<story><title>No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/no-evidence-of-aloe-vera-found-in-the-aloe-vera-at-wal-mart-cvs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nickik</author><text>Its funny, whenever somebody makes a libertarian argument, somebody throws &amp;#x27;libertarian utopia&amp;#x27; back. I don&amp;#x27;t believe in utopia, a libertarian system would not be perfect, misery and suffering will not be eliminated. Not everything you buy will be perfectly labeled. No libertarian I have ever met in my hole live believes the market&amp;#x2F;legal based system is perfect, just that it usually outperforms a regulatory system&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Or his incentive is to run a fly by night operation that shuts down before it can be sued.&lt;p&gt;So what, you manufacture 10 bottles of creme and then vanish into the shadows?&lt;p&gt;Companies have a huge intensive to stay, establish partnerships, branding, funding and so on.&lt;p&gt;Also, I think the idea of legal person has gone to far. Im not against the idea of big cooperations but the legal system has clearly gone to far into the direction of none accountability (something that was actually often the case in common law legal systems).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Their replacement for the evil gubmint is a host of other bureaucracies (giant consumer groups, a bunch of non-profits doing testing, insurance for everything, etc.) that presumably will have many of the same pathologies as the gubmint.&lt;p&gt;I have nothing against big organisations per se. That has never been my criticism of regulatory agencies.&lt;p&gt;The groups have much more intensive to actually provide value because they relay on people to be their costumer. Also, you have pluralism, different groups have different demands.&lt;p&gt;I honestly only care if stuff is not  poisonous, and Im happy to pay for the lowest level of testing. I however don&amp;#x27;t really care if the meat is actually beef, Im fine with horse as long as it is tasty.&lt;p&gt;Other people, like vegans are willing to pay way more for exact information.&lt;p&gt;How about a suggestion that can make both of use happy? We keep the FDA, they do everything the do now, only that other products can still be sold, but they need to have a reasonably BIG label on it, that they are not FDA approved. We put a tiny tax on all products actually approved by the FDA to fund the FDA.&lt;p&gt;This way we the people who care about the FDA fund it. If you are not happy with that, how about we fund 50% of the FDA that way and the other 50% threw taxes? How about if its still fully tax funded?&lt;p&gt;Would that not make everybody at least reasonably happy?&lt;p&gt;Historically such system usually prove that the state is not needed, and rather then excepting that the state monopolises it.</text></item><item><author>Steko</author><text>&amp;gt; First, there can be a commercial consumer group that finds error, the buys nearly wothless claims from lots of consumers and goes after the seller with those. This will pretty quickly have the effect that the seller has much more insentive to test himself.&lt;p&gt;Or his incentive is to run a fly by night operation that shuts down before it can be sued.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Also you can have community no-profits doing this kind of things, that will make them seem less greedy.&lt;p&gt;This touches on one glaring problem with libertarian utopia. Their replacement for the evil gubmint is a host of other bureaucracies (giant consumer groups, a bunch of non-profits doing testing, insurance for everything, etc.) that presumably will have many of the same pathologies as the gubmint.</text></item><item><author>nickik</author><text>You are wrongly assuming that libertarians are atomistic and think that every consumer has to do everything. That is however not the case.&lt;p&gt;Libertarians have actually thought about this stuff quite a bit.&lt;p&gt;All society relies on a system of law. How this system is created or enforced is a seprete question. In almost all systems of law ever, there is a clause against fraud. Theirfore this company has defrauded everybody who has bought their product and therefore can be collectivly sued.&lt;p&gt;I must also mention that we have primitive collective suing systems in place. Many legal schooler have long advocated to change this.&lt;p&gt;It goes further then that, because the person that sold you the product and the producer might not be the same. The seller is also partially responsable and can be sued by the consumers, the seller must the sue the producer.&lt;p&gt;Its the same idea with river pollution, the lawcase goes up the river and expands.&lt;p&gt;As for discovering such cases. There are hole number of possible options if the options mentioned above are enforced.&lt;p&gt;First, there can be a commercial consumer group that finds error, the buys nearly wothless claims from lots of consumers and goes after the seller with those. This will pretty quickly have the effect that the seller has much more insentive to test himself.&lt;p&gt;Also you can have community no-profits doing this kind of things, that will make them seem less greedy.</text></item><item><author>macintux</author><text>One of the failings of the libertarian ideal. There&amp;#x27;s no way for even an informed consumer to have any idea what most of their purchases contain, what safety issues they have, how effective they really are, etc.</text></item><item><author>dfar1</author><text>“You have to be very careful when you select and use aloe products,” said Tod Cooperman, president of White Plains, New York-based ConsumerLab.com, which has done aloe testing.&lt;p&gt;-- And how am supposed to be careful? Should I run my own lab to test every product I use?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alexose</author><text>&amp;gt; Companies have a huge intensive to stay, establish partnerships, branding, funding and so on.&lt;p&gt;Companies have huge incentives to act altruistically, but individuals within those companies sometimes have huge incentives to maximize short-term profits.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s an asymmetry in the way companies and their employees operate.  Employees can endanger the life of the company at a negligible-- or even negative-- cost to themselves.  It&amp;#x27;s why banking executives might reward the opening of millions of fraudulent accounts, for example.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve yet to see an example of a company that can completely prevent this problem.  Given the lack of evidence, I have to continue to believe in regulations that protect consumers.</text></comment>
<story><title>No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/no-evidence-of-aloe-vera-found-in-the-aloe-vera-at-wal-mart-cvs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nickik</author><text>Its funny, whenever somebody makes a libertarian argument, somebody throws &amp;#x27;libertarian utopia&amp;#x27; back. I don&amp;#x27;t believe in utopia, a libertarian system would not be perfect, misery and suffering will not be eliminated. Not everything you buy will be perfectly labeled. No libertarian I have ever met in my hole live believes the market&amp;#x2F;legal based system is perfect, just that it usually outperforms a regulatory system&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Or his incentive is to run a fly by night operation that shuts down before it can be sued.&lt;p&gt;So what, you manufacture 10 bottles of creme and then vanish into the shadows?&lt;p&gt;Companies have a huge intensive to stay, establish partnerships, branding, funding and so on.&lt;p&gt;Also, I think the idea of legal person has gone to far. Im not against the idea of big cooperations but the legal system has clearly gone to far into the direction of none accountability (something that was actually often the case in common law legal systems).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Their replacement for the evil gubmint is a host of other bureaucracies (giant consumer groups, a bunch of non-profits doing testing, insurance for everything, etc.) that presumably will have many of the same pathologies as the gubmint.&lt;p&gt;I have nothing against big organisations per se. That has never been my criticism of regulatory agencies.&lt;p&gt;The groups have much more intensive to actually provide value because they relay on people to be their costumer. Also, you have pluralism, different groups have different demands.&lt;p&gt;I honestly only care if stuff is not  poisonous, and Im happy to pay for the lowest level of testing. I however don&amp;#x27;t really care if the meat is actually beef, Im fine with horse as long as it is tasty.&lt;p&gt;Other people, like vegans are willing to pay way more for exact information.&lt;p&gt;How about a suggestion that can make both of use happy? We keep the FDA, they do everything the do now, only that other products can still be sold, but they need to have a reasonably BIG label on it, that they are not FDA approved. We put a tiny tax on all products actually approved by the FDA to fund the FDA.&lt;p&gt;This way we the people who care about the FDA fund it. If you are not happy with that, how about we fund 50% of the FDA that way and the other 50% threw taxes? How about if its still fully tax funded?&lt;p&gt;Would that not make everybody at least reasonably happy?&lt;p&gt;Historically such system usually prove that the state is not needed, and rather then excepting that the state monopolises it.</text></item><item><author>Steko</author><text>&amp;gt; First, there can be a commercial consumer group that finds error, the buys nearly wothless claims from lots of consumers and goes after the seller with those. This will pretty quickly have the effect that the seller has much more insentive to test himself.&lt;p&gt;Or his incentive is to run a fly by night operation that shuts down before it can be sued.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Also you can have community no-profits doing this kind of things, that will make them seem less greedy.&lt;p&gt;This touches on one glaring problem with libertarian utopia. Their replacement for the evil gubmint is a host of other bureaucracies (giant consumer groups, a bunch of non-profits doing testing, insurance for everything, etc.) that presumably will have many of the same pathologies as the gubmint.</text></item><item><author>nickik</author><text>You are wrongly assuming that libertarians are atomistic and think that every consumer has to do everything. That is however not the case.&lt;p&gt;Libertarians have actually thought about this stuff quite a bit.&lt;p&gt;All society relies on a system of law. How this system is created or enforced is a seprete question. In almost all systems of law ever, there is a clause against fraud. Theirfore this company has defrauded everybody who has bought their product and therefore can be collectivly sued.&lt;p&gt;I must also mention that we have primitive collective suing systems in place. Many legal schooler have long advocated to change this.&lt;p&gt;It goes further then that, because the person that sold you the product and the producer might not be the same. The seller is also partially responsable and can be sued by the consumers, the seller must the sue the producer.&lt;p&gt;Its the same idea with river pollution, the lawcase goes up the river and expands.&lt;p&gt;As for discovering such cases. There are hole number of possible options if the options mentioned above are enforced.&lt;p&gt;First, there can be a commercial consumer group that finds error, the buys nearly wothless claims from lots of consumers and goes after the seller with those. This will pretty quickly have the effect that the seller has much more insentive to test himself.&lt;p&gt;Also you can have community no-profits doing this kind of things, that will make them seem less greedy.</text></item><item><author>macintux</author><text>One of the failings of the libertarian ideal. There&amp;#x27;s no way for even an informed consumer to have any idea what most of their purchases contain, what safety issues they have, how effective they really are, etc.</text></item><item><author>dfar1</author><text>“You have to be very careful when you select and use aloe products,” said Tod Cooperman, president of White Plains, New York-based ConsumerLab.com, which has done aloe testing.&lt;p&gt;-- And how am supposed to be careful? Should I run my own lab to test every product I use?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skaplun</author><text>When government isn&amp;#x27;t involved a &amp;quot;dysfunctional&amp;quot; organization will sell you air and tell you its medicine because there&amp;#x27;s no regulator checking him.&lt;p&gt;Its like people are aching to be poisoned and die</text></comment>