Switzerland is also one of the most expensive places in the world. As is NYC, where I live and the minimum wage is $15/hour and service jobs paying between $20-$35 is not unusual.
In the US, there are also places where the minimum wage is $7.50 (the federal minimum wage) and things also cost far less. The US in general is a much more diverse place than a place like Switzerland, and yet it’s all governed by the same federal law, which paid expanded unemployment benefits the same regardless of where the person is located.
Yes but he brings up a good point. They are more likely to talk about a 3 sigma result that challenges the standard model than one that doesn’t yield anything special. So given you know a 3 sigma result is being discussed, the probability that it’s a false result at higher sigma is more than 1/1000.
I read many books but skip many long blog entries. Blogs tend to be in sore need of editing, and most the books that make it to print are in general far higher quality. The main strength blogs have to me are time to print, which makes them more “real time” than books.
>you'll find a dozen people to complain that you're nothing but an eeeevil capitalist who would poison our oceans and black out our skies just to make an extra $3.50 in pocket change, if not simply out of spite generally.
I wouldn't be one of those people, trust me. I won't go into what my line of work is, but suffice to say I may actually be one of those evil capitalists.
I DO think this is one of those cost-of-doing-business type of things when it comes to international trade. I think most consumers appreciate that when they go and buy something that labels itself "pasta", it conforms to some standard that we can agree is reasonable. Otherwise, you'll likely have someone who stuffs ramen noodles into a pasta package and sells it to some suckers. And now we all have to always know which are the "real" pasta brands and which are the fakes(yes, that might be easy enough to do, but it's the overall cognitive load of having to do that with every product that should concern us). That's just an example, but that's why the regulations exist.
And you can't just say "well they sell this in Italy, and that's the home of pasta, so c'mon man this can't be right", because Italy I'm sure has like 3x more regulations around pasta selling (a cursory google search shows this is likely true), and any change they make to their regulation will keep in mind the interests of their consumers and their producers. They will not be thinking of American interests when making those regulations.
Finally, it's worth keeping in mind that this one company that was recently restricted for not being in compliance is NOT the only manufacturer of Bucatini, and in fact may not be the largest or best manufacturer either. It's just one company that returned the reporter's calls and had an answer for them.
This food regulation is not really based on health or nutrients or anything like that, nor is it pointless. It stems from an effort to define what can be marketed as a pasta noodle vs. other similar yet different products, like ramen noodles.
There are similar regulations that define, for example, what is a whiskey and what isn't.
Sure X amount of Y substance vs. X-epsilon amount will always look ridiculous on the face of it, but ultimately there needs to exist some line and some definition.
I think it's obviously true that monied interests will have greater access to regulators and corporations than smaller operations do. We should seek to limit that advantage when possible, but it's doubtful that we can ever truly eliminate it.
Speaking specifically about this case though, it doesn't seem like a big business tossing its weight around, but some large multinational businesses working within existing regulatory and bureaucratic systems to ensure their competitors are not unfairly gaining by flouting the law.
It is akin to an auto company finding another company has saved money by not complying with emissions standards.
"Standards of Identification" are not about safety, but rather marketplace regulation against deception. After all, if it was about safety, then ramen noodles wouldn't be sold at all.
Rather, it is (or was, originally) about protecting the brand of pasta noodles vs. ramen noodles, at a time when the difference was not as readily apparently to consumers.
It's the type of regulation that determines what is a "HD" tv, for example.
I actually think most of the governmental functions in this article worked quite well. Told another way, a firm in the marketplace for pasta found that a competitor was out of regulation with their product, and they found a person in congress who could press a slow-moving and ineffective agency to do better at doing their job: enforcing said regulations.
That's exactly what you want your elected representatives to do: listen to their constituents and act accordingly to ensure a fair outcome according to the law. Note that no laws were changed in this to favor one company over another, if anything the previous state was one in which the company in question was profiting from shipping out-of-regulation product, perhaps at decreased cost compared to in-compliance firms.
The rule itself can be debated, but in general I find that a law specifying in exact numbers what a product should contain in order to qualify for a label to be a very good law. It's exact, it's measurable, and it's achievable by all. Fair and equal enforcement should make it a good regulation.
If you say "well you don't need this law, it's over-regulation", that's a good argument -- I'm not sure I have an opinion on that. On one hand, I think Standard of Identification make a lot of sense, but I also know that drawing the lines can be a very delicate art form (what makes a pasta noodle vs. a ramen noodle? What makes champagne vs. sparkling wine? And so on)
Edit: Also, I think a lot of this could be dealt with better by an FDA that has a good communication arm. "We found this company to not be compliance with existing law and took it off the shelves" sounds a lot better than having the company get to print saying "Seems like a hold up by the FDA"
“Standards of Identity” are not in and of themselves a bad thing. If a product comes to market claiming to be one thing but it is not, it may damage the market for all other products. Imagine a tv manufacturer claiming to sell a HD tv that is not HD, for example.
In this case, the pasta industry did not want their product confused with the new noodles coming from Nissin; this was back in the days when many Americans may not have readily known the difference between pasta noodles and ramen noodles, and wondered why they were paying more for pasta than they could for ramen.
Now those rules might be perverted to suit protectionist goals, but that’s the whole art of effective hopefully minimalist regulation: it’s very hard to do.
Alternatively, it might be the fact that the pasta company in question was selling buccatini at a lower price, a competitor did an analysis, and they found that this company was saving money by skirting regulation that everyone else is complying with. And they did the right thing by forcing the FDA to apply the rules evenly to all companies.
At 6'1" BMI seems to say I should be between 140lbs and 185 lbs. I'm currently 165 lbs and feel pretty skinny -- I can't imagine being healthy at 140 lbs! The 185 seems about right -- I've been close to 180 lbs and felt like I could lose a few.
The linked video talks about updating laws regarding the legality of operating the smart summon feature on public roads. I don't see how that can be called "blatant sensationalism".
And you don’t need to go far for this effect. I still to this day remember a beautiful calming moment I had when on a walk in the backyard near a house outside of Portland Maine.
I have an identical experience. Switched to a very light weight zero drop shoe, it forced me to change my stride to more forefoot, and all my shin pain stopped.
Microsoft has to defer reporting revenue on sales of Windows 10. From their recent investor letter:
"We delivered $90.0 billion in revenue and $22.3 billion in operating income this past fiscal year. Adjusting for Windows 10 revenue deferrals and restructuring expenses, revenue was $96.7 billion with $29.3 billion in operating income."
That is 31% more revenue and 34% more operating income compared to 2012 (the 5 year time period you're citing). Stock backs will also move the price -- there's almost a billion fewer shares outstanding now than there were 5 years ago.
Of course, investors buy companies for future performance and not for past performance. I would suggest that investors like MSFT's current strategy and management considerably more than their past, and as the management continues to increase profits, investors gain more confidence.