Let me start with an obvious libertarian objection. Even if your math is correct, if this ban happens, it will greatly encourage more such laws, where government limits the power of indviduals to decide how to live their lives. And, I should add, it's doubtful these future laws will be as well-calibrated economically as the trans fat one.

So how much is this cost? Hard to put a number on freedom, but let's conservatively estimate it's worth several billion for NYC per year.

There is medical evidence that we would have less heart disease if we followed the the Ornish diet.

Should the Nanny State therefore ban bacon, cheese, and ice cream? If your analysis is correct, there would be no reason why not.

And why not follow Mao's example and compel the whole nation to exercise at specified times? Or Woody Allen's, and compel everyone to change their underwear daily, and to make sure they do so, to wear it on the outside of their clothes?

Oh, and ban alcohol? (Whoops, been there, done that.)

There is a moral and cultural value, however, in people not surrendering their autonomy and responsibility to a bureaucracy.

I don't buy the slippery slope argument. That was advanced twice already, once with economic regulation in the 30's and once in the 70's during the rights revolution. "If we regulate safety equipment in factories, soon we'll regulate everything." That hasn't happened there and there is no reason why it should happen here. Don't forget, even NYC has something of an elected government, and if people don't want to exercise at specific times, they can vote fat slobs into office. We have ways and means to prevent the slippery slope.

So you think we should reject the slippery slope argument because two times out of thousands of potential cases it hasn't worked? (Actually, in both cases you mention we've had massive overreach that should make one question if either was successful, or at least ask if greater regulation was the proper way to handle these situations.)

Read Eugene Volokh's article on slippery slopes. It may open your eyes.

That was a fun analysis! I am confused, though.

You avoid the insurance math because you say that elimination of heart disease "would result in an increase in illness and death caused by other diseases, such as cancer." That makes sense.

But given that fact, isn't it inappropriate to count all 500 people who won't have a deadly heart attack as saved from death for that year? 88% of them are 65+ years old...

Or were you including that when you said that the elderly have below average value of life?

In any case, your more conservative 100 lives saved per year probably sweeps probably takes care of all this.

I think that a middle option might be the best. The FDA's labeling requirement for trans fats has significantly reduced the number of store bought foods containing trans fats. Once labeling was required, people have begun to take notice of the presence of trans fats and discuss what they are.

You state that "no one wants his restaurant experience poisoned by having to read a menu that lists beside each item the number of grams of trans fats it contains." The labeling need not have to be so intrusive. Many restaurants already use an asterisk to indicate that something is spicy. Some similar universal symbol could be used for the presence of trans fats. I do not think the precise number of grams needs to be stated on the menu (although it should be available upon request). This will not "poison" the restaurant experience for most individuals. It will get people thinking about the issue and will cause some change. Once people know that the food contains trans fat, they can make their own decision about whether or not they want to order that dish.

Much of Mr. Posner's argument is the observation that it's economically inefficient for each individual to think about trans fat, and that costs are lowered by having the government do that thinking for us. While I'm personally inclined toward the opposing, libertarian position, I would like to propose a compromise: Take all your nanny-state rules and bundle them into a single Nanny State Seal of Approval, which could be displayed by establishments that choose to follow those rules, and not by establishments that choose otherwise.

Laws already on the books (fraud) would be used to punish cheaters who display the Seal without following all the rules.

A particularly appealing benefit is that the fraction of businesses displaying the Seal would be a real-time readout of the economy's opinion of the usefulness of the Seal and the rules behind it. And concern for that very visible indicator would give the rule makers and incentive to keep the rules reasonable: if you walked down the street and no restaurants displayed the seal, you would know beyond a doubt that no significant fraction of the customer set considers the rules worthwhile. The bureaucracy behind the rules would see that it had lost its leverage, and would set about fixing its rule set.

This compromise captures most of the savings of having the government do our thinking for us, without our sacrificing additional liberties.

Post written for Becker Inequality....... but! as complained about before it appears the thread was closed (for some reason??) while I was typing a response. Is it not possible to post a warning? Assuming pixels costs make it necessary to close threads?

Nelson: Your ideal is interesting and to be sure, by comparison I'm taking "baby steps" from our past policies of "we stole your land by force, but otherwise "fair and square" and screwing Mexico and S-A vigorously and often over the intervening decades, but even bring the focus of the discussion of the "Mexican immigrant problem" below the border and asking that our "diplomats" seek policies beneficial to both is enough to have me labelled "soft on something or other" or "soft in the head" by the fence em off and forget em set.

But! stodgy as it may seem I've reservations as to having no nations and no borders but instead favor a "nations" or groups who can run somewhat differing experiments as we do in the US with different states. For example, I live in Alaska and it takes newcomers quite a while to learn why we might do things differently here, or better example, when our rich salmon fisheries were managed (before statehood) by those in WA DC the resource was wiped out. Today, under Alaskan management it's been restored to the runs of the early 1900's Currently there's a raging controversy over a proposed mining of a huge deposit of copper and gold, but the mining tech used for that type of mine may lay waste to Lake Illiamna (perhaps the largest and best sport fishing Lake in the world) and damage or ruin the huge Bristol Bay Salmon run. I doubt this would turn out well if it were up to a few Congressmen taking 3 day junkets; instead much of the outcome will be decided by those living here, native Alaskans in the region etc.

But more of your post is about the free migration of labor, and I'd agree that where a labor vacuum exists next to a country in labor surplus the vacuum is likely to be filled..... by one means or another.

But! there are concerns here as well. Say one country has sacrificed in some way, say to preserve their rivers, farmlands or the environment in general, while over a century a neighboring nation has laid waste to their natural resources, so when the inevitable famine or disaster strikes them, do they just pack up and move to the "green" country? And try to do the same?

Coming back to the present, fortunately, despite tremendous adversity 99.5% of Mexico's 100 million people chose to stay home each year; they like their country, family and friends. But half of them are under 30 and probably are looking at 30% unemployment in that age group. So the least disruptive policy would seem one that purposely exported some of our labor shortages to Mexico (if need be at the expense of rapidly growing China or India) in hopes of bringing their wages and levels of employment closer to ours.

If we "got it right" 50 or 100 years from now Mexico might play more of a "Canada role" in North America and freedom of choice would seem much easier. Today the problem for both "globalization" and immigration in many parts of the world is simply that the pace is too high.

Haris, also in "free trade" et al it's the pace of change that is far too high and with too many Americans being naively provincial I think we fail to "GET" just how large the labor overhang (unemployed or starving with a "job") is (something like 1.5 billion) and no matter how strong the market of our 5% of the world's population is we can NOT employ (offshore et al) all of them without taking our wages down so far that the living std of the US will be unrecognizable in the very near future.

The economics of "relative advantage" used to speak to the natural advantages one trading nation held over another at similar pay scales not the employment of .50 labor having the "advantage" over the nation of $20 labor.

There are but two choices here (other than ruin) the US has to aggressively find SOMEthing or MANY things to export or adopt policies to dramatically slow our imports. The "free trade" theory is fine but it only works in "the long run" and as Keynes famously said, "In the long run we're all dead". Jack

Posner is, as usual, dead on.

There's an added dimension that might persuade some of the objectors that this is not necessarily as bad a thing as they might imagine (slippery slope arguments notwithstanding, I'm arguing solely on the merits here).

Trans-fats were invented as a low-cost ersatz to the butter and lard that were primarily used. In the 60s adoption spread quite a bit as ADM and others pushed it as a healthier (we now know better) alternative to margarine but the primary reasons for adoption were shelf-life and cost*. As such, banning them is more akin to banning fake or watered-down milk - it's just that it took a lot longer for us to realize the con in this case.

Requiring restaurants to use the genuine article instead of the knock-off is just categorically different from mandating the Ornish diet or banning alcohol. It's more akin to the governments role as a neutral mediator in the market than any of the more radical parade-of-horribles being brought out against the move.

~Oren

*Ironically, the savings are not actually all that substantial except in the very highest volumes. The 1% figure is off the mark by at least two orders of magnitude.

I wonder if we can re-word the hydrogenation debate so as to bring more Libertarians on board? Say, something like "How much artificial meddling with natural products, in the name of profits, should be allowed?" And, "How many predicted side effects and deaths should be allowed before charging them with poisoning their consumers?"

Wiki-P sez:
"Benefits of hydrogenating plant-based fats for food manufacturers include an increased product shelf life and decreased refrigeration requirement. Partial hydrogenation raises the melting point of fat, producing a semi-solid material, which is much more desirable than liquid oils for use in baking. Plant-based hydrogenated vegetable oils are much less expensive than the animal fats traditionally favored by bakers, such as butter or lard, and may be more readily available or less expensive than semi-solid plant fats such as palm oil."

..... hmmm longer shelf life? So perhaps our bakery products and potato chips have to be made more locally? and more often? But, the NYC law only applies to restaurant cooking so no help here, yet!

For those who'd rather decrease the odds of heart failure, google around and look at the benefits of eating REAL salmon (not the drug-ridden food dyed mutants raised in seagoing feed lots-- no omega III's in them) of the incidence of some types (the most deadly) heart attacks being lowered by half for eating a small serving of salmon, herring or a few other cold water fish just twice a week. Real salmon is a bit spendy but just think what Big Pharma would charge for such health benefits!

If what you said is true ,why not ban all cigarret or other things which perhapes do harm to people?The Chicago ecomomics not only has a very excellent reason for ecomomics,but also can guanrantee our freedom.So don't simply critisize the Chicago economics.We must cauciously pay attention to any regulation of government and try our best to safe our freedom.In this case,I think the best way is to require restaurant give consumers notice about tran fats if some food has and it is absolutely not necessary to ban it.

Dear Professors Posner & Becker,

You cannot imagine how deep is your influence on me !

Here in France :

egocognito's articles

While I agree that banning transfats is a wise, helpful thing to do, I can't resist criticizing the way in which the author reaches the same conclusion.

The writer supports transfat bans because the consumer has insufficient information to reach an informed decision on his or her own. But, imbalances in information are always present in the world. It is only in the classroom that one can deal with markets that have inlimited resources, unlimited consumers, all fully informed, etc., in theory.

Judge Posner:
Respectfully, the cost-benefit analysis misses the point.
The point is that an ever-encroaching state which incrementally insinuates itself into the lives of its citizens will not stop at a ban on smoking in bars (not coincidentally, also put in place by the same mayor), or a trans fat ban in restaurants. Instead, a nanny state which infantilizes its citizens in the guise of protecting them from heart disease will--ironically--make them less responsible for their own health maintenance. This, in turn, also makes it more likely the government will continue to arrogate for itself ever increasing powers, including in areas unrelated to health. And, at that point how will the populace be able to object?

I like Peter Pearson's proposal. Have an official Healthy Seal of Approval. That way people can tell quickly and easily if a particular meal passes the standard government healthiness regulations, while still maintaining the freedom to create and consume unhealthy foods.

If the cost-benefit analysis simply included all the easily measured costs (hospital care, restaurant expenses, etc) then it could be quickly countered by the argument of libertarians that given these risks, people should still be allowed to choose to eat trans fat. After all, we allow people to eat red meat, sky dive, and all other sorts of stuff that are potentially harmful (and costly). Presumably people do these things because they make life more enjoyable.

However, the key aspect of Posner's analysis is that it also incorporates the value people put on their own lives. This value is calculated from what kind of risks people are willing to take for such activities as eating red meat and sky diving. Thus, if the ban results in a significant net societal gain after taking the value of life into account, this suggests that consumers are not correctly evaluating the risks associated with trans fat as well as they do the risks associated with other activities.

As for the slippery slope argument, I answer is this way: I agree that we must remain ever vigilant to protect our rights and keep the state from unnecessarily interfering in out lives. However, I think this case is in the same category as prohibiting poisons in food (which most would agree are good laws), rather than prohibiting smoking. The reason is that, while many people enjoy smoking even after being educated on its dangers, I know of no one who is particularly attached to trans fat. The only attraction is the marginally lower price. But we have seen that people, if educated, would not accept this risk in order to get the tiny price savings.

(Thanks Posner and Becker for the fantastic blog.)

Rather than ban trans-fats outright, why not tax them in the Pigovian style?

Posner's arguments rests not on the negative externalities of consuming trans fats (though he does consider the possibility) but rather on information assymetry and consumers' inability to make rational decisions. I'm skeptical of Posner's admittedly tentative cost-benefit analysis and also of the idea that, assuming Posner's analysis is accurate, a ban is the most effective policy.

I have not read the literature on trans fats, but it seems it would be very difficult to pick out a number of deaths that are "caused" by trans fats. Are the health costs of consuming trans fats noticed in the short term or long term. That is, do the 100 and 500 deaths per year figures include deaths 20 years from now that were partly caused by trans fats consumed this year? If they do, then they depend on the assumption that no new medical technology will be able to prevent those deaths. If they don't, then the real purpose of the policy should be to prevent people from eating trans fats only if they already have a reasonable risk of heart attack--a significant but not overwhelming percentage of people.

The $7 million number is based on an average, unbiased sample. But people who consume a large amount of trans fats presumably demonstrate a propensity towards risk, so that number should probably be decreased somewhat.

But even if the cost-benefit analysis works out as Posner suggests and information assymetry is seen to be the cause, I think a ban is a poor choice to improve the situation. I would prefer an excise tax on trans fats, which would add an explicit cost to the sale of products that use trans fats to account for the hidden cost of their consumption. Better yet, at the same cost as enforcing the ban or excise tax, an aggressive advertising could provide the information to consumers that would get them to place pressure on restaurants. Think of how the quickly the restaurant industry changed in the wake of the Atkins/South Beach fad. No government forced fast food companies to offer wraps and focus advertising campaigns based on how few carbs their products contained; it resulted from a (somewhat misguided) demand for low-carb foods.

I wonder if the restaurant industry was secretly happy with the outcome. It's very possible that what they really feared was a broad health labelling requirement for all restaurant food. Compared to such a requirement, a ban on trans fat is not that bad as it keeps hidden the relative unhealthiness of restaurant food. Actually, it makes them look good -- they can now proclaim they are trans fat free and thus healthy!

"I think a ban is a poor choice to improve the situation. I would prefer an excise tax on trans fats"

Seems to me that a tax would be more expensive to administer than any loss from a simple ban. I agree with Richard Posner.

I was considering making a case of lower health care costs offsetting any real or imaginary costs of banning oils that have been chemically altered to enhance shelf life and profits. After all the costs of heart disease are not limited to the early deaths but added costs before heart surgery or death, and the consequent loss of individual enjoyment of health, and loss in productivity.

But then I remembered how medicine "works" in the US and that any decline in the number of heart surgeries would most likely result in a price increase "to cover the lost revenue" and that the cost of "mistake" insurance would be spread over fewer invoices, and some $100 million insurance CEO would justify a bump in benefits for having had to manage the "situation".

I get another chuckle out of the idea that perfect knowledge would combine with "market decisions" for the benefit of all within anyone's current life time. Singlely? maybe. But in vary groups of diners? After agreeing a spot for proximity, ambience/tolerabitity, price and menu, a voice pipes up from the back seat? or cell phone that his-her "handbook" indicates the place is still frying spuds in "bad oil" and putting it in their breads and desserts.

For overly "religious" Libertarians, might you settle for an opt in? Say being allowed to ask for your french fries in corporate designed oil? And leaving it to the market to decide if they want to cater to you?

As for Nelson's suggestion of a "official Healthy Seal of Approval." are we likely to agree on what constitutes the "approval?" Case in point for salmon shoppers: Wild, healthy pacific salmon laden with healthful Omega III oils are not labelled "organic" because "we don't know what they eat" in the pristine waters of the northwest, while pen raised fake salmon ARE to be "organic" as we KNOW what sort of land based "organic" garbage is fed to them.

Ben sez: (along with others) "I would prefer an excise tax on trans fats, which would add an explicit cost to the sale of products that use trans fats to account for the hidden cost of their consumption." Again..... the study of econ and design of policy is not entirely the cold calculations of various econ graphs and models and the "young" in this case those who've not had serious health problems, yet, rarely, if ever know or act on the costs of their actions. Is there anyone at all who does not know the cost of driving fast and tailgating yet it is far more common than not. Is there a 20 year old who "thinks" he's mortal? And is there a "reason" why a military draft is aimed at 18-21 year old kids instead of say 22-28 that would provide the more mature and experienced military as won WWII?

Best for the Holidays, and remember we are first a democratic community humanity that selects the best of capitalist principles for OUR use not the opposite. Jack

Slippery-slopers:
The NYC government has had dramatic success in recent years with top-down ordinances such as the smoking ban. Although there was much initial bellyaching, the silent majority overwhelmingly approved after some time had passed and people had become accustomed to it.

Smoking has significant negative externalities, but nobody wants to ask another to not smoke. Every restaurant found it in their best interest (if only slightly, and by dint of custom) to allow smoking. Here, political action solved the collective action problem.

Similarly, restaurants find it only slightly within their best interests to use trans fats. People don't know which do and which do not; they would vote against if they were sufficiently well informed, but it's not enough of a problem for everybody to become informed about. The government steps in and solves the collective action problem yet again.

Many of you see any government reach into our lives as intrusion by some "other." But you elected the government, and you can kick it out. If you had the option to not eat trans fats, you would. Government is here to solve problems by way of enforcing optimal solutions.

The true slippery slope goes the other way, when folks find it unpleasant to ask others to put out their cigarettes.

I don't see why Posner buys into the idea that human life can be translated into money. This seems like a foolish idea. I don't think the average person would sell themselves into slavery for $7 million, much less sell someone else a license to kill them.

The idea that if a person is willing to do a more risky job, say one that pays $n dollars more with a risk increase of say, 1% that we can then go from there to a "value" of human life is ridiculous. First, just as information costs prevent people from assessing the increased risk from trans fats, it obviously prevents them from assessing the increased risk from, say risky jobs.

I know that working in a coal mine is more dangerous than some other jobs. Do I know how much more dangerous? No. I don't have the statistics. Do most coal workers have the statistics? Clearly not, at least if they are anything like most other Americans. So, how does one translate the higher pay one gets from say, working in a coal mine to a value of life when mine workers do not even know the risks they are taking?

Second, even if someone was willing to take a 1% risk of death for $n, that doesn't mean they are willing to take a 99% for 99 * $n. It is an absolute certainty that this function is not linear. A 1% risk is quite remote. Most people, when confronted with this risk, are likely to irrationally assume they will be safe. Or alternatively, overestime the risk and freak out emotionally, avoiding the work in question all together. But if you give them something like a 99% chance of death, you are making death a near certainty. Those who underestimate a 1% risk are much more likely to realistically assess a 99% risk.

How many people do you think would accept a 99% chance of death for $7 million? Not too many. Only those who are desperately unhappy with their lives due to financial reasons would accept that deal. Or who value their lives very little (perhaps because it is very painful or will not last very long anyway), and want to leave something to family members. So, if the vast majority of people wouldn't accept that deal, they obviously woudln't accept a 100% chance of death for $7 million either.

A more realistic view is this. Life cannot be exchanged for money. They are on different dimensions. Money cannot buy everything. It really is not sensible to pretend otherwise.

It is NICE to think that all the difficult questions can be reduced to cost benefit analysis and thereby rendered more objective. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. There is nothing objective about a $7 million figure for the value of a life. Thus, there is nothing objective about a cost benefit analysis that depends on that value.

I agree with Posner's conclusion. That banning trans fats makes sense because people do not rationally assess the risks they are taking when they go out and eat trans fats in a restaurant. But my conclusions stops and rests on the irrationality (or rational ignorance, if you prefer) of consumers; not on some artificial cost benefit analysis.

There are two things wrong with the cost-benefit analysis conducted here. First, medical interventions are rarely coupled with cost benefit analysis for a reason the author pointed out. Benefits start spiraling out of control and it is difficult to compare costs that are so different. For this reason, it is more beneficial to conduct a cost effectiveness analysis. Secondly, when calculating benefits, it is important to recognize that the heart attacks prevented aren't all fatal ones. This helps to decrease the high level of benefits that we are seeing in this analysis. About 40% of heart attacks are fatal. The rest certainly have costs associated with them, but much less cost than mortality. Using the high rate of a statistical life is also an issue. It would be unwise to assume that the life expectancy of someone who suffers from heart problems is the same as someone who doesn't. In fact, research has suggested that those who suffer from a fatal heart attack are losing, on average, about 11 years of life. This reflects their health conditions and the long term probability of good health.

Also, the effect of a trans fat ban is dependant on the percent of trans fat intake related to total dietary consumption. Generally speaking, a 1.5 percent decrease in trans fat decreases a persons risk for heart attacks by 1 percent. This decrease does not occur immediately. In fact it takes about 3 years for the effects of a decrease to be beneficial to a persons health.

Finally, while many have suggested that this ban would decrease consumer surplus and somehow result in dead weight loss to both consumers and producers, I think it would be fair to argue that these losses are captured and overshadowed by the associated health benefits.

This ban, and others like it simply reflect an increase in knowledge about the impacts that consumption has on our bodies. It is well within the rights of a public health organization or the FDA to ban things that have adverse affects on our health. In fact, I am quite certain that that is specifically what they were created to do. When a drug has been shown to have adverse effects on our health, you don't hear people talking about personal rights and government intrusion when it is banned. This should be no different.

As for Nelson's suggestion of a "official Healthy Seal of Approval." are we likely to agree on what constitutes the "approval?"

The seal just means they follow the "no trans fat" and similar regulations. It's an easy way to see if the food we want is healthy for us, according to the government, and not be fined or have our favorite restaurants shut down if we want to make or eat something unhealthy. If you had read what Peter Pearson had posted, you'd know that it wasn't really my idea, I just thought it was a really good one.

Sure, this is a government regulation. But I think a more appropriate analogy would be sanitary standards. I presume even the most libertarian prefers restaurants that don't have a huge rodent and roach problem in the kitchen, so no one objects to periodic health inspections. Pest control services for restaurants aren't cheap, either.

Sure, this is a government regulation. But I think a more appropriate analogy would be sanitary standards. I presume even the most libertarian prefers restaurants that don't have a huge rodent and roach problem in the kitchen, so no one objects to periodic health inspections.

Good example of a case where there's assymetry of information. The restaurant owner knows how dirty or clean is kitchen is, but the diners don't.

Government intervention solves the informational assymetry propblem.

What will the restaurants use in the place of trans fats? If the answer to that question is saturated fat or a non-trans partially hydrogenated fat, then the health benefit might not be all that great. Saturated fat is nearly if not equally as bad for your cardiovascular system as trans fat.

Labeling seems like a good idea regardless of the ban. I want to know what is in my food, not what isn't.

The problem with Posner's use of information costs is the heart of the matter (as some posters recognize), but I think a crucial bit of analysis is missing. Informational assymetry is something that, in and of itself, has its own reward and cost schedules. That is, the whole point of education is to incure a cost to put oneself in a better position vis-a-vis information. Hence, assymetry in information, for all its costs, is an essential motivating factor (if not a conceptually necessary ingredient) to education itself. By trying to iron these out, at a substantial cost to those not necessarily in the market for that information, we lose the value of assymetry (in motivating and rewarding education) in the first place. This is absolutely parallel to redistribution schemes in other areas: by attempting to remove assymetries, we create worse problems than those we were trying to solve. And as a factual addendum, how costly is it really, given the internet, to know things like 'trans fats are bad'? Once again, the internet proves to be a much more efficient means of distributing assymetries and rewarding those who are motivated by them to learn more.

The slippery slope argument often seems like a knee-jerk reaction. You can still buy guns, buy cars that go over 140 miles per hour, and buy booze. You can even still smoke. I don't like the ban either, based on personal freedom grounds, but I certainly concede there is a good argument for it. Assuming for a second that trans fats are as bad as people claim, then isn't it reasonable for a democratic entity to ban something that is very harmful and only marginally useful, especially when there are much less harmful near perfect substitutes?

What if government repealed all its meddlesome nanny state laws? Would those include all zoning laws and the FDIC insurance? When a gas station and adult book store are operated out of your neighbors house, and your neighbor is the one filling his reserve tanks every morning while smoking, and when nudists start selling candy flavored cigarettes to your children while practicing nudism, then you can happily listen to all those pesky liberals complain about how we are descending a slippery slope towards absolute anarchy/freedom.

Without a "nannny state" there would be no state. That is the whole point of government, to take care of things for everyone, so everyone isn't left to take care of themselves all the time. This frees them up to do more productive things. Of course the level of government is constantly up for debate, through elections, referendums, etc.

Now, unless all the posters here live in New York City, there seems to be an awful lot of troubling "nanny-commenting" going on here. Why should individual posters in say North Dakota meddle in the affairs of individuals in New York? That is another slippery slope. People all over the country deciding what philosophy is right for somebody else hundreds of miles away. That is how we got Terry Shiavo.

There are two important things I would like to respond to. First as KB has questioned, what will restaurants replace trans fat with? Trans fat research that determines the effect of a decrease in consumption are controlled for such things as increased consumption of other fats, as well as a persons health and habits.

Secondly, the discussion about information assymetry is interesting especially when coupled with many of the libertarian views posted here. If these folks actually knew more about trans fat I would expect to see less argument about the ban. It would be impossible and unwise to start regulating what people eat or to ban fast foods all together. Instead, this more tame approach can garner similar benefits while still preserving consumer choice.

I like McDonalds for many reasons – cheap, taste, atmosphere, comfort food, fun promotions, etc.

McDonalds uses transfat.

I would prefer McDonalds even more if it eliminated transfat

I would be willing to pay an extra 1% on my McDonalds purchases if it did not have transfat but I will buy McDonalds even though it does have transfat.

I dislike ACME Healthy Fast-Food for many reasons – expensive, tastes bad, atmosphere, etc.

Even though they do not use transfat, I still don’t want to eat at ACME Healthy Fast-Food.

It is difficult to enter the fast-food market on a wide enough scale to be competitive with McDonalds on all of the dimensions that makes McDonalds successful but not using trans-fat.

It might not be profitable for McDonald’s to stop using transfat and pass on the cost increase because they will lose the customers that are cost-sensitive and might not gain the customers that are health conscious who wouldn’t want to eat there anyway.

However, the net increase in consumer surplus may very well be more than the decrease in profit.

I personally would benefit from a ban in the use of trans-fat in restaurants for reasons other than me not being able to process the harmful effects of trans-fat.

By the way, I also benefit from a ban of smoking in bars and restaurants for similar reasons.

You omit an important cost; that is, the moral hazard created when government regulation is used to provide protection. Absent that protection, individuals would have an incentive to invest time in learning about transfat and coming to their own decisions.

As the span of this sort of protection increases, the incentive for individuals to make these investments diminishes. It then becomes increasingly important that government undertake efforts to replace the vigilance lost when everyone believes government is watching.

I believe this is what Hayek referred to as the road to serfdom.

Another tidbit: In today's Anch Daily News a provider of biodiesel who collects restaurant cooking oils pointed out the 80% of our restaurants use transfat, and that they clog diesel systems so he recycles only clear vegetable oils. His comment was that the benefit to the restaurant was a day or two more service from the transfat stuff. Perhaps with recycling there is no "cost?"

Nelson sez:
The seal just means they follow the "no trans fat" and similar regulations. ("official Healthy Seal of Approval.")

.......... with such a name wouldn't others, such as myself, favor it indicating the meat was not chemically fatted with growth hormone? and that the fish was not farmed fish laced with anti-biotics and food dye?

As for "nanny state" Libertarian extremists I'd remind them that we are first a tribe and a community that protects (or should!) itself from from risks to our survival and health BEFORE bowing to "The Market" of commercial interests.

There are countless flaws in capitalism, here's one from the 70's: Perhaps a CEO of a coal fired electrical generation plant is riding to work in his limo, but he too notices and does not like the smoggy air near his plant. He's savvy enough to know there is tech for cleaning the spume, but it costs a couple of million. If he proceeds alone his plant will be at a market disadvantage to the other plants and the nightmarish horror of his companies stock falling during his watch rears its ugly head. Human intelligence and the overall good of the community intervened in "The Market"
and while the "right" amount of toxins thrown into the air should be zero, reasonable limits based on available tech was mandated by "the Gov" "ie. us, when or if our democracy works properly.

The very same thing happened with home HVAC last winter; while units ranging upwards from the 10SEER had long been available buyers of brand new homes rarely opted for or even were offered SEER ratings of 12-16 thought the personal payback would occur in a third of the life of the units. It was not until a month prior to the new mandates that builders began putting in the newer efficiency standard, much to our communal disadvantage. Jack

Thank you for an enlightened and perceptive account of information costs and externalities!

What a brilliant analysis. Interesting topic too.

In reading this it came to me that many snacks are advertised as trans fat free. These labels may have a psychological effect on consumers - they allow them to rationalize eating otherwise fatty foods - sort of like how credit cards allow consumers to rationalize their overspending with things like reward points and free trips. People like to rationalize things that feel good, even if those things are actually bad for them. Similarly, the new trans fat ban may allow New York restaurant-goers to perceive eating out as healthier. It may help them to feel less guilty about eating out. If they're having a heavy meal, which many NY restaurants-goers surely have when they eat out, they may justify a high calorie, high fat entree with the trans fat ban. This could, in the end, benefit the restaurants by increasing their patronage.

Jim
I don't think this necessarily disincentivizes people from seeking information in any other regard except trans fats. The fact that NYC banned trans fats doesn't stop me from comparing the safety features of cars. I think the ban saves everyone the time of seeking out trans fat information and understanding it but it doesn't necessarily create expectations that the government has "approved" or even considered the qualities of any other food, or any other aspect of life.

David Welker

If you are correct that people will irrationally assume that a 1% risk is safe, how else do you explain the demonstrated empirical relationship between job risk and market wage? If wage premia on risky jobs are not driven by workers' perceptions of risk, what else might be causing this premium?

Jack

...and while the "right" amount of toxins thrown into the air should be zero...

And I see you've never heard of the concept of optimal pollution either. Try searching for "social marginal cost" and "private marginal cost" and "pollution" and see what you learn.

jjjj "...and while the "right" amount of toxins thrown into the air should be zero..."

Ben sez:
And I see you've never heard of the concept of optimal pollution either. Try searching for "social marginal cost" and "private marginal cost" and "pollution" and see what you learn.

....... that's what we've been discussing here; the market failure to allocate the costs of corporate adulteration of oil for private profits. There are several approaches to the problem:

NYC, Boston and myself would agree that one of the basic functions of a society's governing body is that of protecting the tribe, thus we'd use our intelligence, including Prof's numbers and intervene as does USDA in assuring the safety (but not the quality) of meat, and the FDA's banning of certain items and chasing down the source of Taco Bell's e. coli additives. (which may well be due to the unrealized externality of produce harvesters being paid a sub-living wage by the crate, and the trip to the token toilet facilities being "too costly" to them.)

The approach of the (honest) Libertarian to add, at least, the $3.5 Billion death cost to the menu along with warnings that the health risk incurred prior to early death is "your baby", along with a notice that the 30% surtax will decline rapidly if the consumer will quit "demanding" the adulterated oil. I've a bit of trouble with this one though, of knowing how to distribute the money, what with the affected tribe members being unable to take it with them. Perhaps fund some research to "find a cure?"

The other approach perhaps attractive to the current crop of "conservatives" might be to "give notice" in print too small to be read in cafe lighting, allow an anti-trust exemption and consolidate the transfat industry so as to better cold-cock any competing products and buy time while DC lobbyists go to work on the FDA and sell the "anti-cancer" effects that Posner touches on of dying early.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben sez:
"If wage premia on risky jobs are not driven by workers' perceptions of risk, what else might be causing this premium?"

...... you may have to gear up some real computing power to sort this one out. One social factor is that of "men's jobs" being both higher pay and more risky than "women's jobs". (Perhaps consistent with tribe preservation traditions such as women and children first, off the sinking ship and not being on the front lines of wars created by male egos and arrogant ignorance of history? BTW the tight vote for Gulf War I was passed by Al Gore joining with the all white, male, cast, while NO women nor any "minorities" voted in favor.)

I know a fair number of Alaska's Bering Sea crab fishermen and the total "wage" of "hitting it" plus having some free time off certainly plays a role but it's hard to envision most of them driving a desk or punching a clock either. Not far from my house others ply their even riskier trade of driving cabs for low pay and the increasingly popular American benefits package of Zipnada. Not much premium there.

Any idea why our military folk "re-up" knowing what they are facing for Sgt pay instead of upping their salary a $100k or so by signing on with the thousands of mercenary contractors?

As for assessing risk, not long ago a 22 year old college student was fatally shot in the face while working the drive-up window of a Taco Bell during the graveyard shift. My hunch is that Taco Bell knows a lot more about the risks/profits than does the employees who operate them yet both the money handlers and food handlers windows offer no protection despite it being easy to envision a Lexan window and a steel lower section that would still facilitate handing the payment in and the food out. Is $8 a good risk premium for young moms and those with most of their lives ahead of them?

Thanks Jack. Unfortunately your post has nothing to do with what I wrote.

Ben sez:
Thanks Jack. Unfortunately your post has nothing to do with what I wrote.

jjjjjjj: Sorry for, apparently? missing what YOU wanted to talk about and hope you at least found mine somewhat educational and thought provoking, though perhaps that might not be much fun for those of a fixed and rigid ideology. I'd thought that perhaps you'd comment on one of the three alternative policies I offered, but from your prior positions I'd assume that neither New York's policy nor that of the (honest) Libertarian would have much appeal and that most of those favoring the third alternative are still a bit reluctant to admit their blind fealty to "our" nationless corpies and disdain for the welfare of the working folk of our country to the general public.

Cheers and best for the Holiday Season. Jack

ben writes:

"If you are correct that people will irrationally assume that a 1% risk is safe, how else do you explain the demonstrated empirical relationship between job risk and market wage? If wage premia on risky jobs are not driven by workers' perceptions of risk, what else might be causing this premium?"

I think people are vaguely aware that certain jobs are more risky. For example, doing construction on high buildings, or coal mining. Surely, many people avoid these occupations due to their fear of the risks. That would drive up the wages.

However, I submit that both among those who do take the risky jobs and those who decline to do the risky jobs, there are very few who actually understand the risks in detail. If working on a high building increases risk of death by .05%, most people are not basing their decision on that number, and then varying their decision when they find out the actual risk is .07%. Instead, what is going on is much more basic. When it comes to working on high buildings, some people are scared of heights, others think it is a thrill. Wages are higher because all those who are scared exit the market.

It is not the case that most people working on tall buildings are carefully contemplating the statistics. The decision is made on different grounds.

I have started an experiment. I am asking people if they would accept a 99% chance of death for $10 million dollars. The unananimous response so far is no. So, if people aren't willing to take a mere 99% risk of death for $10 million, what justifies Posner's $7 million number?

Answer: Nothing we should take seriously. People just aren't willing to trade a very serious risk to their life for money in most instances.

Even if SOME small minority of people would, certainly that does not justify outsiders in fixing a value on the lives of the rest of us.

David Welker,

Ok, but what else might be causing this premium?

A strong understanding of statistics is not required to obtain a relationship between risk and wages. Even if workers do not calculate a percentage, risk can still be perceived from observing workers in similar situations elsewhere being injured or through their own observations about potential for injury.

You misunderstand statistical value of a life. That value is inferred from the relationship between risk and market wages when risk of death is low (but positive). That is not the same as asking any one individual what they would be willing to die for.

David - another point on life value. Its all very well to take the moral high ground and say life has no value - but statistical life value is an exceptionally useful metric to have in deciding policy.

For example, there are many costly improvements to airliners that could be mandated by the FAA. Why not mandate them all? What is the threshold in safety improvement below which it is not worth making?

One answer is statistical life value. A calculation of the expected dollar cost per life saved is calculated for an improvement and then compared to statistical life value. If cost per life saved is less than the satistical life value, the improvement is mandated.

"You misunderstand statistical value of a life. That value is inferred from the relationship between risk and market wages when risk of death is low (but positive). That is not the same as asking any one individual what they would be willing to die for."

Your making assumptions. I do understand how some misuse statistics to purport to find an "objective" value for human life. I am aware of how this works. And I am criticizing it.

You are getting to the critical point here. Basically, your saying it is okay to put a value on someone's life, without that person's consent. Why is this? If I own my house, I have a right to sell if for any amount I want. That is, if I want, I can say that I will sell my house for no less than $20 million dollars. But perversely, individuals have no say on the value of their own life?? That is but one criticism. Another, which you don't seem to understand, is that you can't generalize based on small risks. If someone was willing to take a .5% risk of death for $10,000, that doesn't mean they are willing to take a 99% risk of death for $1,980,000. Obviously, there is no good way to make an inference of someone's willingness to take a big risk from their willingness to take a small risk. Note, also, that basing your calculation on willingness to take small risks is basically grounding your theory on consent. If I give someone n dollars, they will consent to take x small risk. But, as has already been shown, this all falls apart as you move from small risks to big risks.

Overall, the "statistical value of life" -- which really should be termed the value that some individuals place on life, based on their idiosyncratic interpretations of statistics. This is not some value found in nature -- is based on absurd inferences given the very small risks people take, when they do not even understand the magnitude of those risks anyway. How intelligent is that? How objective is that? Answer: It is neither intelligent nor objective. It is instead driven by the need of the idiosyncratic interpreter of data to render extremely difficult decisions simplistic.

I will take the moral high ground. Thank you very much. Others can take the immoral low ground.

ben writes:
"but statistical life value is an exceptionally useful metric to have in deciding policy"

This is completely wrong. This idea is useless. All it does is give you a warm and fuzzy feeling, making you think that you can make "right" or "optimal" policy decisions. All it does is fulfill a psychological need some people have to transform very difficult decisions into very easy and supposedly objective ones. But this is all an illusion, based on a delusion.

"For example, there are many costly improvements to airliners that could be mandated by the FAA. Why not mandate them all? What is the threshold in safety improvement below which it is not worth making?"

You SHOULD mandate them all, as long as they do not unduly restrict individual freedom. Think of it this way. We allow automobiles on the highway, even though this causes something like 40 to 50 thousand deaths a year. This isn't a matter of economics. It is a matter of allowing people to exercise the immense freedom that comes with people able to transport themselves. It also should be noted that transportation saves lives, as much as it kills them. As when food and other necessities are transported to people or people are transported to the hospital. Modern transportation is obviously positively correlated with good sanitation.

I am not pretending these decisions are easy. Just the opposite. I am determined to keep them difficult and avoid the delusion that they are easy. I am determined to take the moral high ground and value human life appropriately.

David, there is a lot you are missing but I think the basic problem is that you're letting your heart get in your way of your head.

I'll respond to a couple of points.

You assume workers need an actuarial understanding of risk for market wages to reflect risk, but it is no more necessary for each worker to understand that risk than it is for customers at a department store to understand the costs of each item on the shelf. In both cases, market prices will reflect costs. That is the extraordinary feature of the pricing system. I think the fundamental proposition that workers (imperfectly) recognise risk and demand compensation for it is uncontroversial. An oil rig is plainly more risky than an office. I'm still waiting to hear an alternative explanation for the wage/risk relationship from you.

If someone was willing to take a .5% risk of death for $10,000, that doesn't mean they are willing to take a 99% risk of death for $1,980,000.

Correct, it does not mean that. It does mean that in a market of 1000 people accepting this compensation, 5 will randomly die and total additional compensation paid will be $10,000,000. What does this tell you? It tells you that for these 1000 people, there is a tradeoff between lifestyle and longevity which can, in this case, be measured and expressed in dollars, and in this case that value is $2 million per life. It does not mean that were those 5 people to know ahead of time they would die with certainty that they would only fork out $2 million to avoid it.

In fact, we make these tradeoffs all the time. When you drive in a car you trade off convenience of travel for a small increase in the chance of death. That trade off in this case cannot be measured in dollars - but it exists.

But that tradeoff is measurable when it comes to wages. And it is that tradeoff that underlies the cutoff point for mandating some safety measures but not all.

You say, "You SHOULD mandate ...all [costly improvements to airliners], as long as they do not unduly restrict individual freedom." Ok, well why not ban airplanes? Thousands of lives would be saved every year around the world. Why is that a bad idea? Because we, or at least those of us who choose to fly, are willing to accept a small chance of death in exchange for the convenience of travel.

Statistical life value is simply the aggregated dollar representation of that tradeoff that every one of us makes, and actually has little or nothing to do with the price an individual would pay to avoid certain or near certain death.

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Ben: After Posner's convincing case that banning transfats is overwhelmingly positive in dollar terms it seems silly to putz around with attempting to monetize a risk/benefit model using real or imagined taste or cost benefits against the known and substantial negative effects on health.

The best criticims of Milton F. was that of his being "too religious" in claiming his economic theories were a panacea. I'd again remind you that "The Market" does have serious flaws and that we're a democracy charged with the protection of the tribe first and employ the principle and tools of capitalism second. There are countless examples of this being the case. Jack

Jack, the monetization of human life was done by Posner as part of his analysis. I am not making my comments to overturn that analysis, merely to attempt to correct David's misperception of a part of that analysis.

It is ridiculous for you to label whoever disagrees with you as religious given your near total failure to back what you say with either reason or evidence.

Ben: Well if you're really "INTO" this monetization of human life perhaps this info will be helpful to your endeavors; Not long ago a attorney friend was flying around the country attempting to document the income of a carpenter who'd lost his hand. We discussed this some as the way our courts work had he been a dentist his hand would have been worth his expected future earnings and a lot more than that of the carpenter. I didn't care for the concept too much and thought it better if we had something of a fixed price for the loss of a limb and that those who valued theirs more highly could take out their own policies. Also, I thought it possible that the young carpenter might increase his earning power over time, or, even become a dentist. But, no go, our courts apparently project future income in establishing compensation for a disabling injury.

I suppose, now that it is known that transfatted products do cause disability and death and our corpies continue selling them anyway, perhaps we'll know more about what an interrupted or disabled life is worth in a class action suit? And that our GDP will take an uptick for the teams of lawyers dukeing it out.

BTW do you think our "efficient oligopolies" discuss selling healthier products if only for the self-serving reason of maintaining their customer base?

Jack

Jack, its a lovely story, but it hasn't got anything to do with statistical life value. As Posner explained, statistical life value isn't really about monetizing life, it is about expressing aggregate willingness to take risk in dollar terms. Plainly, you misunderstand the concept.

Jack, other corporations selling products which kill people include Boeing and Ford. Should we ban their products too? The reason those products are tolerated at all is because there is an implicit tradeoff between risk and convenience or life quality. When that tradeoff is expressed in dollar terms and in aggregate it is called statistical life value.

Ben:

Jack, its a lovely story, but it hasn't got anything to do with statistical life value. As Posner explained, statistical life value isn't really about monetizing life, it is about expressing aggregate willingness to take risk in dollar terms. Plainly, you misunderstand the concept.

jjjj: Yes and others here tagged him for the tap dancing too. Perhaps in the land of 150 degree canards there's a resolution of "not monetizing life" and expressing its worth "in dollar terms".

Also if you read my posts, you'll note that in the case of transfats the WHOLE monetization deally is hokey as the "costs" are speculative and likely too small to measure, as are the claimed benefits of taste. Thus the very substantial, health care costs and shortness of life "costs" would result in a "cost-benefit" ratio that is infinitely high ie NO benefits at great cost, whatever the number you might place on your life or those of others. There is after all QUITE a difference in, say, going to Iraq yourself, and doing a bit of handwringing because the kid down the street is going.

In addition, as posted, in the case of the purposeful corporate adulteration of vegetable oils I reject the right of anyone to put rat poison in our food regardless of profits or "costs."

Jack, other corporations selling products which kill people include Boeing and Ford. Should we ban their products too?

jjjj: No.

The reason those products are tolerated at all is because there is an implicit tradeoff between risk and convenience or life quality.

jjj: Indeed, and exactly the opposite as transfat, the utility and benefit are VERY high and the odds of any one driver losing his life is about .00005/year.

When that tradeoff is expressed in dollar terms and in aggregate it is called statistical life value.

jjjj Yes, we know. Trouble is Posner and other's means of "monetizing" the value of one's life and health is greatly flawed. See for small risks, since we're hunters by nature, we're willing to take very small numerical risks for either the $10k or a wooly mammoth steak. But, of course, the price goes up, at least geometrically, and you can see that as the odds approach certainty of death the benefit of either the $10k or the steak approaches zero, a steak being of little value to a dead guy and the premium for taking a 99% risk would soar towards infinity. That's why we see suicide bombers as being irrational crackpots.

Even worse, is that typically someone else is making the tradeoff for you, ie that Ford, Boeing, and Disability insurers all have a different value in mind that's likely at odds with that of your own appraisal.

IN the case of transfats those who make them and those who serve them in restaurants place FAR lower value on our lives than we'd find acceptable and for the most part are gambling with our "life savings" against their pennies of profit (or "cost saving")

What do you suppose has happened to our values that we'd even consider hoping a clumsy market mechanism combined with "education" would eventually force corporations to quit adulterating the food supply instead of just saying "Hell no!" on behalf of ourselves, loved ones and neighbors?

Jack

See for small risks, since we're hunters by nature, we're willing to take very small numerical risks for either the $10k or a wooly mammoth steak. But, of course, the price goes up, at least geometrically, and you can see that as the odds approach certainty of death the benefit of either the $10k or the steak approaches zero, a steak being of little value to a dead guy and the premium for taking a 99% risk would soar towards infinity. That's why we see suicide bombers as being irrational crackpots.

Why even raise the 99% chance of death, Jack? Statistical life value is calculated when risk to life is low, and applied in situations when risk of death is low. Near certain death is irrelevant.

Even worse, is that typically someone else is making the tradeoff for you, ie that Ford, Boeing, and Disability insurers all have a different value in mind that's likely at odds with that of your own appraisal.

Nope. Consumers can select between cars, each offering their own safety options. Consumers have access to Consumer Reports and the like which report on crash safety to help them decide. Consumers ultimately make the trade off when they select their vehicle. They can pay extra for Volvo if the additional safety is worth the price to them. Same goes for restaurants. Why else did half of New York restaurants ban trans fats prior to regulation?

Ben?

The point is that of OTHERS making the choice for us; and especially so if those of your persuasion were in the majority.

First off..... as we see in the transfat numbers the corpies and their chain restaurants have and will feed us their poisonous adulterated grease for very little gain and with NO concern for the external costs borne by up to 5,000,000 folk who died early plus those whose declining years were made worse with heart problems. My question is: Why did the other half of NY's restaurants NOT get rid of transfats a long long time ago?

You really have to try harder to understand that "our" corpies have NO "right" to adulterate our vegetable oils and externalize massive health care costs and shorten the lives of the citizens of our democracy for their own profits. Especially not when there are plenty of viable alternatives.

The car business? Gimme a break!! MOST of the safety equipment we expect today got its start by Federal and state mandate. And what happens when they find a loophole in the mandate?

Something like this: In 1984 I bought a new Plymouth Voyager with all the extras. A month later I was rear-ended hard enough that the power seat flattened out but me and my passenger's necks were saved as we had the high-backed seats. While I was on the lot getting it repaired, I noticed a young family buying one that had the "standard" low backed seats that were "legal" due to the new snub-nosed station wagon being a "utility vehicle".

Puzzling, I thought, how would such idiocy have gotten out of engineering much less C's legal department? I wrote to them and of course got a computer generated "Thank you" note for my trouble. Chry. continued to save the few bucks on the low backed seats for FIVE YEARS. Then one day I saw the article I'd expected: A traveling salesman, loyal to Plymouth traded his station wagon for what he assumed to be the new station wagon, and ended up with a low backed seat model. You've probably guessed it by now that he was rear-ended and in the news because he was paralyzed and I believe sued C for $20 million and won.

Now you may want to dump it on the public to poke a probe to find out that a brand new station wagon does NOT have adequate door bracing, low backed seats and other safety items long mandated for PASSENGER CARS, but it's clear some souless bean counter was saving pennies on a very profitable line of vehicles with little, if ANY concern for the external costs of crippling and death for their customers, but! it points up that sans federal mandates our corpies will place a VERY low value on our lives and health. What were they trying to pull? Selling the popular "soccer mom" rigs as if they were milk wagons unsuitable for passengers?

Jack

Lots more mistakes and prejudice from you Jack.

The point is that of OTHERS making the choice for us; and especially so if those of your persuasion were in the majority.

This is a meaningless point: it couldn’t be anyone other than the manufacturer that decides what combination of features go into a car. And the fact that consumers get a large – and, thanks to trade, a much larger – choice of automobile makes you incorrect. Even if it is others who make the choice on which features to install in a particular vehicle, it is consumers who vote with their wallets which car offers the best combination of safety features. It is ultimately consumers who make the price/safety tradeoff according to their own preferences.

First off..... as we see in the transfat numbers the corpies and their chain restaurants have and will feed us their poisonous adulterated grease for very little gain and with NO concern for the external costs borne by up to 5,000,000 folk who died early plus those whose declining years were made worse with heart problems.

There are many things wrong with this:

a) Why even mention corporations in this context when a significant fraction of meals served in New York are produced by small businesses? I’d not be surprised if a lower proportion of meals served by franchised restaurants included transfats given the reputation benefits that would accrue disproportionately to branded national chains. My point is that as with everything you write your focus on corporations reflects a prejudice rather than rational analysis of the problem.

b) The health effects of transfats have only recently come into the public consciousness and research on them continues – the case is hardly closed. In view of this, that half of NY had already eliminated them is surprising.

c) Rather than presume the use of transfats reflects a lack of concern, another explanation is that the evidence of their harm is recent and as with anything response to new information takes time to penetrate the market. Posner has argued this dissemination is appropriately accelerated by regulation.

d) Because of liability and reputation effects, adoption of safety is generally (not always) in the private interests of producers. So your frequent claim that profit trumps safety is generally not true. I suspect historic failures to adopt what in hindsight are efficient safety improvements generally reflect mistakes in identying what is profitable rather than blind pursuit of profit – companies including car and airplane manufacturers generally suffer financial penalities from safety lapses.

The car business? Gimme a break!! MOST of the safety equipment we expect today got its start by Federal and state mandate.

No, this is probably wrong as well Jack, it certainly isn’t true for seat belts (introduced 1956 by Ford, mandated in 1968 in the US) or air bags (introduced 1973 by GM, mandated 1989). I believe you’ll find that in general regulation lags market deployment of safety features. That’s certainly the case in NY restaurants and the withdrawal of transfats. Transfats have not yet been restricted on supermarket shelves yet a significant fraction of products include stickers saying free of trans fat.

Ben: Corrections and suggestions: While our real topic here is that of our corpies, franchise, chain and other restaurants being allowed to continue to, knowingly poison our food supply with transfats despite the tremendous externalized costs pointed out by Prof Posner. But, perhaps the car biz does serve as an analogue showing WHY, in our democracy, often government should be responsive to citizen inputs and adopt proactive and universal legislation for the great benefit of our people, as compared to waiting for folks to die or be impaired while a laggardly "market effect" if it kicks in at all comes close to providing the benefit to all. Let's take a look:

Lots more mistakes and prejudice from you Jack.

Jack maintains:
The point is that of OTHERS making the choice for us; and especially so if those of your persuasion were in the majority. (and NOT valuing life and health as even a fraction of that of the right to life "being inalienable" or what the invidual would "monetize" the value of his life and health.

This is a meaningless point: it couldn’t be anyone other than the manufacturer that decides what combination of features go into a car.

??????????? Are you aware of the Federal and CA standards for cars? It's quite a lengthy list of safety and environmental standards most of which were NOT proposed by mfgers or "the market".

And the fact that consumers get a large – and, thanks to trade, a much larger – choice of automobile makes you incorrect.

Irrelevant to this discussion.

Even if it is others who make the choice on which features to install in a particular vehicle, it is consumers who vote with their wallets which car offers the best combination of safety features. It is ultimately consumers who make the price/safety tradeoff according to their own preferences.

Irrelevant considering democratic, Congressional, action has provided a minimum standard of safety for all vehicles.... and, of course, our homes. Many of us think life is as valuable for those able only to buy a low priced car as it is for those with the wallet to buy a Volvo or luxury car.

First off..... as we see in the transfat numbers the corpies and their chain restaurants have and will feed us their poisonous adulterated grease for very little gain and with NO concern for the external costs borne by up to 5,000,000 folk who died early plus those whose declining years were made worse with heart problems.

There are many things wrong with this:

a) Why even mention corporations in this context when a significant fraction of meals served in New York are produced by small businesses?

jjjj: Would you provide some numbers? I was just reading of some transfat tests and some of the top artery-clogging oil adulterators were McD's fries, chicken nuggets and number of other items sold by the billions by fast food chains and franchises.

I’d not be surprised if a lower proportion of meals served by franchised restaurants included transfats given the reputation benefits that would accrue disproportionately to branded national chains.

jjjjjjj: Sorry, Ben your trust in "our" corpies is apparently misplaced.

My point is that as with everything you write your focus on corporations reflects a prejudice rather than rational analysis of the problem.

jjjjjjj: A "prejudice" would be if I just happened to wake up with an irrational bias, but such is not the case. I'm well aware of the positive aspects of the corporate form, but am also aware that they are doing just what THEY are supposed to do in focusing ONLY on stockholder value, and more recently massive irrational gleanings for CEOs whose packages have soared by 500% while productivity has but doubled, and those below median income have either lost buying power or broken even. Also, I'm all TO well aware of the K-street industrial complex of $500/hr lawyers and lobbyists purchasing rent-seeking special benefits from the Admin and Congress. I do NOT think they have such "rights" and it seems, in fact, a shame that banning transfats is proceeding one city or state at a time. Prof Posner has twice made the rational case, and my position is only that of a bit stronger citizen advocacy. But why would ANY "conservative" favor allowing the purposeful adulteration of oils so widely used in our food????

b) The health effects of transfats have only recently come into the public consciousness and research on them continues – the case is hardly closed. In view of this, that half of NY had already eliminated them is surprising.

jjjjjjj: They're really not needed for Nuevo Califorian Cuisine.

c) Rather than presume the use of transfats reflects a lack of concern, another explanation is that the evidence of their harm is recent and as with anything response to new information takes time to penetrate the market. Posner has argued this dissemination is appropriately accelerated by regulation.

jjjjjjjjjjj: Yadda... "taking time for "the market" the evidence is convincing enough for even a lethargic political process to take action in NYC and Boston, and the "urgent" labelling proposed four years ago is just now becoming the law.

d) Because of liability and reputation effects, adoption of safety is generally (not always) in the private interests of producers.

jjjj: Not even generally.

So your frequent claim that profit trumps safety is generally not true.

jjj: Haha! Have you read any history? Say that of work rules put in during FDR's New Deal? Mine safety LEGISLATION? USDA mandates? FDA mandates? OSHA mandates? Coast Guard regs for vessels carrying passengers for hire? Airline safety standards??

I suspect historic failures to adopt what in hindsight are efficient safety improvements generally reflect mistakes in identying what is profitable rather than blind pursuit of profit – companies including car and airplane manufacturers generally suffer financial penalities from safety lapses.

jjjjj: I too suspect a strange form of corporate "ignorance" as pointed up in my Voyager anedote that cost the fools $20 million for using the "utility vehicle" loophole to cheap-out on mandated passenger car standards long in effect after needlessly putting one of their loyal customers in a wheel chair for life.

Losing their entire business by TWICE being caught by fairly predictable "oil crises" seems further reason that we should see articles headlined "CEO goes home empty-handed" as would be the case for the owner-mgr of small business who so completely missed his market cues.

Jack cries out:
The car business? Gimme a break!! MOST of the safety equipment we expect today got its start by Federal and state mandate.

No, this is probably wrong as well Jack, it certainly isn’t true for seat belts (introduced 1956 by Ford, mandated in 1968 in the US) or air bags (introduced 1973 by GM, mandated 1989).

jjjjjj Ha! Seatbelts were mandated by the Sports Car Racing Assn in 1948 and this is how our giant car industry found they were worthwhile:

"Back in the early days of belts - the Fifties and Sixties - it yoostabee there was a persistent mythology about automotive safety which held that you were better off being thrown out of a car in a crash. This had been disproved around 1952 by an Indiana State Police sergeant named Elmer Paul. Sgt. Paul noticed that in a lot of fatal highway crashes, the vehicle really wasn't badly damaged, yet the people were dead. Why?

He discovered such fatalities inevitably resulted when occupants were ejected and crushed either by the vehicle rolling over them or by crashing themselves into a tree, pole, curb or whatever. The laws of physics are irrevocable, stating that a body - human in this case - in motion continues in motion until stopped. You don't get "thrown out;" unbelted, you keep moving when the car stops on impact, and then you "stop" when you also impact something else, whether the instrument panel or, say, through a window or open door against a tree."

jjjjjjj Surely at least some of Detroit's engineers had taken a few courses in physics? Perhaps many apologists for the callous inaction of our corpies are happy with the benefits of seatbelts not being "discovered" after thousands of auto deaths in the 30's, and that one mfg put them offerred them in 56 while most of the others waited for the mandates before making the safety improvements universal.

Ben claims
I believe you’ll find that in general regulation lags market deployment of safety features. That’s certainly the case in NY restaurants and the withdrawal of transfats.

jjjjjjjj Undocumented speculation that would seem HIGHLY dependent on the menus of various types of restaurants.

Ben continues:
Transfats have not yet been restricted on supermarket shelves yet a significant fraction of products include stickers saying free of trans fat.

jjjj: Well let's hope the "fraction" is 9/10ths or higher since the reason the stickers ARE showing up is that of the Federal mandate being "rushed" back in 2003 is finally in effect. IF the corpies were expecting beneficial branding advantages, why do you suppose the lobbying was "intense" to stave off the innocent notification?

"Now, thank goodness, anyone can tell. As of January 1, 2006, trans fat must be listed on food labels along with other bad fats (saturated fats) and good ones (unsaturated fats).(1)

The addition is a victory for Harvard School of Public Health researchers who helped sound the alarm about trans fat in the early 1990s(2, 3) and who advocated that it be explicitly listed on food labels. After much equivocation by the FDA and intense lobbying against adding trans fat to food labels by parts of the food industry, the FDA finally approved the addition.

This small, one-line change is sparking a major makeover of the American food supply. The FDA once estimated that approximately 95% of prepared cookies, 100% of crackers, and 80% of frozen breakfast products contained trans fat.(1) Now that trans fat must be listed on food labels, some companies are scrambling to remove them from their products. Many others have already succeeded in going trans free.

jjjj And finally, if you or other corporate apologists favor "notice only" is it that you hope to pawn some of the adultered oil off on the unknowing? or? perhaps to leave the door open for those thought to be "fully informed" but demanding the nasty stuff anyway?

I'd again remind that we are a tribe living with a democracy first and a "market" second.

Albert Einstein, Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. Jack