Month: January 2016

Dewshine: The Stupid New Teen Drug Panic

Two teenagers in a single county in Tennessee have died and—while the autopsy results are not yet in—their deaths may have been caused by drinking a combination of racing fuel and Mountain Dew.

These are the first such cases reported in the state, and state health officials say that they are not aware of any cases outside the state. 

Naturally, it’s time for everybody to panic!

Valley News Live reports:

Racing fuel, used for drag racing, can be easily purchased online and at some convenience stores.

“A lot of people refer to it as ‘moonshine on steroids.’ A lot of people call it ‘Dewshine,'” Greenbrier Police Chief K.D. Smith told NBC News of the Mountain Dew and racing fuel mixture.

Fox News is covering the story of “two teenage friends are dead after drinking a lethal concoction of racing fuel and Mt. Dew” as part of the national cable news rotation.

The clickbait site Heavy hustled out “Dewshine: Five Fast Facts You Need to Know” to tell readers what they need to know about “this deadly drink.”

Plus much, much more media frenzy.

Drinkers have long made the connection between ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, (which gets you drunk) and methanol (which powers automobiles and can kill you), though it is typically bootleggers who wind up adulterating moonshine with the substance.

In 2012, there were a spate of deaths in the Czech that were attributed to methanol consumption, as well as deaths from India to Cambodia in recent years. During Prohibition, many Americans died looking for substitutes to banned alcoholic beverages elsewhere in the same chemical family—or through concerted federal efforts to taint forbidden beverages. The initial effects of methanol are similar to ethanol, but too much methanol quickly results in seizures, blindness, and death.

The fact that methanol poisoning is nothing new and also that there is no evidence that this particular combination is popular or in widespread use hasn’t stopped the scare story cycle, and it likely won’t stop politicians and regulators looking to score points with new safety measures if the story has some staying power.

dewshine

PepsiCo already took some flack last year for releasing a pseudo-artisanal non-alcoholic beverage of the same name in longneck bottles. At the very least, expect this perfectly safe form of Dewshine to come up in the discussion as law enforcement and politicians scramble to “do something.” (Or is that “dew something?”)

The family of one of the dead teens, 16-year-old Logan Stephenson, is talking about an awareness campaign with their son’s school, which is actually a rather sensible response in this particular county where the problem appears to be completely contained.

The Stephenson family is collecting funds in Logan’s memory.

“The family will be meeting with the school to discuss how to disburse these funds,” the obituary reads. “Their desire is that it will be used to educate children of the many dangers which they face which parents are not aware of and therefore not able to warn them.”

Some local law enforcement is also being very reasonable, with the Robertson County Sheriff’s office releasing a statement saying:

The investigation continues into factors surrounding the deaths of these two boys, and the sheriff’s office is awaiting toxicology results. There are many rumors floating around social media websites by members of the community. The sheriff’s office asks that everyone please refrain from posting or spreading these rumors.

Good advice for journalists as well.

For another one of Reason’s greatest drug panic hits, don’t forget “beezin” where kids rub mentholated lip balm on their eyelids.

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Put Up Or Shut Up: Ted Cruz Challenges Trump To “Mano-A-Mano” Throwdown For $1.5 Million

“I promise you Putin is a lot scarier than Megyn Kelly.”

That’s fron Ted Cruz, who mocked Donald Trump for boycotting the last GOP debate before the Iowa caucuses.

For anyone who somehow managed to miss it, Trump “isn’t bothering” with the event thanks to the fact that Fox anchor Megyn Kelly is one of the moderators.

The two famously clashed during the first Republican debate when Kelly dared to ask Trump whether he thought calling women “disgusting animals” was language befitting of a US President. In an effort to prove just how “presidential” he really was, Trump later suggested that the reason Kelly asked tough questions was that she may have had “blood coming out of her wherever.”

It’s been all down hill from there and you can find a timeline of the ongoing feud below courtesy of The Hill.

As far as Thursday’s GOP debate goes, it wasn’t enough for Trump to boycott the event. Although he’s convinced no one will be watching because he won’t be on the stage, Trump wants to ruin it altogether by hosting his own event at the same time.

“Donald Trump intensified his feud with Fox News just days before Iowa kicks off the presidential nominations contest, saying he will hold a rogue event Thursday while Republican rivals take part in a debate without him,” AFP reports adding that the brazen billionaire is “twisting the knife” by holding a “special event” to benefit veterans groups.

At the same time as the debate.

And in the same city.

Speaking of veterans, Ted Cruz has a proposal for how Trump. “The super PACs supporting Ted Cruz are offering $1.5 million to veterans charities if Donald Trump agrees to debate Cruz one-on-one before the Iowa caucus, heightening the stakes around Cruz’s proposal just five days before the Iowa caucus,” NBC said on Thursday. 

“Not only would this be a heck of a debate, but it would also be a terrific opportunity to generate millions of dollars for the veterans,” the Cruz campaign said on Wednesday night. “We’ll do 90 minutes, Lincoln Douglas, mano a mano. Donald and me. He can lay out his vision or this country, and I can lay out my vision for this country in front of the men and women of Iowa,” he added.

Cruz even reserved an 800-seat venue in Sioux City on Saturday night in hopes he can convince Trump to show up.

But Trump isn’t taking the bait. ” If [Cruz] is the last man standing and it comes down to a two-person race Donald Trump will be happy to debate him,” the Trump campaign said. Trump himself wasn’t nearly as “PC”:

Carly Fiorina also made Trump an offer, saying she’d put up $2 million for a one-on-one debate and $1.5 million for a threeway debate with Trump and Cruz.

Cruz also took to Twitter to poke fun at Trump’s decision to back out of Thursday night’s event.

Something tells us the Montey Python reference might be lost on large swaths of the American electorate.

On Wednesday evening, Trump went on Fox News and told Bill O’Reilly he would not be reconsidering his decision. 

“You have in this debate format the upper hand — you have 60 seconds off the top to tell the moderator, ‘You’re a pinhead, you’re off the mark and here’s what I want to say’. By walking away from it, you lose the opportunity to persuade people you are a strong leader,” O’Reilly said. 

While that would probably be true of any other candidate, it’s probably not the case here. Trump will use this as yet another opportunity to set himself apart from the “establishment” in the hearts and minds of voters. In short, this will likely be a beneficial publicity stunt.

As for Kelly, here’s what Trump told O’Reilly: “I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly. I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And, frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”

And just in case that’s in any way unclear, we’ll close with two new tweets from Trump who is clearly intent on milking this scenario for all it’s worth.

*  *  * 

Timeline of Trump/Kelly feud via The Hill

Aug. 6: The opening salvo

Trump and Kelly first squared off during the GOP’s first debate in Cleveland, where the Fox anchor almost immediately questioned him about accusations of sexism. 

“You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, snobs and disgusting animals,” she said. “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton — who is likely to be the Democratic nominee — that you are part of the ‘war on women?’ ” 

While Trump cast the criticism as people being too politically correct, the line of questioning from Kelly served as a ground zero for their feud. 

Trump repeatedly bashed Kelly in the wake of the debate, most notably a day later when he made a comment some believed was referring to menstruation. 

“You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever,” the real estate tycoon said on CNN.

The episode prompted a telephone conversation between network head Roger Ailes and Trump to clear the air.

Aug. 24: ‘Bimbo’-gate

Weeks after that cease-fire, Trump took to Twitter for a rant against Kelly where he retweeted a person calling her a “bimbo” and intimated that Kelly’s vacation from her show came as punishment for her treatment against him. Fox News repeatedly denied that accusation and a handful of Fox hosts took to Twitter in Kelly’s defense.

Sept. 22: Trump boycotts Fox programming

Trump hit back with another tweet-storm in September in which he referred to Kelly as a“lightweight” and “highly overrated.” 

He then canceled an appearance on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor” before declaring that he would boycott the network’s shows for the “foreseeable future” because the network has treated him “very unfairly.”

That prompted a promise of another meeting between Ailes and Trump, but the parties never publicly addressed whether a meeting took place. Trump returned to Fox programming soon after.

Nov. 4: ‘Facts matter’

Trump once again took to Twitter to accuse Kelly of touting polls where he doesn’t perform as well. 

“Isn’t it terrible that [Kelly] used a poll not used before (I.B.D.) when I was down, but refuses to use it now when I am up?” he asked on Twitter in reference to the Investor’s Business Daily poll that showed rival Ben Carson within striking distance of his lead. 

“Facts matter,” Kelly responded on Twitter, showing a graphic of the poll.  

Dec. 15: Trouble with numbers

An error during a broadcast of Kelly’s “The Kelly File” awoke prompted another wave of criticism from Trump. 

The show’s graphic correctly noted Trump’s 41 percent support in a recent Monmouth University poll, but Kelly understated the billionaire’s 27-point lead over Ted Cruz as a 15-point lead. 

Trump pounced, calling Kelly an “overrated anchor” who is “very bad at math.” 

“I wonder if [Kelly] and her flunkies have written their scripts about my debate performance tonight. No matter how well I do – bad,” he added in another tweet. 

A network official blamed the misstep on a script error.

Jan. 4: A profile in ‘Vanity’

Thrust into the spotlight thanks in large part to the feud with Trump, Kelly sat down for a cover interview with Vanity Fair where she said that she “can’t be wooed” by Trump.

Trump responded during an exclusive interview with The Hill days later, where he said that “the last person in the world I would try to woo is Megyn Kelly.” He added that he didn’t expect her to be “fair and balanced” during the upcoming GOP debate, but said he “probably” would participate anyways.

Jan. 25: Trump pulls out

Fox News stood firm by its decision to keep Kelly on as a moderator despite Trump’s calls for the network to drop her from the event, which led to Trump publicly waffling on whether he’d attend. 

But the following day, the network put out a harsh statement knocking Trump.

“We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings,” a spokesman said. (Trump had tweeted a poll asking followers whether he should attend Thursday’s debate.)

That statement led Trump to declare — not even an hour after Fox News announced the debate’s main stage lineup — that he would skip Thursday’s GOP debate, leaving Fox without its star candidate, who has likely contributed to a ratings uptick for televised debates.

The network shot back and accused Trump’s campaign manager of threatening Kelly and the network. Instead of attending the debate, Trump has promised a competing event that will raise money for veterans.


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Want To Know What The S&P500 Does Next? Just Look At The Fed’s Balance Sheet

Over the past 7 years, we as well as others (if not those who believe in magic money trees, or managing other people’s money while blogging) have repeatedly said that when it comes to “market” returns, look no further than the size of the Fed’s balance sheet – the single best indictor of where the S&P500 is headed to next.

That is precisely what DB’s Jim Reid did overnight. This is what he says:

Today we update a chart and table we used a fair amount in 2013/4 looking at the Fed balance sheet and equity and credit performance.

 

 

The relationship works best with a 3 month lag (i.e. asset prices move ahead of the Fed) with the table breaking down the post-GFC period into alternate periods of US QE and non-QE. As can be seen apart from the initial Lehman related collapse period, asset prices have done extremely well in the QE periods and generally negatively when the Fed has held fire. The current period is no different.

 

 

Obviously such a relationship can’t last forever but it provides evidence of how much influence the central banks have had on asset prices post 2009 and therefore how important they still are. Markets continue to be addicted to stimulus.

 

Generally we feel that with inflation so low they can provide more if they so desire. Obviously in recent quarters the Fed has tried to withdraw from such a game but we continue to think it’s going to be very very difficult for them to get very far with the danger of a policy error high.

 

As we said on many occasions last year if you didn’t know the level of Fed Funds and were just given the global data and financial landscape you may easily conclude that the next move should be an easing.

Indeed, and as even the Fed admitted yesterday, it hiked rates just as the “economy was slowing down.” In other words, the first step of admitting policy error has been taken.

The are just two questions left:

How much more pain can the Fed take (in S&P500 selling terms) before it does a U-turn and confirms what we have said all along – that after its now aborted attempt to stimulate the economy by boosting rates, it will either cut, or boost QE, or both.

Will the market dare to call the Fed’s bluff and continue selling off the S&P 500 until it finds just where this “max pain” point is, after which Yellen will relent and send the stock “market” to new all time highs courtesy of the next Fed balance sheet expansion.

 


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Success Is A Source Of Destabilization

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

We tend to assume our system for understanding the cause of failure must be sound, because we've experienced Roaring Success for so long.

Rip-Roaring Success is a funny thing: we assume it's the goal of every person, household, enterprise and nation, but we overlook that rip-roaring success can be as destabilizing as failure.

Rip-Roaring Success can destabilize in a number of ways.

One is the result of human nature. Those who didn't make it onto the Roaring Success Bus feel the gap widening most keenly. Indeed, psychological studies find we assess our wealth and social position not by the actual material prosperity we have, but by the narrowing or widening of the perceived wealth gap with our peers.

This is precisely the situation in the U.S. and China. Both economies are supposedly expanding smartly, but the gains are concentrated in relatively few hands; the Roaring Success Bus has few seats.

the vast majority perceive themselves as being left behind. That is highly destabilizing.

The second is a function of systems and human nature.

Every extreme eventually tends to revert to the mean, which is another way of saying that extraordinary growth rates of profits, stock market advances, etc. that characterize Rip-Roaring Success eventually return to merely average rates of growth.

This inevitably disappoints all who thought outlier rates of growth were permanent features of the system: Apple iPhone sales, China's GDP, etc.

This disappointment greatly exceeds the actual decline in the rate of growth, and the oversized reaction tips the system out of stability.

The collapse in the price of oil can be seen as an example: once oil was no longer behaving as expected, i.e. holding to $100/barrel, the reaction was swift and outsized.

The third is a function of organizations and systems.

Organizations that are hugely successful quickly lose interest in controlling costs. The money is pouring in so fast, every idea is presumed to be worthy of development, every functionary is presumed to need an assistant, and lavish parties celebrating the organization's roaring success become the norm, along with hefty bonuses and grand expansions of benefits.

Another way of saying this is costs that should have remained contingent and temporary become fixed costs. Once costs become fixed, the institutional resistance to eliminating them becomes fierce, and the organization slides into destabilizing crisis as rising fixed costs consume all profits/surpluses and start eating away at what little remains of truly productive activities.

The fourth is a function of success itself.

Success results from the optimization of productive capacity. In many cases, this optimization is accidental, or the result of chance alignments. Even when the optimization is entirely planned, a great many assumptions are made in designing that optimization: for example, that further investments of capital will continue to yield high rates of productivity growth, or that sales can continue expanding as product cycles become shorter, and so on.

But once conditions change, as they inevitably do in a dynamic world, the system that was designed to optimize for success is suddenly optimized for failure–yet nobody perceives the stagnation as the result of the very optimization that created the roaring success.

In effect, the organization is programmed to do more of what's failing.

In a previous post, I mentioned the example of World War II bombers that returned from missions heavily damaged. The experts examined the damage for clues as to what could be done to increase the survival rate of the aircraft.

This is entirely rational, right? The best way to improve results is to examine the sources of failure. But the experts did not examine the planes that were shot down–those planes whose damage caused them to crash. As a result, their observations were limited to those aircraft that were able to return to base. As a result, their conclusions were necessarily incomplete and misleading.

Put another way: we tend to assume our system for understanding the cause of failure must be sound, because we've experienced Roaring Success for so long. But the two skillsets are not necessarily related.

The fifth is a function of how we measure success. If a rising stock market is taken as the measure of success, then everyone watching stocks loft ever-higher assumes the system being measured (the economy) is experiencing rip-roaring success.

But the success reflected by the metric may be entirely artificial–for example, China's GDP. The choice of a single metric of success heavily incentivizes those in charge to game the metric to exaggerate the system's health and the competence of their leadership.

Ironically, a steady stream of small failures is the path to adaptation and stability. Experimentation results in a continual flow of failures that informs the process of maintaining progress. Organizations, individuals, households and economies that have been successful without experimentation are increasingly vulnerable to destabilization, for the reasons noted above.

In 2016, I suspect we will see previous success leading to destabilization as often as we see outright failure lead to destabilization.


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Ignore Stocks, the REAL Crisis is Far Bigger and Far Worse

Investors today are focusing on the wrong asset class.

 

Stocks started off the year with one of the worst drops in recent memory. As of this morning the S&P 500 was down over 7% for the year thus far.

 

 

However, while stocks grab the headlines, it is the bond market that warrants the most attention.

 

The reason?

 

Firstly, size. The bond bubble is $100 trillion in size. To put this into perspective, the Tech Bubble, the single largest stock bubble in history relative to profits, was just $16 trillion in size.

 

Beyond this, there are $555 trillion derivatives trading based on interest rates (bond yields). So that $100 trillion in bonds is leveraged by an additional five to one.

 

In simple terms, as much as CNBC and others focus on stocks, the bond market, particularly the bond bubble is a much larger, more pressing problem.

 

Especially since it has begun to burst.

 

Junk bonds were the first “shoe to drop.” They’ve taken out their post-2009 bull market trendline (blue line) as well as critical support (green line).

 

 

Those who claim that this is primarily an issue for Oil Shale companies are wrong. The defaults are coming across the board with Energy companies accounting for less than 33% of defaults.

 

This was the fuse that set off the global debt bomb.

 

The next shoe to drop will be Emerging Market Bonds, specifically corporates.

 

 

 

Emerging Market corporations have over $3 trillion in excess debts according to the IMF. This is likely a conservative estimate. Globally the US Dollar carry trade is north of $9 trillion. And Emerging Market corporations were issuing US Dollar denominated debt at a staggering pace post-2009.

 

Now you may be asking, “if the bond bubble has burst, where are the headlines?”

 

Stock market bubbles take months to unfold. The Tech Bubble was isolated to one asset class (stocks) and even more specifically, one industry (Tech Stocks). It sill took three years to unfold.

 

Bonds, in contrast, are the bedrock of the entire financial system. They, specifically sovereign bonds, are THE asset class against which all risk is priced globally. This mess will take months if not years to unfold.

 

Junk bonds were first, emerging market corporates are next, then maybe municipal bonds and eventually sovereign bonds. By the time the smoke has cleared, stocks will be at levels below even the March 2009 lows.

 

Another stock market crash is coming. Smart investors are preparing now in anticipation.

 

If you’ve ye to take action to prepare yourself and your portfolio for the next round of the Crisis, we just published a 21-page investment report titled Stock Market Crash Survival Guide.

 

In it, we outline precisely how the crash will unfold as well as which investments will perform best during a stock market crash.

 

We are giving away just 1,000 copies for FREE to the public.

 

To pick up yours, swing by:

 

http://ift.tt/1HW1LSz

 

Best Regards

 

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 


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Some Government-Sponsored Syrian Refugees in Canada Would Rather Go Back to Refugee Camps in Jordan and Lebanon

In December, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a big show of welcoming the first wave of Syrian refugees arriving in Canada. The country had pledged to accept 10,000 refugees by the end of 2015 (it fell short of the goal TKTKT) and 25,000 by the end of next month.

Trudeau welcomed the first refugees by telling them they were “safe at home now” and handing them winter coats.

“This is a wonderful night where we get to show not just a planeload of new Canadians what Canada is all about,” said Trudeau of the refugees, who were granted permanent resident status, “but we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult straits.”

But now, just two months later, some of the refugees who have been sponsored by the government say they’ve been neglected to such a degree that they’d rather return to refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

CBC News reports:

Some government-sponsored Syrian refugees staying at a budget hotel in Toronto say they feel like they’re “trapped in a prison” without hope due to a lack of communication, supplies and assistance. 

Virginia Johnson, one of two volunteers working at the hotel, joined CBC Radio’s Metro Morning on Monday to speak to host Matt Galloway. 

Johnson said the refugees have been at the hotel for weeks and have no idea when they will be able to leave. Some of the 85 government-sponsored refugees say they’re not getting much help, and would rather go back to their refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. 

At the hotel, refugees tell volunteers they have little communication with outsiders and are isolated, and volunteers complain government officials don’t appear to be checking in on them regularly. Canada’s immigration department told CBC refugees get “immediate access to essential services and social support” and that there was “nothing unusual about a stay of several weeks in transitional accommodation.”

The refugee volunteers worry about a “two tier” system where privately-sponsored refugees fare much better than government-sponsored one, who may have been rushed out of refugee camps and into the country.

Johnson called on the government to “allow private sponsor groups to sponsor government sponsored refuges” as quickly as private sponsors can. Another volunteer suggested the Canadian government wanted to bring refugees out of harm’s way as fast as possible and hadn’t established a plan yet.

The refugees who complain of poor conditions in Toronto came from refugee camps and not directly from war zones. There was a lot of fanfare surrounding the first arrivals, but it now appears the government wasn’t prepared to match private sponsor resources to the refugees in a timely fashion.

If the Canadian government sped up the process of removing refugees from camps just to stick them in hotels in the middle of the Canadian winter while government officials figure out how to do their job, then Trudeau’s new government is being motivated by optics and good press, and not genuine humanitarian concern, especially if private sponsor groups are being prevented from joining the refugee entry process because of government bureaucracy.

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Sweden To Deport 80,000 Refugees Amid Security Fears

Sweden is concerned about migrants.

In the wake of the sexual assaults that rocked Cologne, Germany and several other cities across Europe on New Year’s Eve, Nyheter Idag‎ accused prominent daily Dagens Nyheter of conspiring to cover up a wave of similar attacks allegedly perpetrated by Arab refugees at a youth festival in central Stockholm’s Kungsträdgården last August.

Subsequently, Dagens Nyheter claimed it was actually the police who attempted to conceal the crimes from the public in an effort to avoid triggering an anti-migrant backlash among Swedes.

In addition to the alleged sexual assaults, Moroccan migrant children have reportedly “taken over” the central train station in Stockholm where “gangs” of all-male pre-teens and teenagers drunkenly attack guards and accost women.

And then there’s 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher who was stabbed to death by a refugee while working at an asylum center for unaccompanied youth migrants.

Now, amid the turmoil, the country’s Interior Minister Anders Ygeman says Sweden will likely deport as many as 80,000 of the asylum seekers who entered the country last year. 

Some 163,000 refugees came to Sweden in 2015. That’s a record for the country of just under 10 million and it’s the highest per capita number in Europe. 

“We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000,” Ygeman said on Thursday.”We have a big challenge ahead of us. We will need to use more resources for this and we must have better cooperation between authorities,” he told Dagens Industri.

“Over the past few years Sweden has rejected about 45 percent of claims for asylum, but with last year’s record influx the greater numbers are putting an increasing strain on immigration and police authorities,” Reuters notes, adding that “the Swedish government fears many people whose applications for asylum are rejected will go into hiding.”

Like many other countries, Sweden is rethinking its open-door policy in the wake of the refugee influx that’s spooked many Europeans who increasingly see the mass migration as a threat to Europe’s Christian culture. The backlog of applications for those seeking asylum in Sweden means recent arrivals will need to wait between 15 and 24 months. 

“The level of new arrivals has plunged since the beginning of January, when Sweden introduced systematic photo ID border checks, after stating that it has hit its limit in terms of receiving asylum seekers,” RT recalls before noting that in addition to Alexandra Mezher’s death, there was another recent “incident” wherein police were chased away from the Vasteras refugee center by an “angry mob” while attempting to relocate a 10-year-old boy who had allegedly been subject to “repeated rape.” 

“Even more people appeared behind us. I was mentally prepared to fight for my life. We were 10 police officers in a narrow corridor. And I hear someone yell that there is an emergency exit,” one officer said, recounting the event. 

The news of Sweden’s plans to deport some 45% of those who entered the country last year comes as Denmark passes legislation which makes it legal for police to confiscate cash and valuables from migrants and as Austria suspends Schengen in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of people across its southern border with Slovenia.  

As we put it on Wednesday, “if European politicans do not find an effective way to get the situation under control, the public will remove them – either with the ballot or with the torches and pitchforks.” 

It appears as though Sweden has gotten the message although Ygeman’s press secretary Victor Harju, told CNN not to put too much stock in those figures because they are “vague, hypothetical estimates based on last year’s numbers.”

Yes, “vague, hypothetical estimates based on last year’s numbers” – much like the estimates of how many refugees will come banging on Western Europe’s doors in the new year. 

The question for Sweden is how many of the planned 80,000 deportees will go peacefully back to a Mid-East warzone and how many will fight for their “right” to remain a member of polite Western society.


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Mandatory GMO Food Labels Address Largely Supernatural Concerns and Are Meant to Confuse You

PinkSalt“We’re kosher and have to answer to an even higher authority,” was the tagline in Hebrew National’s amusing TV advertisement suggesting that God’s production requirements for its hotdogs exceed those mandated by U.S. government regulators. The company follows kosher process standards and labels its meats to provide that information to consumers who adhere to the Torah’s religious strictures on foods.

Hebrew National was also clearly implying to non-religious consumers that its Deity-approved wieners are somehow better (and safer) than conventionally produced hotdogs. However, at least one study reported that kosher chicken had the nearly double the frequency of antibiotic-resistant E. coli than conventionally produced chicken did.

One of the invidious tactics used by anti-biotech activists is to argue for government mandates to label foods using ingredients made from modern biotech crops. They hope that consumers will misinterpret them as “warning” labels. But as the Food and Drug Administration has pointed out numerous times:

The agency is not aware of any valid scientific information showing that foods derived from genetically engineered plants, as a class of foods, differ from other foods in any meaningful way. GE (genetically engineered) foods don’t present greater safety concerns than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.

So GMO labels, like kosher labels, would be essentially process labels since there is no nutritional or safety differences between biotech and conventional foods. Would GMO or non-GMO labels actually inform consumers or would it confuse them? Last November, a report on the process labeling of food issued by the Council on Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) addressed question. The study noted the proliferation of food process labels including   those for Certified Organic, Rainforest Alliance Certified, rbST free, Fair Trade, and Free of Genetically Modified Organisms.

These labels, like kosher labels, aim to address the supernatural* concerns of some consumers. But, as the CAST study observed…

…process labeling often has serious unintentional consequences. For instance, labeling the benefits of a process for new niche product can implicitly cast the conventionally produced product in a negative light. This type of stigmatization of the conventional product can be particularly problematic in situations in which no scientific evidence exists that the food produced with the conventional process causes harm, or even that it is compositionally any different. 

Of course, anti-biotech activist groups like Just Label It that are demanding government-mandated GMO labels actually intend to mislead consumers into thinking that biotech foods are somehow less safe or nutritionally different than other foods. 

Instead of mandatory labels, CAST recommends voluntary process labels:

[W]e recommend that mandatory labeling occur only in situations in which the product has been scientifically demonstrated to harm human health. Likewise, governments should not impose bans on process labels because this approach goes against the general desire of consumers to know about and have control over the food they are eating and it can undermine consumer trust of the agricultural sector. We believe that a prudent approach is to encourage voluntary process labeling under the conditions that these labels are true and scientifically verifiable and that, when the labels claim a product “contains” or is “free of” a certain production-related process, the product should also include a label stating the current scientific consensus regarding the importance of this attribute.

In an effort to be helpful, how about a voluntary label that reads something like: “Non-GMO Verified: Totally Useless Information.” Simple and accurate.

It should, however, be noted that Campbell’s Soups earlier this month called for mandatory GMO labeling. The company flatly states that foods made using ingredients from biotech crops are as safe and as nutritious as foods produced using other processes. I suspect that the company believes that GMO labels pasted on everything would for most consumers go in one eye and out the other with no effect on their purchasing decisions.

For your delectation, the Hebrew National commercial is below:

*supernatural: (Of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

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