cases like this infuriate people<\/a> is we know what\u2019s going on behind the curtain.<\/p>\nThe public wants to be protected from impure food.\u00a0 The customers in the lobby can\u2019t see what\u2019s going on in the kitchen.\u00a0 Commercial food preparation is hidden from view, it\u2019s not transparent, we can\u2019t evaluate how much risk we\u2019re taking.\u00a0 So we empower the government to inspect food preparers, to make sure they are sanitary.\u00a0 Safe food preparers get a permit to sell to the public.\u00a0 The $30 fee is supposed to cover the cost of inspections.<\/p>\n
A kid selling bottled water from his porch is different because his food preparation is transparent.\u00a0 We can see the seal on the lid.\u00a0 We know the risk we\u2019re taking.\u00a0 And even if it\u2019s a kid selling Dixie Cups of Country Time lemonade poured from a pitcher, we can see the kid and judge the likelihood he\u2019s infected our drink with salmonella or E. Coli.\u00a0 We can decide whether to take our chances.\u00a0 In that case, we don\u2019t need the government to inspect the kid\u2019s kitchen and the kid shouldn\u2019t need a permit to sell to the public.<\/p>\n
If the public can make that distinction, instinctively and automatically, why can\u2019t the bureaucrat?\u00a0 Because the food preparers who had to pay for the permit will complain that letting the kid sell without a permit is not fair, the kid is cutting into their business, the bureaucrat should level the playing field.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a public health issue, that\u2019s rent-seeking and it pisses people off.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
People learn.<\/p>\n
Bureaucrats and bureaucracies, it seems, never do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: The reason that cases like this infuriate people is we know what\u2019s going on behind the curtain. The public wants to be protected from impure food.\u00a0 The customers in the lobby can\u2019t see what\u2019s going on in the kitchen.\u00a0 Commercial food preparation is hidden from view, it\u2019s not transparent, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-tyranny","category-unions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67742,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67737\/revisions\/67742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}