The pressure of this law will eventually force restaurants like Davanni’s to reduce consumer choice as a way of managing the overwhelming burden of maintaining their disclosures. Smaller chains that succeed in satisfying their customers and managing their business used to be rewarded with growth, but this law will put an artificial cap on expansion at 19 locations. That means that fewer people will find jobs, and even in existing stores, money that may have funded more jobs will instead go to reprinting the same menu boards over and over again. And all of this comes because political elites think that people are too stupid to know that a pizza is fattening or how to access information that already exists in much more efficient formats than menu boards.
When will we wake up from this Atlas Shrugged nightmare?
[Early afternoon update]
One nation, under arrest. With liberty and justice for none.
I think we should just throw out the entire federal code and start over.
This is such a clearly, obviously good idea.
That’s probably 6-10 jobs right there. Created or saved, of course.
Also, who did this? I imagine there’s not a trace of fingerprints attached to this particular law. It’s something that magically appeared in the bill.
It seems the attitude of the so-called “elite” can be summarized by this single statement extracted from the article:
And all of this comes because political elites think that people are too stupid.
They don’t just think that people are “too stupid to know that a pizza is fattening” but too stupid to make their own decisions about anything.
Again, there are two kinds of elites, those who are really better than we are, and those who are just better off. Unfortunately, the members of the latter group almost always think of themselves in the former. There is a difference between merit and status.
If anyone wants to see a great example of the effects of federal mandates (and their un-intended consequences) needs look no further than Title IX. The goal of that legislation: get more women involved in college athletics; the result of that legislation: the elimination of many ‘smaller’ (read – don’t generate enough revenue to support themselves) male college athletic teams. Nice.
No problem. You incorporate every 19 stores under a different child’s name. Thus, encouraging large families.
I remember that one Tom. My roommate sophomore year in college was a tackle on our college football team. The team was cut because of Title IX because the girls only had four athletic teams vs the boys’ five. Lots of disappointed people at school that year.
RE Title IX, Jonah’s wife wrote an excellent book on it.
“too stupid to know that a pizza is fattening ”
Pizza isn’t fattening. It is probably the perfect food – all four food groups in every bite. The key is to stop eating before you’re too full to eat another bite, and to exercise regularly. That way, you can eat anything you want – oh geez, next it’ll be enforced daily calisthenics for the Outer Party…
Pizza isn’t fattening. It is probably the perfect food – all four food groups in every bite.
It depends on the thickness of the crust. Thin-crust is good, but Chicago style is a lot of bread (high-glycemic carbs).
Geez Rand, don’t you know that these mandates mean freedom to the individual. Now the individual people, particularly the poor ones, can walk into a restaurant and know, without having to ask some evil corporate guy that will probably lie to them, how many calories the food has. That’s freedom, baby!!!
And don’t forget to thank Daveon for paying his taxes so that you and America’s poor can have these European benefits. Did you know he’s not even a citizen of the US?(end sarcasm)
Of course, it could just be like “Energy Star”, and whatever the restaurant says the calories are will be endorsed by which ever department (HHS?) rubber stamps these things after you pay them the
taxfee.When I was a kid eating between meals was a a no-no, and even grownups didn’t do it. At some point we switched from eating only at regular mealtimes with very rare snack breaks to almost constantly grazing, usually on big bags of potato chips or Doritos or whatever. When I quit with the constant snacking I dropped thirty-five pounds (over six months — exercise and cutting down on carbs also helped). Another trick is what Ed says: just don’t eat until you’re stuffed. You can even eat Chicago-style pizza that way, you just have to eat less of it.
Once in a while, things wonder into my area of knowledge, and here we are. OK, as a past and hopefully future restaurant guy, this one, especially pizza, is my bailywick. [sp]
There are available from food quality / food testing labs, food info “standards”. I’ve seen them for sale for years.
Although Brand “A” calls a 14″ pizza a Regular, Brand “B” calls it a Medium, and Brand “C” calls it a Kiddie Pie, it’s usually a 1 lb dough ball and the toppings are all about the same amount too. Most of the other differences are taste related. They come from the spices, the number of spices and the amounts of those spices in the various restaurants sauces. Spices as a rule don’t change the calorie count of foods. Sugar, not a true spice, I know, being the obvious difference, but that is a very small part of most sauces and doughs, but again there’s not much variance in my experience. Cheeses run from full milk mozzerella, to part or full skim, and there are mixes, but fewer than you might think. In all truth, the differences in the dough, sauce, cheeses, etc from one pizza place to another, single unit to international chain, are surprisingly very small. Likewise, a 14″ pizza, made with a 1 lb dough ball, with 4 oz mozz. cheese, 4 oz of Italian sausage, 4 oz of ‘shrooms, is about the same calorie count across the board.
There are “standards” for other foods too. A 4 oz burger with a 1 oz slice of cheese, leaf of lettuce, 1/2 tsp of mayo is “X” calories. The small guys will rely on that info. To my mind it’s the big guys who change menus and get very specific in ingredients and advertising that will get hurt.
The (Inter)National Chain that advertises and sells a 1/2 pound, aged angus burger, with chipotle avacado mayo, Maytag Blue Cheese and Oregon Coast Brand, Applewood smoked, thick sliced bacon, on a marble-pumpernickel bun, who will HAVE to pay for a test. And when they replace that burger, with that NEW uber-specific menu item, well then they’ll need another test. Places like Davannis will be serving grandpa’s recipes in another 30 years and they can use the “standards” for calorie content that already exist, for that next 30 years.
Davannis will certainly have to pay to get the info. But not that $200K figure and not every year. It might cost one job, but not several, IMO. It’s part of the new cost of doing business in Obamerica. It will take money out of the pockets of Davannis owners, but they’ll survive. Davannis could in fact, form a local trade group with several other like businesses and get the info.
I do have a problem with the Goons in D.C. putting this into our lives, but for different reasons than the writer. I object to the control issue. I don’t need BHO reminding me that eating can be hazardous to my health. How dumb I am by eating two of those 1/2 lb burgers is my cross to bear.
I can tell you this. I’m working, with family members, on a franchisable food place idea right now. This is another hurdle, to me, that we’ve got to address. It is NOT a non-crossable moat nor the Great Wall of Obamadom. It will be an added cost for us, and [hopefully] for our franchisees.
Exxon didn’t shut down when oil prices went up, neither did the mom and pop where I buy gas. Looks to me like the cost of eating pizza, burgers, lamb chops and lobster, in a restaurant just went up. The customers will take the hit. And if they’re smart, they’ll hit back at the polls.
I think we should just throw out the entire federal code and start over.
With the caveat that Congress can pass no bill which cannot be handwritten on a single side of a sheet of standard letter-sized paper, I agree.
I’m voting for Kevin for Emperor of the Universe.
When I open the first pizza joint on the moon, I think I’ll call it Moon Pies.
And Der Schtumpy just probably displayed more ability to understand this issue then probably 90% of those acting to enact and enforce this stupidity. But who needs facts when you got, “like a small price to pay for like, um, making us all live and like, feel better, annnddd stufff.”
I see this as a necessary first step to a government run food service. We need to insure our nation eats only the best possible food. This is a small sacrifice, even though I know I’ll get caught for falsely claiming I’m Pastafarian (that is, I worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster) and my religious obligations require me to eat high quality pasta, meats, and so on. Eight years in jail won’t be that bad. The food’s better especially if I can convince them of my peculiar dietary needs.
Ed,
Just don’t open that pizza joint at Palus Epidemiarum. Bad PR.
I plan on opening a bar at Lacus Oblivionis.
Incidentally, I’ve noticed several threads where the usual defenders of Obama simply don’t appear. There also was the list of expired Obama “positions”. They seem to be picking their battles, don’t they?
“When I open the first pizza joint on the moon, I think I’ll call it Moon Pies.”
Moon pies already exist and they ain’t pizza, they are dessert.
Regarding Mr. Evertson,
I would like to be told why I should not think that somehow he got on some FBIer’s radar and, with the original reason for investigation not panning out, they decided to persecute until they cold find one–for whatever reason.
My guess is that the “UPS sticker” bust was really a desire to see if he would resist arrest or overreact in a way that he could be charged with. Failing that, they went on to something else.
I truly believe we need to just get rid of the FBI and start afresh with a new organization, and new hires. And the court system should be changed so that every criminal prosecution must include disclosure to the defense of all investigations and dates they were started–indeed, should be part of the grand jury system, with a grand jury rightly looking askance on prosecution for minor charges if the surveillance record is extensive.
This is because just because we got rid of one guy that needed to by got rid of (Al Capone) by continually searching until there was something that could result in a conviction does not meant that technique is not and can not be used for corrupt purposes or is not destructive of liberty.
I’ll go even farther–the “UPS sticker” takedown can be viewed as a blatant attempt to kill the man, legally, foiled only because he himself did everything correctly in cooperating. They wanted him to resist.
I understand the objection that may be raised, but to law enforcement I say that if you use this amount of force on minor regulation violations, you open yourself up to this charge, and I could care less how much your legitimacy is eroded. You brought it upon yourself.
Also, who did this? I imagine there’s not a trace of fingerprints attached to this particular law. It’s something that magically appeared in the bill.
One of my benevolent senators, Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
I certainly didn’t vote for him, though.
Just going a bit further with my thesis, while I’m thinking about it:
The “Al Capone tax evasion” strategy–which is basically what I think happened to Mr. Evertson–is destructive of liberty for this reason: I am convinced that the Feds, in their minds, convicted Mr. Evertson of some crime well before either the UPS sticker incident or the haz mat incident. The trouble was, they could not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, either because 1.) if actually guilty, the means they had used to gather such information had been unethical, or 2) he really wasn’t guiltly, or 3) he might have been guilty, or he might not–all they had was a hunch and intuition, which easily could be just as wrong as right.
What continually going after someone with more minor charges when you can’t prove the big one does is basically remove the “reasonable doubt” standard and allow for punishment of anyone the government deems needing punishment–because it is very hard to avoid running afoul of some regulation somewhere. Thus, the overcriminalization of many activities gives the government a powerful tool that can easily be abused. Mr. Evertson real crime could just as easily having been having a kid who beat a Fed’s kid for a spot on the team, or of having been too vocal in local politics. With excessive overcriminalization and the desire of law enforcement to get targeted individuals on whatever charge possible, liberty is threatened and due process made a mockery of–as well as law being seen as the private preserve of AGs and the police.
And all the above is why I feel that a third judgment–“Free because of Selective Prosecution”–needs to be added to the jury’s list of choices, along with “Guilty” and “Not Guilty”.
That last part is noteworthy. Back a few days ago, either Chris G or Jim noted that it is currently constitutional to offer tax deductions for insurance. Government could have done it now. Bump up taxes by 2.5% across the board which health insurance counts against. I grant that would probably be constitutional in today’s legal environment.
But the approach Congress chose to take, has the side effect of criminalizing dissent. You only pay this fine, if you dissent. And if you refuse to pay the fine (how will the IRS decide which tax you didn’t pay?), you can potentially get significant jail time.
Criminalizing dissent is how they roll in those enlightened socialist democracies. Only benighted backwaters like the US actually tolerate such tomfoolery.