I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and
> many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights
But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just
In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
I think you are saying "an NGO probably has an agenda." Ok, sure, they are not robots with no opinions, and if you read even the first few sentences of that report you can see the opinion.
But if you are suggesting that this NGO is carrying water for some unspecified shadowy group that is pulling the strings, you'll need to provide some backing for that. Who has a nefarious motivation to oppose junk food?
It's not they are not robots with no opinions. The agenda is the reason the organisation exists. NGOs exist to push agendas. If you are on the other side of an agenda it's always "outrageous" the government is funding them of course.
I do not know who is pushing but if you think there is not an entire industry of "healthy" alternatives for the companies in the article, you are very much mistaken.
Hell it might be the artificial sweetener industry, in the UK it's now practically impossible to buy a soda that is not full of artificial sweeteners, excluding regular coca cola, and regular red bull.
On social media, making dubious claims about food science or food ingredients, then following up by selling some "clean, unprocessed, organic" product is big business. (I make no claims about this specific NGO).
Yes - the obvious state of dysfunction in food regulation and lack of enforcement in that area has led to an abundance of scam supplement hawkers[1] but I don't think the right conclusion to draw from that is that all criticisms of food regulation are in bad faith - I think it's very fair to say "We should have a serious discussion about our food quality and also we need to crack down on these BS supplements". I think we're all[2] pretty well aligned on the fact that the BS supplements need the crack down but we also should introspect on why so many people are motivated to seek things like that out.
1. I personally enjoy a can of hogwater every day and am happy to give you a referral code.
2. Except those who financially benefit from hawking snake oil, of course.
astroturfing works, and is only getting better/worse depending on your point of view. it used to require people to read forums and make posts manually. now, you can automate that with a bot and in multiple languages.
It’s only bad if you value the pittance of social trust people occasionally still afford each other. That’s definitely not as cool as another vacation home and a shiny new gofast boat for some of the few thousand people in this country that actually benefit from this sort of large-scale manipulation.
Unfortunately in the current political climate “NGO” is just a hop and a step away from saying “the deep state” for some people. They vaguely gesture to it and talk about it as if it’s a bogeyman.
Not saying they are specifically doing that, but I can’t confidently say they aren’t either
Sounds like enough to pay some people for some months or a year or two - a combination of experts, part-time specialists, cotractors, etc. - to do things like gather some data via their contacts, hack together a meta-study, put out a glossy report andsome press releases, etc.
I think the bigger point is that there's an overwhelming amount of money going to push the opposite narrative. A quick search revealed that Tyson alone spends well over a million annually on lobbying and I am sure the industry at large spends significantly more on this issue alone.
Just look at their About page, which conflicts with much of the parent comment:
> international NGO
What does 'international' mean here and why do you mention it? About page: "nonprofit organisation registered in the Netherlands with ANBI (Public Benefit Organisation) status"
> ~1MM in income per year
They have a staff of over 30. They must spend much more than $1 million/year.
> In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation)
They list their top salaries on the About page, which ain't much: "The salaries of our five highest paid employees range from €69,000 to €108,000 per year." Fifth highest paid employee makes €69,000.
> directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors
The About page lists funders by name, as well as "Media partners".
> In exchange for the funding ... they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
Could you provide a source for that? Here's what the About page says:
"Editorial Independence is essential to all aspects of the work we do. We work with donors who do not impose conditions that restrict our journalism."
And from another page:
"We offer a collaborative space where hyper-local outlets and freelance journalists can work alongside staff from globally-recognised media. We exist to foster experiments with new formats and we pay particular attention to fresh ways of framing complex issues that will capture public attention and challenge misconceptions."
EDIT: How can people on HN care that much about the source, Lighthouse? Right now three users, not including the parent commenter, are motivated enough to promote the disinformation about Lighthouse that they downvoted a mostly factual, informative comment. (I don't care about the votes; they are just evidence.) Maybe there is something I don't know about Lighthouse?
In Europe though that can be a lot, or South America. And NGO people I know are mostly idealistic college kids who want to do good. Lots of creepy guys too
I don’t know that the lack of information should lead you to assume that the Mexico lawsuits are justified. From what I’ve read, they’re contesting (among other things) the mandated black octagon on the front of packaging that says “exceso calorías” or “exceso azucáres” (excessive calories and sugar) and also bans on advertising to children. The cases that have already been decided have overwhelmingly been in favor of the government.
I realize “just” is very subjective, but I think that mandatory “excessive sugar” markers is a proportional response to the obesity and diabetes epidemic. Ultimately society has to bear the externalities of this stuff. And I think advertising any products to kids is a bit of a moral hazard.
Thanks for explaining what the lawsuits were about. I'm not sure how I feel about the actual case or even how effective I think black octagons will be. Apparently they were first done in Chile and had little to no long term effect [1]
My assumption that the suits were just was because the article obviously wants you to come away with a very specific conclusion, for example there is a sibling comment that seems to think these cases are about US companies. When reading clearly biased but polished, sources my default is to assume any facts they prominently leave out they did so on purpose.
If they didn't sue they wouldn't be doing their jobs. Coca Cola for example has had 39grams of sugar per 12ounces since the 50s. Now almost 80 years later it's suddenly excessive?
They used to be advertising for cigarettes, cocaine used to be sold as medicine for headaches, etc.
things change and there are things that are not healthy for a society that the society itself decided
In the 50's you'd buy it in an 8-oz can. The sizes we're getting out of vending machines are pretty absurdly large for something that basically started out as a dessert you'd buy to top off your small sandwich and cup of water for lunch.
I have nothing of substance to add, but that term moral hazard is not being used as intended. it's a term used to describe when you spend someone else's money it actually doesnt have to do with morals.
That is only within the context of economics. Outside of that it is fine to use the common literal meaning. Professions don't get to dictate that their jargon is used by the rest of us, even if they coin the phrase.
I don't think that's the case; "moral hazard" doesn't have a conventional colloquial meaning. If you use the term outside it's technical meaning you're just going to confuse people.
When the Mexican government signed up for NSO’s spyware, who did they target? A woman who was working to pass a sugar sweetened beverage tax. And her children.
Wait, this is getting pretty twisty-turny here. The premise of the story is that the food conglomerates are adversaries of the Mexican government. That's why they're suing them!
Maybe Mexico got it’s shit together and started doing something about the obesity crisis and the food industry is desperately trying to keep the status quo ?
Or maybe, to paraphrase the famous tweet, this is actually a plucky band of Mexican fizzy drinks manufacturers who are determined to expose the lies of 97% of the worlds health scientists.
The cereal boxes in the stores don't have cute cartoon characters on them, and I tried to send somebody a box of chocolates and it got seized by customs.
So the lobbying is ok in your eyes because maybe, just maybe there’s something in it (although minuscule compared to the billions upon billions made by the other side) for side B? Gotcha.
I would say the idea aged poorly in the USA. Older generation of politicians were more welcoming to experts in their fields.
Now they reject the experts. Either to a please their voter base or for personal profit. Big grocery has more money for political donations / legal bribery.
USA Supreme Court conservative judges have ruled that expertise has no value in a ruling against protecting the environment from toxic chemicals.
The measures related to lawsuits are misleading and terrible, because of the way class-action lawsuits have incentivized lawyers to pursue dubious cases against large companies.
I'm not in love with the system, but it does seem like a last resort for imposing discipline on corporations. The dilemma is whether the tort system is preferable to an approach involving more regulation and enforcement.
I’m not saying that the lawsuits are necessarily wrong or bad (though there do seem to be many of dubious merit), just that they don’t accurately reflect the mix of safety and other problems between large and small producers.
The tort system is too expensive and favors parties with deep pockets. Regulations and laws are more efficient. Imagine there were no laws about theft so everybody who gets something stolen from them would have to go to court.
There should be publicly available data about how expensive class action lawsuits are to the court.
I would personally categorize it as as subsidized not paid for since the lawyers get nothing if they fail which is a meaningful cost.
None of this is to say I support the current system. Class action lawsuits are now designed to get settlements that save the company targeted millions or more compared to the actual damage agreed to.
And giving the lawyers millions when each litigant is lucky to get $20 is not reasonable.
The only direct costs to the taxpayers in these kinds of lawsuits are the judge's time (also the bailiff's, stenographer's, and a couple more), a slight extra load on the computer system to handle the filings, and miscellaneous wear and tear on the courtroom.
That would make sense if we had infinite courts and judges, but we don't. You waiting longer for your trial date is a significant cost (justice delayed is justice denied, and all that). A jury's time is a cost. A system that enriches a select few while the rest of us get $20 off our next purchase of XYZ product is a cost. The only people receiving a major benefit aren't even the people affected by the wrongdoing.
Tax payers strictly pay for the judges' and other court personnel's salaries. The vast, vast, vast majority of the cost of any civil suit is paid for by the parties to the suit.
I mean, I think you understand what I'm saying. They're externalizing the costs and internalizing the benefits. The same thing we complain about with numerous other industries.
The alternative would not be to take away the right of private citizens to sue. There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down.
> "There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down."
How do they externalize the cost? Who is paying them? The plaintiff class-action firm pays their own costs and hopes get reimbursed when the case is resolved.
Those costs are relatively minimal, courts do charge fees (though I don't know how well that covers the court's expenses), and few class action suits go to trial - they are settled or dismissed beforehand.
Class-action suits require the law firm owners (partners) to pay teams of attorneys, as well as experts, and others for years. I saw one firm rent an office and hire dozens of attorneys just to review the tens of millions of pages of documents, looking for evidence. The firm earns nothing unless and until a positive resolution. Some firms require financing to cover the cost.
Who is going to put all that on the line - not to mention their career and reputation - for a dubious case?
When the resolution comes - usually a settlement - they might not profit or not much for their years of investment and effort. If they pursue a 'dubious' case, they could lose everything - courts can even sanction them.
Targets of class action suits don't like them, of course, and try to denigrate the attorneys. What else will deter and get justice for some of the brazen fraud? The SEC? FTC? They don't have the resources or, depending on the administration, the mandate to enforce things across the entire country. Will you sue a corporation for even $10K? Try it.
Can you blame them? Would you sue if the government suddenly decided your industry has to pay extra taxes, or they tried to restrict your advertising?
Honestly coca cola should probably thank the UK government for the sugar tax. They are the only ones that had the courage to keep the sugar and pay the tax, making their original soda the only potable soda in the UK.
> Can you blame them? Would you sue if the government suddenly decided your industry has to pay extra taxes, or they tried to restrict your advertising?
No. I'd probably try to understand the purpose of the tax and what it was being used to fund, but a lawsuit wouldn't be my first stop. There are plenty of industries that get new taxes all the time and don't cry about it. Frankly the behavior on display here is right out of the Phillip Morris playbook on "how to keep profiting from a product you know is terrible for the people you're selling it to."
Came here to see if anyone was discussing the infographics, but oddly enough because I found them incredibly distracting and in that zone of "pretty to look at but taking too long to comprehend well, if at all". To each their own!
Fair point! Some of them are certainly more legible than others. I thought the vending machine one was brilliant. But for instance the one with the slices of pizza... does get a little lost in its own sauce, yes :P
I just rarely see someone commit to the bit so deeply, and I think that's fun.
Is it REALLY that hard for so many people to just stop drinking sugar water? I just don't get it. I can drink a soda or whatever once a year and thats more than enough for me, I usually don't even finish it. Is there something wrong with me or everyone else?
Yes, it's really hard for people that already regularly drink sugar water to quit the sugar water, but it's not very hard for those that don't drink it regularly to abstain indefinitely. The reason is the gut microbome, which drives your cravings. If you regularly drink it, you have more of the types of gut bacteria that consume it, and they tell your brain to give them more. If you don't regularly drink it, you don't have enough of those types of bacteria to make a dent in your cravings. In other words, you really are what you eat (or more precisely you are what eats what you eat).
There's a large subsection of people that choose various vices. Gambling, drugs, alcohol (I repeat), soda and junk food. To folks that do not partake in these things, it's bizarre behavior. Literally none of those appeal to me, but there's clearly profit to be made supplying them.
Are you asking why people can't seem to stop? Or why you seem to possess that ability? Both are biologically mechanistic like all behavior. Probably similar to why some people will kill for heroine while many don't. Or maybe the same reason your gut bacteria can process certain foods others would die from (peanuts), it's environment plus biology in a complex set of local minima that cause repeated behaviors. Is it surprising a biological system optimized to gorge sugary food as late as 200 years ago struggles to stop now? You may have well starved if you ate just one helping while food was available, discipline around food would be a fools pursuit (like intentionally drinking less water than your fill at an oasis).
Sugar water and junk food taste good and people like myself crave that sweet flavor.
If I'm not careful, I can easily and comfortably guzzle liters of soda in a day.
It's less a hard thing and more a "I'm on autopilot right now, I'm thirsty, and there's a can of soda in the fridge" thing. A similar thing happens with junk food. If I'm hungry, on autopilot, and it's available. I'll probably grab junk food because it's fast, convenient, and tastes good.
You are abnormal for not being able to finish 1 can of soda in a year. Nothing is wrong with you for being like that, you are simply an outlier. There's a reason why Coke is one of the most wealthy businesses in the world.
The target to these tactics the companies make is children and still adults these companies don’t properly label their products, and I believe we need to make something about it
I think sugar is an addictive substance just like coffee, and tobacco/alcohol. Sugar and coffee are easier to shake than tobacco or alcohol. If you manage to stay off of it for a few days, you're back to normal. But it's socially acceptable to have a sweet tooth so most people, like with coffee, just keep "using". Some people don't get addicted to things as easily as others. Perhaps you're just one of them?
Most of my information comes from this doctor, Robert Lustig. Here's the latest podcast he was on if you're interested: https://youtu.be/BhEsYJ6gEHY. At around the hour-mark, he starts talking about the addiction side of sugar. There are talks with him that go way back. Around 17 years IIRC.
He's a bit peculiar I suppose, and seems to be on some sort of a crusade against "big food" and "big sugar", but I really sympathize with the guy.
It is, indeed, for some people. It's a core part of why GLP-1 drugs work wonders for some people. Shutting up the "little fat person constantly telling your brain it needs food" is liberating if you have those urges.
Different people have different susceptibilities to getting addicted. And once addicted different people have different amount of brainspace left in their life to quit addictions, also depending on how hard the rest of society makes it to quit.
So, there is neither something wrong with you, nor with everyone else.
Free clean water isn’t available many places so would you rather spend your money on water or a sugar hit? I’m with you on water though it’s so delicious.
Is it really that hard for people to stop doom scrolling or to stop inhaling or drinking dangerous chemicals?
They aren't selling these foods and coincidentally they are addictive. They have chosen the most addictive foods to sell - that's what makes them the most money. It turns out prune juice doesn't sell as well as soda, so that guy got fired.
Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.
I'd like corporations (bodies) to be prosecuted like human bodies, where bad behavior was noted, you got a record, and punishment increased through fines, restrictions all the way to forms of incarceration, and even the death penalty.
If you wanted to do the most to improve competitiveness possible, by far the most effective strategy would be free trade. Trade barriers prevent competition from overseas, making monopolies much easier to maintain.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the barriers to entry as an example. An effective anti-monopoly strategy needs different tools at different times.
Free trade has little impact on monopolies. The biggest corporations in the US are international and the massive amount of free trade we've had from Reagan to Trump's second term has only resulted in these companies becoming even more consolidated.
What free trade enables is for monopolistic corporations to take control of foreign resources to circumvent and undermine US labor laws. They'll buy the rights to the same crops growing in Mexico or Candida for cheaper than the US to undercut US farmers. None of that changes the price they are selling goods in the US and in fact ultimately results in prices going up in both Mexico and Candida.
You claim that a law that prevents or hinders you from making transactions with certain parties, while privileging other parties by exempting them from these restrictions, doesn't make it easier for the privileged parties to form a monopoly?
No, I claim that we spend 3 decades of free trade and we didn't see corporations get smaller. Republicans and Democrats had a free trade policy since Carter really.
If it were true that free trade results in more competition, then you'd expect that there would be more companies competing, not fewer. We see fewer companies.
Your theory has been tested in reality and it fails.
Free trade isn't the issue, the issue is monopolies. When there were 60 or 80 companies all in the same industry but in different states or counties, the economy was much healthier because those 80 companies had to have their own independent staff for functions like accounting. And they also had to compete with each other at the edges of their jurisdictions. None of them could become powerful enough to set policy across the nation and if a corporate policy was beneficial to the consumer, one of their competitors could enact it to compete. Now that there are only 2 or 3 nationwide providers of most things, those companies can just set their own policies whether hostile or not and the only control we have is regulation.
If you want to eliminate regulation and promote free trade then the best thing you can do is oppose the formation of monopolies and encourage enforcement of anti-trust everywhere.
There are many other factors affecting the size of corporations. For example, a significant increase in the amount of regulation in other sectors of the economy.
More importantly, the raw number of corporations isn't how you measure a monopoly. Profit margins are the key sign of monopoly pricing- but in practice, corporate profit margins have been relatively stable in percentage terms over time. Prices for virtually all consumer goods are way down in real terms over the last 30 years.
In particular, trade might get you more competition with fewer corporations, but via competition with overseas producers. These might show up as a few importing corporations, representing a whole slew of competitors abroad.
Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.
Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail.
Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.
Your definition of monopoly isn't what people are commonly talking about when they say "monopoly".
Granted, you have the correct definition, just not the colloquial one.
What people say "monopoly" what they are really talking about is industries captured by few big players. For example, grocery stores. There's not a true monopoly there but there is damage done by the fact that there's very little competition in that space. Both to consumers and product manufacturers. These big grocery chains use their leverage to get prices smaller chains can't compete with. Further, they have been trying to consolidate (see Kroger Albertsons merger) to further exert anti-trust behaviors.
A clear example of the damage done by this sort of hyper consolidation is what's happened to the memory market. Multiple times the 3 big players have been hit with anti-trust lawsuits because of the price fixing they've engaged in. It's true they are not true monopolies, but they exert exactly the problematic behavior of a true monopoly. It's very unlikely that the free market would ever fix this.
Groceries are an excellent example of competition. Profit margins on groceries are razor thin. The large chain leverage results in lower consumer prices. Large grocery chains don't have anomalously high profits, ROI, or really anything that would indicate harm to consumers. Groceries are cheaper than ever compared to median wages.
The memory market is international, its not clear what anti trust even means here. Even so, look at the price of memory over time, say the last 20-30 years. Adjust for inflation and its even more extreme. Sure, it is up recently with AI demand, but the general trend is drastically reducing cost and increasing quality. Memory technologies are evolving quickly and it's a capital-intensive business, so its not surprising that there are a few leaders. There's no guarantee of instant competition in free markets.
Cartels rarely last long without enforcement. There's such a strong incentive to defect and secretly sell more under the table. Even OPEC could not maintain one. Memory right now is expensive simply because demand outstrips supply and there is significant capital investment and lead time to increasing supply.
> Large grocery chains don't have anomalously high profits
Define "anomalously" What do you mean by this? You'd admit that large grocery chains do have high profits right? Even with "razor thin" margins.
Large grocery outlets do love to claim that their margins are razor thin yet somehow each of them are some of the wealthiest in the nation. How can that be if they are so good for the customers?
> its not clear what anti trust even means here.
Price fixing [1]
> There's such a strong incentive to defect and secretly sell more under the table. Even OPEC could not maintain one.
OPEC is the exception, not the rule. And enforcement is a lot easier when there are fewer players. The reason OPEC has a hard time enforcing it's prices is because there are are too many players. Were they standard oil, they'd almost certainly be able to maintain their prices and discipline.
Cartels very rarely dissolve on their own. The free market naturally tends towards consolidation and cartels forming.
I'd say exactly the same about antitrust. Can you give an example of a lasting monopoly not backed by some government policy? At any point in the last 150 years?
McDonald's might be the largest restaurant chain in Italy but that doesn't really mean much given how many small restaurants the country has with high quality food.
Also due to food standards a random McDonalds in a random village in Italy will have significantly better food than most restaurants in the US. The Italian McDonalds will use locally sourced fresh produce straight from the farm, cooked by high-end chefs to create a very good tasting meal that is super healthy and good for you.
There is a reason those Italians live so long. Their McDonalds is better than others. It is literally illegal to sell McDonalds foods the way Americans make it.
> many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights
But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just
In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
But if you are suggesting that this NGO is carrying water for some unspecified shadowy group that is pulling the strings, you'll need to provide some backing for that. Who has a nefarious motivation to oppose junk food?
Trial lawyers? Misguided do-gooders? Big Celery?
I do not know who is pushing but if you think there is not an entire industry of "healthy" alternatives for the companies in the article, you are very much mistaken.
Hell it might be the artificial sweetener industry, in the UK it's now practically impossible to buy a soda that is not full of artificial sweeteners, excluding regular coca cola, and regular red bull.
On social media, making dubious claims about food science or food ingredients, then following up by selling some "clean, unprocessed, organic" product is big business. (I make no claims about this specific NGO).
1. I personally enjoy a can of hogwater every day and am happy to give you a referral code.
2. Except those who financially benefit from hawking snake oil, of course.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49127343
Not saying they are specifically doing that, but I can’t confidently say they aren’t either
> international NGO
What does 'international' mean here and why do you mention it? About page: "nonprofit organisation registered in the Netherlands with ANBI (Public Benefit Organisation) status"
> ~1MM in income per year
They have a staff of over 30. They must spend much more than $1 million/year.
> In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation)
They list their top salaries on the About page, which ain't much: "The salaries of our five highest paid employees range from €69,000 to €108,000 per year." Fifth highest paid employee makes €69,000.
> directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors
The About page lists funders by name, as well as "Media partners".
> In exchange for the funding ... they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
Could you provide a source for that? Here's what the About page says:
"Editorial Independence is essential to all aspects of the work we do. We work with donors who do not impose conditions that restrict our journalism."
And from another page:
"We offer a collaborative space where hyper-local outlets and freelance journalists can work alongside staff from globally-recognised media. We exist to foster experiments with new formats and we pay particular attention to fresh ways of framing complex issues that will capture public attention and challenge misconceptions."
https://www.lighthousereports.com/what-we-stand-for/
EDIT: How can people on HN care that much about the source, Lighthouse? Right now three users, not including the parent commenter, are motivated enough to promote the disinformation about Lighthouse that they downvoted a mostly factual, informative comment. (I don't care about the votes; they are just evidence.) Maybe there is something I don't know about Lighthouse?
> And NGO people I know are mostly idealistic college kids who want to do good. Lots of creepy guys too
This is just gossip about anecdotes.
I realize “just” is very subjective, but I think that mandatory “excessive sugar” markers is a proportional response to the obesity and diabetes epidemic. Ultimately society has to bear the externalities of this stuff. And I think advertising any products to kids is a bit of a moral hazard.
My assumption that the suits were just was because the article obviously wants you to come away with a very specific conclusion, for example there is a sibling comment that seems to think these cases are about US companies. When reading clearly biased but polished, sources my default is to assume any facts they prominently leave out they did so on purpose.
[1] https://archive.is/UPdWg#selection-1493.0-1498.0
Or maybe, to paraphrase the famous tweet, this is actually a plucky band of Mexican fizzy drinks manufacturers who are determined to expose the lies of 97% of the worlds health scientists.
The cereal boxes in the stores don't have cute cartoon characters on them, and I tried to send somebody a box of chocolates and it got seized by customs.
Candy is labeled like cigarettes.
I ask, humbly, that people please not do this. Nothing good has ever come of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFQc2kxm9c
FYI
obesity 1977 ~14% 2026 40%+
T2 Diabetes 1977 ~3% 2026 ~12%
It was: "I would only argue that senators don't have the luxury that a research scientist does awaiting until every last shred of evidence is in"
Now they reject the experts. Either to a please their voter base or for personal profit. Big grocery has more money for political donations / legal bribery.
USA Supreme Court conservative judges have ruled that expertise has no value in a ruling against protecting the environment from toxic chemicals.
I would personally categorize it as as subsidized not paid for since the lawyers get nothing if they fail which is a meaningful cost.
None of this is to say I support the current system. Class action lawsuits are now designed to get settlements that save the company targeted millions or more compared to the actual damage agreed to.
And giving the lawyers millions when each litigant is lucky to get $20 is not reasonable.
- “paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems”. The alternative would mean taking away the right of private citizens to sue.
The alternative would not be to take away the right of private citizens to sue. There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down.
> "There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down."
I don't see it:
Class-action suits require the law firm owners (partners) to pay teams of attorneys, as well as experts, and others for years. I saw one firm rent an office and hire dozens of attorneys just to review the tens of millions of pages of documents, looking for evidence. The firm earns nothing unless and until a positive resolution. Some firms require financing to cover the cost.
Who is going to put all that on the line - not to mention their career and reputation - for a dubious case?
When the resolution comes - usually a settlement - they might not profit or not much for their years of investment and effort. If they pursue a 'dubious' case, they could lose everything - courts can even sanction them.
Targets of class action suits don't like them, of course, and try to denigrate the attorneys. What else will deter and get justice for some of the brazen fraud? The SEC? FTC? They don't have the resources or, depending on the administration, the mandate to enforce things across the entire country. Will you sue a corporation for even $10K? Try it.
Honestly coca cola should probably thank the UK government for the sugar tax. They are the only ones that had the courage to keep the sugar and pay the tax, making their original soda the only potable soda in the UK.
No. I'd probably try to understand the purpose of the tax and what it was being used to fund, but a lawsuit wouldn't be my first stop. There are plenty of industries that get new taxes all the time and don't cry about it. Frankly the behavior on display here is right out of the Phillip Morris playbook on "how to keep profiting from a product you know is terrible for the people you're selling it to."
There is no such thing.
> potable in the UK
Now you’re getting silly.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124738
I just rarely see someone commit to the bit so deeply, and I think that's fun.
If I'm not careful, I can easily and comfortably guzzle liters of soda in a day.
It's less a hard thing and more a "I'm on autopilot right now, I'm thirsty, and there's a can of soda in the fridge" thing. A similar thing happens with junk food. If I'm hungry, on autopilot, and it's available. I'll probably grab junk food because it's fast, convenient, and tastes good.
You are abnormal for not being able to finish 1 can of soda in a year. Nothing is wrong with you for being like that, you are simply an outlier. There's a reason why Coke is one of the most wealthy businesses in the world.
I think sugar is an addictive substance just like coffee, and tobacco/alcohol. Sugar and coffee are easier to shake than tobacco or alcohol. If you manage to stay off of it for a few days, you're back to normal. But it's socially acceptable to have a sweet tooth so most people, like with coffee, just keep "using". Some people don't get addicted to things as easily as others. Perhaps you're just one of them?
Most of my information comes from this doctor, Robert Lustig. Here's the latest podcast he was on if you're interested: https://youtu.be/BhEsYJ6gEHY. At around the hour-mark, he starts talking about the addiction side of sugar. There are talks with him that go way back. Around 17 years IIRC.
He's a bit peculiar I suppose, and seems to be on some sort of a crusade against "big food" and "big sugar", but I really sympathize with the guy.
So, there is neither something wrong with you, nor with everyone else.
They aren't selling these foods and coincidentally they are addictive. They have chosen the most addictive foods to sell - that's what makes them the most money. It turns out prune juice doesn't sell as well as soda, so that guy got fired.
This week half the photocopiers are in foster care (prison).
Next week, half the backup generators.
An economist....
What free trade enables is for monopolistic corporations to take control of foreign resources to circumvent and undermine US labor laws. They'll buy the rights to the same crops growing in Mexico or Candida for cheaper than the US to undercut US farmers. None of that changes the price they are selling goods in the US and in fact ultimately results in prices going up in both Mexico and Candida.
If it were true that free trade results in more competition, then you'd expect that there would be more companies competing, not fewer. We see fewer companies.
Your theory has been tested in reality and it fails.
If you want to eliminate regulation and promote free trade then the best thing you can do is oppose the formation of monopolies and encourage enforcement of anti-trust everywhere.
More importantly, the raw number of corporations isn't how you measure a monopoly. Profit margins are the key sign of monopoly pricing- but in practice, corporate profit margins have been relatively stable in percentage terms over time. Prices for virtually all consumer goods are way down in real terms over the last 30 years.
In particular, trade might get you more competition with fewer corporations, but via competition with overseas producers. These might show up as a few importing corporations, representing a whole slew of competitors abroad.
We were, but it has devolved into crony capitalism. I don't think it's too late to revert, but I do doubt we'll ever get our shit together and fix it.
Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.
Your definition of monopoly isn't what people are commonly talking about when they say "monopoly".
Granted, you have the correct definition, just not the colloquial one.
What people say "monopoly" what they are really talking about is industries captured by few big players. For example, grocery stores. There's not a true monopoly there but there is damage done by the fact that there's very little competition in that space. Both to consumers and product manufacturers. These big grocery chains use their leverage to get prices smaller chains can't compete with. Further, they have been trying to consolidate (see Kroger Albertsons merger) to further exert anti-trust behaviors.
A clear example of the damage done by this sort of hyper consolidation is what's happened to the memory market. Multiple times the 3 big players have been hit with anti-trust lawsuits because of the price fixing they've engaged in. It's true they are not true monopolies, but they exert exactly the problematic behavior of a true monopoly. It's very unlikely that the free market would ever fix this.
The memory market is international, its not clear what anti trust even means here. Even so, look at the price of memory over time, say the last 20-30 years. Adjust for inflation and its even more extreme. Sure, it is up recently with AI demand, but the general trend is drastically reducing cost and increasing quality. Memory technologies are evolving quickly and it's a capital-intensive business, so its not surprising that there are a few leaders. There's no guarantee of instant competition in free markets.
Cartels rarely last long without enforcement. There's such a strong incentive to defect and secretly sell more under the table. Even OPEC could not maintain one. Memory right now is expensive simply because demand outstrips supply and there is significant capital investment and lead time to increasing supply.
Define "anomalously" What do you mean by this? You'd admit that large grocery chains do have high profits right? Even with "razor thin" margins.
Large grocery outlets do love to claim that their margins are razor thin yet somehow each of them are some of the wealthiest in the nation. How can that be if they are so good for the customers?
> its not clear what anti trust even means here.
Price fixing [1]
> There's such a strong incentive to defect and secretly sell more under the table. Even OPEC could not maintain one.
OPEC is the exception, not the rule. And enforcement is a lot easier when there are fewer players. The reason OPEC has a hard time enforcing it's prices is because there are are too many players. Were they standard oil, they'd almost certainly be able to maintain their prices and discipline.
Cartels very rarely dissolve on their own. The free market naturally tends towards consolidation and cartels forming.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_industry_price_fixing
In more and more areas the obstacle to enter a market is not regulations but money.
There is a reason those Italians live so long. Their McDonalds is better than others. It is literally illegal to sell McDonalds foods the way Americans make it.
You should see what they do in the UK. Looks tasty, but healthy it certainly is not.
They aren’t high end chefs. They are normal workers that aren’t squeezed by their company to produce food in the cheapest way