A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Just add water and presto! You can turn the baby formula shortage into a … racist attack on immigrants?
I’m researching the possibility Jewish space lasers may play a part in this.
Well shucks, I’ll have to settle for second.
Somebody didn’t read the labels.
Just like that you can turn the baby formula shortage into a … racist attack on immigrants?
Never mind that there are only three manufacturers in the country and one got shut down because of contamination that they haven’t resolved yet.
Never mind that import rules were written during the TFG administration to prevent import of Canadian formula.
Never mind that the FDA can’t agree with the EU rules for formula, which are more stringent and safer for infants.
Never mind that the federal government spends more on seniors than it does on children, as a whole, and the GQP turned down an effort to make it a bit more equitable.
Nope. Let’s blame Biden and immigrants.
What’s Behind America’s Shocking Baby-Formula Shortage? - The Atlantic
FDA Investigation of Cronobacter Infections: Powdered Infant Formula (February 2022) | FDA
Why is the U.S. government calling good old red-blooded American dust storms “haboobs” all of a sudden? SAY NO TO SHARIA WEATHER!!!
The name should be outlawed because it has the word “boob” in it and that’s uncomfortably close to CRT.
Seems legit.
Oh, don’t forget to punch a random, elderly Chinese woman. She has to have something to do with all this. Points for doing it on a bus or airplane. Double bonus points if she’s standing in front of a police station.
MAGA!!!
What I don’t get is this shortest of baby formula, back in the day mothers made their own with Carnation milk (I know I am showing my age) so why can’t they do that now?
Those images of Sag A* are nothing short of amazing.
It may hubris, but I believe the only purpose of sentience is to allow some portion of the universe to begin to understand (and be awed by) the universe.
Now, if we could just stop trying to kill ourselves off, maybe we could get back to our purpose.
ETA: I am not fully convinced that H. sapiens sapiens is either of fully domesticated or fully sentient.
The same Republicans who endlessly recite the mantra of deregulation ignore the fact that one of their beloved artificial persons, er, corporations decided to cut costs in the manufacturing of baby formula and let contaminated formula get on the shelves.
And we shouldn’t be having young children learning that there are such things as boobs anyway. Plenty of time for that after college.
Damn, Kentucky, that’s a couple of fine patriotic senators you’ve elected. There should be headlines throughout the state “Putin Pulls Paul’s Strings”.
Any comment Moscow Mitch?
Mexicans have an awesome way to refer to the likes of Elon Musk…Es puro pájaro nalgón (He is just a big ass bird)*
(*) Posers that talk a lot and don’t follow through.
Monitoring this situation on social media, because I don’t have any infants in the family anymore, there’s a degree of safety in making one’s own. Saw something yesterday where someone posted a recipe and a responder insisted ‘please don’t’.
I don’t know enough about it to know whether this is rabble rousing or a serious issue.
Look, if a cell phone and microwave aren’t involved you can just forget this “make it yourself” nonsense.
And then they should be known only as “dirty pillows.”
And by the same bunch phonies that say that every live is sacred and every fetus protected.
Don’t forget the part about how the supply has been controlled by the lack of providers - there are three in the country and none is allowed to be imported.
An interesting report in newsletter I received this am:
The baby formula business has something in common with many other U.S. industries: It is highly concentrated.
Three companies — Abbott, Gerber and Reckitt — make nearly all of the formula that Americans use. Abbott is the largest of the three, with roughly 40 percent of the market.
Over the past few decades, this kind of corporate concentration has become more common in the U.S. economy, and it tends to be very good for companies. They face less competition, allowing them to keep prices higher and wages lower. Thomas Philippon, an economist at N.Y.U., refers to this trend as “the great reversal.” The subtitle of his 2019 book on the subject is “How America Gave Up on Free Markets.”
For workers and consumers, concentration is often problematic. The baby-formula shortage is the latest example. If the market had more producers, a problem at any one of them might not be such a big deal. It’s even possible the problem would not happen at all.
“Abbott does not fear consumers will flee,” Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, which advocates less concentration, told me. “And it does not fear government, which has a pathetic track record when it comes to holding powerful corporations and executives accountable.”
It certainly is awe-inspiring. That’s the hub of the galaxy right there. But me, I don’t look for a purpose, at this late date. We just happen to be here, bystanders. Doesn’t seem to diminish the awe, which is worth the price of admission IMHO.