Brickbat: Flaky Behavior

Mexican officials seized 380,000 boxes of Kellogg's cereal, claiming that images on the boxes violated a law barring marketing to children. The government claims that cartoon images and mascots are efforts to market to children. While most of the boxes were taken from a warehouse, officials also raided several retail outlets.

Comments

[24musicnow.com]

Flaky Behavior i love it so sweet like sugar I'm 24musicnow/

[m4019597]

The product had a forbidden design and was confiscated. How is that a brickbat?

It’s like taking guns from a thug.

[Chumby]

As long as they didn’t remove Reason Bran from the shelves, it seems raisinable.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Cheerio what old chap!

[mad.casual]

You mean "Both scoops are equally bad" Reason Bran? My favorite!

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Fauci Flakes are still legal down there. In fact, they're mandatory if you work for a drug syndicate with more than 100 drug mules.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

You know who else loves mules?

[RedvBlue]

Shrek?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Each country has its own special tactics for keeping the shelves bare.

[Cyto]

That is funny.... but this stuff is starting to really get worrying.

The only thing in my lifetime even a little bit like this was the gas lines of the early 70s.

I was in WalMart yesterday looking for paper plates. No paper plates at all. Just the foam ones and the nice plastic Solo ones. And a huge, empty shelf.

Freezers had huge sections empty. Never seen that in my life. They had beef tongue.. not sure I have seen that in a while... but they had it. A few pennies shy of ten bucks a pound! Holy crap! The steaks were there... but supply was a fraction of normal.

Something more is happening than what the national stories told us. It was about trucks and ports, initially. But our transportation system is more than capable of routing around that after a few months.... and it still gets worse.

Are we in bigger trouble than I think? Where are the investigative reports exploring these issues? If shipping is the problem, why do I have plenty of available cell phones and large screen TV sets for cheap, but no paper plates? Those things are made here, arent they? Made from good old Georgia pulpwood trees?

[Cyto]

just checked. 4 of the top 5 paper plate manufacturers in the world are in the USA.

https://www.imarcgroup.com/top-5-players-papr-cups-paper-plates-industry

Yet US walmart stores have shortages of Walmart brand, Dixie Brand, Chinette brand, and Solo brand paper plates. Not a single plate available made from paper for the last week. Seems really odd. How can that be a shipping issue?

[Kevin Smith]

It's probably supply chain issues. Last year we had a lumber shortage due to the mills (and Canadian border) being closed the year before, this could just be that problem now catching up to the paper producers

[Chumby]

Demand was way up for lumber since folks sat at home, collecting govt checks, and decided to add sunrooms and garages. We also saw a lot of new home construction.
And yes, the paper needs to come from somewhere and that may mean Brazil or China.

[Brandybuck]

It's more than supply chains. It's also the over cautiousness of the pandemic. It's labor shortages as people stay home. Never know when the key worker is going to be out of office for two weeks without notice.

Not talking Chicago school teachers here. COVID is a real thing, I mean it's real. And people catch it. Meaning they should not go into work. Airlines cancelling flights NOT because they are mean or following Biden orders, but because they don't have the crews to get those planes in the air. Same with trucks. Shit happens and we're in the middle of a shitstorm. Much of that storm may be panicking progressives, but the shitstorm is still real, COVID is still real, COVID is still dangerous.

THere are ways to deal with this, but Left solution of panicking is just as stupid as the Right's solution of hiding their head in the sand. Get vaccinated, mask in groups, get tested regularly. Avoid the excesses of the Left and the blindness of the Right.

p.s. Funny story, I have been unable to find my favorite brand of diet soda for the past few months. The number three major brand bottled domestically. Sometimes in stock, but only a few, most times nothing. Had to resort a few times to those damned plastic bottles I hate. I also shop at a major chain. I asked the stocker about it once when he happened to be there when I was. He said they just couldn't get it anymore. Not on their stock list.

I notice other brands are suspiciously low. Is there a national shortage of aspartame? Nope, the Diet Coke is ALWAYS stocked fully with aisle displays and everything. Huh.

So last week I went to a DIFFERENT major chain grocery, and whoa! They have my stuff all stocked! All the other stuff all stocked! There was no shortage my diet brand after all! It was just a different distributor. And despite both stores having both Coke and Pepsi, all of the distributors handle only one or the other.

So what was happening was that stores cut down on their distributors. And my store cut out the non-Coca Cola guys. Weird. (No I don't drink Pepsi, I'm not a communist, sheesh. I prefer brand Z).

Partially pandemic related, and probably some greenhorn MBAs telling them how to be more "efficient". Dunno. But it turns out there wasn't a shortage of aspartame at all.

[mad.casual]

THere are ways to deal with this, but Left solution of panicking is just as stupid as the Right's solution of hiding their head in the sand. Get vaccinated, mask in groups, get tested regularly. Avoid the excesses of the Left and the blindness of the Right.

Definitively, panicking is an overreaction. There may be a cost to pay for under-reacting but there is *always* a price to pay for over reacting. The two are fundamentally not equal. Don't get tested regularly, take a walk regularly instead. The tests are a so-so indicator of disease status, poor indicator of outcome, generally provide such information post hoc, and won't test for anything else you may have that you shouldn't bring to work or church or or the grocery store wherever else you might otherwise go if you didn't already feel bad. Insisting people get the vaccine if they feel they need the vaccine but opposing mandates and debt is not sticking heads in the sand and even if it were, ostriches are actually immune to COVID. Exploring alternative treatment options has to happen, people aren't going to continue getting jabbed with needles every 10 weeks ad infinitum. Even if they were willing to, they shouldn't as the next virus down the pike may need the same routine or worse and the more complicated and inflexible our existing treatment is, the worse the outcomes down the line will be.

Seriously, who do you think is buying this bullshit anymore? Supposedly the left had the most popular President in history elected in Nov. '20, it's been a steady march away from him and stupid panicking ever since, and you figure you might as well pitch your 'both sides' idiocy? Or are you worried that people who aren't panicking and overreacting are going to stone you to death or attack you in the street for dissenting?

[Minadin]

My local grocer has been out of tater tots for going on a month. Pretty certain those aren't stuck sitting off the Port of LA.

[RedvBlue]

I just picked up some tots yesterday. Everything's going great here in the People's Republic of Pennsylvania...

[m4019597]

Mine has tots, but low inventory of fabric dryer sheets.

[MatthewSlyfield]

The supply chain issue affect the whole stack, not just delivery of consumer ready goods. If paper plate manufacturers can't get the raw materials they need to make paper plates, they won't have paper plates to ship to retailers.

[Chumby]

Los Angeles also adding to shipping issues:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Osr8Yhvye8

[Cyto]

And sodas have been periodically in short supply. Prices are way up... the cheap price is now a buck and a half, up from a buck a year ago... and normal is moving to $2.50.

And still... our local bottler seems to be running into issues, because shelves are often short of supply.

[Illocust]

My family noticed that over the holidays when they actually ran into a Texas store without dr. Pepper. For non Texans, this is like finding out your store ran out of coke.

[Brandybuck]

See my story above. It's a distributor thing. Prices are up on everything, it's called inflation. Fuck Joe Biden and his inflation. But soda does not have a shortage from what I can see in my region. Something is going on with the distributors.

[SQRLSY One]

"They had beef tongue."

Sign on deli shop: "Our tongue sandwiches speak for themselves".

[Longtobefree]

Well, here's a clue in the history lesson; there were no gas lines in the seventies until the government implemented price controls.

[markm23]

Price controls weren't the main problem in the oil crisis that began in 1973, but a deeply stupid policy of allocating fuel by government fiat. If the supply of gasoline was down by x%, then each town had it's gasoline supply reduced from the pre-crisis amounts by x%. I lived in a Michigan town that lived mainly on tourism, and heard about gas lines only in the news from other areas. Our allocation was based on a normal year usage that filled both our own residents' cars and hundreds of thousands of tourist cars. The tourists weren't coming; in a normal year most of them were auto workers, who were now either laid off or saving their money because they might be laid off. Those that had the money and were willing to spend mostly stayed home because they were unsure about being able to buy gas. And with the tourist industry nearly dead, many people in our little town had no jobs to drive to and no money to buy gasoline. So our gas stations were overflowing, while 200 miles from us people were waiting hours in line to buy just a few gallons. And allowing the oil companies to re-direct gasoline from our town to where it was needed would have made it too complicated for top-down government regulators.

A free market approach would have worked much better - gasoline would have been shipped to different areas in proportion to how it was selling, prices would have risen enough to separate the buyers who really needed gasoline from those that only wanted it, and the oil companies would have had the cash to aggressively prospect for more oil. (They did that anyway, but on borrowed funds - and when all those new oil wells came on line the price of oil dropped so steeply that often the sale of oil from a new well was insufficient to pay the loans. In 1982, so many drillers went bankrupt that they took many banks down with them.)

Also, the oil companies learned something from the government response to this crisis (if they hadn't learned it already in the many previous "oil shortages" going back to the 1920's): NOT to look ahead and explore new oil fields while plenty of oil was flowing, so that they were set to expand production and make big profits when the supply became tight and prices began to rise. If they'd done that, the government would take away their extra oil and give it to the other oil companies that were completely unprepared. And so ever since then, about once a decade an utterly predictable shortage has caught _all_ oil companies completely by surprise...

[m4019597]

Interesting

[mad.casual]

No food? It could be worse. You could've brought a brand new Tesla that didn't have all of its brake pads installed!

Totality of circs makes it feel like late-stage communism.

[GroundTruth]

Jeeze.... maybe I should put in a few more rows of potatoes this spring?

[loki]

Cereal killers?

[Jerryskids]

Wait'll you see what American officials are willing to seize.

[SQRLSY One]

Your cheap plastic flute that was NOT prescribed for you?

To find precise details on what NOT to do, to avoid the flute police, please see http://www.churchofsqrls.com/DONT_DO_THIS/ … This has been a pubic service, courtesy of the Church of SQRLS!

Jerryskids, have you been blowing, AGAIN, on a “dangerous medical device” (AKA cheap plastic flute), WITHOUT the permission of your betters?!?! Is THAT what takes over your mind in cases like this? Hyperventilating on a cheap flute AGAIN, are we? This kind of crime breeds subversion and insurrection against AUTHORITAH, ya know!

Stay ye SAFE from the Flute Police!

[Chumby]

Cornography

[mad.casual]

C'mon man! Targeted to appeal to children? Child Cornography, obv.

[Chumby]

Pluggo might trade his clown costume for one of Tony the Tiger.

[SQRLSY One]

Actually not a bad idea! To make absolutely SURE that the Mexican Government Almighty deems your cereal-box decorations to be ADULT themed and not CHILD themed, plaster ADULT corny-porn all over those boxes!!!

[Longtobefree]

In an unrelated story, Mexican prisons announce new breakfast menus.

[Chumby]

El Chapo’s frosted flakes really give one that boost of energy they need in the morning.

[mad.casual]

That's a pretty good point. "Our cereal's advertising isn't targeted to appeal to children, it's targeted appeal to recreational drug/marijuana users!"

[Jerry B.]

Seriously, guys. Quit giving the Democrats ideas.

[The_Edge]

Some country, I think it was Mexico, prohibited pictures of things that are not the food in the container. Goes back to baby food with a smiling baby on the label. Literacy can be a good thing for societies.

[Chumby]

A smiling baby would make for good cover art on home abortion kits.

[GroundTruth]

"How do I like kids?.... Boiled or fried"

Mushed babies give me indigestion.