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  • #46
    Originally posted by gunnut View Post
    There are always exceptions. For example you can't just walk across the border with your guns. Guns are much more heavily regulated in Canada.

    We still have trade restrictions amongst the states too. Here's a good example in California. All milk sold in California has to be fortified with Vitamin D. Other states are free to sell their dairy in CA as long as it's fortified as specified under this law. This adds a cost to doing business for dairy farmers outside of California. Thereby it protects CA dairy farmers.

    This is the "soft restriction" I mentioned in my earlier post. It is foolish and harms the consumers in California.
    From what I know about milk, to drink it after you 4th year makes no benefit as you enter enough Calcium trough the other food you consume.

    Why the kids drink milk? Calcium (bones). What else do you need for the bones? Vitamin D. Makes a perfect match.

    However, I still have doubts you will see any benefits from the added vitamins at all if you use the milk for cooking

    Do you think that there should be salt without iodine on the shelves?

    Also, I hardly see how the CA farmers enjoy protection from this. They are obliged to fortify the milk, too. Is the fortifying process way cheaper in CA or the cows there give fortified milk?
    No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

    To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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    • #47
      antimony

      "free market" is not the same as political freedom, my point is that there are enough economies in Pac RAM to proof that.

      I am all for political freedom and apple pie, but there are economies out there that can grow without it. Again, take ROC and ROK during the 1960s and 1970s as the two examples.
      “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

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      • #48
        Originally posted by DOR View Post
        gunnut,

        Since your knowledge of the health benefits of vitamin D fortified milk is clearly superior to my own, and to that of the people who enacted this law, I’ll simply let that pass.
        I don't know much about vitamin D other than we need a small amount of it and the body produces it by interaction with sunlight.

        This is California. Half the state gets more than 300 days of sunlight per year. Do we really need milk fortified with vitamin D?

        Originally posted by DOR View Post
        I will agree with you that national labor laws impose a cost on consumers. This was a deliberate choice, as a means of benefiting workers. Long history there, as I’m sure you know.

        I’m not sure about why you bring China into it, but as I state above, California is finding a ready market for milk in Hong Kong and China. Trust me on this one, I live here and I discussed it with US business and trade officials visiting here just last year.

        And, as I’ve consistently said, raising the price consumers pay through trade barriers is inherently anti-poor.
        So we are trying to benefit a small number of workers at the cost of the consumers in general, and the poor in particular?
        "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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        • #49
          Originally posted by xinhui View Post
          antimony

          "free market" is not the same as political freedom, my point is that there are enough economies in Pac RAM to proof that.

          I am all for political freedom and apple pie, but there are economies out there that can grow without it. Again, take ROC and ROK during the 1960s and 1970s as the two examples.
          Xinhui,

          Of course economies can have astounding growth without political freedoms, China and other APAC economies are glowing examples. I am not questioning that at all.

          But my argument was against Rolling Wave's claim that market reform would not be able to transform an economy, specifically this:

          Originally posted by RollingWave View Post
          Market reform can promote free market economy yes, but it doesn't appear to be able to transform a agricultural society into an industrial one (at least within an acceptable timeframe.) . The problem of course is that government pushes for industrialization is difficult to seperate from it's market reforms for obvious reasons. But this isn't really a chicken and egg thing, you can't have a modern economy without a solid degree of industrialization, and for most non-European societies expecting the civilian sector to develope a serious industrial base (espeically more speicalized / heavy industrial stuff) on themself is rather optimistic.
          My view is that India's booming service economy has been made possible due to removal of government restrictions and license raj. The manufacturing sector has still not taken off due to continuation of archaic guidelines, regulations and
          labor laws.

          So, in summary, less government intervention can indeed have a positive effect.
          "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

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          • #50
            Originally posted by Doktor View Post
            From what I know about milk, to drink it after you 4th year makes no benefit as you enter enough Calcium trough the other food you consume.

            Why the kids drink milk? Calcium (bones). What else do you need for the bones? Vitamin D. Makes a perfect match.

            However, I still have doubts you will see any benefits from the added vitamins at all if you use the milk for cooking
            Some people like milk. Coca Cola has zero health benefit but I drink a lot of it. I like it. Some people like milk. I personally can't drink more than half a glass because I'm lactose intolerant. But I do get a craving for milk once in a while.

            Originally posted by Doktor View Post
            Do you think that there should be salt without iodine on the shelves?
            Sure. In fact I bought a big cannister of it recently.

            Originally posted by Doktor View Post
            Also, I hardly see how the CA farmers enjoy protection from this. They are obliged to fortify the milk, too. Is the fortifying process way cheaper in CA or the cows there give fortified milk?
            They get the market entirely to themselves. It is less likely for producers in other states to fortify their milk if the local demand isn't large enough. California has problems competing with other states because things here are just more expensive. Producing milk in this state probably more so due to various environmental laws. They have to figure out a way to shut out cheaper products from other states.
            "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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            • #51
              Originally posted by gunnut View Post
              So we are trying to benefit a small number of workers at the cost of the consumers in general, and the poor in particular?
              That would appear to be the argument, and it is one with which I disagree.
              Trust me?
              I'm an economist!

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              • #52
                Originally posted by DOR View Post
                That would appear to be the argument, and it is one with which I disagree.
                Thank you for finally engaging. David, can you tell me why is California milk more appealing to Hong Kongers than cheap milk from Kwangchow? Can you put into reference the consumer demand between the two?

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                • #53
                  1. Price.
                  2. Hygiene.

                  Without the first, importers wouldn't even consider it.
                  The people producing milk in other parts of China made the second an issue.


                  I don't have more on it than a conversation with visitors from the US and grocers from Hong Kong, and my own observations about Mainlander demand for milk, Western and Chinese medicine (much of the latter sourced in China) and other products sold in Hong Kong.

                  They don't trust their own sources.
                  Trust me?
                  I'm an economist!

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