151–160 of 333 posts
Hey folks, European chiming in here. If you are serious about bucatini, shoot me a DM and we can discuss importing that precious golden Ambrosia into the US of A, maybe declared as 'alimentary paste', drinking straw - or even use 'the Mexican route' to import it, if you know what I mean. I have to go now, my pasta is ready.
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Because we don't have a world government so every government can do what they want. Even ignoring protectionism there are a billion different ways to make reasonable regulations and many of them will be incompatible in some ways. Countries working together on regulations is a thing, but it also does slow down things and takes a lot of effort. >Or vaccines. Why isn't there a global approval system? I don't see any way…
Aerospace goy pretty close, with EASA and the FAA accepting each others certification. Until the FAA blew the 737 MAX and everyone had to show how tough they are. And because the FAA did screw up.
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Aerospace goy pretty close, with EASA and the FAA accepting each others certification. Until the FAA blew the 737 MAX and everyone had to show how tough they are. And because the FAA did screw up.
And in Brazil the certification caught the problem... Not accepting each other certification with blind eyes can be a good thing.
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It’s true that EU regulation on this topic was harmonized in 2011. However, the harmonization actually loosened the Swedish requirements in several ways, particularly with regard to rear lights, which previously were required to be always on.
Which would make sense in general, wouldn't it? The thing with the rear lights being on.
What I love about this story is that this is the tension of politics in a nutshell. What has happened here is what people would term "state capture", where someone uses the state to gain an advantage. Probably though, the solution is to not _completely_ demolish any standard of pasta and let the market solely decide, because we've seen what happens in a variety of other unregulated industries. However, I won't make m…
> Probably though, the solution is to not _completely_ demolish any standard of pasta and let the market solely decide, because we've seen what happens in a variety of other unregulated industries.
A few relevant anecdotes on this topic:
About a decade ago, a Dutch TV-show about food standards discovered that store-bought "guacamole" contains just 1% avocado powder. Presumably the legal standard for guacamole is that it contains avocado, without further specification. So obviously supermarkets, knowing that most Dutch people there haven't a clue what guacamole is, created the cheapest sauce imaginable.
Another story: the process of standardizing chocolate at the EU level was a long one because each country had different national standards. The biggest talking point, IIRC, was whether or not it was acceptable to use non-cocoa fat (keep in mind that adding fat from other sources would often be cheaper). Note that whichever option would be picked, the chocolate industries of the nations with the "opposing" regulation felt like they would lose:
- if added fat was allowed, the chocolate from countries where this wasn't allowed nationally would be more expensive and have trouble competing
- if added fat wasn't allowed, the chocolate from countries where this was the norm could not be exported
Why does the FDA mix the metric and imperial measurement system (mg/lb)? Are there other examples (liters per mile?) that people know of?
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Not sure how much experience you have working with business or government but what you'll find is that large corporates will have 'access' to regulators and legislators who can legislate or enforce on their behalf. The senior people will know each other and get things moving. Medium sized businesses (up to $100m revenues) will find it very difficult even getting a response. Even getting their attention is a competiti…
What do you think "access" looks like? There is no "big pasta". There's like a handful of companies[1] that make it all. I'm sure the execs all own yachts but if you were to compare executive fleet displacement it's more of a Venezuelan navy than a French navy. They can't just call up their lobbyist who's already scheduled to golf with a congressman every other weekend and tell them to bring it up on their next trip.…
My point is that their scale and resources gives them access. A competitor breached a pointless regulation [1] from the last century which has prevented their product from being sold for a year. If one of the large corporates breached that regulation, they would have been able to quickly agree corrective action with minimal supply chain disruption.
[1] Many of these food regs are designed to enrich staple foods that were the main source of nutrients for low income families. That's just not an issue anymore and just prevents (high quality) imports.
I am afraid this article will resurrect shortage even if it ended lately: I never cared about pasta shapes, but now I want bucatini. With 52 hacker news points there goes national stock of bucatini.
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It's a good point though. Why/how is something unsafe for an American, but safe for an Italian or Spaniard? Differing regulations and standards between countries usually makes no sense and just harms the consumer. How is a Volvo made for the Swedish market unsafe on Canadian roads? EU and Canada recently signed a trade agreement so that they won't tariff eachothers' cars, but consumers still can't buy a car from a Eu…
Regulation isn't made just by health/safety perspective, but includes cultural, social and others. For example, Katsuobushi is the core part of Japanese food but it seems that exporting to Europe is difficult due to EU regulation. Another example in Japan would be K-car. As a Japanese, I never want to give up Katuobushi for improving health. I suspect that maybe oppositely, European people also has food or culture th…