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this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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politics
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Unless he's willing to do something about it, I don't think making this kind of statement is politically helpful. The snack makers will just ignore him, and then he ends up looking impotent and irrelevant, feeding the Republican narrative against his presidency.
Same thing with his administration publicly wringing its hands about the death toll in Gaza. Meanwhile the US continues funding Netanyahu's war machine, which publicly thumbs its nose at the president. It projects weakness.
But he told them very sternly to stop doing it. Shrinkflation is over! /s
It'll be on the next list of Biden's accomplishments.
Probably twice to pad the list.
One wonders how he's going to force private enterprise to not reconsider their packaging size, etc.
there's literally nothing stopping them from selling a new "Fun-Lite" size. or soemthing.
Executive branch regulation can and should enforce honesty and transparency about changes, including shrinking package size. Then it’s up to consumers to vote with their wallets
You mean… like printing content measurements on the package?
Not saying shrinkflation isn’t wrong, but interfering in private enterprise to that extent is both illegal and excessive.
You wouldn’t want to live in a country where the chief executive has that kind of power.
Shrinkflation may be a valid business choice: misleading the customer should not be. Yes the label was required, which is a great starting point, but if the box appears the same size, who looks at the label? If the old size is not present, what do you compare with? Are you holding the customer responsible for memorizing the net weight for every product over the time range they may use it?
You want to reduce the size, that’s your choice, but honesty means the customer will notice
the relevant regulations that mandate package weight in the US has been a thing longer than I've been alive. So you compare it to the weight of the old package.
There's also some justification for using the same size packaging- they'd have to retool some of the filling machines, for example. or at least, adjust them, which adds increased associated production costs. But again, you're talking about a government executive pushing extremely intrusive interference into a company's operations.
Is shrinkflation pretty scummy? absolutely. but there's really no workable way to stop it, that doesn't have a lot of much worse consequences.
Oh, it'll be on the list regardless. Centrists can't tell the difference between a stated position and an accomplishment.
I don't think he has the power to do anything about it.
And he shouldn’t be able to do much to directly interfere with the market.
However one thing he can do is regulate transparency. A big reason shrinkflation is so widespread is that you can hide the change pretty well, but consumer protection regulations already require clear pricing, including per unit, and at least some semblance of truth in advertising, so additional regulations to improve honesty and transparency are quite appropriate. Government needs to establish a fair market, then it’s up to the market
That may not prevent shrinkflation but at least we can keep products companies from lying about it. Then it’s up to us
What do you mean by transparency? Is it the sort of transparency companies can reveal without revealing things like trade secrets?
Also, with so many Trump-backed judges, I could see that getting struck down in a hot minute, especially if businesses take it to the Fifth Circuit, which they absolutely would.
The classic case of shrinkflation is ever shrinking cans of tuna. However, to the glance, they looked exactly the same. They stacked the same way and difference in height was imperceptible.
While there was a required label for the net weight of contents, why would anyone look when the cans appear to be the same as they always were and how would you notice when there is no prior can to compare to.
This is lying. The companies are clearly misleading consumers to hide price increases even if the information is technically there for someone who looks closely enough.
Consumer transparency means that when you make a change, the difference is clearly visible. Consumer protection should be that companies cannot lie, hide or mislead about this change as they are doing now. A fundamental part of capitalism is that consumers have the information to participate in the market, which requires transparency of products. Capitalism is not just corps exploiting consumers, but an ecosystem of production and consumption where each participant can make choices in their own interest. Being able to lie, hide or mislead is a distortion or abuse of the market and governments role needs to be to stop that so markets can work effectively
So how do you get that through the Fifth Circuit?
We can have all the ideals in the world but dysfunctional is dysfunctional