I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and
> many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights
But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just
In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
The measures related to lawsuits are misleading and terrible, because of the way class-action lawsuits have incentivized lawyers to pursue dubious cases against large companies.
I'm not in love with the system, but it does seem like a last resort for imposing discipline on corporations. The dilemma is whether the tort system is preferable to an approach involving more regulation and enforcement.
I’m not saying that the lawsuits are necessarily wrong or bad (though there do seem to be many of dubious merit), just that they don’t accurately reflect the mix of safety and other problems between large and small producers.
There should be publicly available data about how expensive class action lawsuits are to the court.
I would personally categorize it as as subsidized not paid for since the lawyers get nothing if they fail which is a meaningful cost.
None of this is to say I support the current system. Class action lawsuits are now designed to get settlements that save the company targeted millions or more compared to the actual damage agreed to.
And giving the lawyers millions when each litigant is lucky to get $20 is not reasonable.
The only direct costs to the taxpayers in these kinds of lawsuits are the judge's time (also the bailiff's, stenographer's, and a couple more), a slight extra load on the computer system to handle the filings, and miscellaneous wear and tear on the courtroom.
I mean, I think you understand what I'm saying. They're externalizing the costs and internalizing the benefits. The same thing we complain about with numerous other industries.
The alternative would not be to take away the right of private citizens to sue. There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down.
Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.
I'd like corporations (bodies) to be prosecuted like human bodies, where bad behavior was noted, you got a record, and punishment increased through fines, restrictions all the way to forms of incarceration, and even the death penalty.
Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.
Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail.
Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.
McDonald's might be the largest restaurant chain in Italy but that doesn't really mean much given how many small restaurants the country has with high quality food.
"Senators don't have the luxury that a research scientist has of waiting for evidence." - 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFQc2kxm9c
I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and
> many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights
But the article doesn't say what those rights are, which makes me think the lawsuits were just
People have to learn to recognize the patterns.
In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.
1MM in any currency doesn't sound like a lot, especially relative to who they're up against...
The measures related to lawsuits are misleading and terrible, because of the way class-action lawsuits have incentivized lawyers to pursue dubious cases against large companies.
I'm not in love with the system, but it does seem like a last resort for imposing discipline on corporations. The dilemma is whether the tort system is preferable to an approach involving more regulation and enforcement.
I’m not saying that the lawsuits are necessarily wrong or bad (though there do seem to be many of dubious merit), just that they don’t accurately reflect the mix of safety and other problems between large and small producers.
Don't they still need to win to get paid?
They're purchasing lottery tickets that are mostly paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems.
There should be publicly available data about how expensive class action lawsuits are to the court.
I would personally categorize it as as subsidized not paid for since the lawyers get nothing if they fail which is a meaningful cost.
None of this is to say I support the current system. Class action lawsuits are now designed to get settlements that save the company targeted millions or more compared to the actual damage agreed to.
And giving the lawyers millions when each litigant is lucky to get $20 is not reasonable.
The only direct costs to the taxpayers in these kinds of lawsuits are the judge's time (also the bailiff's, stenographer's, and a couple more), a slight extra load on the computer system to handle the filings, and miscellaneous wear and tear on the courtroom.
- “Purchasing”: The attorneys that are taking these cases for $0 in the hopes that they’ll get n% of $SETTLEMENT
- “paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems”. The alternative would mean taking away the right of private citizens to sue.
I mean, I think you understand what I'm saying. They're externalizing the costs and internalizing the benefits. The same thing we complain about with numerous other industries.
The alternative would not be to take away the right of private citizens to sue. There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down.
aren't the court systems pretty self-funding?
Winning one and losing five is in their favor.
No. The case can be settled out of court. This doesn't necessarily mean lawsuits are misleading or terrible as measures.
Ref.:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49124738
america has a monopoly problem
Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.
I'd like corporations (bodies) to be prosecuted like human bodies, where bad behavior was noted, you got a record, and punishment increased through fines, restrictions all the way to forms of incarceration, and even the death penalty.
Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.
Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail.
Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.
In many European countries, the largest restaurant chain is American. Not great.
You seem to be assuming chains are good. I prefer the one location restaurant myself, but by definition they will never be the largest chain.
McDonald's might be the largest restaurant chain in Italy but that doesn't really mean much given how many small restaurants the country has with high quality food.
The article says 80% of the lawsuits were in Mexico and ~3% were in America.
I think chess and scrabble are more popular here
True, we have way too many thematic versions of Monopoly. I'm still missing so many copies.
Very relevant: https://magarshak.com/blog/government-and-industry-distract-...