Article mentions nothing with regards to holding corporations accountable nor any plan or threat of action on the president’s part.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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These kinds of comments frustrate me... They fundamentally conflate the presidency with a more king-like position.
The system is setup against him doing anything other than speaking out about the issue and trying to motivate others to do something about it. The president ultimately has little power ... it's more of a oversight/cheer leading position (with some extended powers over the years to deal with imminent issues -- e.g., authorize short term military operations, which is still scary in the wrong hands) while congress is the office workers that are supposed to actually get the law writing done.
Unfortunately, we've had roughly a decade of Republican lead stagnation due to slim majority Democrat representation or outright majority Republican representation -- the Republican platform is after all the "do nothing because more government is bad" platform.
He's doing exactly what he should be doing, using the office to call people out and bring attention to issues/start conversations. That can result in brands either going "... lets make a voluntary change to get the heat off" or the public going "yeah that's a good point calls congressional rep to complain."
Well put!
The president ultimately has little power … it’s more of a oversight/cheer leading position
And let me emphasize this is a good thing, even if the previous officeholder ignored legal restrictions on his power
What are you suggesting he do about it?
edit for the knee-jerk downvoters: Everything the government is authorized to do is codified in federal statute, including agency powers. If Congress doesn't give an agency the power to regulate the size and shape of a peanut butter cup, the agency cannot regulate the size and shape of a peanut butter cup, full stop. The reason the President isn't proposing a fix to this is that Congress hasn't given anyone the authority to fix this problem. The FDA can sorta kinda regulate slack fill (i.e. the empty space in your bag of chips) but only if it's non-functional or deceptive. Shrinkflation is quite legal, so long as the size/weight of the product is clearly labeled. If companies get away with it, that's because we're stupid, clueless consumers who never read labels. And they will continue to do it until a) we stop buying their product, or b) Congress passes a law to make it illegal. Unless that happens, we're stuck with it because the President is not an all powerful god who can will things into existence.
Once again, civic literacy in this county proves profoundly lacking.
Make it expensive to change the weight of a product. Standardize the size and weight of a given type of product. Require the packaging to alert consumers that the weight have changed in the last year and how much it has changed. Tie the trademark of a given product to a certain weight.
Are these good ideas? I don't know, I literally made them up just now while shitting. I am sure the president of the United States could hire at least one dude to come up with better ones.
Make it expensive to change the weight of a product.
The President literally can't do that.
Standardize the size and weight of a given type of product.
The President can't do that. Not sure the FDA can even do that, as just about all they can weigh in on is product safety (i.e. "does not contain more than X of any harmful substance") and categorical definitions (i.e. "ice cream must meet this definition"). They can't say, "all M&Ms must be this big and weigh this much".
Require the packaging to alert consumers that the weight have changed in the last year and how much it has changed.
Neither the President nor the FDA can do that. The FDA doesn't have the regulatory power to do anything even close to that.
Tie the trademark of a given product to a certain weight.
That's....not how trademarks work, at all.
Look man, it's as frustrating to me as it is to anyone, but y'all can't just make up a bunch of fanciful, largely illegal remedies to the problem and then lay the blame for their impossibility on the President's desk. That's just ridiculous.
All great ideas if it weren't for the fact that we have a court system heavily weighted towards pro-corporate conservatism, so none of that would survive legal challenges and there would be a shit ton of corporate challenges.
Food in general doesn't even go through the FDA, does it? They only get involved if there's a problem. If it was pre approval, it would be a super slow process likely.
Edit: my train of thought was if it needed approval, any size changes would go to a slow line, but in reality, any small company would go to slow lines also, which would truly suck.
I hope your bowl movement went well
What are you suggesting he do about it?
Oh don’t expect an answer from that OP. They’re here to blame Biden. It doesn’t matter if there’s anything he can actually do about the issue.
It's all about lip service. Neither party really gives a shit about the American public.
Of course it doesn't. They probably don't have any actual plan to enforce laws. 🤦
I can't wait until I become High Galactic Overlord of this planet so I can boot those motherfuckers off of a cliff.
If politicians were serious in their criticism they would vote for laws forcing comparison price to be displayed next to the purchase price.
Require that $/oz is always displayed in equal size as the per package price.
That's what I meant with "comparison price".
Or just enforce price controls
That has never stopped presidents before. In response to inflation in 1971 President Nixon issued an executive order making it illegal to raise prices for several months and before him FDR went even farther with rationing and controlling wages.
Inflation is actually super easy to control. You just need to be willing to threaten business leaders with serious jail time.
Yes, and we see how that worked. The inflation in the 1970s was crazy
Literally straight from the link I just posted:
In 1971, President Richard Nixon issued Executive Order 11615 (pursuant to the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)
Per the ESA of 1970:
The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 (Title II of Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 91–379, 84 Stat. 799, enacted August 15, 1970,[2] formerly codified at 12 U.S.C. § 1904) was a United States law that authorized the President to stabilize prices, rents, wages, salaries, interest rates, dividends and similar transfers[3] as part of a general program of price controls within the American domestic goods and labor markets.
And also from the link I just posted:
During the 1930s, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) created the National Recovery Administration, that set prices and created codes of "fair practices".
Per the NIRA of 1933:
The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery.
It helps to read sources that people provide for you, before you respond. The long and the short of everything I just showed you, and that you confirmed, is that in the two most famous cases of price controls in the 20th century, Congress explicitly authorized the Executive Branch to do so.
Inflation is actually super easy to control. You just need to be willing to threaten business leaders with serious jail time.
Ok Mao.
Well TIL, I always thought that executive orders were a way to bypass Congress. I know that there was a Democratic Congress in 1971, I wonder why they rubber stamped that for Nixon.
First off, inflation doubled between 1965 and 1970, as it hit 5.5% in 1970. Then, the act was seen as “a political dare,” according to top Nixon official George Shultz — the Democrats thought Nixon wouldn’t use the powers they’d granted him, but he called their bluff. Republicans accused them of using it as an election year ploy to make it look like they were seriously fighting inflation. Democrats held Congress later that year, so in that way perhaps it helped, but they'd been in control since 1955, so their grip on power was pretty firm.
Nixon initially refused to use his authority, but then a year after the ESA's passage inflation kept rising at a break-neck pace, and he started the Nixon Shock, which helped him get reelected with 520 electoral votes in 1972. So in that way, the pressures Nixon was facing were a lot like the pressures Biden's currently facing. As it turns out, however, inflation kept rising through the mid 70s, and what was initially a political success, when paired with the 1973 oil crisis, quickly caused the 73-75 recession which was marred by stagflation. So it sounded good on paper, but wound up royally fucking the entire middle and working classes in multiple countries, as the unemployment rate nearly doubled.
My opinion is regulate it so any shrinking has to be marked in large bold caps lettering NOW X% SMALLER for at least 1 year. Then people might actually stop buying shrunken goods and opt for a competitor.
That won’t solve ingredient swaps.
It'd be better than nothing, though
Oh, I'm still offering the old size product. It's just less efficient and profitable than our completely new, slightly smaller size.
Stop! Or I'll say stop again!
I was talking to a friend recently and mentioned that Lil Debbie Fudge Rounds used to be the same diameter as the "Double Decker" ones.
Now they're smaller than the diameter of an air hockey puck. And don't even get me started on how regular Oreo Cookies used to look like the double stuff Oreos. The gall to cut the product in half, add the other half back to it, then charge more and have the balls to call it "double..."
Did he say anything about actually doing something about it? Some-sort of shrinkflation law or something?
I'm happy to just see him talking about anything other than green line go up.
I wouldn't mind a reduction in plastic packaging if I could get a few more snacks.
I basically reduced my snack intake by about 75%. It is almost to expensive to snack now.
90% of the snacks I buy are the store brand. Particularly, Walmart since it's the cheapest place to get foodstuffs here. So far, while all the big names have visibility shrunk in size and value, the store brands have remained the same while just continuing to grow in value compared to the other brands that are giving you less for more.
At what point during the shrink does the packaging cost more than the single serving of potatoe chip fumes?
As President should do something about the tiny size of Pringles in Australia, which are a sad shadow of their former glory now.