Government

In defense of gourmet cupcake makers

You know my position on gourmet cupcakes: evil of the purest form.  Princess of Comfort Foods.  Harbinger of Civilizational (Tooth) Decay.  Which is why you may be surprised to hear me defend some cupcake makers.  Get this:

"When Andrew DeMarchis and Kevin Graff, two 13-year-olds from Chappaqua's Seven Bridges Middle School, set up shop at Gedney Park on a fall weekend last month, they were expecting a tidy profit.  Instead, the two wannabe entrepreneurs selling cupcakes, cookies, brownies and Rice Krispie treats baked by them for $1 apiece got a taste of cold, hard bureaucracy.  New Castle Councilman Michael Wolfensohn came upon the sale and called the cops on the kids for operating without a license."

        

Welcome to the regulatory state.  Where you need a license to live.  What a great lesson to teach our children: don't bother.  Don't bother taking a risk, starting a little business, and learning how to turn a profit.  Pack up your enterprise, turn off your ingenuity, and go play some video games.

Shame on Michael Wolfensohn.  But Wolfensohn was just following the rules.  The rules are the problem.  A bad set of rules looks like this: everything is illegal, with the exception of complex specified licensed activities.  Good rules: everything is legal, with the exception of a few simple specified illegal activities.

You might say that this is an isolated incident.  It's not.  Burdensome regulations have shut down local farmers markets.  And if you want some horror stories that are happening all over America, visit the Institute for Justice.  IJ has done pro-bono work on economic liberty cases.

  • Taalib-Din Abdul Uqdah v. District of Columbia.  The DC Board of Cosmetology (whatever that is for) tried to impose the 1938 Cosmetology Code on Uqdah's traditional African hair-braiding business.  Something tells me the 1938 bureaucrats who wrote the code didn't have African hair in mind.  It's a Medieval guild system.
  • Kalish v. Milliken.  "Anyone in Virginia can do yoga, and anyone can teach yoga.  But, incredibly, it is illegal to teach people to teach yoga.  Yoga-teacher training is just the latest target of vocational school licensing laws that require countless entrepreneurs to ask the government’s permission before opening their mouths."
  • Meadows v. Odom.  "Why would the Louisiana Horticulture Commission force a florist to either throw away seven perfectly fine floral displays or be fined $250?  Because would-be Baton Rouge florist Sandy Meadows, like so many other women, has been unable to pass a highly subjective State-mandated floral exam—an exam graded by existing florists in the state who have a vested interest in keeping her out of work."

The DC Board of Cosmetology?  The Louisiana Horticulture Commission?  These bureaucracies are parasites.  And the people who work there are parasites.  It's terrible that we have to even assert this, but people have a right to make an honest living.  

 

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

 

As for the 13-year old cupcake makers?  I disapprove of what you sell, but I will defend to the death your right to sell it.*

 

* Except for Sex and the City gourmet cupcakes.  If you sell those, you're on your own, boys.  I may even tip off the officer myself.

 

Update: One reader, Bob Ewing, actually works for IJ.  Check out his comments, and this excellent video on all the crazy licensing regulations out there. 

Should food stamps only buy real food?

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought federal permission on Wednesday to bar New York City’s 1.7 million recipients of food stamps from using them to buy soda or other sugared drinks."

Critics in the article say its stigmatizing and patronizing.  (Note that Bloomberg was also pushing for a soda tax for all New Yorkers, which didn't fly.)

"Anticipating such criticism, Dr. Farley and Dr. Daines said that the food-stamp program already prohibited the use of benefits to buy cigarettes, beer, wine, liquor or prepared foods."

Readers, where do you net out?  Many of you are strong believers in individual freedom AND strong believers in optimal health.  Should food stamps only be exchanged for real food?  How could this backfire?  Are high fat foods next?  What about when people buy bags of sugar for baking?  Or any of the other garbage on the shelves of a typical grocery store?

These types of questions don't just affect food stamp recipients.  Take health care.  The more that we all pay for each other's medical benefits, does that give a central group of experts the ability to attach more strings to choices we make?  What is the government's role in promoting healthy decisions?

Welcome to the increasing politicization of everything.

There are now 41.8 million food stamp recipients in the country, over an eighth of the population.  You can read the full food stamp article here.  Thanks to David for the pointer.

Why America is the unhealthiest country on Earth...and the healthiest

 

Well, it's the Fourth of July, so I thought we'd talk about the US of A.  When it comes to America and health, we hear a lot of negativity and criticism.  Health and food activists like to pick on the United States as the epicenter of poor eating habits, unhealthy food, and sedentary lifestyles.  We hear a few reasons over and over:
 
 
  1. Culture - The U.S. lacks a national cuisine to act as anchor on our food and eating habits (as European countries have)
  2. Corporations - We aggressively create and market processed foods (fast food, HFCS, etc.)
  3. Government - Corn subsidies and other federal policies subsidize processed food
 
But is it all doom and gloom?  In many ways,  America can be the healthiest country on the planet:
 
  1. Culture - the lack of a national cuisine means Americans may be more open to experimenting with and developing a completely new healthy cuisine (like a hunter-gatherer diet).  We also have a tradition of wanting to be the best and strongest at anything.
  2. Corporations - The U.S. is the largest and most dynamic market for finding solutions for people's health problems.  All the food trends point to fewer ingredients, organic ingredients, and more health consciousness.  Grocery stores have gotten consistently better over the last couple decades.  Our companies respond to demand.
  3. Government - The historical errors of U.S. government health policy (encouraging low fat, high grain, wrong-headed subsidies) actually play quite nicely into the anti-government / anti-expert strain of American history.  We can be healthy in a distinctly American away -- despite the federal government, not because of it.
 
So on our Independence Day from those terribly unhealthy Brits, go get some grass-fed steaks and throw them on the grill -- and let's raise a fork to the US of A and to your health.  Happy Fourth of July.  
 
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As a postscript, I'll add that in addition to the Declaration of Independence being an important historical document, it's also well written: clear, succinct, and moving.  For as long as I've been alive, my family has read the text out loud.  As a teenager, I found this a little hokey, but now I think it's pretty cool.  It's a bunch of dudes who essentially flipped the bird to the most powerful monarch on the planet.  Pretty bad ass.
 
Here's the full text, should you want to give it a try.  And don't forget to read aloud the names of the signers.

Can the government tell you what to eat?

Food is on the tip of everyone's tongue these days.  It even came up during Elena Kagan's Supreme Court hearings today.  You can watch the video below.  Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma asked if the government could pass a law mandating that people eat three fruits and three vegetables a day.

 
Coburn's question really was about the Commerce Clause, not food.  The Constitution gives Congress the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes".  Despite the fact that the word "regulate" did not have the same meaning when it was written as it does today, the interstate portion of the clause has been interpreted by the Supreme Court (most definitively during the New Deal) to mean that the Federal Government can regulate anything that might possibly impact interstate trade.  Essentially, anything and everything.  Even what we eat, is Coburn's point.
 
Health care and food taxes/regulations are deeply intertwined.  (Health and food are deeply intertwined.)  We're increasingly seeing calls for soda taxes here in New York City.  It's in line with other "sin taxes" (smoking, gambling), which politicians find easier to levy.  Congress definitely has the power to tax.   But the public willingness to accept food taxes and eventually, more restrictive federal regulations, will only increase as people feel that they are paying for other people's healthcare.
 
To a large extent we already do pay for other people's healthcare via Medicaid and Medicare -- and even through private health insurance (where I am pooled with others, many less healthy than I, to arrive at a group rate).  But the perception and reality of Peter paying for Paul's healthcare will only increase under the new health care legislation.  And the implications are pretty easy to follow: If I'm paying for your healthcare, you better believe I'm going to tell you how to eat.  This certainly won't come through prohibitions and mandates (no politician is that stupid), but through taxes and incentives.
 
What really scares me is that the long-time foundation of the USDA food pyramid has been a food group, grains, that humans basically did not eat prior to the Agricultural Revolution.  And don't forget the decades long and deeply misguided War on Fat.  Doesn't exactly inspire confidence!

The beauty of a system based more on individual responsibility is that people have the freedom to live as they please: healthy or unhealthy.  Of course, then you have to let people face the consequences of their decisions, as if they were fully capable adults.

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