The Observation Deck

I think if you use the right search words you'll find an old post that suggested that both marijuana and prostitution need to be made legal. It was in reference to ways that California could address its financial issues.

Lately I've posted about the problems (massive expenses) that occur when folks are free to spend other people's money. Well there's a whole other class of problems that occur when we refuse to let people and institutions fail. The FDA is one manifestation. What you put in your body should be your own business.

Another government agency that is in the business of trying (without success) to prevent failure is the FDIC. If folks knew that their money was really at risk and there was no backstop, they would deposit their money in banks that invested it very safely. And there would be no need for the FDIC in the first place. The FDIC should be abandoned. When all is said and done the FDIC is gonna cost us about a trillion dollars.

I find it amusing that, with the recent DC snowfall, “non-essential” federal employees have had the whole week off. Which is to say about 90% of them stayed home. What does that tell you?

Tim Liston wrote:I find it amusing that, with the recent DC snowfall, “non-essential” federal employees have had the whole week off. Which is to say about 90% of them stayed home. What does that tell you?

Tim

First, that is funny, and very telling.

One might also think though that maybe, just maybe things are not being run correctly, not
that they are 100% unnecessary. Or maybe mile myself the businesses do better when I am
not there for at least short periods of time.

Tim Liston wrote:I think if you use the right search words you'll find an old post that suggested that both marijuana and prostitution need to be made legal. It was in reference to ways that California could address its financial issues.

Tim, so you make Marijuana legal, couple interesting ways to do this. I would favor the
tax, and pay farmers, with a spin towards the same laws for beer and wine. Prosititution,
boy that is a tough one as the trade is in people not goods, and that always leads to other
problems and issues, but I suppose there are laws against those. Works in other countries.
Maybe handle it like Clevelands new chicken laws.

But I am still troubled by this lack of oversight on the FDA, as we have some pretty wild
stuff out there that is every bit as bad as anything that ever came off the streets. We are
talking about some pretty nasty side effects, "suicide, liver failure, bone loss, memory
loss, etc" I suppose if added to the labels, one could choose or not but still crazy.

Then we have the really screwed up FOOD side of that FDA that is doing very little right now
to food labeling but could. My biggest concern is the new crop of genetically engineered foods
that are not being labeled correctly by really need to be. Massive difference for a guy like
me or Stephen, and you from what I know about you between "Mr Sweet's organic corn" and
"Mr Sweets Organically Grown Corn with blowfish poison engineered into the genes so you
do not need insecticide." So while I agree they do a terrible job right now, maybe, just
maybe they could be doing better, not disbanded.

Tim on a side note I have always found you one of the more open thinkers in this city. I
just always find it interesting where people draw lines, especially when it comes to the FDA.
Dorthy Fuldheim used to say, "Make it all legal!" No one has the right to tell me what I can put
in my body for treating cancer, depression or for fun. I found it very interesting at a time
when my junior high gym teacher was showing us "Reefer Madness."

.

Jim DeVito wrote:Department of Corrections. Quit paying to keep small time drug users (not dealers) in prison.

get a little deeper. it's laws, law-enforcement agencies, states prosecuting attorneys, and judges that send folks to prison. which laws, programs, agencies, departments, judges? ATF? DEA?

Tim Liston wrote:Hi Ryan....

The Dept of Education was really easy. What a total waste of $60 billion a year.

Now it gets tougher, but only just a little bit. I'm going with the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). These are the people we spend tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to assure us that our food and drugs are safe, driving up costs for both, when we should be looking out for ourselves. Especially since they have done such an incredibly bad job. Vioxx? Approved at a cost of billions then withdrawn for billions more. They need to be gone and we all need to decide for ourselves what we consume, based on our own judgment on who to trust and who not. I mean why should we spend tens of billions to presume that whatever we put in our mouth is safe?

modern medicine is very complicated. the pharmaceutical companies can white-wash hazards or fabricate benefits. the free-market learning curve is fatalities(hopefully someone else's fatalities). The professional medical establishment itself is also a factor: look at Barry Marshall's work with ulcers: he saved millions of lives, but the pros were against him for years. the professional organizations themselves are government. Big Tobacco successfully avoided admitting nicotine was "addictive" for decades.

modern industrial food production is very complicated and occasionally hazardous. that might be USDA turf. I don't remember. our state religion is McDonalds. but the big AG companies and retailers have destroyed the market-inrastructure of smaller scale production and distribution.

Tim Liston said:

They need to be gone and we all need to decide for ourselves what we consume, based on our own judgment on who to trust and who not. I mean why should we spend tens of billions to presume that whatever we put in our mouth is safe?

Because of the actions of companies like Beech-Nut, who in the mid 80's sold colored sugar water as baby apple juice:

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/24/magazine/into-the-mouths-of-babes.html?pagewanted=1

Should all of those mothers and fathers who purchased that sugar water, boldly labeled as 100% pure apple juice, have been able to "use their judgment on who to trust," or should they have been able to expect that someone with authority would have made it illegal to blatantly label sugar water as apple juice?

The courts agreed with the FDA and not only was the company fined, the principles of the company were held personally liable and sentenced to prison terms for this despicable act.

Thank goodness for the FDA. Without them, your beef could be horsemeat, your canned goods could be filled with rat droppings, and your milk could contain melamine, just like the Chinese.

If we are not going to hold pharmaceutical and food companies accountable at some level
why not make all drugs legal?

Marijuana is a plant.. and drugs some time encompass ingredients that are not natural...

Grace I guess I would start by pointing out that we had a FDA in the mid '80's, and it was “blatantly illegal” then to sell sugar water as 100% apple juice.

Yet the Beech-Nut situation still took place, didn't it....

Now, let's presume for the moment that there is no such thing as the FDA and that baby food is instead sold “buyer beware.” I suspect that most parents would be a whole lot more careful about what they feed their children. Many parents would make their own baby food. Baby food is easy to make, we did it for most of history. Most of the rest would purchase baby food from producers they know and trust, and who probably operate more locally and transparently.

But the sad fact is that from what little I know the FDA would probably prevent such baby food operations. Check out some of what Joel Salatin writes and says about how government agencies like the FDA and the USDA obstruct small operators and stifle innovation. He's one of many who claim that these agencies favor the industrial food system by way of regulations that smaller operators can't afford to implement.

In fact, by creating a false sense of security and by favoring the industrial food system, I believe the USDA and FDA have clearly done more harm than good, and at a huge cost to taxpayers.

Many (most?) government agencies just create a false sense of security (like the FDA), or invite moral hazard (like the FDIC), or stifle innovation (like the Dept. of Education). We need to stop nanny state-ism and learn to rely on ourselves again. Ryan wanted to know what to cut. After the worse than useless Dept. of Education, the FDA should be the next to go.

+++++

Jim I'm taking Mattie and Katie to see CSU v. Butler downtown now, I'll say a few words about your post later today. Maybe I'll spell out my four-step plan for restoring worldwide primary and secondary educational leadership. That'll win me a lot of friends around here....

the government spent 12 million dollars arresting Tommy Chong for selling water pipes. 12 million dollars is a lot of paychecks. Who is to say the people getting them weren't voting the right way? How can you tell the - the police, investigators, U.S. Attorneys, - that they have no value? What laws, programs, agencies, standards need to be struck from the book to save the tax payers 12 million dollars?

any other agencies or spending or activities? the aerospace industry floats on massive government contracts and research and education subsidies. do we really need jetliners?