Originally posted by normbenign
That's really a load. I produce and sell food, but I intentionally poison my customers? Doesn't sound like a well thought out business plan.

No it doesn't sound well thought out and yet it happens.

Look at MacDonalds. Great place for kids - there are few rivals usually where the kids are so happy. All packaged to appeal. The kids see it as a great treat to go there. When this first reached our high streets I was just getting used to the impact of having young children and I was delighted - at last a business that caters for families.

It took a long time and a fair amount of re-education about food content and implications for me to realise we'd been had.

Of course much depends on what you perceive to be a poison. Nothing much will happen after you eat there. The effects are insidious and humans are not geared up psychologically for long term risks.

Originally posted by FMF
The world I live in and observe has plenty of businesses with operational plans that rely on cutting corners, skimping on production quality costs and deliberately sailing close (or even in) to the wind in terms of safety regulations and ethical standards. Is this not so in the world as you see it too?

Sure businesses will cut as close to the corners as possible, and in many cases the corners have become so blurred that we're flying by wire.

The problem as I see it is that regulations have so muddied the waters, and are so contradictory, that business people more or less rely on lowest common denominator thinking. In more sane times, small, local businesses relied on one major thing to bring in business, their reputation. Rand in a common sense article on Anti Trust law, wrote that a businessman can be prosecuted for: 1. pricing higher than competitors 2. pricing the same as competitors 3. pricing lower than competitors

It is true, and absurd on its face. Now I know people will say, it's much more complicated. Yes it is. So businesses employ teams of lawyers and accountants to deal with the complexity, which costs us all in prices consumers pay, and wages laborers are paid.

Originally posted by finnegan
No it doesn't sound well thought out and yet it happens.

Look at MacDonalds. Great place for kids - there are few rivals usually where the kids are so happy. All packaged to appeal. The kids see it as a great treat to go there. When this first reached our high streets I was just getting used to the impact of having young children and I was delighted - a ...[text shortened]... e. The effects are insidious and humans are not geared up psychologically for long term risks.

Even McDonald's doesn't have to be a bad spot to eat. Depends on how often and how much. I'm surprised at how well my grandchildren choose when eating at Mickey D's.

As with the majority of things, I'd rather have the choices to make, even the bad ones which may take decades to kill me. Some of the bad ones are just enjoyable. Where can one enjoy a good cigar, or a pipe full of aromatic tobacco?

Originally posted by normbenign
Sure businesses will cut as close to the corners as possible, and in many cases the corners have become so blurred that we're flying by wire.

Well then, the community needs to protect itself by establishing standards and enforcing them.

Originally posted by normbenign
Sure businesses will cut as close to the corners as possible, and in many cases the corners have become so blurred that we're flying by wire.

The problem as I see it is that regulations have so muddied the waters, and are so contradictory, that business people more or less rely on lowest common denominator thinking. In more sane times, small, local b ...[text shortened]... with the complexity, which costs us all in prices consumers pay, and wages laborers are paid.

Part of the reason (the main reason?) why regulations like anti trust law are so complicated is because businesses employ teams of lawyers and accountants to find and exploit loopholes and create intricate schemes which allow them to engage in behavior which those regulations are aimed at stopping. There are certainly many regulations which could be improved, but blaming regulations as "the problem" is misguided as it ignores the root problem of the underlying bad behavior which prompted the regulations in the first place.