[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoRNPnocaiY 285 234]
January 2012
If you saw the movie Beer Wars, which was released last year, you might remember one hard-working entrepreneur featured in the film named Rhonda Kallman. Rhonda, the co-founder of the Boston Beer Company (makers of Samuel Adams beer) and winner of Beer Business Daily‘s “Maverick” award, broke away from her very successful Boston-based brewery and risked it all to start her own craft brewing company, New Century Brewing Company, in order to sell a unique kind of beer she believed would be a hit: a caffeinated light beer.
As the movie Beer Wars shows, things got off to a shaky start for Rhonda, but the demand for alcoholic drinks with a caffeine kick eventually picked up. At just 4 percent alcohol, New Century Brewing Company’s flagship product Moonshot contains 69 milligrams of caffeine: less than half of the caffeine in a “tall” 8-ounce cup of coffee from Starbucks. Yet, that was enough to get her brewery on the short list of companies that the FDA issued warning letters this week telling them to reformulate their products. If the brewers choose to reformulate their products, they know that they will lose their competitive edge. As Rhonda Kallman put it:
I was fully hoping and optimistic that the FDA would create some standardization around what is safe in their mind in terms of caffeinated alcohol…The difficulty for me is if I remove the caffeine, there’s no real reason for Moonshot.
The FDA’s action will most likely result in a huge loss of market share for these small independent companies. Like New Century Brewing, Phusion Projects LLC, the maker of Four Loko, is also a small company run by three college friends. Energy drinks were a surprise hit on the market with consistently growing demand, adding pressure on big breweries.
By no means do I think the big breweries had a hand in FDA action, nor do I believe that they would consider the latest developments beneficial to their businesses in the long-run. However, FDA over-regulation does still have the effect of killing small business and keeping competition among a few large, well-established titans in the industry. Small businesses simply cannot absorb the burdens of regulation as well as larger companies with many successful products can. For example, Miller Brewing Company was able to absorb the loss of its popular alcoholic energy drink Sparks.
It is highly unlikely that small fledgling brewing companies like Phusion Projects and New Century will be able to survive the loss of their most popular product lines. Currently, there are nearly 1,600 breweries in the United States (according to the Brewers Association). But if the FDA and other regulatory agencies continue to create hurdles that make competing with large brewers more difficult for entrepreneurs, we may find ourselves back in an environment where there are only 50 brewers throughout the country, as was the case in 1983.
1. Doctors now warn that Facebook stalking can cause asthma attacks.
2. An Irishman won €10 million in a libel suit after his company announced that they were seeking his resignation because of a naked sleep-walking incident.
3. Silvio Berlusconi is spending about $100,00 in public funds to replace a missing penis on a Roman statue of Mars and a hand on a statue of Venus.
4. Is it possible for science to go backward?
My colleague Ben Lieberman’s thoughtful op-ed in The Washington Times focuses on voters’ rejection of environmental alarmism about the Gulf oil spill. It appears that voters discounted the exaggerated claims of Gulf devastation and were more concerned instead about the moratorium on offshore drilling and its devastating effect on jobs. With a faltering economy, voters didn’t appreciate the Administration’s job-killing over-reaction.
As Lieberman said:
“For a while, it was fashionable to ridicule those who had chanted “Drill, baby, drill” during the 2008 race. Opponents of domestic drilling thought they had a defining issue heading into the midterms.
“Now the “Drill, baby, drill” crowd is back – and they’ll be returning to Washington with quite a few new allies.
“Ironically, it was not the spill itself but Mr. Obama‘s overreaction to it in the form of a job-killing moratorium on offshore drilling that really angered voters in Louisiana and other impacted states. The only reason the Obamatorium didn’t hurt Democratic candidates along the Gulf was that they were just as vocal as Republicans in their opposition to it.”
And he has some words of caution for policymakers who would try to ram through energy-restrictive policies:
So what does all of this tell us about voters? For one thing, it shows that they are getting wise to environmentalist alarmism and exaggeration. Just as the drumbeat of doom-and-gloom predictions about global warming didn’t generate public support for “cap-and-trade,” neither did overblown claims of oil-spill-induced ecological devastation create a backlash against offshore drilling. And given the still-struggling economy and stubbornly high unemployment, the electorate is not going to accept costly solutions to overstated threats.
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.
CEI Weekly
November 19, 2010
>>Featured Story
Union members are used to paying dues; but do they know how their money is being spent? A new video created by CEI Labor Policy Analyst Vincent Vernuccio takes a closer look at the financial reports of major unions. Vernuccio appeared on Fox Business this week to talk about the video and to explain how unions’ financial reports reveal union leaders’ true priorities. Watch the interview here.
>>Shaping the Debate
Chances for $4 Billion “Green Car” Bailout Improving
Chris Horner’s interview on Your World With Cavuto
He’s Not Worthy
Vincent Vernuccio’s interview on Varney & Co.
Court Should Kill California’s Video Game Law
Ryan Radia’s op-ed on AOL News
High-Speed Train Wreck
Iain Murray and Marc Scribner’s op-ed in The McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Stop Pretending It’s High-Speed Rail
Marc Scribner’s op-ed in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Sierra Club’s War on Coal
Chris Horner’s Study in Capital Research Center’s Green Watch
Cap-and-Tax is Dead But Kyotoism is Alive and Well at the EPA
Marlo Lewis’ op-ed in The Washington Examiner
Agencies Target ‘Blackout in a Can’
Greg Conko’s citation in The Washington Post
>>Best of the Blogs
GM IPO Date Set For Tomorrow: What’s Good for GM is Bad for the Rest of America
By John Berlau
TSA Versus America
By Brian McGraw
Celebrate Egyptian Blogger Kareem Amer’s Freedom by Defending Free Speech
By Michelle Minton
Fiscal Commission Should Support Increased Energy Production, Not Increased Energy Taxes
By Ben Lieberman
Be Thankful For BPA-Lined Goods This Thanksgiving
By Angela Logomasini
>>CEI Podcast
November 15, 2010: Free Speech and Video Games
Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia gives his take on a Supreme Court case concerning California’s ban of violent video game sales to minors. Keeping such things away from children is traditionally a job for parents.
>>Support CEI
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As air travel becomes increasingly expensive or more inconvenient, travelers on the margin will choose driving rather than flying. For example, the TSA began requiring that checked baggage be screened in 2002. As a result (increased lines, etc.) total air travel dropped by about 6 percent. There is good reason to believe that the recent deployment of body-image scanning/pat-downs will have a similar effect.
The problem is that per mile traveled, driving is much more dangerous than flying. The researches estimate that in the 4th quarter of 2002, there were approximately 129 automobile deaths attributable to the switch from air travel to driving. Annually that would equal about 515 people. This is a non-significant number of individuals.
Do these new security features save enough lives to justify the real effects of American citizens deciding to drive rather than fly? I’d guess that there are numerous other ways where sufficiently similar levels of security could be achieved without hassling customers and encouraging them to skip air travel.
This is yet another troubling example of government safety regulations. The TSA was established to protect air travel. Yet if the only true result of their existence is to shift risk from the air to our roads, they haven’t actually made our lives any safer — while attacking our privacy and costing about $7 billion annually.
Via Nate Silver at The New York Times.
Photo credit: jello2594’s flickr photostream.
Over the past few days, I’ve gotten plenty of angry e-mail from people critical of my defense of caffeinated alcoholic beverages like Four Loko, Joose, and Hard Wired. Typical claims are that, “if it was [my] son or daughter ending up in emergency with a (sic) overdose of alcohol it wouldn’t be opposition to ban it,” and that “Your disgusting and your barely disguised right wing industry front is pathetic”. My favorite, though, is, “I hope one of YOUR kids or family members dies from it, see how you feel.”
You might think that, boy, these products must really be awful to elicit that kind of a response — a message that the prohibitionists very definitely want you to get. But just how potent IS a typical Alcohol-Energy Drink like Four Loko? Let’s have a look.
A 23.5 oz can of Four Loko has 156 mg of caffeine. You might think, “Wow! What kind of caffeine-induced buzz is that going to get you?” About the same as in a small/tall (8 oz cup) Starbucks coffee (160 mg). By 7:30 this morning, I had already had nearly twice as much caffeine from my daily coffee. The prohibitionists also like to point out that a 23.5 oz can of Four Loko has twice the caffeine as a can of Red Bull (76 mg). But what they neglect to say is that Red Bull comes in 8.2 oz cans, which means that they’re just 1/3 the size and have about 50 percent more caffeine per unit volume.
Of course, there’s also the alcohol. Four Loko is 12 percent alcohol by volume, which amounts to the equivalent of four to four-and-a-half typical American-style pilsner beers, such as Budweiser, Coors, and Miller, with approximate 4.8 to 5 ABV. Still, ounce for ounce, you get about 50 percent more caffeine and about the same amount of alcohol in a vodka and Red Bull cocktail (8.2 oz of Red Bull plus a 1.5 oz shot of 80 proof spirits). And you get about three times as much caffeine and about the same amount of alcohol in a cup of Irish coffee made by mixing a tall Starbucks coffee with a 1.5 oz shot of 80 proof spirits.
In order to conclude that AEDs are worse, you have to buy the notion that your typical partying teenager or young adult would stop at just one or two vodka and Red Bulls. But actual observation of the wild college partier or young professional in his natural setting indicates that that’s a pretty far-fetched assumption. So, it’s not remotely clear that there is anything uniquely unsafe about AEDs. Nor do I believe that a ban on AEDs will do anything at all to stem the genuine problem of alcohol abuse among teenagers and young adults. Indeed, to the extent that some AED consumers may revert to the vodka and Red Bull alternative, the AED ban could have negative public health consequences because the far higher level of caffeine in those self-mixed or bartender-mixed cocktails would be more likely to mask the effects of intoxication.
Perhaps more serious, in my view, is the fact that many of the activist organizations intimately involved with the movement to ban AEDs (led by the Center for Science in the Public Interest) began this fight to regulate caffeine, long before there was an AED market, by attacking non-alcoholic energy drinks like Jolt Cola, Red Bull, Monster, and Rock Star. They’ve even been highly critical of Starbucks coffee for its caffeine content. And the exact same legal rationale that the FDA used to ban AEDs (i.e., that FDA has not approved caffeine used as a food additive as GRAS for any use but in “cola type drinks,” making the addition of caffeine to malt beverages presumptively unsafe) could just as easily be applied to non-alcoholic energy drinks. I fear, and with good reason I would argue, that we haven’t seen the last of FDA’s enforcement activity against caffeinated beverages.
Image credit: The Wisest Wizards’ flickr photostream.
Tech:
House bill would give DHS authority over private sector networks:
“A new bill unveiled Wednesday by House Homeland Security chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to enforce federal cybersecurity standards on private sector companies deemed critical to national security.”
Sources: FCC chief to move on net neutrality proposal:
“Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is putting together a net neutrality proposal and plans to take action on the controversial issue as early as next month, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation.”
Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee:
“On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.””
Hacker arrested after cracking Federal Reserve:
“A federal grand jury has indicted a Malaysian citizen for allegedly hacking into a computer network at the Federal Reserve Bank and stealing more than 400,000 credit and debit card numbers. Federal prosecutors also allege Lin Mun Poo, 32, made a career of compromising systems at financial institutions, major corporations and defense contractors. They say he sold or traded the information he found. Also according to the Justice Department, “in approximately August 2010, he hacked into the computer system of a Department of Defense contractor that provides systems management for military transport and other military operations, potentially compromising highly sensitive military logistics information.” Poo was arrested when he traveled to the U.S. in October. If convicted of the most serious charges, he faces up to 10 years in prison.”
Global Warming / Environment / Energy:
Get Ready For the UN “Climate Debt” Scam:
“Our friends at the UN just won’t let “climate change” go. They can’t. There’s too much money in it. Of course, it’s the perfect vehicle for those who believe passionately in wealth redistribution. It can’t be definitively proved nor disproved. So many rich nations to pluck and even more poor, underdeveloped nations clamoring for the pluckings.”
Insurance / Gambling:
Campbell council considering Internet gaming cafes:
“Mayor George Krinos told council at its caucus meeting Wednesday that he got three calls from people who would like to open Internet cafes, which let customers buy Internet time to go on websites and play games. Krinos said the city could make money off the cafes in permit fees.”
Health / Safety:
Is Four Loko dangerous? The FDA doesn’t say:
“Since Americans have been mixing rum with caffeinated cola beverages for over a century, and in recent years, voraciously downing Red Bull vodkas, you’d think the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in breathlessly moving to ban Four Loko and other alcoholic energy drinks this week, would have distinguished the two.”
Four Loko ban fuels buying binge:
“While federal officials announced plans this week to outlaw alcoholic energy drinks like Four Loko, five 20-somethings living in a Columbia Heights group house hatched a plan of their own: Anytime someone sees Four Loko for sale, buy as much as possible.”
Nearly 1 in 5 Americans had mental illness in 2009:
“More than 45 million Americans, or 20 percent of U.S. adults, had some form of mental illness last year, and 11 million had a serious illness, U.S. government researchers reported on Thursday.”
Economics:
‘Refudiation’ of $600 Billion Printed Out of Thin Air:
“While on a United Airlines flight from New York City to Los Angeles this week, a fellow passenger handed me a copy of the The Wall Street Journal Nov. 15 op-ed by Alan Blinder—”In Defense of Ben Bernanke”—and suggested that I write a letter to the editor if I disagreed with the Princeton University professor’s claims. Having read the piece, I told the passenger over my shoulder, “You bet I will.””
Legal:
California Students Beat Cop With His Own Baton During Tuition Hike Riots (Video):
“Student protesters in California beat a cop with his own baton during rioting yesterday.”
Don’t touch my junk:
“Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who’s ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube – where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a “flotation device” – has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many.”
Tom Friedman Was Unavailable for Comment: Chinese woman gets sent to labor camp for using Twitter:
“In case you’d forgotten, the communist regime in China is a bunch of oppressive monsters:”
Another TSA Outrage:
“First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine. It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.”
House GOP: No U.S. Funds for NPR:
“House Republicans voted unanimously on Thursday to deny federal funds for the radio broadcaster. The measure, however, was defeated, 239-171 as Democrats opposed it.”
Woman says her Lambert security screening was sexual assault:
“More Americans are growing angrier, over what the Transportation Security Administration, admits are more intrusive security put downs at airports.”
Ex-China nuclear power boss given life sentence:
“The former head of China’s nuclear power program was sentenced Friday to life in prison on charges of corruption, in an apparent effort to sweep away graft in a key area of the economy that is undergoing massive expansion.”
Ohio’s tobacco settlement money won’t be spent on prevention:
“Though Ohio will collect $1.2 billion this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and annual taxes on tobacco products, none of that money will go to fund smoking prevention programs.”
Labor:
Hospital, union to return to talks:
“Both McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center and the union representing more than 200 service workers who held a one-day strike at the Springfield hospital on Wednesday said they held their ground.”
Transportation/ Land Use:
Larsen Seeks Additional Funding for High-Speed Rail:
“Congressman Rick Larsen says he wants the northwest region of Washington to get more federal money for high-speed rail.”
Chicago let a pack of coyotes go in the city to control for rats and mice. Approximately 250 coyotes now roam the city streets, parks, and backyards. They’re tracked by GPS and roughly controlled by project managers.
From researchers at the Cook, Illinois Coyote Project:
We have tracked the coyotes day and night and located the collared coyotes more than 40,000 times. This allows us to peek into the hidden lives of urban coyotes. We use results from this unique project to answer common questions regarding coyotes in urban areas. Many aspects of coyote ecology have direct management implications. Although our study was focused on Cook County, Illinois, we believe the things we have learned about coyotes and people living together are indicative of many metropolitan areas in the Midwest and eastern United States.
This might be a “jobs created or saved” device (someone’s gotta move the critter-chasers around!), but what’s the under/over on how long before these coyotes get banned for doing damage of their own?
Here are some images from coyote-tracking software:
(Yellow dots show the locations of Big Mama the Coyote, red dots that of her mate, the less anthropomorphically named Coyote #115. Image courtesy of The Cook County, Illinois, Coyote Project. Source.)
Via Pruned.
Yacahuda Harrison, 49, likes to play chess. He and six of his friends were playing the classic strategy game in an Upper Manhattan park. Their game was broken up by “[a] squad of cops in bulletproof vests,” The New York Post reports.
This is because it is illegal for adults to be in said park unless they are accompanied by a child under 12 years old. The law is intended to keep sexual predators away from children.
No children were in the park when Harrison’s chess game was busted. He and his accomplices were ticketed and have a December 28 court date.
Image credit: jbparker’s flickr photostream.
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