Nanny State

U.S. Government Responsible for So-Called Gambling Ponzi Scheme

by Michelle Minton on September 22, 2011

in Features, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty

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This week U.S. investigators accused Full Tilt, the online gambling website, which was shut down during the black Friday raids of being a “Ponzi scheme.” While it is true that the Full Tilt management team lied to their customers and certainly mismanaged company funds, they are not a Ponzi scheme. Furthermore, it is important to remember that one poorly managed company should not condemn an entire industry just as one bad person is no reason to condemn an entire group of people.

Full Tilt promised players that their accounts were segregated from the money used to operate the business and pay investors and executives.

Unfortunately, it appears that the company lied about that fact. Yet, all was fine until the U.S. government passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. When payment processing companies stopped processing deposits from American players Full Tilt did not stop allowing Americans to play on their site. Money was never taken out of Americans’ accounts because no bank would process the payments they thought might be deemed illegal by U.S. authorities. Instead of banning U.S. customers Full Tilt essentially created “phantom money” for American players to gamble with. The money that the players lost or won was paid out by the deposits from players in other countries who payments were actually put into the Full Tilt accounts. It appears that Full Tilt executives hoped they’d eventually find a bank to make the transaction of the American players’ deposits. Unfortunately they ran out of time when the Department of Justice shut them down, caused a global panic among their players and a subsequent mass attempt to withdrawal accounts. Of course, that is when everyone learned that the company did not, as they said, have funds equal to player deposits on hand. Oops.

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Regulation of the Day 176: Cooking a Burger

by Ryan Young on May 23, 2011 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Nanny State, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

In North Carolina, it is illegal to cook a burger to an internal temperature under 155 degrees. Rare and medium rare burgers are banned from the state’s restaurants. As regulator Larry Michael told AOL News, “According to North Carolina rules, a hamburger is cooked properly when it reaches an internal temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit[.] There are no exceptions.”

Actually, there are. People cooking at home can still legally cook there burgers to whatever temperature they like. And a kind of rare burger black market has emerged. Regular customers who have built up a degree of trust with the staff can order a rare burger. But they’ve taken to speaking in code. The server will say that they’ll make the burger as pink as they can, just in case food inspectors are within earshot.

The reason they have to so circumspect is because openly giving customers what they want could cost the owners their restaurant license. Maybe it would be better to let adults set their own risk preferences. I personally prefer my burgers cooked medium. But if someone else wants to order a rare burger and is willing to bear the small risk of catching E. coli, let them. The only loser is the regulator who would have to find a more productive line of work.

There is No More Fat to Trim from Government Budgets, Part 3

by Ryan Young on May 12, 2011

in Health and Illness, Nanny State

The USDA is spending $2 million to take pictures of what San Antonio school children eat for lunch.

CEI Podcast for May 5, 2011: Salt

by Ryan Young on May 6, 2011

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Podcast, Regulation

Have a listen here.

A new study says that high-salt diets may not be as harmful as once thought. Research Associate Daniel Compton takes a look. He also points out that, even if salt is a health hazard, regulating salt intake probably won’t work as planned.

Elitist WaPo Rant Against “Extreme Couponing,” Affordable Food

by Christine Hall on April 6, 2011

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

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A Washington Post reporter today heaped scorn on “Extreme Couponing,” a TLC show about people who go to great extremes to clip and use coupons.  (See: In ‘Couponing,’ shoppers with a strange compulsion.) “Deeply disturbing,” Hank Stuever called it, and then went on a recurring sanctimonious rant about how amassing grocery store products at a discount, from food to household cleaners, offended him.  What bearing does extreme couponing by other people have on Hank Steuver’s life?  None that I can see.  So what’s his problem?

“Repulsion may or may not be the show’s ultimate intent, but it stirs up unsettling and complex thoughts, not only about the sins of gluttony and pride, but also about the production and consumption of cheap, processed food. There’s also something to snack on for those of us fretting over an ever-widening wealth gap amid dwindling resources. “Extreme Couponing” — which has become a series after a successful special aired late last year — is a modern Cassandra’s sociological fever dream, a harbinger of how closely we teeter on the edge of economic anarchy.”

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Regulation of the Day 167: Wearing Perfume

by Ryan Young on March 14, 2011 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Nanny State, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

Portland, Oregon, is banning city government employees from wearing perfume or cologne at work. The ban also covers “aftershave or other scented products like hair sprays and lotion.”

Violators will be disciplined.

Lessons from Four Loko: Don’t Be Too Good

by Michelle Minton on February 24, 2011 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

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That lawmakers are still wringing their hands about the alcoholic (formerly caffeinated) drink, Four Loko, reveals that their fears have nothing to do with possible side effects of mixing caffeine and alcohol. No, Four Loko’s great sin is that it is popular.

According to the Phusion Projects website, the company was founded by three college friends in 2005 who took out a small business loan and “put their financial resources on the line.” Four years later the company had 90 employees and annual sales of $144 million as of October 31, 2010, according to the Symphony IRI Group, a market research firm based in Chicago.

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Nanny of the Month (Jan 2011)

by Lee Doren on February 1, 2011 · 1 comment

in Economy, Nanny State, Odds & Ends

Reason.TV has come out with their “Nanny of the Month” for January 2011. Apparently, New York’s problems are fixed because a politician is advocating in favor of a bill that would make it illegal to cross the street while iPodding, cell-phoning or being otherwise engaged with an electronic gadget. Some people have too much time on their hands.

Photo Link

Freedom of Speech on Alcohol Labeling

by Angela Logomasini on January 4, 2011

in Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty

After posting my Washington Times op-ed on wine-labeling mandates yesterday, I came across Diageo’s — the premium drinks company – press release that highlights the company’s support for “voluntary nutrition labeling.”

As I conclude in my op-ed: alcohol producers should have the freedom to include any information on their labels that they desire, except fraudulent claims. That includes nutrition and other health-related information. But unlike Diageo, activist groups are calling on the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) to require specific information, rather than allow firms more freedom in labeling.

There’s a big difference between the two. Market-driven labeling allows each company to provide the information that best meets their consumers’ desires, and it enables companies to modify the information as consumer demands change. In short, market competition rewards firms that offer consumers what they want most. Mandates lock everyone into a nonsensical, one-size-fits-all approach. And once codified into law, even the most misguided regulations are very hard to change.

Image information: The Vino Veritas label on this page was part of a 1996 CEI effort to promote freedom in wine labeling. See our public comments at cei.org.

Energy Drink Ban? What’s Next?

by Michelle Minton on December 10, 2010 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

Lynne Nowick, a legislator in Suffolk County, New York, wants to ban energy drinks for anyone under the age of 19 years old. Why? She says it’s because the drinks “could potentially be dangerous to teens” and some parents don’t know the risks. She seems to believe that it is her duty to assess the risks and make the decision for teens and their parents. After all, nanny state knows best, right?

According to a “nutrition expert,” whatever that means, at the Cornell Cooperative Extension: ”Energy drinks can cause sleeplessness and high blood pressure in teens.”

Personally, government sticking its nose into my morning coffee gets my blood boiling and keeps me up at night; perhaps we can ban government bans for a while.

During the Four Loko/alcoholic energy drink row of last month, some made “what next?” jokes, asking if the government would try to ban energy drinks altogether. It was a joke that I and most of my colleagues shied away from because we knew that it was a very real possibility. This is one reason we fight so vehemently against any kind of regulatory restriction on consumer products; once you have given government the power to regulate and ban products, it is difficult to draw the line.

First it’s alcohol, then it’s alcoholic energy drinks, then it’s energy drinks… what’s next? In a statement, the American Beverage Association, which represents energy drink companies, stated: ”To be consistent, coffeehouses would have to start carding customers before serving them coffee.”

They may have been facetious, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that the next step could be a limit on caffeine consumption for everyone. There is no science that shows energy drinks, when used in moderation, adversely affect the health of consumers. Once we let regulators limit how much of a “potentially dangerous” food item teens or anyone can ingest, we give away the right to make that decision for ourselves.

Even if a product does have some adverse side effect — whether it’s energy drinks, alcohol, or coffee — it should up to each individual to weigh the costs and benefits of the good and bad effects and decide for him or herself whether it’s worth it or not. This appears to be the bottom of a very slippery slope, but I assure you it can go further downhill from here.

Image credit: z3taa’s flickr photostream.

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