2:05:20 of the podcast.
Higher Learning Podcast Episode #2 - The Coli
I tell Gundam I think he's a sociopath and explain that in his regulation-free world people would die from toxic products before the market corrects itself...
Me: Do you understand that if you use free market regulation there is a curve to get to the point where people realize what's going on and during the time until you get there people are going to die?
Gundam: I realize that, I realize it.
A peer into the black soul of a hardcore free marketeer-libertarian.
Then he tried to backtrack and change it and was like "buh, buh, but that only happened along time ago, it wouldn't happen today."
We heard you right the first time b. You exposed how you really felt.
Well, I didn't really get to convey what I wanted to say. Yes, in early markets, and even today, if there is significant information asymmetry, people are going to die.
For instance, I used to sell drugs when I was a kid in high school. One time, I didn't have any Acid "doses" to sell, so I purchased a few from an associate known to manufacture acid paper tabs using questionable means. He frequently bragged about using rat poison and other chemicals with no connection to LSD. Being that I didn't use drugs, and I had zero respect for people that did, I, Knowingly, sold a whole sheet of those defective products to little freshmen girls and nerdy white kids. In that example, I knew what I was selling and they did not. They thought they were going to get high, but I knew I was selling dangerous "Sugar Pills" I could have killed someone. Thank god I didn't.
whenever there is a significant risk of Information Asymmetry in the market place, there is a demand for assurance from an intermediate source. That's one solution for Information Asymmetry. Public accountants, Mechanics, Consumer reports, Review magazines and websites are market solutions to the problem of Information Asymmetry.
However, the most powerful market solution to the problem information asymmetry is the Brand Name or Reputation. For example, I expect quality from manufacturers like Yamaha, Samsung or Roland, and that is something that they have earned. I am a Livelong loyal customer to Yamaha's Music product line, and I always will be. Toyota and Honda are also names that I trust. I trust the implied assertion of healthiness from Whole Foods store brands. Even in the illegal and unregulated market of prostitution,
San Francisco Bay Area Escort, Massage Parlor Guide : myredbook has proven that markets can a will self-regulate.
But will Market self-regulation absolutely prevent deaths or ill health due information asymmetry? Nope it won't. However, no regulatory agency in the history of mankind has achieved absolute mortality assurance.
Recently, I tried an FDA approved anti-biotic called Bactrim (Trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole) and it was nearly the worse 5 days in my entire life. I have never felt that way from any medicine ever. And, Like many patients, I have been given the Vitamin C treatment before. By that I mean, i was prescribed Cipro for a simple sore throat by an impatient and overworked doctor. Ciprofloxin can cause tendon rupture after one dose. even worse, Ciprofloxin, Levafloxin and other fluoroquinolone class antibiotics promote antibiotic cross-resistance (resistance to many other classes) due to the nature of their bactericidal properties. When one realizes how often these drugs are prescribed, the prospect of antibiotics being rendered completely ineffective becomes a very scary reality.
Why am I mentioning this? Because these are horrible and dangerous drugs that doctors prescribe like candy, and nobody really knows how dangerous these antibiotics really are especially the patients. The public isn't aware of the preliminary links between Broad spectrum antibiotics and gastrointestinal diseases like crohns and IBS. Cipro was put on the market in 1983, and in 2011, the FDA finally decided it would put warnings on Cipro about spontaneous tendon rupture. Thousands of people are permanently disabled by Cipro's side effects. It took nearly 30 years for the FDA to catch up to what informed consumers and health advocates knew for a long time. That's a great job on the part of the FDA.
The tract record of the FDA, SEC, Federal Reserve and AICPA and other regulatory authorities leads me to doubt the effectiveness of regulation vs the market. I don't think regulation is any better or worse than Market Self-regulation in practice. However, Regulation is horrendously expensive to implement, and being that it almost ineffective in achieving the objectives that progressives want (assurance levels that are higher than self-regulation), I just don't feel that it's worth the cost.
going by the one-drop rule I see....
