The media are in a kerfuffle about a short-term egg shortage caused by Target and other supermarket chains dropping a major supplier, Sparboe Farms, following reports that workers at its production facilities abused chickens and failed to follow the company’s animal welfare policy.  The revelations were punctuated by a graphic undercover video released by animal rights group Mercy for Animals, which showed workers stuffing chickens into cramped battery cages, pulling rotting carcasses out of cages, “torturing” birds by swinging them around by their legs, and so on.  No matter how you feel about animal rights, it’s not pleasant to watch.

Sparboe, for its part, has shifted its damage control into overdrive, posting updates about steps it has taken to “rectify problems” and pointing out that it is the first egg supplier to receive USDA certification.  Which, given these reports, provides some insight into the worth of government certifications.

I expect a government response will be forthcoming, and Sparboe may face fines and possibly a regiment of FDA inspectors swarming over its farms in the months to come.  But anything the government can do in its enforcement role pales next to the punishment which can be meted out by the market.  Even if millions of consumers haven’t suddenly adopted veganism in response to the video, they still have let their displeasure be known, and the result is that Sparboe has lost significant business and is now forced to reevaluate its practices in order to regain consumer trust.  Which is exactly as it should be.  No amount of regulatory oversight will prevent every problem in our food supply (this year has also seen the deadliest listeria outbreak, from tainted cantaloupe, since the 1920s), but with the ease with which information disseminates online, the market will help ensure such problems do not go unnoticed by consumers, who are then free to vote their conscience.  If only the market was free to punish every business, no matter how large or small, for bad decisions and unethical practices.

Gizmodo reports on a story from New Zealand about a supermarket which accidentally opened with no employees inside the store. People shopped and checked out using the self-checkout lanes. Half of the people actually paid, but note the explanation as to why the other half did not (emphasis mine):

In fact, after reviewing the tape, a religious studies professor said it seemed like everyone was going to pay until they got stuck at the self checkout machine waiting for an employee to approve an alcohol purchase. Once they couldn’t find an employee, they left with their groceries in tow.

Here we have a case of the government actually incentivizing theft and costing the store money through its moral policing. Without state laws against underage drinking, it is unlikely that stores would require employee approvals for any purchase.

Easily 99% of what American libertarians talk about is the demise of the country, with countless daily examples of new regulations, and the devastating results of those regulations. The US is, after all, in what to many appear to be an accelerating rate of decay compared to other countries around the world. The endless complaining and whining of the libertarian is not without merit–”our” federal government has for decades now been a worldwide aggressor. That said, there are a few aspects of American lifestyle that, in my opinion, are worth mentioning. These are things that I think are at least superior to that which exists elsewhere. In making this list I asked for comments by fellow TLS bloggers.

Full disclosure: for what it’s worth, personally, my only point of comparison is having lived half of my life in Perú and the other in the USA.

Of course, for each one of the points mentioned below there is some sort of state intervention that makes things more expensive or complicated. Still, there is something to be said about Americanism that is not all negative.

Affordable access to technology. Though things are improving in South America, import taxes are so high that it is not uncommon for people to travel to the US and bring back all kinds of electronics in their suitcase, pass them as their own, and then give them to buyers.

Can-do attitude. Everyday life is not a challenge. For the most part, people are cooperative, helpful, thankful and attentive. Special circumstances are not often resisted or met with disdain. In Perú, things are impossible, difficult, and take eons, but only because of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Speed of business. My cousin spent a year doing lab research in Italy. He noted that things got done “whenever” and nobody ever knew when an order would be fulfilled. Sure, there is a difference in culture. In my opinion, so long as things are done well, faster is better–it also makes you less poor.

Homeschooling. In large parts of Europe homeschooling is illegal or extremely regulated. Yes, there is always the black market, but there are huge risks involved (losing your kids or parenting rights, fines, jailtime, etc.). Homeschooling is legal in every state of the US, with some states giving homeschooling parents very favorable conditions (see a href=”http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp”>this map).

Entrepreneurship. Nobody blinks an eye upon being told, casually even, that the person conversing with them owns a business or two or three. The idea of starting a business, even a tiny, one-person operation, is not special.

When working on this post I received the following comment (edited for bloggability) from Anthony Gregory:

Music — jazz, country, blues and rock, all ours. Film — we invented it and still dominate. Literature — some of the best stuff written in English. Food — lots of stuff was developed and created here. Culture — we kick ass in everything from clothing to modern art. Political philosophy — we said goodbye to empire, ushering in two centuries of global liberalization. Modern libertarianism — our people invented the freaking thing. I love America as much as anyone in this country, goddamn it. I will defend America until I’m blue in the face.

Let’s continue.

Optimism. “Americans are uniquely (and, to foreigners, obnoxiously) optimistic. Pessimism is the order of the day elsewhere, but not here.” ~Akiva

Service. Granted, this one varies widely, but in my experience, in the US those in the service industry are either happy to see you, or, most likely, pretend to be. That’s fine, because in other countries, you are sadly more than often treated as a burden. Yes, customers treated like a burden who ruin a clerk’s otherwise completely idle day.

Drive-thrus. A convenient, time saver. No need to get out of your car and walk in the cold or in the heat. Once, years ago, my wife and met a German exchange student. He said that in his country, drive-thrus were seen as inhuman and were not popular. I just rolled my eyes and thought “FAIL” at such a comment. Do they have stoves in Germany or cars?

Charity. Personal and corporate charitable donations, foundations, scholarships, memorial funds abound. Americans tend to rank near the top when it comes to non-profit financial support.

24/7 places. Some years ago Gabriel Calzada (founder of the Instituto Juan de Mariana) and I were walking around Manhattan. He still got a kick out of seeing businesses actually opened on Sundays, as well as businesses running 24/7. In Spain, he told me, some businesses are prohibited from opening on Sundays, supposedly for protectionist reasons (big stores vs. small stores).

Guns. Though a few states have it almost as bad as Europe, in most of the US you can go buy a firearm in minutes from a store; in most states you can also (legally) buy one from a private seller with no government notice, permit or registry. And in a handful of states you can take a handgun and carry it concealed without a permit.

Classlessness. In developing countries, where income mobility is not high, a de facto class system has therefore been established. In Perú, for example, it is common–indeed expected–for the poor to not generally approach or talk to the non-poor unless they are begging for money or asking for business. For the upper middle class and above, it is just not usual, and sometimes even frowned upon, for the “privileged” to mingle, chat or engage in random conversation at a checkout lane, with the lower classes. In the US there can be a bit of this, but it is nowhere near as pronounced. Most folks have no problem interacting with any other person regardless of their position in life or income. Americans greet, and shake hands, with anyone else, and tend to respect the other person for their accomplishments and work. There are even linguistic examples of “classiness.” If you are upper middle class, it is expected for you to use the informal version of you (tu) when speaking with someone of a “lower” class, whereas the “plebes” are expected to use the formal you (usted) when addressing their “betters.”

Fellow TLS blogger Akiva shares the following comment regarding American optimism and individualism:

On the first day of B-school, they had an expert on international culture who consults with major companies come and give us some behavior and attitudes test and then explain the outcome. The bottom line is that Americans are *extreme* outliers. American culture is unique. Despite all the crap that has happened, Americans are as culturally exceptional as they were in de Tocqueville’s day.

They reject fate and believe in in the power of individual choice. American celebrate mavericks; they’d never say, “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down”. On a very fundamental level, Americans value others as free individuals and expect those around them to do the same. There is no deference to authority, experience, or seniority, Americans expect people to justify themselves by their words and deeds, not because of who they are. Individualism and freedom are not political ideas here, they are cultural values, to the point that even the enemies of freedom must pay lip service to them.

Americans believe in the rule of law with almost religious fervor. That the state has to justify not only every exercise of power but even its very existence, is a uniquely American attitude. When Americans say that the state “can’t” do something they don’t mean it as a procedural formality, but as a statement of metaphysical reality.

America succeed b/c of the people and despite the government. Everywhere else seems to have *needed* political leadership to get anything done, but Americans by and large just take care of business. Politics is not a field that attracts the best and brightest, America doesn’t produce great statesman, but that’s b/c its best people have
better things to do. Politicians may talk of taxing the rich, but even on the left, very few would begrudge Gates, Dell, or others who made their fortunes with “honest” work.

In short, what is good about America is everything that riles the Europeans, offends those from the Far East, and mystifies everyone else.

To this list I can probably add tolerance and heterogeneity. Unlike places where there is significant pressure to never deviate from “standard” behavior, in the US people do not care too much if individuals or families do things that are not “the norm.” There are numerous “private holidays” and events and activities of all kinds. These exist all over the world, but in my opinion (again, drawing from my Peruvian experience) folks who deviate from what is standard are easily categorized as weird or outcasts, even if their interests are not, for international standards, extravagant or radically unusual.

For the “average” Austro-anarcho-libertarian, the US is free-fall, with totalitarianism around the corner. But there is also plenty of good.

This is a syndicated post, which originally appeared at Mimi and Eunice » IP. View original post.

Jon Perlow, over at Jon’s Political Ramblings, has a thought experiment which should give pause to all socialists and interventionists:

Here’s an idea that I think my socialist friends in San Francisco might love.

We’ll have the city of San Francisco open up a chain of restaurants. We’ll make them completely free and the city will pay for them with taxes. We’ll tax wealthy people the most so that the people without much money won’t have to pay any taxes for this service. Since it’s free, it will have the additional benefit of causing most of the profit-seeking restaurants in the city to close down. Even though they may sell better food, it’s hard to compete with something that is free to the customer. But since there’s little competition, the food quality in our public restaurants may suffer or vary too much from neighborhood to neighborhood. The people in the wealthier neighborhoods may try to help their restaurants get better ingredients, but that wouldn’t be fair to people in lower income neighborhoods. To solve this, we’ll create a central bureaucracy that will set food standards across the entire city. Although the overhead of this bureaucracy will cost about 20% of the total cost of the entire operation, it’ll be worth it because we’ll have uniform standards set by professionals who know what is best for us. And it’ll be funded for by taxes from wealthy people who already have too much money.

Some super wealthy people may choose to go to private restaurants, but it will be a tiny minority because few people can afford to pay taxes once for their public restaurants and then pay a second fee to private establishments. Those establishments will be very expensive because they will only cater to the wealthiest and the tiny demand will severely limit competition. Although our leaders will all dine at these elite establishments, they will stand behind the quality and cost of the public restaurants.

Some other people may choose to pay for raw ingredients and eat at home, but we’ll demonize those home-cookers as being anti-social and weird. We’ll wonder why they don’t want to eat with the rest of us? Is our food not good enough for them? It would be too dangerous to let this trend catch on. But it’ll be okay — eventually one of them will screw up and that’s when we’ll pounce. Perhaps, one of them will get food poisoning and we’ll feign outrage. Although the incidence rate of food poisoning is the same at both public and home kitchens, the general population knows that statistics lie. We’ll say we must protect these home-cookers from poisoning themselves and we’ll demand they change their ways and eat like the rest of us.

Hopefully, this model will become so successful that we’ll replicate it to the state level. And then other states will copy it. To ensure that things are fair from state to state, we’ll pass “No eater left behind” legislation to ensure consistent standards. We’ll have to raise more taxes though to fund the Department of Gastronomy.

Of course, no system is perfect. Problems may arise from time to time. For example, the workers at these state-run monopolies may realize they have a lot more leverage than they would in a free marker. Where would people eat if they went on strike? They will negotiate lucrative contracts that guarantee it’s virtually impossible to get fired and everybody will get a fair salary based on seniority instead of based on the quality of their work. After all, how would it be fair to pay Michelle more than David just because Michelle works longer hours.

Some people though may not like the food they are getting. They will demand better from their state government. Some forward-looking free market thinkers may realize that we should give these eaters more choices. We’ll allow a few charter restaurants to be created. They will receive funds from the state and the eaters will get vouchers to dine at these quasi-private establishments. These charter restaurants will be loathed by the public restaurants. The employees of the public restaurants will not like the employment practices at the charter restaurants such as firing waiters who are under-performing or giving some cooks bonuses because their food is better. They will say that these charter restaurants don’t meet the same standards as the public ones and demand that this be fixed to protect eaters. The charter restaurants will be forced to comply with the thousands of pages of regulations created by the public food bureaucracy, but it will be very difficult for them because they don’t have their own giant bureaucracy for ensuring compliance. Some charter restaurants will stay around but only enough to placate the most unhappy eaters and not so many that the overall system is destabilized.

Now, isn’t this so much better than the current model of having those profit-seeking restaurants of varying quality all over the city. Some of them are mom and pop places that go out of business when their customers don’t like their food. How unjust is that!

There are those of you who may think this is a pretty silly idea. But if it works so well for primary and secondary education, why not replicate it to other areas. Hopefully, I’ve convinced the naysayers.

In college, I quickly learned that working at a restaurant is a great way to guarantee you’ll get at least one free (or drastically reduced) meal per shift. I always vied for the Sunday buffet brunch shift because even though I had to show up early on Sunday after a late Saturday night, buffet brunch meant 1) I only had to take drink orders, bring fresh rolls, and bus tables, 2) I could enjoy a huge plate of brunch leftovers once the restaurant was closed, and 3) I could pack a to-go box with rations for my now-husband. During the rest of the week, the long hours on my feet and difficult customers were well worth the 1/2 price dinner and shift drink that came with each night on the floor.

Of course, leave it to politicians to destroy this small but crucial perk. Michigan State Representative Mark Meadows (D-East Lansing) has introduced House Bill 6214, which would tax restaurant employees on meals they receive while working. Let’s be clear here: when I was a server in Alabama, the minimum base pay was $2.13/hour. Yes, servers get tips and depending on where they work, they could be making well over $100 per night in tips alone. But if the restaurant is dead, you go home with a few measly dollars and the knowledge that your weekly paycheck will be enough for a tank of gas and a few staples from the grocery store. I counted on my shift dinner to be my meal of the day–supplemented with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or cheese on crackers.

Now, Representative Meadows wants to take more money from the pockets of restaurant employees. I’ve known some fine “professional” servers who have worked in the food industry for the majority of their lives. These people generally work at high-class establishments and make more than I do in my 9-5. However, the majority of folks working in restaurants aren’t doing it for the big bucks. They are busting ass by night at Chili’s after working their day jobs, they are folks without extensive training or educational opportunities, and they are people with a nice smile and warm demeanor that can hustle a few extra dollars from a table. It’s unfortunate that Representative Meadows now wants to target this population with this terribly greedy plan. More money for the state of Michigan, less for you!

Photo courtesy of bradleyolin.

Slate writer Melinda Wenner Moyer makes a big to-do over new mainstream medical-research findings that suggest that saturated fats affect your blood-cholesterol levels in ways that don’t really hurt you, while processed sugars affect your blood-cholesterol levels in ways that do hurt you.  I agree with Moyer that the topic is something over which it is worthwhile to make a big to-do.  The bottom line:  LDL (“bad, bad”) cholesterol comes in a variety of flavors, distinguished by the sizes of the particles in your blood.  Big LDL particles — those you get from eating fatty meat — seem not to attach to artery walls; those are the heart-neutral particles.  Small and medium LDL particles — the ones you get into your blood by eating processed sugars and flours — do appear to attach to artery walls and contribute to heart disease.

The knowledge that processed carbohydrates lead to problems with blood cholesterol isn’t new, however.  Dr. Sheldon Reiser published studies showing that processed-carb intake raises LDL and triglyceride levels back in 1983.  (You’ll have to visit a library to find this:  “Physiological Differences between Starches and Sugars,” in Medical Applications of Clinical Nutrition pp. 133-177, ed. By J. Bland, Keats Pub. New Canaan, CN, 1983.)

I’ve known how to eat well for years, but recently have set aside the time and developed the motivation to really do it.  What occurred to me while I was shopping:  My wife and I are now shopping mostly for meats (including fish), cheeses, nuts, and a huge variety of fresh produce.  In other words, the “radical” healthy diets some of us are eating, including the “paleo” diet, remind me of what my grandmother ate (though our grandparents didn’t know to avoid bread, especially white bread).  Of course, we’re avoiding processed foods, which everybody has known to do for decades.

So, what’s the federal government to do?  Government officials have been waging war on our meat and fat intake for years, most recently with the updated food pyramid (the one from 2005, due to be updated this year) that calls for six or more servings of grain (only half of them whole grain), and only two of meat, per day — a diet likely to make anyone but a marathon runner gain body fat and tiny-bit LDL.  Knowing that the 2005 pyramid is already obsolete, is there any reason to trust the next one, or any reason to trust that the government’s new war on salt is any more credible?

The final answer:  Don’t trust the government’s war on nutrition (ostensibly a war on bad nutrition) any more than its wars on inflation, unemployment, drugs, or terrorism.  Inform yourself, take control of your own health, and enjoy a long and healthy life in spite of the government’s attempts to help.

I love food shows, enough to be sucked into watching the first two episodes of “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” (I also only have basic cable, so no more Food Network. Sigh.) Last week we followed Oliver as he created a new lunch menu for an elementary school in Huntington, West Virginia, the CDC’s unhealthiest city of 2008. And what did we find? Oliver’s menu of baked chicken, brown rice, and fruit did not meet the USDA standards for a well-rounded lunch. He wasn’t offering two grains! Heaven forbid! Oliver resorted to toasting hamburger buns to serve with the lunch, all the while complaining that this extra starch was just going to make the students fat. The USDA-approved lunch, however, met the guidelines–a slice of cheese pizza is two grains. I think they threw a few carrot and celery sticks and a piece of fruit on the tray as well. Which would you rather your child have for lunch? Well, it doesn’t matter because the USDA demands they have the pizza.

As a child of a lunch lady, I know that the ire for the sub-par school lunch is often directed at those who prepare and serve the food and not at the true culprit: the USDA. I asked my mother exactly how the lunches are planned at her school, and I learned that she is given a menu each week which she must strictly abide by. The only alterations she can make are to remove spices, butter, and anything else that may add any actual flavor to the food. Can she incorporate any local foods? Can she tailor the menus to local tastes? Absolutely not! Them’s the rules, lunch lady.

My mother, and countless other lunch ladies (and men!) across the country, LOVE what they do. They enjoy feeding the children. They like to see empty trays returned to the kitchen. They truly care about the health and well-being of the kiddies who walk through their line everyday. But they are given no opportunity to create lunches that kids actually want to eat. Instead, they are forced to reheat mostly processed foods and require each student to take a carton of milk, only to watch the unopened cartons go directly into the trash. Talk about a waste of money.

Nutrition is first taught in the home. Parents must take their responsibility as educators seriously and not depend on the schools to teach their children. And parents must take a more active role in their children’s development rather than believe that the government knows whats best for their children. The USDA thinks they know what is best: cheese pizza and chicken nuggets for lunch.

In the silly but eminently watchable Travel Channel show, Man v. Food, host Adam Richman visits diners that provide food challenges — dishes so big or so pepper-hot that whoever manages to eat an entire one wins some kind of honor.  Imagine such a diversion during America’s (first) Great Depression.  In fact, it should ever be as Man v. Food paints it; the only famines recorded in the last several centuries have been the direct results of the activities of forcible governments.  Societies always, always can feed themselves abundantly and inexpensively in the absence of governmental wealth-destroying interference.  Watch for evidence of this in your own life while the American economy struggles to absorb the gargantuan economic “stimuli” and control-tightening measures instituted over the last, and the next, few years.