13 May 2009 @ 11:59PM >> Cheerios. It’s a tough habit to break.

I should know. I’ve been there.

There have been many nights when my dessert consisted of a bowl of Cheerios. On certain nights, two or more.

So I understand how hard it is to extricate oneself from the clutches of such a potent addiction.

I understand why Our Benevolent Nanny, the federal government, treats Cheerios like a drug:

The FDA has sent a warning letter to General Mills, telling the company that its claims about the health benefits of eating Cheerios “would cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease.”

The problem: Cheerios are a food not a drug, the FDA notes in the letter, which was sent May 5 but was posted on the agency’s website today. Thus, claims that the 68-year-old whole-grain oat cereal lowers cholesterol and reduces the risk of heart disease and cancer violates federal law, the agency said.

[...]

The FDA was particularly unhappy about assertions on Cheerios boxes and its website that eating the cereal can “lower your cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks.” The FDA counters that the cereal must be approved as a drug before making such specific health claims.

General Mills spokesman Tom Forsythe said the cholesterol-lowering claim has been featured on the Cheerios box for more than two years and that the heart health claim was approved by the FDA 12 years ago. On April 20, General Mills announced results of a clinical study that showed eating two daily servings of Cheerios (1 1/2 cups each) can reduce cholesterol 10% in just a month.

“The science is not in question,” he said. “The scientific body of evidence supporting the heart health claim was the basis for FDA’s approval of the heart health claim, and the clinical study supporting Cheerios’ cholesterol-lowering benefits is very strong.”

Forsythe said the company looks forward “to discussing this with the FDA and to reaching a resolution.” General Mills faces seizure of products or an injunction against making and distributing Cheerios.

As the Los Angeles Times reports the story, it seems that the government’s complaint about the cholesterol claim isn’t that it is false. The problem, according to the FDA, is that because Cheerios is effective at lowering cholesterol, idiots might get confused and mistake a bowl of Cheerios for a pile of Lipitor.

According to government regulations, if Cheerios provides the health benefits claimed, that fact itself is all that’s needed for the government to treat it as a drug. Nevermind that it isn’t a drug. Nevermind that, for decades, schoolchildren have understood that Cheerios is food. Nevermind that. This is the government and the rules must be enforced, common sense be damned.

Anyone who looks at a box of Cheerios and sees a product “intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease” is type of person whose mortgage I’ll end up paying someday. So screw him. If he can’t distinguish between cereal and medication, then let him get ripped off for that $5 a week habit, I say. Consider it stimulus by stupidity.

After all, what’s good for General Mills is good for America.

12 May 2009 @ 9:22PM >> Yeah, let’s trust our health care to the same people responsible for this:

Millions of Americans on Social Security are receiving $250 checks as part of the president’s stimulus plan — including an Anne Arundel [County, Maryland] woman who died more than 40 years ago.

The woman’s son, 83-year-old James Hagner, said he got the surprise when he checked his mailbox late last week.

“It shocked me and I laughed all at the same time,” Hagner said. “I don’t even expect to get one my own self, and I get one for my mother for 43 years ago?”

His mother, Rose, died on Memorial Day in 1967.

12 May 2009 @ 9:21PM >> Courtesy of the Associated Press:

The government will have to borrow nearly 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year, exploding the record federal deficit past $1.8 trillion under new White House estimates.

11 May 2009 @ 8:27AM >> Chrysler, the car company that will soon be owned by the federal government and the powerful union partially responsible for driving the company into the ground, is no longer honoring “lemon law” settlements to buyers of bad cars:

Chrysler’s bankruptcy is throwing a wrench into California’s lemon law, which is intended to make it easier for consumers to get refunds for defective vehicles. As the automaker’s bankruptcy grinds away, settlement checks from Chrysler to unhappy car buyers are bouncing and complaints are stymied in and out of court.

Consumer advocates say the situation could erode public confidence in buying new cars at precisely the time the automakers need customers in their showrooms. And Chrysler says it has yet to do anything to resolve the issue.

[...]

State lemon laws, such as the one passed by California in the early 1980s, make it easier for consumers to get refunds for defective vehicles that are still covered by a manufacturer’s warranty.

Under the California law, new or used vehicles that have a defect that can’t be repaired after four attempts — or two, in the case of life-threatening defects — or that have been out of service for 30 days during the warranty period may be designated “lemons.” That triggers an obligation for the manufacturer to either pay the owner a cash settlement or buy back the vehicle.

[...]

Alex Simanovsky, an Atlanta attorney whose firm handles lemon law cases in California and other states, said he had “a stack of six or seven checks in my drawer right now from Chrysler that have bounced.” The amounts range from $2,000 to $3,000 for clients who were accepting cash payments to as much as $40,000 in cases where Chrysler agreed to repurchase the vehicle.

[...]

San Diego attorney Ellen Turnage represents a client who reached a settlement with Chrysler over a 2006 Dodge Magnum with a bad suspension. The car has been returned to Chrysler, but the automaker’s check bounced.

“Now he’s got no car and no money, so he can’t go buy a new one,” Turnage said of her client. “He’s stuck. We’re hanging on to a glimmer of hope that at some point this will all be resolved.”

Apparently, the Obama administration doesn’t mind seeing Chrysler’s customers screwed, probably for the same reason that they don’t mind seeing Chrysler’s lenders get screwed. The only important thing is that the United Auto Workers union gets its big payoff for their vigorous support of Obama’s candidacy.

Unfortunately, the lesson consumers may draw from this story is, don’t buy cars from an American car company.

6 May 2009 @ 9:29AM >> History is rife with examples of mafia ties to labor unions. Now, President Obama is using mafia tactics to steal from bondholders and give the loot to one of his biggest source of campaign funds, labor unions:

The President has just harshly castigated hedge fund managers for being unwilling to take his administration’s bid for their Chrysler bonds. He called them “speculators” who were “refusing to sacrifice like everyone else” and who wanted “to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.”

[...]

The President and his team sought to avoid having Chrysler go [the normal bankruptcy] process, proposing their own plan for re-organizing the company and partially paying off Chrysler’s creditors. Some bond holders thought this plan unfair. Specifically, they thought it unfairly favored the United Auto Workers, and unfairly paid bondholders less than they would get in bankruptcy court. So, they said no to the plan and decided, as is their right, to take their chances in the bankruptcy process. But, as his quotes above show, the President thought they were being unpatriotic or worse.

[...]

The President’s attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him. Why is he not calling on his party to “sacrifice” some campaign contributions, and votes, for the greater good? Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power.

Yesterday, I mentioned the threats made by the Obama Administration against groups that lent money to Chrysler through bond holdings. More sources are contradicting the White House, which denied they made such threats:

Creditors to Chrysler describe negotiations with the company and the Obama administration as “a farce,” saying the administration was bent on forcing their hands using hardball tactics and threats.

Conversations with administration officials left them expecting that they would be politically targeted, two participants in the negotiations said.

Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions.

The sources, who represent creditors to Chrysler, say they were taken aback by the hardball tactics that the Obama administration employed to cajole them into acquiescing to plans to restructure Chrysler. One person described the administration as the most shocking “end justifies the means” group they have ever encountered. Another characterized Obama was “the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet- and I knew Kissinger.” Both were voters for Obama in the last election.

It’s interesting that President Obama only uses these mafia-like tactics with fellow law-abiding citizens whose only “crime” is finding themselves opposed to Obama on one issue or another.

When it comes to thugs like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez, suddenly Obama becomes Mr. Warm-and-Fuzzy, and it’s all smiles, handshakes and backslaps.

4 May 2009 @ 11:01PM >> New York Post columnist Irwin M. Stelzer notes that President Obama “said last week that he’d override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler’s senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers.”

Stelzer continues:

Obama forced the senior lenders to take something like 30 cents for every dollar they’d lent Chrysler. Many lenders — the big banks who’d taken federal bailout money — rolled over. But some hedge-fund managers pointed out that they have a legal, fiduciary responsibility to do the best they can for their investors (which include pension funds) and decided to take their chances with a bankruptcy judge.

Never mind that this is their long-established legal right. Obama is furious with these “speculators,” and hinted that he knows where they live and will get even when the new financial-industry regulations are drafted.

This continued antagonism towards America’s business community may not be in the country’s best long-term interests, Stelzer points out:

[T]he president is counting on some of these “speculators” to partner with the Treasury and take a big stake in the toxic assets that are preventing the big banks from resuming normal lending. Unprotected by a rule of law, these investors will sit on their assets, rather than partner with a government that might some day decide, after the fact, that they made too much money, or should bear a larger portion of any losses than they had signed on to do.

Meanwhile, a prominent bankruptcy attorney, White & Case’s Tom Lauria, alleges White House threats against an opponent of the government’s Chrysler takeover plan:

One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.

The most interesting thing about Lauria’s claim is that the Obama official threated to sic the White House Press Corps on offending “speculators.”

In theory, the White House Press Corps is an independent body, an arm of the press and not the Obama Administration. What would give this official the idea that the press corps would blindly do the administration’s bidding?

Perhaps the press could prove its independence by digging into this story a little bit deeper. (The White House has issued a blanket denial, but the varying accounts don’t add up.)

Nevertheless, I can certainly understand why an administration official might mistakenly conclude the hard-hitting media was merely an extension of Barack Obama’s PR apparatus.

1 May 2009 @ 9:04AM >> Just because the media is trying to convince everyone that Barack Obama is the most popular president in American history doesn’t make it true:

Gallup reports that 56% of the public believes that Obama is doing an excellent/good job. Gallup reported 62% approved of George W. Bush’s job performance after the first 100 days.

I don’t put much stock in polls; careful tweaking of words and phrasing are well-known ways to produce whatever outcome you might want to see. The media seem to be obsessed with polling, though, so we should at least be aware of the games they’re playing.

And if Obama’s about as popular as Bush was at the same point in is presidency, how popular with Obama be by the time he leaves office?