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Obamacare regulations to destroy craft beer industry

Finding out what’s in it: The cost to meet Obamacare regulations requiring beer companies to include specific calorie information on every beer they make is likely going to destroy many small local beer breweries.

As of December 2016, all brewers must include a detailed calorie count on every type of beer they produce. Failure to comply with the new regulations means craft brewers will not be able to sell their beer in any restaurant chain with over 20 locations. Because this is a major market for selling beer, it hamstrings smaller craft brewers if they do not comply.

The Cato Institute estimates the Obamacare calorie labeling requirements will cost a business as much as $77,000 to implement. For larger beer companies, this is a drop in the bucket, but for small, local craft brewers it represents a significant cost that they must pay. As a result, it creates a significant disadvantage compared to larger beer companies who can better absorb the cost of this new regulation.

But hey, who cares if a major thriving industry should be destroyed by Obamacare. The Democrats passed it because they care. And caring is all that matters, no matter what the consequences.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

10 comments

  • Phill O

    But the analytical laboratories make some money!

    Reality check: it seems the liberals want to destroy the small competitor so that only the big guys survive. Obama has gone after the farming community so that the family farm using their kids to help, are under pressure.

  • Cotour

    Related because men love beer:

    This is an example of how the media attempts to further feminize men in America.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/19/men-may-not-bleed-but-here-s-why-they-have-periods.html

    Men are no longer in a “bad” mood they are having their “men” periods? Males from their teens struggle to define themselves as men related to the culture that they find themselves immersed in, thinking like this only helps to further confuse the issue for them. The attempt to manipulate the zeitgiest that tells men that they are women and that men and women are the same (they are not, thank God) is an overt and thinly veiled manipulation and further threatens our culture. A pure Left agenda.

    I sometimes fantasize that all of the left thinking people who tend to intellectualize existence, both male and female, would form their own country and all move there. I suspect that within a year most would be dead and the remaining survivors would move back after their re-instruction properly transformed.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “I sometimes fantasize that all of the left thinking people who tend to intellectualize existence, both male and female, would form their own country and all move there.”

    Isn’t that the California experiment? Left thinking people have taken over, but it was much more of a paradise before they did. Kind of like Detroit, 60 years ago.

    In fact, that is what happened to Detroit. The left thinking people saw that beautiful, prosperous city; declared it an example of left thinking; took it over; and destroyed it (unlike most cities in the US, it has half the population as it did in 1960, and much of its industry has moved away).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw (13 minutes)

    It takes more than a year to kill prosperity, but that is why the socialists believe that a country has to be capitalist in order for communism to work — communism wouldn’t really work, but it would take longer to destroy a prosperous country than an average one. It took seven decades for the Soviet Union to collapse.

    And now Obama’s fascist-style healthcare is slowly destroying America’s industries.

    On the other hand, Left thinking people did exactly as you suggested. That experiment was done in a new land, starting from scratch. And it is documented in William Bradford’s papers. It almost killed the whole lot of them, but they changed their ways from socialism to capitalism, and every year we celebrate their adoption of this successful economic model. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

  • Timarth

    Edward – I agree, but in my opinion, California (and manhattan for that matter) is different because the tourism industry, the big businesses who like a CA/NY corporate address, and the constant influx of high-earning-young-professionals that spend obscene money on frivolous things allows the local and state governments to collect enough money to sustain these experimental policies. If cities in lesser-destination type cities (like Detroit) institute these policies, it only takes a mere 5 or 6 decades to collapse. But a place like California can probably last twice as long or longer. Unfortunately, that length of time provides evidence for the left that their policies work because they are so short sighted.

    Phill O – Also agreed. The unintended consequences that these large government policies tend to produce is to ensure that the only survivors of their policies are the big boys. It is at least slightly ironic that the people that hate companies like wal-mart are also the same people that support politicians that enact regulations which only the wal-marts of the world can survive.

  • Cotour

    With the bountiful foundation of capitalism providing the funds to experiment the parasitic leftists position themselves and feed. There is NO other way, they are unable to rise above what they are.

    It remains to be seen whether Trump, if he indeed becomes the president, (Or anyone else for that matter) rises above and becomes more than he is or is and remains a slave to his human ego.

    Time will tell the tale, we have come to know what Obama is a slave to, his leftist ideology.

  • Cotour

    If you remember I previously posted about a teacher who was instructed to address all children in her interactions without indicating gender in any way so as not to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I again saw her tonight and she sent me a video that she identified strongly with.

    http://www.ijreview.com/2015/11/469710-the-future-of-american-education-in-one-disturbing-video-that-shows-what-is-happening-to-our-kids/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=ijwrap&utm_medium=owned

    This satire is where all of this insane thinking leads. Someone in a leadership position must have the strength, gravitas and vision to put a stop to it.

  • Jon

    I’m curious what the exact reporting rules are, and more importantly, the penalties for mis-reporting. Obviously the reporting is there because more calories are bad; at least in our federal government’s opinion. No (or very few) drinker of craft beers care about the calories in the craft beer. Perhaps the brewers can simply label comfortably on the high side of any beer and be in compliant?

  • Joe

    Edward, with regards to Crowder’s view of Detroit, I think this was intended by the left, it was always to lower the standard of living to third world nations, the elites have always wanted this for America and Detroit was the birthplace of this hatred towards a first world nation, this was an experiment to see what leftist policies could do to what was an amazing place.

  • Cotour

    Joe,

    The Democrats / Socialists did not intend for the destruction that has occurred in Detroit, they certainly do intend the dependency, but not the destruction. The American leftist believes that the freedom and riches that exist in America are just a result of the fact that they exist and are able to think, never mind capitalism and the Constitution. The dependency can only be supported for a certain amount of time and then total destruction must follow. Tiny little Detroit is a metaphor for America as a whole.

    The leftist, all leftists are here to figure out the “proper” way to spend the rewards of capitalism in there estimation. Socialism and communism are unable to produce what capitalism produces, but they are willing to hijack capitalism when it gets perverted and sell the idea that socialism and communism is of course what capitalism has been looking for all the while. We are here to fix what must be fixed in our capitalist country, not look to Socialism and Communism as the next obvious step in its evolution. That is what is being sold and some people think it sounds reasonable.

    So was it the intention of the people who ran Detroit for it to become an urban wasteland? No, not at all, what Detroit is now is an opportunity for capitalism to repopulate and rebuild. Government get out of the way!

  • Edward

    I appreciate the discussion.

    The philosophy of socialism, just as with Obamacare (oops, that is just repeating myself), is “from each according to his ability; to each according to his need.” The “from each” takes place in the form of taxes, where the tax rate progressively increases with increases earnings (more able to give to the government for redistribution). Thus, those who are able to be most productive give the most.

    The “to each” takes place by giving to those who are needy — by somebody’s definition of needy, usually those who are least productive and earn less.

    Detroit, Plymouth Colony, the Soviet Union, and other examples (China, Cuba, North Korea) did not prosper, even if they were prosperous before. Businesses moved away, closed, or were never built (“you didn’t build that” takes a new meaning), so prosperity was fleeting.

    Different places face different challenges for different reasons. Plymouth Colony had nothing at all to fall back on when the socialist system failed, so they had to change immediately or die. The Soviets had their farms, but they eventually were accepting food from the US. Detroit had to be bailed out by Michigan (and maybe by the federal government, I haven’t researched that) when they went belly up a year or so ago. Tourist money can help out (Mexico has “reverse tourism” as its population sends cash from the US to Mexico), but as the needy become needier and the place becomes less attractive, the tourism and other remaining industry eventually fails to supply all the needs, even when half the population has move away (or is it because the productive moved away?).

    China and India are prospering as they move closer to free market capitalism (though I do not expect either to recognize their salvation through an annual holiday, as we do), but Cuba and North Korea have stagnated and degraded as Detroit has (what car is the most popular model and year in these two countries, and how many sell each year?).

    Now we have small breweries facing tens of thousands of dollars of additional expenses for each type of brew. This certainly will result in a reduced number of types of brew available to the public, no matter whether it is legal to *lie* and label calories comfortably on the high side, report a lower nutrition content, or label conservatively any other health or safety warning that may be required in the future. The point is that it is going to be more expensive per pint, and experimentation with new brews will be hampered (and maybe building new breweries hampered, too; what did I say, above, about not building that?)

    The current implementation of these calorie counts is ludicrous. Look at the menu, sometime, and tell me the calories in the soft drink you are ordering. You may be able to figure out if it is on the lower side (zero, or close to it, if it is diet) or the high side, but does it help you to count the calories you consume today? How about the toppings on your pizza; it says 10 to 100 calories per topping, but which are low and which are high? Why are the small chain restaurants exempt from calorie counts due to the cost, but the small breweries are not?

    What about that turkey dinner you are going to eat, next Thursday? How many calories are you going to over-stuff yourself with that day? What about those pies (mmm, those sweet, delicious, high-calorie pies!)? What is your desert plan? Mine is to eat eight generous slices of the different pies (though I will probably get a sugar stomach-ache after only four, again this year).

    The point is that the calorie count barely works even if you are truly counting calories. What really matters is the actual weight you measure on your “walk of shame,” the next morning, as you step onto the bathroom scale. The restaurant (or brew-pub) calorie count does not matter if you overeat at home, where the calories are harder to count.

    It is said that the smartest people go into business, the mediocre into science (a PhD is only mediocre?), and the stupid into government (sorry for the unfair generalization, NASA), and the way government is run, the last part must certainly be true (again, my apologies to NASA). It certainly explains all of Obamacare and why the EPA just polluted much of the southwestern US.

    We have been Grubered. They control more, and our freedom is less.

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