True, we have way too many thematic versions of Monopoly. I'm still missing so many copies.

In many European countries, the largest restaurant chain is American. Not great.

Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.

The article says 80% of the lawsuits were in Mexico and ~3% were in America.

I think chess and scrabble are more popular here

I believe this is the second best time to start a business in America. The first was colonial times.

it's an extension of our crony capitalism problem, where the free market is just an illusion

Don't they still need to win to get paid?

I'm not in love with the system, but it does seem like a last resort for imposing discipline on corporations. The dilemma is whether the tort system is preferable to an approach involving more regulation and enforcement.

> incentivized lawyers to pursue dubious cases

I don't see it:

Class-action suits require the law firm owners (partners) to pay teams of attorneys, as well as experts, and others for years. I saw one firm rent an office and hire dozens of attorneys just to review the tens of millions of pages of documents, looking for evidence. The firm earns nothing unless and until a positive resolution. Some firms require financing to cover the cost.

Who is going to put all that on the line - not to mention their career and reputation - for a dubious case?

When the resolution comes - usually a settlement - they might not profit or not much for their years of investment and effort. If they pursue a 'dubious' case, they could lose everything - courts can even sanction them.

Targets of class action suits don't like them, of course, and try to denigrate the attorneys. What else will deter and get justice for some of the brazen fraud? The SEC? FTC? They don't have the resources or, depending on the administration, the mandate to enforce things across the entire country. Will you sue a corporation for even $10K? Try it.

This report is about something completely different

People have to learn to recognize the patterns.

In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid out to themselves as wages/compensation), they put together and release "reports", "studies", etc., that push the messaging the NGO was created to push.

Mexico is serious about junk food.

The cereal boxes in the stores don't have cute cartoon characters on them, and I tried to send somebody a box of chocolates and it got seized by customs.

Candy is labeled like cigarettes.

I don’t know that the lack of information should lead you to assume that the Mexico lawsuits are justified. From what I’ve read, they’re contesting (among other things) the mandated black octagon on the front of packaging that says “exceso calorías” or “exceso azucáres” (excessive calories and sugar) and also bans on advertising to children. The cases that have already been decided have overwhelmingly been in favor of the government.

I realize “just” is very subjective, but I think that mandatory “excessive sugar” markers is a proportional response to the obesity and diabetes epidemic. Ultimately society has to bear the externalities of this stuff. And I think advertising any products to kids is a bit of a moral hazard.

Maybe Mexico got it’s shit together and started doing something about the obesity crisis and the food industry is desperately trying to keep the status quo ?

Or maybe, to paraphrase the famous tweet, this is actually a plucky band of Mexican fizzy drinks manufacturers who are determined to expose the lies of 97% of the worlds health scientists.

McGovern is not someone to hold up, but that's not the quote.

It was: "I would only argue that senators don't have the luxury that a research scientist does awaiting until every last shred of evidence is in"

I would say the idea aged poorly in the USA. Older generation of politicians were more welcoming to experts in their fields.

Now they reject the experts. Either to a please their voter base or for personal profit. Big grocery has more money for political donations / legal bribery.

USA Supreme Court conservative judges have ruled that expertise has no value in a ruling against protecting the environment from toxic chemicals.

US had a whole agency that worked with politicians to understand technology until the 90's and Newt got rid of it.

Came here to see if anyone was discussing the infographics, but oddly enough because I found them incredibly distracting and in that zone of "pretty to look at but taking too long to comprehend well, if at all". To each their own!

There's a large subsection of people that choose various vices. Gambling, drugs, alcohol (I repeat), soda and junk food. To folks that do not partake in these things, it's bizarre behavior. Literally none of those appeal to me, but there's clearly profit to be made supplying them.

Free clean water isn’t available many places so would you rather spend your money on water or a sugar hit? I’m with you on water though it’s so delicious.

Are you asking why people can't seem to stop? Or why you seem to possess that ability? Both are biologically mechanistic like all behavior. Probably similar to why some people will kill for heroine while many don't. Or maybe the same reason your gut bacteria can process certain foods others would die from (peanuts), it's environment plus biology in a complex set of local minima that cause repeated behaviors. Is it surprising a biological system optimized to gorge sugary food as late as 200 years ago struggles to stop now? You may have well starved if you ate just one helping while food was available, discipline around food would be a fools pursuit (like intentionally drinking less water than your fill at an oasis).

Good for you. Can you please convince anyone to do the same?

Sugar water and junk food taste good and people like myself crave that sweet flavor.

If I'm not careful, I can easily and comfortably guzzle liters of soda in a day.

It's less a hard thing and more a "I'm on autopilot right now, I'm thirsty, and there's a can of soda in the fridge" thing. A similar thing happens with junk food. If I'm hungry, on autopilot, and it's available. I'll probably grab junk food because it's fast, convenient, and tastes good.

You are abnormal for not being able to finish 1 can of soda in a year. Nothing is wrong with you for being like that, you are simply an outlier. There's a reason why Coke is one of the most wealthy businesses in the world.

Different people have different susceptibilities to getting addicted. And once addicted different people have different amount of brainspace left in their life to quit addictions, also depending on how hard the rest of society makes it to quit.

So, there is neither something wrong with you, nor with everyone else.

It is, indeed, for some people. It's a core part of why GLP-1 drugs work wonders for some people. Shutting up the "little fat person constantly telling your brain it needs food" is liberating if you have those urges.

Disclaimer: I'm highly biased.

I think sugar is an addictive substance just like coffee, and tobacco/alcohol. Sugar and coffee are easier to shake than tobacco or alcohol. If you manage to stay off of it for a few days, you're back to normal. But it's socially acceptable to have a sweet tooth so most people, like with coffee, just keep "using". Some people don't get addicted to things as easily as others. Perhaps you're just one of them?

Most of my information comes from this doctor, Robert Lustig. Here's the latest podcast he was on if you're interested: https://youtu.be/BhEsYJ6gEHY. At around the hour-mark, he starts talking about the addiction side of sugar. There are talks with him that go way back. Around 17 years IIRC.

He's a bit peculiar I suppose, and seems to be on some sort of a crusade against "big food" and "big sugar", but I really sympathize with the guy.

Yes, it's really hard for people that already regularly drink sugar water to quit the sugar water, but it's not very hard for those that don't drink it regularly to abstain indefinitely. The reason is the gut microbome, which drives your cravings. If you regularly drink it, you have more of the types of gut bacteria that consume it, and they tell your brain to give them more. If you don't regularly drink it, you don't have enough of those types of bacteria to make a dent in your cravings. In other words, you really are what you eat (or more precisely you are what eats what you eat).

Is it really that hard for people to stop doom scrolling or to stop inhaling or drinking dangerous chemicals?

They aren't selling these foods and coincidentally they are addictive. They have chosen the most addictive foods to sell - that's what makes them the most money. It turns out prune juice doesn't sell as well as soda, so that guy got fired.