I got a question for all the people that believe that government....

[Elwar]

Why were they losing business? Because people heard about ecoli. How did they hear? Not from some private investigator or consumer inforamtion publication but government testing.

Umm, no...some dude died from eating a hamburger in Jack in the Box and people freaked.

 

[torchbearer]

Umm, no...some dude died from eating a hamburger in Jack in the Box and people freaked.

I remember that.. wasn't that in Texas?

 

[Zippyjuan]

Umm, no...some dude died from eating a hamburger in Jack in the Box and people freaked.

Thank you for the correction on that.
http://www.about-ecoli.com/ecoli_outbreaks/view/jack-in-the-box-e-coli-outbreak

Jack in the Box E. coli Outbreak
In 1993, hundreds of people were injured and four children died after eating at Jack in the Box restaurants. The primary cause of the outbreak was adulterated hamburger patties manufactured and sold to the restaurant chain by one of its suppliers.

Litigation that resulted from this outbreak took years, and tens of millions of dollars, to resolve.

 

[max]

should remove any and all regulations on businesses.

Let's imagine a situation.

I am an owner of a big food manufacturing/producing co. I make apple juice. I have calculated that, to shave off the manufacturing costs, I can put a certain agent (we'll call it agent x) into my apple juice. The manufacturing costs are down, and the stuff tastes better, so the profit increase will be two fold: costs less to make, more ppl buy it.

But the above mentioned agent X is toxic. It causes cancer, thus, consuming my apple juice will cause cancer as well.

There is no government agency to tell me I can't put agent X in the juice. There is no government agency to tell me I have to tell anyone that my products carry agent X in them. Thus, outside me and the very few trusted business friends of mine, the dangers of the agent are completely unknown.

Should the government interfere since public health is at risk? And if yes, doesn't that at least partially destroy the argument for laissez-faire capitalism?

Thank you.

This has nothing to do with Laisezz faire. The state exists to stop murder ....Anyone who says the market should solve a situation like this is a libertarian crackpot purist that discredits us.

Rigid ideology is cultish.

 

[Working Poor]

What is to prevent them from being used?

Apparently nothing cause it is in so many foods now. There used to be certain foods I trusted not to have aspartame in it. Now I am back to double checking labels cause I have found it is some things I have eaten for years here recently. They used to have to put a symbol on the label that would tell you aspartame is in it not anymore cause I am defiantly finding it in more and more foods. Between aspartame and the swine flu maybe monsanto and big Pharma will finally get their quotas of deaths.

 

[rrcamp]

The answer is simple: some entity would be formed to fill this void. Maybe Consumer Reports would come up with a certification plan where products are tested to confirm their safety. Maybe a non-profit would form, where consumer groups fund random lab tests of products on the market, etc.

 

[john_anderson_ii]

I haven't read the whole thread, because I'm on kind of a time budget, but I'll respond to the OP.

should remove any and all regulations on businesses.

Let's imagine a situation.

Let's stop right here. Let's imagine that pigs fly, the sky turns purple, and a huge asteroid is heading toward earth. What would you do in this situation? Seems kind of silly to be imagining scenarios now doesn't it. Especially since a free market is not some sort of new, imaginative plot out of Hollywood, but is a tried and true system in point of fact.


Let's not imagine anything. Lets learn from history. If you have questions about, or wish to highlight the shortcomings of an unregulated and free market, there is plenty of history to pick through. There's no need to concoct any sort of doomsday/shame-on-the-market scenario, given the fact that it has all been done before, and everything new is old again. As a matter of fact, I'm sure if you look into it enough, you'll find these doomsday scenarios are remedied by the market as soon as knowledge becomes available. (Let's not even pretend government can assist with the apolitical availability of knowledge, because that's just an insane idea).

I am an owner of a big food manufacturing/producing co. I make apple juice. I have calculated that, to shave off the manufacturing costs, I can put a certain agent (we'll call it agent x) into my apple juice. The manufacturing costs are down, and the stuff tastes better, so the profit increase will be two fold: costs less to make, more ppl buy it.

But the above mentioned agent X is toxic. It causes cancer, thus, consuming my apple juice will cause cancer as well.

These two paragraphs are a good example of wild imagination combined with a lack of free market knowledge. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling you stupid or putting you down in any way, that is not my goal. On the surface, this is a logical tract of thought, someone could do this with their business. However, we will soon see that once some free market economics and business logic takes hold, anyone who does this will have committed business, and likely personal, suicide. When that someone is responsible to a board, a tort, and/or the criminal code, we will see that every effective measure to discourage this type of activity is already in place.

Let's look at the scenario:

Assumption A: Agent-X boosts the volume of apple juice.
Assumption B: Agent-X reduces the cost of manufacturing.
Assumption C: Agent-X makes your product more desirable.
Assumption D: Nobody notices Agent-X is toxic.
Assumption E: Agent-X makes your company more profitable.
Summation: Agent-X increases production, reduces costs, increases sales, and thus makes your apple juice company more profitiable.

Corollary of Assumption A: Since Agent-X increases your production of apple juice, you need not buy as many natural resources (Apples/Energy) to produce your demanded amount of product. This creates a surplus in the market whereas your competitors are buying apples and energy at a lower cost. Your competitors, without the benefit of agent-x are now producing more for lower per-unit costs.

Corollary of Assumption B: Since you are introducing Agent-X into your product, thus decreasing your manufacturing footprint and costs, you have just created a surplus in the apple juice manufacturing market. It could be apple picker labor, machining and tooling, or whatever, the exact vehicle isn't really important. The basic principle is those market resources which you are no longer paying to employ are now at the disposal of your competitors. Since you are no longer vying for their services, their services have become less desirable, and now your competitors are picking up these services at a cheaper rate because the demand had weakened. In other words, your competitors are now increasing manufacturing infrastructure at a lower cost.

Corollary of Assumption D: This is out of order because the outcome of Assumption C hinges on the outcome of the Corollary of Assumption D. If you were in direct, head to head competition, Welch's Vs. Florida Natural style, do you honestly believe, for one second, that your competition wouldn't be testing your product? Your competition has every right, once they've paid for a glass to put your product under their microscope. Once their paid labs have found that you are using agent-x, and that agent-x is toxic, do you think they'd keep it silent? Now, this would quickly degenerate into your paid labs and their paid labs participating in a marketing war. However, in a free market, there is a place for several consumer awareness agencies, who like "Free Credit Report" or whatever, investigate these sort of marketing claims. In a free market scenario, those who are bought off and screw the consumer lose, because the consumers are their revenue stream. Now this business comes to a head and "Consumer-reports-X" details how your company is using agent-X and how toxic it is.


Corollary of Assumption C: Agent-X doesn't make your product more attractive, because there are now opposing mind shares in the marketplace. "Your company uses Agent-X", "My company uses only natural Apples". The better taste of your apple juice might or might not be outweighed by my "greener" more "natural" advertising campaign.

Corollary of Assumption E: Now, you, the CEO of Apple Juice Co. are on the hook. Assumption E. hinged on the fact that no-one would ever find out that your apple juice is toxic. For obvious, free market reasons, that didn't pan out, you can't keep a secret from free competitors trying to wing you at every turn. Now you are in the open. Let's examine your profitability. Sure, in the beginning you made more and sold more apple juice than your competitors, but as you let go of resources to save on costs, others swooped in to fill the void. Now you are looking at a class action tort, upheld by the federal government without any sort of U.S. wide regulation. Multi-state and multi-defendant torts were upheld even during the civil war, because they nearly always go in the businessman's favor, and they are much more forgiving than a one-at-a-time assault which builds upon case history. So now you are on the hook for millions, or billions in damages due to torts. Now come the criminal arms of the States in which you did business. You knew your product was toxic, yet you still sold your product in these states. Basically, an investigation by each state would be held and they would do their best to find out who knew agent-x was toxic, and those who knew, but served it anyway, would owe these States years, if not their entire lives.

In short, Assumption E is false. This Agent-X would not, in the long run, or even the very short term make your company more profitable in the slightest. Any CEO who didn't see this coming doesn't deserve the parking spot. Agent-X didn't make your company more profitable, agent-X only served to dissolve your company, and to let the state eat what was left of it's corpse after the tort had played through.

That is how free market capitalism works. You try to screw the market, the market remedies the situation. No central planner needed. Who here, today on this board, doesn't think that in this situation, the central planner would try to bail out and float the company serving up agent-x? Of course they would, and the toxic apple juice would continue to flow via taxpayer dollars.

There is no government agency to tell me I can't put agent X in the juice. There is no government agency to tell me I have to tell anyone that my products carry agent X in them. Thus, outside me and the very few trusted business friends of mine, the dangers of the agent are completely unknown.

Wrong.

1.) There isn't one federal agency to tell you can't put agent X in your juice any more, there are now 50ish state agencies. Each one who doesn't disallow you the use of agent-x only fuels the torts which are now pending. Secondly, in today's 'managed' economy, you can cut a deal with one central FDAgency, which will allow you to continue marketing your poison so long as said FDAgency can brow beat the States into compliance with the deal it made it you. In a free economy you won't have a federal shield, you'll reap as you have sown.

2.) The dangers are known and widespread, and no company without federal gag-order help can keep it under wraps. Especially when your competition can buy your product on a store shelf, analyze it in a lab, and publish the findings. Only the government can save you from the press humiliation and torts by gag-ordering the tester and calling it all a trade secret. That's why your fictional juice company is now seeking umbrage under the Federal umbrella just like Big Tobacco did. (Striking resemblance huh?)

Should the government interfere since public health is at risk? And if yes, doesn't that at least partially destroy the argument for laissez-faire capitalism?

Thank you.

No, government should not interfere. As we've already seen, government would prop up the Agent-X carrying apple juice industries in order to save jobs before it would allow apple-juice/agent-x to fall. Even if those market resources would create more and better jobs elsewhere.

Maybe you misunderstand the idea of laissez-faire capitalism. laissez-faire doesn't mean that no-one watches. laissez-faire means that everyone with an interest watches. Backroom deals with the pharma lobbyists are looked down upon in a laissez-faire community, because we aren't allowed to watch what happens. laissez-faire is to economics what the GPL is to software. There isn't one reviewing agency, there isn't one person or group of people you can make a deal with to survive. There is only 'be better' or 'be replaced', and that is the truth about laissez-faire economic systems or core software systems.