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"Biden initiates performative finger waggling with no real consequences or expectations for anyone involved, on twitter."
If we’re gonna have a feckless ineffective government it’s better that it makes nice sounds.
Just snack companies?
Unless he's willing to do something about it, I don't think making this kind of statement is politically helpful. The snack makers will just ignore him, and then he ends up looking impotent and irrelevant, feeding the Republican narrative against his presidency.
Same thing with his administration publicly wringing its hands about the death toll in Gaza. Meanwhile the US continues funding Netanyahu's war machine, which publicly thumbs its nose at the president. It projects weakness.
But he told them very sternly to stop doing it. Shrinkflation is over! /s
It'll be on the next list of Biden's accomplishments.
Probably twice to pad the list.
One wonders how he's going to force private enterprise to not reconsider their packaging size, etc.
there's literally nothing stopping them from selling a new "Fun-Lite" size. or soemthing.
Oh, it'll be on the list regardless. Centrists can't tell the difference between a stated position and an accomplishment.
Executive branch regulation can and should enforce honesty and transparency about changes, including shrinking package size. Then it’s up to consumers to vote with their wallets
You mean… like printing content measurements on the package?
Not saying shrinkflation isn’t wrong, but interfering in private enterprise to that extent is both illegal and excessive.
You wouldn’t want to live in a country where the chief executive has that kind of power.
Shrinkflation may be a valid business choice: misleading the customer should not be. Yes the label was required, which is a great starting point, but if the box appears the same size, who looks at the label? If the old size is not present, what do you compare with? Are you holding the customer responsible for memorizing the net weight for every product over the time range they may use it?
You want to reduce the size, that’s your choice, but honesty means the customer will notice
If the old size is not present, what do you compare with?
the relevant regulations that mandate package weight in the US has been a thing longer than I've been alive. So you compare it to the weight of the old package.
There's also some justification for using the same size packaging- they'd have to retool some of the filling machines, for example. or at least, adjust them, which adds increased associated production costs. But again, you're talking about a government executive pushing extremely intrusive interference into a company's operations.
Is shrinkflation pretty scummy? absolutely. but there's really no workable way to stop it, that doesn't have a lot of much worse consequences.
I don't think he has the power to do anything about it.
And he shouldn’t be able to do much to directly interfere with the market.
However one thing he can do is regulate transparency. A big reason shrinkflation is so widespread is that you can hide the change pretty well, but consumer protection regulations already require clear pricing, including per unit, and at least some semblance of truth in advertising, so additional regulations to improve honesty and transparency are quite appropriate. Government needs to establish a fair market, then it’s up to the market
That may not prevent shrinkflation but at least we can keep products companies from lying about it. Then it’s up to us
However one thing he can do is regulate transparency.
What do you mean by transparency? Is it the sort of transparency companies can reveal without revealing things like trade secrets?
Also, with so many Trump-backed judges, I could see that getting struck down in a hot minute, especially if businesses take it to the Fifth Circuit, which they absolutely would.
The classic case of shrinkflation is ever shrinking cans of tuna. However, to the glance, they looked exactly the same. They stacked the same way and difference in height was imperceptible.
While there was a required label for the net weight of contents, why would anyone look when the cans appear to be the same as they always were and how would you notice when there is no prior can to compare to.
This is lying. The companies are clearly misleading consumers to hide price increases even if the information is technically there for someone who looks closely enough.
Consumer transparency means that when you make a change, the difference is clearly visible. Consumer protection should be that companies cannot lie, hide or mislead about this change as they are doing now. A fundamental part of capitalism is that consumers have the information to participate in the market, which requires transparency of products. Capitalism is not just corps exploiting consumers, but an ecosystem of production and consumption where each participant can make choices in their own interest. Being able to lie, hide or mislead is a distortion or abuse of the market and governments role needs to be to stop that so markets can work effectively
So how do you get that through the Fifth Circuit?
We can have all the ideals in the world but dysfunctional is dysfunctional
I remember people online vehemently defending potato chips companies filling up their packaging with air. Where are they now?
Where are they now?
...here! Kinda at least - hear me out.
There's a ratio of air-to-chip that gives the optimal amount of chips to most protection provided by the 'pillow' of air. Exceed that and you've got a bag of chip sawdust or need to switch to hard packaging like Pringles tubes (which... Pringles don't really cost more, so maybe tubes are the way to go anyway).
IIRC that ratio is something like 30% chip to 70% air by volume. Which feels like you're getting ripped off, but is defensible for quality sake.
The 'kinda' kicks in when chip manufacturers know they've trained us to expect a low chip-to-air ratio, and crank it up to like 10-90, and keep the cost the same. That's just fucking the consumer, and the manufacturers can go to hell for that shit.
Old Food Theorists video on the chip to air ratio in bags:
I was a fan of Game Theory back in the day, but god DAMN has that channel (and its branches) gotten click-baity / gimmicky.
for the record, the air does serve a purpose in the packaging, keeping chips from getting crushed.
that said... there seems to be a lot more air in there than there used to be.
I've heard it's not air but some non-acidic inert gas for longer periods of preservation. These chips and snacks go bad in a day after contacting the air. It doesn't explain it's volume and a choice of soft package tho.
I believe it's nitrogen.
That’s quite the photo…
Also, it’s weird that the president is still on Twitter.
Stop calling to. Regulate them!
Is this an ad? Because I sure do want an $8 thimble of ice cream right now.
Edit: is that Breyers in the picture? I should amend that to $8 dairy adjacent snack.
Tackling the real issues
I would say that companies artificially raising prices because their competitors are doing it too is actually a big problem which accounts for a ton of needless economic hardship.
Presidents have previously implemented anti trust policies; it's not like this is anything new.
And goddamn it my oreo had regular sized cookies with a tiny little nickle sized speck of filling in the middle. It looked ridiculous.
Nixon froze prices or something. As far as repubs go, he was the most reasonable that I've heard about (also stuff about the environment or national parks? I'm not an expert). And he was a monster, so think about what that means about everyone that followed him.
Every president since and including Nixon has been a fucking war criminal. And the Hague can't do shit, because if they tried we can attack them! I was surprised when I found out.
Rising food cost is absolutely real issue I don't know why you even pretend otherwise.
Snacks?! How about housing costs, costs for higher education, or medical care?! Maybe do something about internet provider monopolies coupled with data caps in large swaths of the country??
But no, you want to make sure Americans can stuff their faces with 10% more dorito dust per bag. Jesus man.
Real priority i see .
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“There is no denying that shrinkflation is real and that it is having a measurable impact on family budgets,” concluded a December report published by Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
The report found common household and grocery items noticeably decreased in size between January 2019 and October 2023, while unit prices rose more than 20%.
For example, a pack of Double-Stuffed Oreos now weigh 6% less, Gatorade bottles hold 12% less liquid, and a Walmart’s Great Value Ultra Strong paper towel roll has 28% fewer sheets, according to the report.
Biden also didn’t address the companies by name, although the video panned over snacks like Doritos, Wheat Thins and Gatorade, which were mentioned in Casey’s report.
A CNN poll conducted by SSRS last month found just 26% of Americans say they feel the economy is starting to recover from the problems it faced in the past few years, up 9 points from December 2022.
Most Americans who said the economy is still in a downturn cited inflation and the cost of living generally (50%) or the price of specific items like food (9%) or housing (7%), with many pointing to their own financial situations.
The original article contains 502 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Doing a genocide really works up an appetite, I suppose!
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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