Mitch Townsend

Food Fight!

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Imaginary Press
In a further escalation of the long-running trade battle between the United States and the European Union, certain exports of American snack foods and treats are being scrutinized by the EU Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development. According to Jean-Pierre Retard, Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Desserts, some of the packaging and branding of American foods is not in “harmony” with European labeling standards. Under EU laws, protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI) and traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG) are restricted to regional foods. Thus it is impossible in Europe to buy champagne, burgundy, gruyère or camembert that did not originate in specific regions of France, while they can all be made in the same factory in New Jersey and sold throughout the United States without restriction. Some brands of American “cheese” products, notably those sold in pressurized aerosol cans, can be entirely manufactured from petroleum distillates without the slightest hint of milk from any mammal on the planet. Cheez-Whiz, for example, originated from an experimental version of Silly String, according to a prominent food expert. This looseness of description and labeling is frowned upon in the EU.

The first rumblings of the disagreement stemmed from the efforts of the American company Häagen-Dazs to sell ice cream in Europe. Despite the exotic-sounding name, the brand originated in the Bronx and its name does not mean anything at all in any extant language, although it resembles an obscenity in Etruscan. This was allowed after some debate. More recently, the proposed introduction of the Moon Pie was challenged by European confectioners and bakers on the grounds that the name misrepresented the origin of the product, and besides, it’s not really a pie. While that case was pending before the Directorate, another American company attempted to introduce another American confection also mislabeled as a pie, the Eskimo Pie. This caused an immediate uproar. Protestors from the quiescent dessert industry in France dumped ice, ice cream, and sherbet onto roadways, causing massive traffic jams and multiple-car pileups as drivers skidded in the sweet slush. French members of the European Parliament objected that Eskimo Pies were not only not pies, but they contained no Eskimos or Eskimo by-products, were not made by Eskimos, and in fact, Eskimos did not particularly like them. When the company was sold to a Canadian firm, the outcry was even louder, since Canada has an abundant supply of Eskimos.

While the EU ponders its decision, the makers of the original Whoopie Pie have returned to the laboratory to refine their recipe for the European market. To avoid the problems other American packaged desserts have had, Whoopie engineers are developing a product tailored to European requirements which will emit a rude noise when sat upon.

Better investing through clichés

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Every dog has its day (trendy sectors)

The popular financial magazines each have an article that they publish at the end of every year. This article lists the best and worst performing funds, and if you weren’t smart enough to put your money into it, that’s just too bad. But if you want to be really stupid with your money, buy into one of these funds as soon as you see the new list.

The problem with many of these lists is that they are dominated by sector funds. These are funds that invest in a particular set of industries, such as health care and pharmaceuticals, precious metals, natural resources, real estate, utilities, and energy. What the list doesn’t tell you is how much of these spectacular gains were due to those industries’ performance and how much was attributable to the fund managers’ skill and insight.

If you compare one year’s list to another’s, you will often find that there is a completely different list every year for the shorter periods (past year, past six months, past quarter). Events outside the fund managers’ control are responsible for much of the funds’ performance. For example, funds specializing in public utilities performed poorly in 2005 because of the increase in oil prices; funds investing in oil stocks obviously have done quite well in the same year.

Even funds that are not explicitly described as sector funds may be heavily invested in a sector that did well for a brief time. Fund managers often have their favorite investments, and if this was the lucky year for that type of investment, the fund may have done well. Of course, fund managers may take credit for anticipating events and taking advantage of their insight. Long term, though, it is difficult to find any money manager who can consistently anticipate the market in which he invests.

It may be true that every dog has its day; but when that day is over, it’s still a dog.

This is part of an occasional series on investing. It is meant for the beginning investor and contains only general advice, not recommendations for any specific investment. Terms and conditions apply. Actual mileage may vary. May cause nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and a nasty rash. See program details for blackout dates, lease terms, and all-purpose weasling.

To Borders Rewards:

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I see you don’t have a customer feedback category for freedom of speech. That is unfortunate. I understand that you will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Until you grow a spine, don’t expect to see me back in your store. My Borders Rewards number is XXXXXXXXXX. I will not be needing it again, apparently, so I will be taking the tag off my keychain. Please go to hell, and convey my compliments to the devil.

Immigration Again

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Everyone has had his crack at this subject. I don’t have answers for immigration issues. Maybe I can help, though, in at least arranging the arguments in some sort of order.

Employment-related
We have the H1-B program for legal admission of skilled workers in short supply in the US, but no such program for the unskilled. The current illegal alien influx is largely employment-related. The main beneficiaries are employers of low-wage unskilled and semi-skilled laborers. There is in fact an oversupply of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, but the illegal immigrants are willing to work for less than the minimum wage or the market rate for legal workers for similar work. Their illegal status is a factor favoring the employer, since the workers cannot go to the authorities for wage violations or safety concerns. This is a hidden labor market in the US whose members can never advance from their low-wage jobs. The various “guest-worker” schemes try to address the supply side of this labor market; penalties for employers address the demand side by raising the effective risk-adjusted cost of employing illegal aliens.

There is nothing preventing the US from admitting poor people from other countries for humanitarian purposes. Doing it by tolerating a high rate of illegal immigration is not a humanitarian policy, if it supports the exploitation of the workers (OK, so I’m a leftist). My fear is that we are creating a caste system. The next time you go to a restaurant, check behind it. The bicycles belong to the kitchen workers who cannot get driver’s licenses.

For skilled workers and professionals, why not privatize the job? An expanded H1-B type of program would let employers screen prospective immigrants and guarantee that they would have jobs upon arrival. Having been through my share of employment interviews from both sides, I’m pretty sure most employers would be more careful than the State Department visa clerks in Saudi Arabia were. There might need to be some qualifications for the employer to avoid the formation of front companies. While we’re at it, we might as well drop the pretense that we are bringing in workers from overseas because there are no Americans available for the job. With rare exceptions, this is a polite fiction.

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The Land without a Heart

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From The Land without a Heart by A. E. Johann

It was not the goal of this book to discuss whether America can win the war, or whether it must lose it. But perhaps it has become clear —and that was my goal — that America does not deserve to win the war and spread its system over the entire world. There is nothing in the American system worth imitating, either for Germany or Europe. If Americanism conquered the world, it would mean the end of all human values and of genuine freedom — the freedom to do something, not from something! — of all the values for which Europe has fought and suffered for millennia, for which it has given all its strength of body and soul.

No European could exchange places with an American. America is a pitiable country and the Americans are a betrayed people, betrayed by their leaders…

From Europe and America:
Failures in Building an American People

The ideal of eternal success is a grave danger to a people’s morality. The result is that in the USA, people are valued only according to their success, ignoring all other measures. Such a view of life inevitably must attract materialistically-oriented people. The USA was their place.

Even before the World War, efforts were made to teach the “aliens” the language and ways of thinking of the country. Courses in Americanism included not only the language and government, but also attempted to build American national pride. This resulted in the desire for records and gigantomania that always amuses us. Lacking a significant political and intellectual history, the American is forced to build his national pride on technology.

Customs were another leading factor. The immigrants sought to adapt to them as rapidly as possible to avoid standing out. The growing standardization of life reached such an extent in the USA that independence became impossible. Everyone wears the same clothes, and thinking like everyone else is a duty. In contrast to Europe’s variety, this seems odd to us, but we should not forget that uniformity is about the only way Americans can experience community. This process of Americanization was successful, but also superficial. A type developed, but not a people.

Randall Bytwerk, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA), maintains an archive of Nazi and Communist propaganda from Germany. Both pieces were published in 1942, but they could have been written yesterday, and not necessarily in German.