What keeps you safer?
 

Competition vs Government Regulation?

U.S. government fights to keep meatpackers from testing all slaughtered cattle for mad cow

This is just another case where the Feds are trying to keep the little guy from creating a niche market. They pulled the same thing with non-BGH milk.

Isn't it up to the consumer to educate themselves about the risks and make their own decision about purchasing accordingly?

I think it's a bullshit move and if any company wants to test for any disease at their own expense then there's no problem.

And who do you think lobbies the government into doing that? The corporations do, so you trust them to regulate themselves?

The government and FDA is the public tool for keeping corporations in check even if it has been corrupted. Its our fault for not paying attention or valuing the service.

They lobby the organization, that they lobbied for the existence of, to limit competition and block access to the market. If the USDA limited themselves to verifying advertising claims, they'd be doing the peoples work, but that is not why they were created. They were created to be the tool of the large established meatpackers.

Greedy politicians will be the downfall of this country. Great men and great women have abandoned politics to corporate stooges. Bush is a veritable poster child for this phenomenon.

The answer to the question assumes - or depends- on whether or not governement functions correctly - as it was designed. Competition is the only safeguard consumers need. But in the absence of competition, the government has to step in and fill the gap. Government can break up monopolies, it can foster competition and as a last resort, it can regulate pricing and industry practices.


So the real question for me is: Is government filling the gap or are they creating and/or perpetuating the gap (by fostering policies that reduce or stifle competition)?

There are numerous examples of government protecting the people from the economic consequences of a non-competitive market and there are many examples of government stifling competition at the expense of the consumer.

The answer, I guess would have to be the average benefit of the protection we get minus the average cost we bear when government doesn't do its job.

We need a balance of both. Both controls through some regulation and competition through open and free markets. The balance is the key. Finding and defining it is something else all together.

There should be minimum standards - which I assume there already are - and if someone wants to make their particular product more attractive and by doing so is able to ask a higher price, so be it.

That's what a free market is all about.

I think that's the first really reasonable thing Merc's said, ever.

:headshake