We have regulated ourselves at the national level into corners as far as the eye can see. We have also subsidized ourselves to the point of having the same numbness a heroin addict gets after a hit. The federalization of everything has completely divorced us from having to actually think for ourselves regarding aspects of our life we should be doing some more thinking about. We rarely if ever since the Wilson Administration ever rollback the unconstitutional encroachment that the federal government makes into all aspects of our lives for one reason or another. This unwind needs to start now- but it is massive and will have tremendous impact downstream.
I appreciate your analysis of our food system. However, the RFK hearings have absolutely nothing to do with that. These people know exactly how they are going to vote no matter what he says. All the Dems will vote against. All the Repubs will vote for except a couple or three pre arranged. I don't care about their meetings. Or "after much thought" and other nonsense.
You are right they know exactly how they are going to vote. The irony is the three dems who put on the show yesterday are all in the pocket of big pharm. Especial Pocahontas she received over $5 million dollars. All hypocrites.
Like Ronaldus said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help."
All of our problems are rooted in government policies backing one concept versus another rather than market forces making organic decisions.
When doctors cannot tell you the cost to fix a broken arm and famers are told(through govt force/policy) and the FDA is approving bad chemicals to be used in our food and medicines based on their benefactors... Well?
The term "health care system" is a misnomer. From observation and wearing my consulting/tech/turnaround hat I suspect that at least 20%, more likely 30% of our "health care $$" are wasted. It is aggravated by gov't as the largest customer, not to mention that drs are typically not great at business. Supposedly AI will help with this but I am skeptical.
What I like about RFK Jr. is his willingness to ask the uncomfortable questions. Another area I find interesting is regenerating soil (beyond crop rotation). We are surrounded by many farmers at our vacation house; always interesting to see what they are growing and how the farm-to-table merchants are innovating.
Jeff, keep sharing more of your insights from your time in the commodity business, pls.
Love Joel Salatin. It’s true that our ag innovations have fed the world, but it’s also true that they have depleted the soil and contaminated the food supply with glyphosate which acts as an antibiotic in the gut leading to many adverse metabolic and mental health problems. Further it is also true that our food processing science innovations are contributing mightily to the chronic disease epidemic. If you want to really know the dire truth about these issues, listen to any podcast with Calley and Casey Means. They’ve got the experience and the receipts to prove it. It’s appalling and must be changed if we want a better future for this country. There is a podcast by the Shawn Ryan Show with Gary Brecka that is probably the single best discussion of health that I have heard. I’ll be listening again and taking notes. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if RFKJ is voted down. There are too many vested interests aligned against him. Not the least of which is that Big Pharma and the Deep State/IC are tied at the hip.
Documentaries appear unbiased, but they aren't. If I agree with them, it reinforces my bias. If I don't, then it's rabble. Sometimes, you are persuadable...sometimes you aren't. I don't discount the facts in them but the question is does it scale across everything? If it does, what are the costs/opportunity costs and how do we quantify them?
Agree that Deep State and food are tied at the hip....for sure!
Rather than having this bureaucratic rubber stamp that is manipulated easily by big food and big pharma, approving products based on he research provided by the entity seeking approval!; we need to have an independent review.
It doesn’t even have to be a government agency.
When we realize that hundreds of times the FDA has approved products that later had to be “unapproved” because they were extremely dangerous, and we factor in that millions of people would never have consumed or taken these products had it not been “approved” we can easily see that the FDA is helping the producers, and not the consumers.
My own daughter died of cancer at 8 years. The doctors at the hospital asked if we were using aspartame, teflon, and other products/ which of course we were because they had all been approved. Certainly I would never have given my kids a sweet powder with no calories if it didn’t have approval.
And aspartame had been fast tracked, and approved by the FDA.
What’s next? Ozempic? Then consider we allow products here that they don’t allow in other countries, and we have good reason to be untrusting of government.
Pretty sure the sugar farmers in FL are all Rs. Good luck getting rid of their subsidies. And note that FL sugar subsidies/import restrictions are also what killed the candy industry in Chicago. But tariffs are going to be so good for us or something like that.
Kennedy is a nut and should not be anywhere near power. There are plenty of other more qualified people who are skeptical of the current HHS setup and are not cranks.
I agree!! Republicans like welfare too. Trump is not a free trader even within the United States. The last Republican to take on farm subsidies was Richard Lugar. Likelihood of any significant farm reform any time soon is zero.
Michelle Obama's ideas for school lunches, as implemented, were terrible. A lot of carbs (pizza etc). I've hear this from many of my school teacher friends.
Decades ago one of my friends living in Chicago wanted to buy milk for his kids that was produced by cows that were not given hormones to stimulate milk production. He found out that the dairy farmers association prevented dairy farmers that produced milk that did not use hormones from advertising it as such. Eventually he was able to find and buy milk produced without these hormones but it took some work.
I will say this; the notion of "big" anything, pharma, AG etc- it has to be remembered it was not always this way. It becomes a chicken/egg question- which came first. I think if you go back and look at how all of this transpired, came to be, we got here riding the on the back of an insane and incredibly expensive explosion in federal level regulatory growth. I can assure you, start peeling back regulation and streamline both systems and you will find it will be much easier for companies of all sizes to compete. I would also suggest that the public stock markets have also contributed to this situation we now face. Think about what the sugar industry was able to do to our food pyramid way back in the 1950's. If you don't think we aren't paying for that with the current state of our health as a society, you are crazy.
Farm subsidies should decrease by 10% per year, until they disappear after 10 years. If they need to be renewed, let THAT Congress do it.
About 20 years ago, dairy and butter subsidies were eliminated. There are STILL megatons of price-support "government cheese" in various warehouses. But butter doesn't last forever, so they sold all the "price support" butter, which lowered the price of butter down to match the price of margarine. So I started buying butter, and it's much better than margarine, and even after the recent price increases, I'll never go back to margarine.
I give a lot of credit to the former head of the CDC, whose name escapes me now, who clearly stated that RFK is not anti-vaccine; he is pro transparency. Why is it that vaccines do not have the same requirements for transparency regarding side effects and efficiency and effectiveness that orally ingested medications have as required? That should be a no er.
Unfortunately, there exists in this country and the rest of the world, strongly fed by irrational mainstream or legacy Media, which has crossed over the line of sensationalism and exaggeration into outright embellishment over the past couple decades, a strong pull to have to identify with team red or team blue instead of judging each issue on its own merits. That is where I give a lot of credit to John Fetterman for being willing to speak sensibly on certain things, despite being a Democrat.
So much of the issues you brought up are directly attributable to the lax enforcement and oversight of lobbyists and that entire industry. I don't have the answer on that one, but somebody brighter than me certainly should.
Interesting to hear, last night, that there are SEVEN Big Pharma lobbyists for every member of Congress. Couple that with their domination of network/cable advertising and one arrives at the current situation where there aren't enough skeptics to provide check against the power of Big Pharma.
Reading some of the Pfizer research docs as part of a volunteer project was quite disturbing. These folks ignored their own protocols frequently, with the inevitable consequences for young men (hearts) and women of child-bearing age (multiple issues)
We have regulated ourselves at the national level into corners as far as the eye can see. We have also subsidized ourselves to the point of having the same numbness a heroin addict gets after a hit. The federalization of everything has completely divorced us from having to actually think for ourselves regarding aspects of our life we should be doing some more thinking about. We rarely if ever since the Wilson Administration ever rollback the unconstitutional encroachment that the federal government makes into all aspects of our lives for one reason or another. This unwind needs to start now- but it is massive and will have tremendous impact downstream.
I appreciate your analysis of our food system. However, the RFK hearings have absolutely nothing to do with that. These people know exactly how they are going to vote no matter what he says. All the Dems will vote against. All the Repubs will vote for except a couple or three pre arranged. I don't care about their meetings. Or "after much thought" and other nonsense.
You are right they know exactly how they are going to vote. The irony is the three dems who put on the show yesterday are all in the pocket of big pharm. Especial Pocahontas she received over $5 million dollars. All hypocrites.
Like Ronaldus said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help."
All of our problems are rooted in government policies backing one concept versus another rather than market forces making organic decisions.
When doctors cannot tell you the cost to fix a broken arm and famers are told(through govt force/policy) and the FDA is approving bad chemicals to be used in our food and medicines based on their benefactors... Well?
The term "health care system" is a misnomer. From observation and wearing my consulting/tech/turnaround hat I suspect that at least 20%, more likely 30% of our "health care $$" are wasted. It is aggravated by gov't as the largest customer, not to mention that drs are typically not great at business. Supposedly AI will help with this but I am skeptical.
What I like about RFK Jr. is his willingness to ask the uncomfortable questions. Another area I find interesting is regenerating soil (beyond crop rotation). We are surrounded by many farmers at our vacation house; always interesting to see what they are growing and how the farm-to-table merchants are innovating.
Jeff, keep sharing more of your insights from your time in the commodity business, pls.
Love Joel Salatin. It’s true that our ag innovations have fed the world, but it’s also true that they have depleted the soil and contaminated the food supply with glyphosate which acts as an antibiotic in the gut leading to many adverse metabolic and mental health problems. Further it is also true that our food processing science innovations are contributing mightily to the chronic disease epidemic. If you want to really know the dire truth about these issues, listen to any podcast with Calley and Casey Means. They’ve got the experience and the receipts to prove it. It’s appalling and must be changed if we want a better future for this country. There is a podcast by the Shawn Ryan Show with Gary Brecka that is probably the single best discussion of health that I have heard. I’ll be listening again and taking notes. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if RFKJ is voted down. There are too many vested interests aligned against him. Not the least of which is that Big Pharma and the Deep State/IC are tied at the hip.
Documentaries appear unbiased, but they aren't. If I agree with them, it reinforces my bias. If I don't, then it's rabble. Sometimes, you are persuadable...sometimes you aren't. I don't discount the facts in them but the question is does it scale across everything? If it does, what are the costs/opportunity costs and how do we quantify them?
Agree that Deep State and food are tied at the hip....for sure!
The FDA needs to be rethought.
Rather than having this bureaucratic rubber stamp that is manipulated easily by big food and big pharma, approving products based on he research provided by the entity seeking approval!; we need to have an independent review.
It doesn’t even have to be a government agency.
When we realize that hundreds of times the FDA has approved products that later had to be “unapproved” because they were extremely dangerous, and we factor in that millions of people would never have consumed or taken these products had it not been “approved” we can easily see that the FDA is helping the producers, and not the consumers.
My own daughter died of cancer at 8 years. The doctors at the hospital asked if we were using aspartame, teflon, and other products/ which of course we were because they had all been approved. Certainly I would never have given my kids a sweet powder with no calories if it didn’t have approval.
And aspartame had been fast tracked, and approved by the FDA.
What’s next? Ozempic? Then consider we allow products here that they don’t allow in other countries, and we have good reason to be untrusting of government.
Pretty sure the sugar farmers in FL are all Rs. Good luck getting rid of their subsidies. And note that FL sugar subsidies/import restrictions are also what killed the candy industry in Chicago. But tariffs are going to be so good for us or something like that.
Kennedy is a nut and should not be anywhere near power. There are plenty of other more qualified people who are skeptical of the current HHS setup and are not cranks.
https://x.com/davidharsanyi/status/1884608551039201493
Finally, the Rs all owe Michelle Obama a public apology for being skeptical of her nutrition ideas.
I am sure they are all Rs; doesn't matter. End the subsidies!
I agree!! Republicans like welfare too. Trump is not a free trader even within the United States. The last Republican to take on farm subsidies was Richard Lugar. Likelihood of any significant farm reform any time soon is zero.
Michelle Obama's ideas for school lunches, as implemented, were terrible. A lot of carbs (pizza etc). I've hear this from many of my school teacher friends.
Decades ago one of my friends living in Chicago wanted to buy milk for his kids that was produced by cows that were not given hormones to stimulate milk production. He found out that the dairy farmers association prevented dairy farmers that produced milk that did not use hormones from advertising it as such. Eventually he was able to find and buy milk produced without these hormones but it took some work.
I will say this; the notion of "big" anything, pharma, AG etc- it has to be remembered it was not always this way. It becomes a chicken/egg question- which came first. I think if you go back and look at how all of this transpired, came to be, we got here riding the on the back of an insane and incredibly expensive explosion in federal level regulatory growth. I can assure you, start peeling back regulation and streamline both systems and you will find it will be much easier for companies of all sizes to compete. I would also suggest that the public stock markets have also contributed to this situation we now face. Think about what the sugar industry was able to do to our food pyramid way back in the 1950's. If you don't think we aren't paying for that with the current state of our health as a society, you are crazy.
Farm subsidies should decrease by 10% per year, until they disappear after 10 years. If they need to be renewed, let THAT Congress do it.
About 20 years ago, dairy and butter subsidies were eliminated. There are STILL megatons of price-support "government cheese" in various warehouses. But butter doesn't last forever, so they sold all the "price support" butter, which lowered the price of butter down to match the price of margarine. So I started buying butter, and it's much better than margarine, and even after the recent price increases, I'll never go back to margarine.
I give a lot of credit to the former head of the CDC, whose name escapes me now, who clearly stated that RFK is not anti-vaccine; he is pro transparency. Why is it that vaccines do not have the same requirements for transparency regarding side effects and efficiency and effectiveness that orally ingested medications have as required? That should be a no er.
Unfortunately, there exists in this country and the rest of the world, strongly fed by irrational mainstream or legacy Media, which has crossed over the line of sensationalism and exaggeration into outright embellishment over the past couple decades, a strong pull to have to identify with team red or team blue instead of judging each issue on its own merits. That is where I give a lot of credit to John Fetterman for being willing to speak sensibly on certain things, despite being a Democrat.
So much of the issues you brought up are directly attributable to the lax enforcement and oversight of lobbyists and that entire industry. I don't have the answer on that one, but somebody brighter than me certainly should.
Interesting to hear, last night, that there are SEVEN Big Pharma lobbyists for every member of Congress. Couple that with their domination of network/cable advertising and one arrives at the current situation where there aren't enough skeptics to provide check against the power of Big Pharma.
Reading some of the Pfizer research docs as part of a volunteer project was quite disturbing. These folks ignored their own protocols frequently, with the inevitable consequences for young men (hearts) and women of child-bearing age (multiple issues)