“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Monday, October 01, 2007

Fast food police

Having already sucked the fun and enjoyment out of literally every facet of our lives, the vampire-like do-gooders have their sights set on the food industry...

Westchester officials consider mandatory calorie counts on fast food menus

Pouted busy-body Joshua Lipsman,

"Two-thirds of adults and one-third of kids are obese or overweight," Lipsman said. "We can't have a healthy, vibrant society where one-third of the kids and two-thirds of the adults weigh too much."

This cretin couldn't be more wrong! What we can't have is a rich, enjoyable life full of choices when pencil-necked bureaucrats micromanage every choice available to us. If customers want a calorie count on fast food, they'll demand it and the free market will provide it, without the meddling pincers of pointy-headed goons like Lipsman mandating it.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let the fast food restaurants put calorie counts on all of their menus, the people that eat there that much won't care enough to see how many calories they are eating, nor how many calories will = obesity. So let them, people who are self conscious about there weight won't want to eat there anyway.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I still think that smoking is more harmful than fast food will ever be, short of smoking a hamburger joint.

Ed said...

The point isn't whether the calorie count should be displayed, it's whether the government should mandate that fast-food providers display it. Clearly the government should not be in the business of meddling in legitimate businesses. The discretionary display of calories is a market function, not a regulatory one.

Anonymous said...

Yes I know that, I was simply pointing out how absurd this regulation would be, simply because the vast majority of Americans do not care how many calories are in a cheeseburger.

Anonymous said...

I agree Ed. If enough people want to see the calorie counts then the restaurant should respond by providing them. Otherwise leave them to run their business the way they see fit.

Besides by the time someone is standing at the counter with visions of cheesburgers and french fries dancing in their heads they are well past the concern over calories.

There is only one fast-food restaurant worth visiting and that's Chick-Fil-A. Everywhere else the hiring standards are so low they attract employees whose appearance and demeanor ought to be bottled and sold by slim fast. These employees do more to drive away customers than any calorie count could.

For the ultimate case study visit Six Flags in Atlanta. This "park" could serve as a microcosm of the U.S. all we need to do is breech the fence around the park so it too could be overrun.

Anonymous said...

Ed stipulated the cost of Hillary's "baby bond" to $20 billion a year.

Just to put things in persective:

http://www.obesityinamerica.org/economicimpact.html

Anonymous said...

David you said it best. Probably how I should have phrased it to begin with.

Anonymous said...

"Everywhere else the hiring standards are so low they attract employees whose appearance and demeanor ought to be bottled and sold by slim fast. These employees do more to drive away customers than any calorie count could."

If this was the case, wouldn't the employers have sacked them - they're in it for the money, aren't they?

Anonymous said...

No, the customer base for these fast food places is so large, it would be near impossible to drive customers away.

Anonymous said...

So why go for quality labour?

Anonymous said...

people who are actually qualified enough to work at fast food find better paying jobs, because they don't want to work for minimum wage.

Anonymous said...

Conclusion: The fast-food employers are hiring the right people because the customers are not driven away by these low-standard employees "whose appearance and demeanor ought to be bottled and sold by slim fast".

The market is working.

Ed said...

It appears that everybody is pretty much correct in the point they are arguing.

David is correct in that fast-food employees are rude degenerates and it may disuade some people from patronizing a particularly offensive establishment...that's economics.

Kevin is correct in that minimum-wage jobs attract the minimally qualified and the minimally motivated...that's economics too.

Capt. America is correct in that the market is working exactly as it should. When Wendy's sees it's margin decrease and matches that up with the comment cards stating the rude, degenerate nature of the employees, the manager will have no choice but to make a change. Until then, why increase your labor costs unnecessarily by hiring higher quality employees?

Anonymous said...

I apologize if any of you are employed at a fast food restaurant. I was speaking from my experience and perceptions alone. These jobs do provide a necessary gateway to better jobs and standards of living. Would you like fries with that?

Anonymous said...

Don't worry David, fast food employees probably aren't the best readers and are most likely in bed until their shift starts.

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