Obama Needs To Eat Mor Chikin

This morning I flew on a USAir flight out of Charlotte to Ft. Lauderdale and had the chance to speak with a gentleman who owns several Chick-fil-A franchises in the Charlotte area. He was coming to Ft. Lauderdale for a cruise.

I asked him about the impact of the current economic policies of Obamacare, the $15 minimum wage proposal, and other tax and regulatory policies. Without hesitation, he said he’ll have three options if this tsunami hits; reduce his staff (in other words, fire employees), pass the costs to consumers, or shut down franchises – none of those are what I would call good options for a small business franchisee.

I’m not sure why people don’t understand businesses are in business to provide a product or service people actually want and make a profit (and a living for their families) — and don’t exist simply to provide jobs.

The government doesn’t need to provide a service people actually want (i.e. Obamacare) because they can just force you to buy it. Chick-fil-A on the other hand needs to provide customers with a tasty, economical meal all the while competing with every other fast food restaurant.


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Tales Of The Red Tape #41: The FDA's Latest Mission Creep(iness)

Federal regulations already dictate the shape, color, size, and content of the nutrition panel on food labels. Not good enough, apparently. The diet squad at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is preparing to track eye movements to uncover the “subconscious and conscious factors” behind our grocery choices. They plan to use the findings to “help” us improve our eating habits (i.e., more regulation).

Creepy, right?

There is no shortage of nutrition information on food labels. The packaging for most every product specifies the proper serving size (absolute and percentage of daily value), calories, total fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate (dietary fiber and sugars), protein, vitamins, and nutrients. The FDA’s regulatory “guidance” on current labeling requirements runs 122 pages (and is available in Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish).

But Frito-Lay and Oscar Mayer are still in business, which to the folks at the FDA must mean that either the current rules are insufficient or Americans just don’t understand what’s good for them. By plumbing our subconscious, the agency expects to discover new ways to regulate labeling that would somehow compel us to abide by government’s caloric prescriptions. They fail to consider that we don’t need (or want) such assistance.


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