular sugar, but doesn't have to be listed on food labels. It allows food producers to label things as sugar free that taste just like the kind with sugar.

Because it still has just as much sugar in it.

[jmervyn]

Steve you are smart to concentrate on Killer Aim, His arguments are better, I think you could learn something there, as opposed to Jmervyn where you just poke sticks at each other.

Oh yeah? Come closer...