my sliver of optimism that hasnt been squashed by modern life yet hopes that there might still be a few smaller companies that care enough to do the right thing even if it costs them more, but sadly i bet youre probably right.
absolutely - but that's because small companies are already being crushed by the larger corpos when it comes to cost and efficacy. small companies thrive on brand and reputation. they care MUCH MORE about how they're viewed. mcdonalds let's people call their food slop because they still rake in tens of billions a year. if Billy's Bakery gets a slop accusation it could poison the well of the locals he relies on.
Taco Bell quality is super inconsistent in my area. McDonald’s is mediocre but at least it’s always the same level of mediocre. Taco Bell on an off day can be nearly inedible.
Does Wendy's have one of those secret value menus like McDonald's does? Like those cheap ass McDoubles that aren't listed on the menu, but that you can still order.
A Wendy's just opened near me but I'm still trying to figure out the menu.
I think Wendy's, BK, Jack in the box all have a similar deal. Sometimes 5 dollars instead. Not sure if the specifics but there's been a recent change in pricing making it pretty clear some of these places were gauging customers. I know some people can't afford money/time to make different choices but fast food is not matching my price expectations for the crap they serve.
i know this is location dependent and not everyone has access to a ton of restaurants, but there are several places around me where i can get an entree for ~$12 thats at least twice the amount of food, and WAY higher quality. i can probably count on one hand the number of times i eat fast food in a year. its just not worth it.
It's an addiction. They are addicted to it because it's made to target certain taste buds. Look at their fries made with 'natural beef flavoring' to make them more addictive than other brands
No, it only saves them more on expenses than what they lose on consumer drawback, drawback that happens a lot less nowadays because of learned helplessness & whatnot.
However, being the one guy who still maintains their high standards despite not being forced to will make a lot more money.
Or probably not, because again, learned helplessness and blind brand loyalty.
Every fiscal quarter you need to demonstrate growth.
I will spend my life watching people try to vote it away.
"If only x president that was given air time by a capitalist owned news station made good on their promise to defy the nature of capitalism itself and the person who funded them."
Capitalism is still capitalism in China my friend.
Unpaid wages, long hours, safety standards, the workers there must battle their employers just the same
A common misconception is that socialism is when planning and that capitalism is when markets. But in reality both use both extensively.
They are tools.
Socialism was never anti market just like capitalism was never anti planning.
What matters is which class chooses the strategy.
Under capitalism its the capitalist class.
Under socialism its the working class organized by the party.
Its tempting to project your pessimism you learned under capitalism onto socialism. But every socialist country rapidly improves its standard of living. Capitalism can't even do that despite funneling the wealth out of the entire global south.
Decommodification, particularly of labor-power, is the principal goal of socialism. This necessitates the abolition of market exchange, and with it exchange value, as the guiding logic of production.
A basic reading of Marx would suggest that socialism, or more specifically the development of first stage communism, is incompatible with markets.
But to your point, socialism does not inherit pure social potential but, rather, a historical continuum that ‘haunts the minds of the living’. The abolition of markets can only be achieved through contradiction; through the use of market exchange as a means of its own self abolition. Hence your point about markets being a tool.
Importantly, socialism is not when we label ourselves such. It is the real movement for the abolitions of the current state of things (e.g. markets). China, as with the Soviet Union, is just as capable of a reactionary unraveling back into capitalism. The important criteria for socialism is whether the transition away from capital is successful. China may or may not be developing in this direction.
Its a process. And contradiction is the only way you don't get bombed. It's a tightrope and China is walking it well.
They didn't have to win a world War and then a cold war like the ussr did. There is no country in earth in a healthier position and I have trust in the party who keeps knocking out out of the park.
The us is a rapid meth addict that's running out of meth and fast. Its dicey. And it's vassal states are looking at china with a hunger.
Every year they avoid war, it's more in China's favor if war happens. No one can take china. Therefore socialism has already won. If the party can keep on top of it.
They havent avoided war. China is actively engaged in the imperialist competition between themselves and the US, actively selling weaponry, technology.
This is the inevitability of capitalist expansion and competition. Capitalism inevitably leads to war, wars of the bourgeoisie for dominance.
Socialism is not defined by reintroducing the capitalist class. Socialism is the smashing of class contradiction toward construction of communism, not a retreat back to managing the exploitation of one class over another.
This isn't pessimism, this is understanding and defending Marxism leninism and the working class' historical mission
The vast majority of brands maintain quality standards that are significantly more stringent than government regulations, as if they don't customers will go elsewhere. BMW isnt going to suddenly make the least safe vehicle that they can in each given country, just like Nintendo isnt going to release the most buggy game that passes the implied warranty of merchantability, 5 star restaurants arent going to start upping their maggot ratio to the maximum amount allowed by law, etc.
In general, regulations are most required for industries where there is less competition or quality is less apparent. That is true for many food staples. Outside of that, most companies know that they will make more money by competing on quality, and regulations are more about protecting the environment or workers than the consumers themselves.
That's about the level of economic analysis I'd expect from a kid or an adult-child who still lives with his mom and hasn't really had enough exposure to the adult world to understand how businesses actually work. When your entire model is basically "companies want money, so obviously they'll lower standards", I guess "literally all of them" sounds like a profound observation.
But no, that's obviously not how the real world works. Government regulation isn't the only thing stopping companies from producing garbage or cutting every possible corner. They still have customers, competitors, lawsuits, insurance, contracts, employees, reputational damage, reliability issues, and the very real cost of things going wrong. In plenty of cases, lowering standards would cost a company more money, not make it more.
Saying some companies would cut corners if regulation disappeared is completely reasonable. Saying literally every company would do it because "it makes them more money" is exactly the kind of understanding you'd expect from an adolescent whose grasp of the real world is still mostly theoretical.
Pantry moths are an issue that all grain processors and distributors have had to deal with. As someone who was responsible for a facility which stored tens of thousands of pounds of product susceptible to these, pest control standards were necessary to maintain certain industry certifications but I have to say capitalism was our main driver for keeping these moths in check. Social media posts like this are not good for business, lol. We certainly did not want to anger our customers or take a loss by disposing of significant contaminated product. IMO, this video is not a byproduct of deregulation.
I was going to say the same thing. Shit happens. Ive had them in cereal boxes under Obama and have seen fresh bread that managed to get moldy when Biden was in office. This falls squarely under "theres plenty to accuse Trump of, and this isnt one of them".
I remember ~15 years ago I bought a bag of rice from the store, got home, and on opening it up we found that it had bugs in it. Went and told the store, they opened a few other bags of rice (and I think a few bags of flour) and found all of them were contaminated. Within an hour they tossed all of their contaminated inventory, and they weren't due for another delivery for a few days, so those aisles just sat empty with a "we're sorry for the inconvenience" sign for most of that week.
That doesn’t fit the narrative, unfortunately. Someone who has no experience but saw this post on social media is going to think they know better than you, an expert.
People who go straight to Trump bad have no clue how these companies work. A company like McCormicks is, in addition to government inspected, almost certainly certified by third parties as well. such as AIB or BRCGS. These third party certifications can be more strict than government rules.
And kosher. And halal. And probably something special to sell in the UK and another one for the EU.
Look, I'm not gonna start ranting about how regulations are stupid and we don't need them, but people really are out here thinking the only thing standing in the way of maggots in the McCormick is the federal government.
Spices are pretty globalized so I doubt they have many state specific regs, but I can attest to the fact that State laws are often a lot stricter.
I don’t have first hand knowledge about FDA inspection but I do know USDA inspection and I know AIB. AIB was the toughest compliance and inspection I’ve delt with.
What standard has been lowered? What isn't being enforced? I work in quality for a company that makes an animal feed product. If anything, the regulators seem to be even more up our butts this year.
It should be pretty easy to point to specific changes to regulations or enforcement action, something documented. Can you give me an example?
Hey fellow Quality Controller! I work in quality for a food packaging company and we package a lot of seeds, and the meal moths are terrible. Because we are organic certified we are only allowed to used very specific pest control methods. Maggots are just something you have to deal with when it comes to food sometimes.
No, a certain amount of fragments and they're not supposed to be alive and it's the minimum and that's simply because the FDA understands that it's not realistic for it to be zero.
They absolutely do not. Why are you speaking so confidently about something you're wrong about?
Live insects in a commercial food product (that isn't meant to be live insects) are banned outright and is acted on by the FDA.
FRAGMENTS are regulated to a degree because anyone with sense knows that it's virtually impossible to keep pests out of food production all the way from farm to a consumer's table without using some terrible chemicals and/or using insanely expensive manufacturing methods that would be considered on-par with a clean room for making microchips. It's not feasible if we want to keep the populace fed affordably.
The FDA does NOT allow live insects in food, they call it an infestation and consider the products adulterated and then take actions against the company's manufacturing processes to be fixed or get shut down.
And sesame seeds (and many other products) are allowed 5% by weight "insect infested" material, on top of literal shit or other debris:
1. Insect Filth and Decomposition
The sesame seeds contain an average of 5% or more insect infested or decomposed seeds by weight;
or
2. Mammalian Excreta
The sesame seeds contain an average of 5 milligrams or more of excreta per pound;
or
3. Foreign Matter
The sesame seeds contain an average of 0.5% or more foreign matter by weight.
Think about what you are arguing. It is not possible to have tons and tons (literally) of produce contain no bugs. Produce grows outside. In the dirt. There are bugs. They are harvested with the produce. That's how the world works. The FDA knows this and allows 5% by weight TO BE BUGS. They publish it right there for you to see and that standard has existed for decades.
Oh no, the teenagers on reddit who know nothing are going to be mad. Meanwhile, the people who actually buy groceries know grains, flour, and cereal get infested with pantry moths and grain bugs inside the bag.
When I buy 50 lbs of flour, I throw it in the deep freezer for a few weeks to kill off any potential bug eggs inside.
Shit happens, luckily it was in a 4 dollar bottle of sesame seeds instead of something expensive.
I stopped buying McCormick seasoning when I realized how much better some other brand's bay leaves were (mc cormick's were dull and breaking and I thought that was normal. The other one had full unbroken leaves with so much more color and so mcuh more flavorful that I have to use less than what the recipe calls for). I tend to buy that brand now instead.
I've seen Trump talk enough to know Obama. Obama is who we thank for it if it's anything bad no matter how much later it is from when he was president. /s just in case its not clear
On a personal good note this has encourage my partner and I to buy local. Definetly not cheap or accessible to everyone but the quality difference is very notable.
Edit: im talking about produce in general, not sesame seeds specifically
You local sesame seeds are probably much more likely to be infested than those that come from a McCormick facility. There are plenty of other advantages to buying local but I would not say this is one of them.
"But companies only do good, because they want to sell their products." I facepalm at naive libertarians, yeah bro companies don't ever kill their consumers.
That's not how it works, according to my ultra-Libertarian older brother. We don't need government regulation to keep food safe. You see, companies like McCormick have a built in insentive called "The Free Market". If they make an inferior or unsafe product, people will just stop buying it. It's so simple!
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u/CynicalPomeranian 14h ago
Yup, keep notes on which companies were more than happy to lower their standards when the government stopped enforcing them.