Comments on: What Is Consumer Freedom?

By: eric

eric — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:40:18 +0000

That’s fine, but how do you keep regulators from being captured by the industry they are regulating. It’s happened with the pharmaceutical industry. It’s happened with banking. It must be happening in many other sectors.

I’m not saying no regulation. I’m simply asking how do you keep regulators honest, doing what they ought to be doing?

By: eric

eric — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:37:18 +0000

William F. Buckley long maintained that drug legalization was a lesser evil than the drug war.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:11:51 +0000

Many products we take for granted entail risks that must be managed for basic safety, but it is not reasonable to expect a layperson to evaluate these risks and the methods used to mitigate them. For example, a few of the nasty things a hot water heater could do if not properly designed are:
- Start a fire in the basement.
- Release natural gas causing an explosion.
- Release carbon monoxide killing people as they sleep.
- Overheat water causing scalding.
- Further overheat water producing super-heated steam at the faucet and large burns.

All of these things have happened. None of them were effectively corrected prior to being addressed by code requirements. Few of these effects and the strategies used to mitigate them could be effectively evaluated by most of those who purchase the products.

Unless we turn everyone in to engineers, most people will not be able to evaluate the safety of a simple water heater.

Unless we turn everyone into financial experts, most people will not be able to evaluate the safety of all but the simplest financial products.

Under these conditions buyer beware is unworkable. Society as a whole must take some responsibility.

Savvy individuals should be allowed to take risks not appropriate to others, but some facility to ensure they are competent to evaluate the risks and that they won’t cause undo collateral damage to bystanders is called for. Otherwise we’re just socializing risk.

By: tippygolden

tippygolden — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:46:16 +0000

The Toronto Star article also says, if American health reform forces insurers to “take all comers,” the health insurance industry will join the effort to reform the food industry, in order to bring down medical costs.

By: tippygolden

tippygolden — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:22:23 +0000

What is consumer freedom? How about freedom from obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. According to a Toronto Star newpaper article Food reform will be hard to digest:

Agribusiness (subsidized corn and soy bean farming) has created a glut of junk foods, fast foods and super-sized meals in the North American diet. Furthermore,

- the medical costs of obesity have nearly doubled in the past decade
- the cost of obesity-related treatment has skyrocketed to an annual average of $147 billion
- an estimated annual $116 billion is spent treating diabetes.
- hundreds of billions more is spent annually on treatment of cardiovascular disease and cancer related to the Western diet
- researchers at Johns Hopkins project that by 2015 (just six years away) three-quarters of Americans will be overweight or obese
- a shocking 26 per cent of U.S. children entering kindergarten are overweight or obese, according to the Center for Children’s Health Innovation

By: snailboys

snailboys — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:52:15 +0000

Chris I am conservative, and most conservatives even most Republicans with a semi conservative mind would support the legalization of marijuana, because it is LOGICAL. Two Voices Blog Crazy

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:09:44 +0000

Love what you said…..Let’s dismantle Wal-mart, a culprit in the demise of local sustainable co-existence. The brands (choices) of products are slimming down in favor of “great value” shelf space for “like” products. Love to know their true blue ingredients.

By: Yakkis

Yakkis — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:05:24 +0000

Until their ponzi scheme is exposed and they flee the country?

By: Yakkis

Yakkis — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:04:03 +0000

It would need to be recursive world-wide then.

By: Shaper Bonga

Shaper Bonga — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:16:54 +0000

The main goal of big business in America is to establish consumer dependency under motto of “freedom to choose”. On the other hand big businesses overtook small family business denying local consumer from choosing local products and having access to information about the products they are purchasing and consuming. Big corporations own overwhelmingly the resources no living room for local and small family businesses and dictating what we buy, eat and drinking since they have already certain that consumers are dependent on their product and have no other choices. Big business in the United States and other parts of the world created successfully consumer dependency on corporations and source of endless profit making. The big businesses are getting bigger and untraceable. To make capitalism to work for both consumers and producers, the production technique should be break down into small scale. People want to have local capitalists not big businesses such as transnational corporations. Local market capitalism is the way to go by enhancing local farms and industrialists. Cities should consider promoting city farms by redirecting resources from inefficient uses to efficient uses. For example, there are significant lands set aside for Golf Course that used by very few population in the city. It would be productive if it used for local farm that produces vegetables and fruits where consumers and producers have access information about each other and their needs. Healthy food comes from local farms; it is fresh and in harmony with the body of the consumers since both the product of local environment. Local capitalism should be promoted for sustainable co-existence. Therefore, democratic government has a responsibility to act in the interest of its citizens and curtail the interest of special interest groups.

By: StatsGuy

StatsGuy — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:43:43 +0000

“any investors in said company cannot benefit from limited liability through incorporation”

This is meant to be recursive.

——

but separately, I strongly suspect that without the regulatory apparatus to guarantee/reassure investors, even the whiff of fraud would incite a bank run. In other words, imagine there were two classes of banks: 1) The government validates and guarantees. 2) The government explicitly rejects that it has in any way validated or guaranteed the bank… How long do you suppose the latter bank will successfully be able to operate, sell bonds, attract depositors, etc?

By: Plebeianswillrevolt

Plebeianswillrevolt — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:18:48 +0000

You can’t opt out of social security because you owe that as a debt to those who came before you and established the rules and orgainzations that you participate in and benefit from. If you would like to strike out to North Dakota and take up sheep herding or substance farming than no one will care if you enroll in social security or not. If you work in the city for a company and drive on public streets and live in a house with electricity then you signed up for the whole deal. Now PAY!

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:23:57 +0000

The government has an obligation to protect the citizens of this country and that includes protecting them from the predations of big business and those that Theodore Roosevelt labeled the “wealthy criminal class.” I submit the following sentence as proof (some of you might recognize it): “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

What defense does a solitary man have against crooked businessmen? Nothing but law. When law is in the hands of and at the mercy of big business, then the common man has no chance what-so-ever. It seems to me that Senator Shelby and Congressmen Hensarling and Garrett have obviously chosen to side with the people that pad their pockets with big campain contributions. I know that Senator Shelby is not above using taxpayer money to promote business and institutions in his home state (he is known in certain circles as the new king of pork.) It’s only when that government proposes protecting the average American that he feels the need to step forward and speak out. Shame on him.

By: george

george — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:45:42 +0000

yea but I see it as really hard to capture a whole set of companies without the help of a powerful Gov.
Oligopolies really do rely on Gov protection (like we have now). If your Gov can’t set all the rules it allows people to get around the system and get what they need / want.

By: george

george — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:41:18 +0000

when I was in collage I had an escort that had no blower. It was cold but it was what I could aford at the time and it got me to class and work.

I’d say yea let people have some more choices.