Get Woke, Go Broke

Capitalism failed to make sure a baby formula shortage was managed by supply and demand. Capitalism failed to keep us a leader in microchips letting China earn dominance. Capitalism has failed to inform of us of numerous unsafe products with unseen defects which were propagated by moneymaking companies. Government stepped in, and although imperfectly, has interfered in the free market and possibly saved your ass.

Sure capitalism is mostly preferred, but you demonize socialism too much because you fix on ignorant memes.

You probably made all your investments with devil worshipping capitalists. You wouldn't know.

Quote: rxwine

Capitalism failed to make sure a baby formula shortage was managed by supply and demand. Capitalism failed to keep us a leader in microchips letting China earn dominance. Capitalism has failed to inform of us of numerous unsafe products with unseen defects which were propagated by moneymaking companies. Government stepped in, and although imperfectly, has interfered in the free market and possibly saved your ass.

Sure capitalism is mostly preferred, but you demonize socialism too much because you fix on ignorant memes.

You probably made all your investments with devil worshipping capitalists. You wouldn't know.

Did Capitalism fail there? I'm a little confused as to what about WIC is Capitalistic. I'm not suggesting that WIC should not exist, obviously, but pure Capitalism would have it such that it wouldn't. If so many people weren't getting it for free, then some could not afford it, demand would be reduced and it likely wouldn't have experienced a shortage, or alternatively, less of a shortage. Also, Covid closures/provisions, which were brought about by various state Governments. Also Covid-related was the rush to stockpile on baby formula, as was done with toilet paper (in some areas) and other stuff.

China earned dominance, largely, because of low labor costs. In terms of the world market, if you even want to call it Capitalism, China won and we lost on that one. China wins and we lose on a lot of manufacturing and some other jobs, same with India, because those countries have lower cost of labor.

Capitalist theory doesn't really fail on unsafe products, or maybe it does...I probably have to give you that point. The big problem, in the end, is the consumers not severely punishing companies who make these kinds of screw ups...but I guess consumers having a choice and making the wrong one is still a Capitalist concept, in function.

Quote: Mission146

Did Capitalism fail there? I'm a little confused as to what about WIC is Capitalistic. I'm not suggesting that WIC should not exist, obviously, but pure Capitalism would have it such that it wouldn't. If so many people weren't getting it for free, then some could not afford it, demand would be reduced and it likely wouldn't have experienced a shortage, or alternatively, less of a shortage. Also, Covid closures/provisions, which were brought about by various state Governments. Also Covid-related was the rush to stockpile on baby formula, as was done with toilet paper (in some areas) and other stuff.

Government didn't tell people to overstock on any of those items. So, blame them, not government.

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China earned dominance, largely, because of low labor costs. In terms of the world market, if you even want to call it Capitalism, China won and we lost on that one. China wins and we lose on a lot of manufacturing and some other jobs, same with India, because those countries have lower cost of labor.

I didn't mention China production in general, just on what is a considered a critical product. Microchips are critical. The fact that China beats us on non-critical products is not a critical issue.

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Capitalist theory doesn't really fail on unsafe products, or maybe it does...I probably have to give you that point. The big problem, in the end, is the consumers not severely punishing companies who make these kinds of screw ups...but I guess consumers having a choice and making the wrong one is still a Capitalist concept, in function.

Capitalism is useless as far as many products. You can't instantly see many defects and in fact companies are known to hide failures from the public I can't even see where an apple is grown or whether it's bioengineered, or injected with something. You get sick years later from something is not much good as consumer feedback.

(btw, I rarely give a crap about bio-engineering food, but it seems important to some to know)

Quote: rxwine

Government didn't tell people to overstock on any of those items. So, blame them, not government.

I didn't mention China production in general, just on what is a considered a critical product. Microchips are critical. The fact that China beats us on non-critical products is not a critical issue.

Capitalism is useless as far as many products. You can't instantly see many defects and in fact companies are known to hide failures from the public I can't even see where an apple is grown or whether it's bioengineered, or injected with something. You get sick years later from something is not much good as consumer feedback.

(btw, I rarely give a crap about bio-engineering food, but it seems important to some to know)

Well, you have WIC, right? WIC is a function of the Government. If you have a product such that the demand stems from it being paid for by the Government, then it's really tough to point to a shortage and attribute same to a Capitalism failing. Furthermore, trying to base your supply on projected demand is just good economics. Stockpiling on every single item just in case of an unexpected run on that item, in virtually any system, would be terrible economics. It would create a ton of potential for waste, for one thing, which then would have to be factored into prices...so prices would increase, despite there technically being a supply of product that greatly exceeds normal demand, which would typically cause a decrease in prices.

Simply put: Companies can't reasonably be expected to base their production/inventory schedule on the remote possibility of a once or twice in a lifetime worldwide pandemic.

Labor costs are labor costs. To a small extent, our higher labor costs are a function of Government, both directly and indirectly. The essentialness of the products, and the companies that produce those products, don't give a crap about the U.S.A., 'Winning,' or whether or not the products are critical---they care about labor costs. I'd imagine that microchips are not only easy to transport, but the Chinese themselves also consume a substantial percentage of them (as well as India and some other countries), so it makes sense to me why companies would want to manufacture there.

Yeah, corners get cut sometimes and unsafe items make it to market. At the same time, the FDA doesn't actually have to pre-approve a lot of food stuffs to market and only investigates in the event of complaints. To that end, you could regulate it such that the FDA/USDA (depending) have to regulate all new foodstuffs and check them before they are permitted to go to market. You could do that with other stuff, as well. That's arguably as much a failure of Government as anything and Government sanctions for this sort of thing tend to be fairly weak when they occur at all.

I think your line about companies don't care about if products are critical or not is key. It's not that government fails to pre-check every product, it's just that no one is going to pay for that much regulation.

So you have the government you paid for. And the public is to blame for that as well.

Also, I don't think you can reasonably argue babies will do without formula in any existing world I know of. So, it's not even a possible alternative, except in a fictional world. Pretty sure of that, at least in this country. Some, if I recall, don't have any choice but formula to survive.

Quote: rxwine

I think your line about companies don't care about if products are critical or not is key. It's not that government fails to pre-check every product, it's just that no one is going to pay for that much regulation.

So you have the government you paid for. And the public is to blame for that as well.

Maybe. Certainly, in theory, Congress could legislate that the FDA/USDA (as applicable) MUST do this, or that, if it wanted to.

Quote: rxwine

Also, I don't think you can reasonably argue babies will do without formula in any existing world I know of. So, it's not even a possible alternative, except in a fictional world. Pretty sure of that, at least in this country. Some, if I recall, don't have any choice but formula to survive.

I don't know whether or not that's true. Certainly, most babies do not strictly require formula in order to survive.

If formula were used only as absolutely necessary, like a prescription drug, rather than living in an area between used as necessary (and absolutely necessary for some) and a consumer product of choice, then you could make a better argument for always making sure to have a surplus.

Maintaining sufficient inventory (with some assumed waste) to be able to provide the expected demand twice over is less expensive, and with less waste, if fewer people are demanding it or even in the market for it.

It wouldn’t totally surprise me if republicans killed free school lunches. Not supplying baby formula? Naw, I haven’t become that cynical.. yet. There’s always tomorrow.

Quote: rxwine

Also, I don't think you can reasonably argue babies will do without formula in any existing world I know of. So, it's not even a possible alternative, except in a fictional world. Pretty sure of that, at least in this country. Some, if I recall, don't have any choice but formula to survive.

Yes formulae was really hard to find in Roman days to. It was also such a PITA to pack enough formulae on the wagon train to get all the way to California. I suspect that a significant portion of the worlds babies some how survive today without formulae.