Yes, but government health regulations greatly reduce the liklihood of all of those. You go to USC. There's no way your pansy ass could survive in this unregulated 3rd world country you apparently want the US to be.

How does the free market solve consumer problems that they have no way of knowing about?

Also, are you saying that the government had no impact on nutritional labels being started?

I can't believe you know enough about economics to mention externalities (a good point btw) yet you cannot fathom how it might be in the best interest of suppliers to ensure the quality of their own products. If you supply a quality of product that is inferior to a competing supplier, you will go out of business. Supplier competition ensures that the quality of the product improves, not the government.

Nice, when you lose the argument, it's good to know you can still always resort to ad hominem attacks. And thanks for the tremendous insight into the troubles of third world countries. Who knew that if their governments would only enforce a few more arbitrary regulations, they'd be well on their way to unimaginable wealth!

I used the analogy of an Xray machine, i'm not sure what could be more apt.

It's seem obvious that many of you only read the first sentence of my post and stopped there. (Fun fact...)


Ok, all together now, say it with me. EM-FA-ZEE-MA. HART-DUH-ZEES. (<--phonetics)

Nobody is saying smoking is not unhealthy, especially myself. I was simply pointing out the CIG->CANCER link is tenuous pseudo-science, at best.

It's an off topic factoid that doesn't even have much to do with this discussion, the second-hand smoke and outdoor ban, etc, etc.

Lord have mercy.




P.S. Truthfully, even though this is a smoking thread, any discussion of my point is just more and more off topic. It was more about my disdain for people that disrespect science or logic.

Are you familiar with the 'Orange Tshirt tiger analogy'?

It states that I wore an orange Tshirt today, and didn't get attacked by a tiger, therefore orange Tshirts ward off tiger attacks, ldo.

I resorted to that because USC sucks, not because I lost some lame argument that we don't need health regulations.

I am a non-smoker. But I do not let the fact that I am a non-smoker cloud the objective reality that a ban on smoking is simply the government allowing itself to control what goes on in a private business. When someone supports the government infringing others personal liberties in one sense but not in another (poker, trans fats, alcohol, whatever) it is a clear indicator that they lack objectivity.

CalmB4theStorm,

You're obviously not very good at solving problems. The correct play is spraying them with fire hoses filled with AXE BODY SPRAY, not bannings.

My response was in regards to:

and not your fun fact. I thought the weather patterns thing was a funny way out there notion. :P

If the demand is great enough, an entrepreneur will fill the gap in knowledge. I would have had no way of knowing whether USC was a good school if it weren't for US News' rankings. I would have no way of knowing if a Toyota Corolla is a reliable car if it weren't for Consumer Reports. Etc., Etc.

I have no knowledge of the history of nutrition labels. Care to enlighten me?

P.S. I suggest you start a thread in the Politics forum if you want to continue this discussion. I feel like I can hold my own for the most part, but there are quite a few people over there who are much more knowledgeable and articulate than me.

Buzz,


Saying "fun fact" was never meant as any disrespect. It's a popular phrase used on children's cartoons and PBS shows and cereal boxes etc, based on the notion that it's "fun" to learn new things.

No, they wouldn't, and in most jurisdictions they have no information on trans-fats at the moment anyway. This is a really weak snipe.

Do you support the right of manufacturers to include poison in the food they sell without informed consent or not? If not, how is that different from trans fats?

here
I was responding to the assertion that markets always produce the best possible solution. This is clearly wrong in the presence of externalities. In the case of smoking, by smoking you are imposing a cost on those around you, since they must either bear the negative impacts of cigarette smoke or relocate to another place which bans smoking; obviously relocation is not positive absent your smoking or they would have done that regardless. This is a classic case of an externality, your choice negatively impacts on my set of choices.

The paper you quote is way outside the economic mainstream and seems to be merely a series of bold assertions. It's central argument appears, from my skimming, to be flawed; he asserts that in certain cases adjustment for externalities would produce negative consequences. That may or may not be true but it does not imply that externalities do not cause market failures. Either could be true, or both, or neither.

O RLY?

bbbaddd - But it has been proven!

People who claim it has not been proven either have not seen the proof or have looked at the proof and claimed that it is not proof.

The little cells that develop into cancerous cells may always be present, but they don't actually develop into what is diagnosed as cancer until something causes them to do that. What causes them to do that in some individuals? Inhaling materials containing various lung irritants, including cigarette smoke, is what causes them to do that.

If you want to be asinine about it, I suppose there is no "proof" that you and I currently have brains.

Buzz

Why do you think the government needs to protect the consumer from trans fats? It's easy to avoid, and who are we to impose value judgments on someone who enjoys cheap trans fat food even if they know that they may die from it?

PWND by your own chart.

U
C
L
A
!

Is it easy to avoid? I couldn't tell you by looking at a menu or food item whether its free in trans fat or not.

In the theory of perfect competition yes, but there is this little thing called practice. You don't know what's in your food. Without perfect information markets don't function in the way they are ideally meant to. That's why health and safety legislation was first introduced; the food people were eating routinely included brick powder, sawdust, rat poison and other rubbish because they had no way of knowing.

I'd like to see a ban on incense in churches. That [censored] is like 50x more toxic and dangerous than cig smoke.

Jeez. You don't have a natural right to never be annoyed by another person ever. People are annoying. If you want people to stop smoking next to you in a restaurant, ask them to stop, or get the manager. Take some [censored] responsibility instead of asking for the government to hold your hand all the time. It's your attitude that gave us the 1:30am last call. And the ban on drinking outdoors. And the ban on street performing downtown. And the ban on lap dances in LA. And poker legislation. This state has become so boring and sanitized that visiting European cities is like a breath of fresh air, where you wonder why the hell we gave so much freedom up here in the name of safety. Where is quids when you need him to call people sissies.

Buzz,

I'm not sure how you discerned my actual position on this issue from that post. I only mentioned what I thought he was saying.

What you said doesnt really make sense, nor does it support your assertion that the market would make such a thing less likely.

What would exist in an AC state basically exists now, if the government doesnt stop the current bad business practices then a more free market economy as proposed by ACists wouldnt actually do any better.

Anyway, im done here because this has turned into random AC argument whereas the reality is most people in the world dont want to smoke so they have banned second hand smoking the only way possible, by banning first hand smoking.

Cat's out of the bag, eh Labarde?

All, try not to troll the SRS BIZ threads too hard, a little diversity is good. I welcome the politics forum members for a little SRS BIZ CONVO as long as they don't troll up the fun threads.

They're not easy to avoid. I have no freaking way of knowing which foods contain them and which don't, unless I cook every damn thing from scratch and never eat at a restaurant. When I buy food I want to know that it's safe for human consumption, and the market isn't providing me with that assurance.

About 20,000 people a year die in my country from the effects of trans-fats, and probably 80% of those have never even heard of them.

Yes, they would, and I'm not sure what you mean by "most jurisdictions", but every single food in my apartment lists the trans fat.

Yes, and since it sounds like such an incredibly successful business plan, I'm sure it will become wildly popular.

Cliff notes / page numbers please.

First of all, how would the government resolve this "problem" that you are describing? The market only "fails" in cases of poorly-defined property rights, which is most definitely not the case here. If you could prove that me smoking on my property was harming your health while you remained on your property, then you could claim negative externalities and sue me.

It sounds like you've never heard of the Austrian School of Economics, or Mises.org. I strongly recommend that you take a look at some of their teachings. It was really eye-opening stuff for me. They're definitely not a part of "mainstream" economics, but that's really not surprising since they so strongly support the free market. It's hard to gain government support when you're arguing against that very government's existence.

P.S. As I mentioned earlier, you should start a thread in the Politics forum if you want to continue this discussion. There are a lot of guys much more knowledgeable than me over there...