Big Food vs. the People

(lighthousereports.com)

60 points | by jruohonen 1 hour ago

5 comments

  • nickff 18 minutes ago
    The measures related to lawsuits are misleading and terrible, because of the way class-action lawsuits have incentivized lawyers to pursue dubious cases against large companies.
    • wombat-man 15 minutes ago
      Don't they still need to win to get paid?
      • strictnein 11 minutes ago
        They're purchasing lottery tickets that are mostly paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems.
      • bluGill 11 minutes ago
        Winning one and losing five is in their favor.
  • arthurjj 13 minutes ago
    I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and

    > many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights

    But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just

  • jruohonen 1 hour ago
  • connor11528 1 hour ago
    america has a monopoly problem
    • rootusrootus 19 minutes ago
      Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to except it being anything but.
      • kibwen 13 minutes ago
        Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.
        • pphysch 4 minutes ago
          Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail.

          Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.

    • arthurjj 1 minute ago
      The article says 80% of the lawsuits were in Mexico and ~3% were in America.
    • artisinal 24 minutes ago
      In many European countries, the largest restaurant chain is American. Not great.
      • bluGill 10 minutes ago
        You seem to be assuming chains are good. I prefer the one location restaurant myself, but by definition they will never be the largest chain.
      • cbg0 7 minutes ago
        McDonald's might be the largest restaurant chain in Italy but that doesn't really mean much given how many small restaurants the country has with high quality food.
    • dhosek 29 minutes ago
      [dead]
    • black_13 1 hour ago
      [dead]
    • dabbz 40 minutes ago
      True, we have way too many thematic versions of Monopoly. I'm still missing so many copies.
  • EGreg 23 minutes ago