Category: Business

How important is cheaper bacon?

I don’t write much about vegan issues because there are only so many non-mainstream issues I can discuss before I give the impression that I’m ready to abandon society, live in a hut and forsake showering. Sometimes an issue worth mentioning hits the news.

The largest U.S. pork supplier, Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, said yesterday [01/24] that it will require its producers to phase out the practice of keeping pregnant pigs in “gestation crates” — metal and concrete cages that animal welfare advocates consider one of the most inhumane features of large-scale factory farming.

Activists hailed the decision as perhaps the most significant voluntary improvement ever made in animal welfare, but they said the stage had been set by the recent passage of two state initiatives that would ban the use of the crates.

That’s indeed overdue but significant. I accept that my dietary choices will remain the minority in my lifetime, barring some unanticipated development. But I’m still amazed that even a minimal shift like this has taken so long. Any basic awareness of the issue should reveal exactly how cruel this is. It seems only someone with a complete indifference to the suffering of farmed animals could deem cheaper meat more important than a small level of decency. Basically, I’d be curious to hear how this could be considered humane or defensible:

While they defended the use of the crates — which are so narrow that the animals cannot turn around and some have to lie uncomfortably on their chests — they said their own research had concluded they could be replaced by group pens without any long-term problems or cost increases.

Remember, these are pregnant pigs that cannot turn around and may be forced to lie on their chests. I’m not going to jump on the animal rights soapbox because I know most people see that as extreme. I don’t think it is, although I’ll grant that some activists take that to its extreme. But actions such as this don’t need to be motivated by any notion of rights for animals. Actions like this are about the humans who care for and consume these animals in a time when it isn’t necessary for survival. We don’t think it’s acceptable to mistreat “cute” animals like cats and dogs, so why is it acceptable to mistreat other animals? Because we decided they taste better? That can’t be enough.

For what it’s worth, I think the seriousness with which this will be undertaken and to which it will be adhered is explained by the implementation timeline of this decision. Smithfield expects all of its pig nurseries will be converted to group pens within 10 years. Many animals will suffer over the next decade.

The rare positive bears the stain of the negative.

More on Major League Baseball’s decision to give its most faithful fans the shaft sell exclusive rights to the Extra Innings package to DirecTV, this time courtesy of Buster Olney’s Insider blog at ESPN (subscription required). Olney has received a multitude of e-mails since writing about this deal several days ago, most of them negative. He has seen the occasional positive spin, even if it’s flawed:

Count me among the minority of baseball fans that’s actually in favor of the DirecTV deal. No one talks about the monopolistic control Comcast has in the cable industry and, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with economics can tell you, the winner goes to the highest bid. Comcast likely gambled on the fact that MLB wouldn’t want to deprive some subset of its fans, but MLB never blinked. Now, I not only finally get the Comcast monkey off my back, but I’m also saving a lot of money every month with the same access to more channels and premium content. What’s not to like?

— Jon Phillips, Seattle, Wash.

I don’t care if some people like the deal, but at least like it for the correct reasons. From Mr. Phillips’ e-mail, every benefit he projects onto this deal is a benefit he could’ve gotten before the deal, while still enjoying Extra Innings. I contend that getting “the Comcast monkey” off his back wasn’t that important to him. The savings from DirecTV didn’t suddenly improve with this deal. I suspect they’ll dissipate, since DirecTV will now have monopoly power over Extra Innings. The access to channels with DirecTV didn’t change. DirecTV had the package every year leading up to this deal. Yet, Mr. Phillips never switched. His hatred of Comcast, however justified, is clearly irrelevant based on his own behavior. The only thing that changed is cable lost the last content it had that Mr. Phillips valued. That is what will send Mr. Phillips to DirecTV. The rest is just feel-good beliefs.

But is that enough to make this a good deal for Major League Baseball? After doing some research into adding DirecTV – I can be outraged and still cave to my addiction – to my house, there are very real costs involved to me. Also, the goodwill that baseball possesses as our national pastime and that it rebuilt after the labor shenanigans in ’94 can’t have a definitive dollar value, but it exists. That extra $30 million DirecTV reportedly offered is not “found money”. Major League Baseball may value it more, but it has a price.

MLB to fans: Go Eff Yourselves!

I could write a profanity-laden entry about this story, which is what I want to do. Even that wouldn’t begin to convey how angry I am at this move.

Major League Baseball is close to announcing a deal that will place its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games exclusively on DirecTV, which will also become the only carrier of a long-planned 24-hour baseball channel.

Extra Innings has been available to 75 million cable households and the two satellite services, DirecTV and the Dish Network. But the new agreement will take it off cable and Dish because DirecTV has agreed to pay $700 million over seven years, according to three executives briefed on the details of the contract but not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Where do I begin? I’ve been a baseball fan since I first started little league in the late 1970s. Through nearly three decades, I’ve followed the sport with a passion reserved exclusively to this one game. I ‘ve watched games when my choice was the Game of the Week on Saturday. Then we got TBS and the Braves. Then we got the Orioles. Then the Cubs and White Sox. With ESPN, we got a few games a week. Then Extra Innings came along, and instead of the Braves, Orioles, Cubs, and whatever random game involving the Yankees ESPN showed, we got the Braves, Orioles, Cubs, White Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals, Pirates, Giants, Mets, Angels, Tigers, and so on. I could watch (almost) any game every night of the week for six glorious months of the year.

And now Bud Selig and the Major League Baseball owners decided that a few million dollars for each team were worth selling out those of us who don’t subscribe to DirecTV.

I subscribe to cable because it suits suited my needs. I dutifully subscribe to the Extra Innings package every spring so that I can watch the Phillies throughout the summer. Living in the D.C. area, this is the only chance I get to see my team on a regular basis. Now, under this greedy, anti-fan move, I can choose between the Nationals, Orioles, Braves, Cubs, and White Sox. Notice that my Phillies are nowhere in that list. I assume Major League Baseball is indifferent.

I have little doubt that Major League Baseball will compare its decision to the NFL’s exclusive deal with DirecTV. The obvious difference was that the NFL was never on another service. Every time I moved, I knew that if I wanted the NFL package, I had to subscribe to DirecTV. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, is yanking a service it offered for years. Making me change technology hardware would be rude. Making me change the services I subscribe to is hostile. This is not progress, no matter how many extra pennies it might put into owner pockets. (Also, the NFL is appointment television because there are only 16 regular season games. Major League Baseball is every night of the summer.)

I’m not sure it will make money for DirecTV. The Extra Innings package had approximately 750,000 subscribers last year. Many of those undoubtedly subscribe via cable. Not all of them are going to switch. The price of the package last year on cable was $169, if I remember correctly. To recover $100 million per year, as well as whatever extra costs it will incur to carry high-def games, DirecTV will likely raise the price. How many of that now reduced subscriber base are so die-hard that they’re indifferent to price?

Looking beyond the basic economics, the nature of satellite versus cable is a bad harbinger for the deal. What if a customer doesn’t subscribe to DirecTV and doesn’t want to switch? Too bad. What if that customer lives in an apartment or a house with an obstructed southern view? Again, too bad. But all is not lost, Major League Baseball will say. That customer can still watch the same games on The Internets, in a small pop-up window on a computer. Watching a clip on YouTube is significantly different than watching a 3-hour game in a window the same size. This will not end well.

Major League Baseball is free to make whatever decisions it wants. I don’t have to like it, and I can certainly call bullshit on its stupidity. In the same way I don’t receive baseball radio broadcasts because I prefer Sirius over XM, I’m now screwed because I prefer cable over DirecTV. Making 162 games a premium purchase is an obscene abuse of common sense. But that’s what we’ve come to expect of Bud Selig, isn’t it? He failed to kill the sport in the ’90s, but he’s finally on the right path.

(Source: Baseball Musings)

Who negotiated these prices?

I love Whole Foods. Every weekend, Danielle and I buy groceries at our (not-so) local store. The prices are comparable to other supermarkets for the products we buy. Add better quality produce and an enjoyable shopping experience, and Whole Foods is the perfect grocery store. Yet, I understand that no company can be perfect. Witness this found on the shelf for a can of soup:

I’d probably keep that one a secret if I managed Whole Foods. I’m left wondering who printed that out and failed to notice a negative savings. As a software developer, I cringe at code so dumb that it lets that slip through the evaluation process. I did laugh at the absurdity, and we weren’t going to Target this week, so -20&#162 savings soup it was. But now we know, buy soup at Target.

Capitalism doesn’t require stupidity

Interesting news out of Milwaukee:

If you wanted to buy condoms 30 years ago, you had to bear the embarrassment of asking a pharmacist to fetch them from beneath the counter.

Now with thieves wiping out the entire stock of prophylactics in some stores, more retailers are putting them back out of reach – and, in some cases, are even locking them up.

Nothing surprising so far, at least when looking at the simple concept that stores aren’t in the business of offering five finger discounts. Until purchased, the condoms belong to them. If they want to lock them up, fine. If they want to place them on a shrine in the middle of the store with a giant spotlight, fine. Their property, their prerogative.

Of course, the nanny statists disagree:

“We are certainly concerned about the availability of condoms in stores,” said Eric Ostermann, executive director of the Wisconsin Public Health Association.
…

“We’d hope they would not present any obstacles to getting their product in the community,” Ostermann said.

Encouraging people to keep themselves safe is wonderful, but the puritanical, irrational fear of sex and all things regarding the body is too embedded. Wouldn’t it be better to disassociate the stigma from sex in general, making it easier to buy condoms without shame? More capitalism and less puritanism.

To be fair, Mr. Ostermann is not making an anti-capitalist, public before profit statement, but an understandable lament based on our puritanical society. Yet, someone will probably suggest legislation requiring stores to provide simple access to condoms in the public interest, without regard to likelihood of theft. Before we take that silly route, stores or some other enterprising soul could follow the suggestion of the many Fark commenters in the thread where I found the story: vending machines. Simple and effective.

Instead, we get feel-good corporate gobbledygook like this:

Other stores, such as Walgreens, mostly keep condoms in a highly visible area in the store where thieves would be more concerned about employees catching them in the act of stealing. Several Walgreens that had placed condoms behind their counters have since been instructed to return them to the sales floor, said Carol Hively, corporate spokeswoman for the pharmacy chain, based in Deerfield, Ill.

“It’s our policy not to lock up condoms,” Hively said. “Shrink can vary from store to store, but in general it is in the interest of public good and safety to keep the condoms unlocked.”

It’s in the interest of those who are responsible enough to practice safe sex and pay for that protection that they have access to condoms when they attempt to purchase them. Walgreens is free to do what it wants, but what would it rather have, a thief who returns to the store multiple times because he didn’t get infected or a paying customer who returns to the store multiple times because he didn’t get infected? The potential embarrassment of the customer should be considered, as any smart business will consider its customer’s needs and wants. But meeting customer needs at a loss is crazy.

Or, in the words of a friend of mine, buying condoms shouldn’t cause embarrassment because it’s a sign that the buyer will be having sex. Customers should be proud.

Why not give them the company?

More signs of dinosaurs protecting their territory using the power of government.

A music industry group is asking XM Satellite Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. to pay at least 10 percent of their revenues for the right to play songs over their networks.

Unlike land-based radio stations, which pay royalties only to songwriters and music publishers, federal law requires satellite radio, digital cable and Internet companies that broadcast music to pay the artists and record companies.

The two subscription satellite radio companies have been paying about 6.5 to 7 percent, analysts estimate, although the figures are not publicly disclosed. That agreement expires at the end of this year, and the Copyright Royalty Board, an arm of the Library of Congress, will determine the rates the companies pay for the next six years.

Why is there a federal law for satellite radio, digital cable, and Internet companies? Maybe there’s a valid reason for such a difference, but I can’t think of one that appeals to common sense. And why are rates decided by the government, rather than negotiated in the marketplace? It would make more sense to find the true market value of those rights than to have the government decide what they should be. Letting the market decide would allow companies to create new distribution and pricing models that might prove more beneficial to the music industry.

Besides could the market work faster than this?

The Copyright Royalty Board will hold hearings before it decides on new rates, a process that many say could take 18 months. Until then, XM and Sirius will continue to pay the current rates. If an increase is approved, they will be required to pay the difference retroactively.

Without regulation forcing capitalism out of the equation, no such structure would survive the pressures of competition.

I forget that private property is public property

I’ve experienced this before:

Rose Rock, the mother of comedian Chris Rock, claims she was racially discriminated against when she was seated but ignored for a half hour at a Cracker Barrel restaurant along the South Carolina coast.

Of course, I considered it bad service, not discrimination. I find it better to leave than linger. Or to sue.

Rock said Tuesday she planned to sue the Lebanon, Tenn.-based company. A Cracker Barrel spokeswoman said the restaurant chain was investigating and taking the complaint “very seriously.”

If the company did discriminate against her because she’s black, that’s despicable. She should publicize it, given that she has the press access of being Chris Rock’s mother. But sue? Why? Cracker Barrel is a private business, and should be free to refuse service, even if it plays the game of seating a customer.

From Richard Bach’s The Bridge Across Forever, describing his reaction to diner displaying a “We reserve the right to refuse service” sign:

You reserve the right to do absolutely anything you want to do, I thought. Why put up signs to say so? Makes you look frightened. Why are you frightened?

Ms. Rock reserves the right to sue. And I reserve the right to laugh when she fails. If she fails. If not, I reserve the right to sigh at our legal system.

This is not an argument for unions

Why do we keep hearing that employees are powerless against big, bad corporations? Lately, it’s always Wal-Mart, as it is in this story, except the story reveals the lie in the anti-capitalist sales pitch:

For months, politicians and activists have been saying that the low prices at the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), come at a tremendous cost to its low-paid employees. They point to lawsuits that contend the company discriminates against women and forces low-paid employees to work through lunch breaks and after their shifts, without extra compensation. Wal-Mart has also been boosting its political contributions to stop initiatives aimed at forcing the retailer to raise pay and benefits … .

Using contentions in a lawsuit is little more than hearsay until the case is resolved, of course. And I’m not sure how any company could “force” employees to do anything. Barring accusations of slavery, grudgingly acquiescing to an employer request isn’t a forced action.

Oh, wait, sorry. I got lost on the way to the bulk of the story. Here it is:

Now, as Wal-Mart rolls out a new round of workplace restrictions, employees at a Wal-Mart Super Center in Hialeah Gardens, Fla., are taking matters into their own hands. On Oct. 16, workers on the morning shift walked out in protest against the new policies and rallied outside the store, shouting “We want justice” and criticizing the company’s recent policies as “inhuman.” Workers said the number of participants was about 200, or nearly all of the people on the shift.

This demonstrates an intelligent response. If they don’t like what’s going on, they should leave. Granted, stopping at the front entrance isn’t quite far enough, and chanting “We want justice” is probably excessive. But I’m missing the forced part that amounts to an injustice. They’re equal partners in a transaction. When they accept that, they’ll find they’re not as powerless as they’re told. This concept is simple enough, and here is another data point, if they’re interested in learning the real lesson.

The ethics of vanity

Here’s an excerpt from a presentation (from 2001, I believe) entitled “Rejuvenation of Aging and Photodamaged Skin Utilizing Fibroblast Conditioned Media”:

A newborn baby’s skin produces an abundance of compounds important to healthy young skin, including growth factors antioxidants, soluble collagens, and matrix proteins that confer structure to skin. Over time, environmental stressors like ultra-violet radiation, cigarette smoke, wind and pollution deplete these compounds. Meanwhile, as we age, our bodies gradually lose the ability to effectively produce these elements. So our skin wrinkles, sags and roughens.

This natural mixture of newborn skin compounds is produced by Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc. to from a pioneering process in the emerging field of tissue engineering that utilizes fibroblast cells from neonatal foreskins to produce human tissue replacements for the treatment of serious burns, wounds and other therapeutic indications. Fibroblasts are the cells responsible for growth and repair of the dermal layer of skin. The patented tissue engineering process stimulates normal human newborn skin fibroblast cells grown in the laboratory to deposit matrix proteins, including collagens, growth factors and antioxidants to form a human dermal tissue structure. In addition to assembly of these components into a tissue, the cells secrete soluble forms of these compounds into the solution (termed media) used to nourish the cells. The resultant fibroblast conditioned media is separated from the cells and tissue to serve as a natural, highly efficacious, ingredient for anti-aging cosmeceuticals. The fibroblast conditioned media contains the array of naturally produced factors which aging skin makes less efficiently and sometimes in smaller quantities.

Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc. sold its assets in 2003 to SkinMedica in bankruptcy. SkinMedica now has an array of products that include human fibroblast conditioned media. Its site does not indicate specifically that this means “developed from neonatal foreskins,” so I am not making that claim with regard to its products. However, Dr. Patricia Wexler said as much when she appeared on Oprah.

Does anyone else see the ethical quandary this presents? The boy has not consented to unnecessary surgery, yet a healthy portion of his body is amputated. The discarded foreskin is then used by a third party to develop a commercial beauty product¹. Somebody is making money on this, and it’s not the now foreskin-free boy.

Providing compensation to the circumcised boy would not change my opinion, or ease the violation of routine infant circumcision. That should be obvious. But it does further illustrate how little the rights of infant males are considered in the routine practice of circumcision in America. There is a disconnect when reason does not tell us that using an infant’s foreskin so that adults can pretend that time does not exist is not acceptable.

Note: It makes no difference if the human fibroblast conditioned media is used to treat burn victims instead of those too vain to age. The boy does not lose his right to bodily integrity because someone else suffered burns. Individual rights can’t be trumped by any notion of who “needs” the skin more.

¹ Two human collagen products, CosmoDerm® and CosmoPlast®, contain cells replicated from discarded foreskins.

You can’t make this stuff up

I’m going to stand on a strong limb here and say that a better opening for this story exists somewhere in the reporter’s mind:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plans to sponsor educational events and seminars aimed at reversing the steady decline in the number of federal employees with severe disabilities.

Will Tony Soprano being leading the educational events and seminars? A few clubs to the kneecap should take care of the problem. At least that’s the way I read the sentence. I actually laughed out loud. Why start from the beginning – why is federal employment of the disabled declining – when you can decide that the government simply doesn’t have enough disabled employees? It’s silly.

The story continues, talking about “targeted disabilities,” which I think is a strange way of promoting non-discriminatory hiring. Is the government actively excluding those with non-targeted disabilities? It’s worth asking. But more to my point:

Experts do not know what accounts for the decline, in part because of a lack of research and data. Some suggest that more disabled workers are retiring, as the baby-boom generation leaves the workforce. Some think that federal hiring practices work against the disabled, and some think the private sector has opened more doors to the disabled over the past decade.

The data show a problem decline, though, so like the Justice League on Saturday mornings, the government must act to bring about, um, justice. I’d like to think it’s because we have few Americans with disabilities, thanks to medical innovation that treats disease or trauma before it can become a disability. But I’d be merely wishing without evidence, sorta like the government. I’d start with research, though, sorta unlike the government.