The Biden Baby Formula Boatlift - An Absurd Nadir for Government Nanny-State

Watching US soldiers deliver German baby formula to the US delivers something else: A striking realization of how unfree we and the economy really are.

The sight of US military aircraft personnel unloading pallets of baby formula brought here from Germany is an almost perfect visual metaphor to the way the US populace has been infantilized into baby-like beggars, groveling at the feet of Big Brother, in virtually every way.

To focus on the “amount” of formula imported – even as the Bidenistas CONTINUE to impose jab mandate restrictions on truckers and shippers trying to bring goods into the US – is to buy into the false paradigm. It is neither constitutional (a reminder for those soldiers ordered to touch the stuff in the shipping process) nor enlightening when it comes to offering insight into the roots of the shortage.

But it sure will look great for the cameras set up by the sycophantic pop media…

And while they perform their meaningless rituals, we can take this moment to learn.

See, even though Biden last week pulled the unconstitutional stunt of invoking the 1950s era fraud of the “Defense Production Act” allowing him to follow Donald Trump’s “PPE” lead, sequester (i.e. steal) stuff, and push more businesses around, for some utterly inexplicable reason, his Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Sunday that she has no idea when the much-lamented “baby formula shortage” will end.

"’I don’t have a timeline for you yet,’ she continued. ‘We want to exp- — you know, make sure it goes very quickly, because it’s so critical.  And we know what — what families are going through.  I — but I don’t have an exact timeline.  Clear- — clearly, we want this to happen as fast as possible, as quickly as possible.’"

So goes the lament of every central-planner…

The return date for sufficient product is unclear, but what IS clear is that those who interfere with, or ordain themselves the overlords of, what are supposed to be peaceful market transactions do so at OUR peril, and the very act of imposing themselves in our affairs is perniciously immoral.

The reasons for the baby formula shortage are clear, and stem not only from the same poisonous garden as government-created fertilizer, gasoline, and steel shortages, but from additional government meddling and controls that have been targeted specifically at the baby formula market and to the benefit of both government growth and certain baby formula makers for decades.

First, we have the unconstitutional federal subsidy for “low-income” moms, the “Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, and Children,” aka, WIC. As economists know, when political forces begin calling the shots in what should be private market choices, big players will attempt “Rent Seeking,” using political connections to gain at the expense of competitors and consumers.

And, as Abby Vesoulis notes for Time (of all publications!):

“Through state agencies, WIC gives families earning at or below 185% the federal poverty line vouchers and electronic cards to purchase baby formula on the government’s dime. In 1989, Congress, hoping to keep WIC’s costs down, passed legislation requiring states to use competitive bidding to select one manufacturer of infant formula to be covered by WIC.”

And, you got it… Rent-seeking… found.

“Roughly half to two-thirds of formula purchased in the U.S. is bought through WIC, according to government estimates. With so many low-income parents relying on formula, the move by Congress led to the bid winners in each state dominating the formula market there. That spurred the kind of intense consolidation in the U.S. formula industry that has not been seen in many other parts of the world.

Since the single-contract rule was established more than 30 years ago, only three companies–Abbott, Gerber, and Mead Johnson—have received those WIC contracts. Their control over the market has disincentivized the creation of new brands, which is why the recent loss of Abbott’s products from store shelves has left many parents with few alternatives.”

And the loss of Abbott? The single Sturgis, Michigan, plant where they recently had a problem highlights another immoral, constitution-insulting government imposition: “safety control powers,” claimed by the Food and Drug Administration.

As Colin Lodewick writes for Yahoo Finance:

“On Feb. 17, Abbott voluntarily recalled its Sturgis-manufactured products and shut down the plant following reports that four infants fell ill from bacterial infection and two died after consuming formula produced in the plant.”

Of course, avoiding conclusions about potential cause-and-effect, Lodewick also notes:

“’The Cronobacter sakazakii that was found in environmental testing during the investigation was in non-product contact areas of the facility and has not been linked to any known infant illness,’ the company said in a statement.”

Lodewick reports that Abbott has held approximately 40 percent of the government-manipulated market for over ten years, so this problem in a single plant puts a big strain on the already screwed-up system. Candice Phelps, of the Sturgis Journal, reports that the FDA has magnanimously “allowed” the plant to reopen (because, of course, FDA stands for “Frequently Devine Agency”), but it will take nearly two months before the “okay” sees any real change in supply on the shelves.

That’s okay, because, in modern America, we’re supposed to look to all-powerful “Giver” Joe Biden to swoop in, take control, and treat us like babies, under the absurd “Defense Production Act.”

Okay.

Or, perhaps we could do more digging, and learn a few additional important points that offer lessons in government intervention, protectionism, and the way central planning always backfires.

As Gabrielle Beaumont-Smith writes for the Cato Institute:

“The United States subjects infant formula to tariffs up to 17.5 percent and tariff‐​rate quotas (TRQs).”

And…

“Absurdly, provisions were added to the United States‐​Mexico‐​Canada Agreement (USMCA) to restrict imports of formula from Canada, supposedly because China was investing in a baby food plant in Ontario, and this new production might eventually enter the U.S. market (heaven forbid!). Thus, the provisions in the USMCA’s agriculture annex establish confusing and costly TRQs on Canadian exports of infant formula, and the United States imported no baby formula from Canada in 2021.”

Remember, all of these import restrictions benefit US-based companies. They fall into the old canard of “we need to protect American jobs” – all at the expense of American consumers who could pay less, have money left over, and use that on other things to better their lives and employ more people. James Bovard covered the disastrous pain that US tariffs cause consumers in his book, “The Fair Trade Fraud,” and he exposed how US trade restrictions typically harm consumers eight times more than the particular politically-favored industry they are imposed to “help.”

I really want to make these government impositions clear, so let’s return to Ms. Beaumont-Smith:

“Making matters even worse, infant formula is subject to onerous U.S. regulatory (“non‐​tariff”) barriers. For example, the FDA requires specific ingredients, labeling requirements, and mandates retailers wait at least 90 days before marketing a new infant formula. Therefore, if U.S. retailers wanted to source more formula from established trading partners like Mexico or Canada, the needs of parents cannot be quickly met because of these wait times. Businesses also have little incentive to go through the onerous regulatory process to sell to American retailers, given the aforementioned tariffs and the relatively short duration of the current crisis.”

And she adds:

“The European Union (EU) is especially noteworthy in this regard. Many parents demand formula from the EU not only because of the current scarcity but because European formula meets other preferences, including a perceived higher quality, and more varieties like goat’s‑milk-based formula. Technically, it is illegal to import baby formula from the EU for commercial purposes, but parents can (and do) import it for personal use. Recently, the FDA recalled some European infant formula because it did not comply with FDA labeling requirements. It is agreed by many medical experts that the differences between American and European formula are minor and are not worth the expense imposed by these regulations.”

Forget freedom of speech. The government will tell you what you can and cannot say on a label.

And, finally:

“U.S. ‘marketing orders’ for milk throw in another regulatory wrench. These laws cover multiple classes of milk and establish a system for dairy farmers with price and income supports, and trade barriers.”

But will politicians and their ilk acknowledge the problem they created?

Of course not. Just-departed White House Press Sec Jen Psaki has claimed that parents who bought a lot of formula were “hoarding” – even as she derived her salary from cash forcibly taken from those parents and the tax-slave babies they just welcomed into the world.

Good thing she’s leaving to work in the corporate-political-shill sector for MSNBC.

There, she can continue her brain-numbing diatribes and keep assuming for the rest of us how we should live. She can define how much is too much. She, like her command-control friends, can ordain that a family buying X or Y amount of something is “good” or “bad”.

Perhaps she’ll even follow the rhetorical path laid down by NY City Mayor Eric Adams, who just issued an insane “Executive Order” to “prohibit price gouging.”

In other words, he is imposing price controls on baby formula.

And, as anyone familiar with economics goes, the moment politicians claim to “cap prices”, the supply of a product will be hit even harder, because:

A.    Consumers have lower incentive to conserve and ration their own purchases.

B.    Potential suppliers are prevented from seeing the higher price that signals them to enter a market to get some of that profit.

Of course, this is not a free market at all – neither generally, across the US, nor specifically, within the baby formula sector.

Heck, Abbot’s favored position as the leader of the WIC-Baby-Formula-Oligopoly saw it have a cozy relationship with the unconstitutional FDA until the problems at its Sturgis plant became too obvious to overlook.

As Jake Johnson reports for The Defender, Abbot years ago ran into cleanliness concerns. But what did it do? It continued to play within the government-inflated, fascistic-favored play pen, and try to massage shareholders:

“’Abbott detected bacteria eight times as its net profits soared by 94% between 2019 and 2021,’ The Guardian’s Tom Perkins reported. ‘And just as its tainted formula allegedly began sickening a number of babies, with two deaths reported, the company increased dividends to shareholders by over 25% while announcing a stock buyback program worth $5 billion.’”

And…

“Rakeen Mabud, the chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, told the newspaper that ‘Abbott chose to prioritize shareholders by issuing billions of dollars in stock buybacks instead of making productive investments.’

Perkins also observes what I noted earlier (and, again, it’s difficult to our own conclusions about causation):

“In late February, Abbott recalled a lot of its Similac PM 60/40 powdered formula that was manufactured at a plant in Sturgis, Michigan after an infant who consumed the product died of a cronobacter infection.”

But Perkins adds this:

“A whistleblower filing dated Oct. 19, 2021 suggests the bacteria outbreak was caused by equipment at the Sturgis plant that was ‘failing and in need of repair.’

‘A number of product flow pipes were pitting and leaving pinholes,’ the complaint reads.

‘This allowed bacteria to enter the system and, at times, led to bacteria not being adequately cleaned out in clean-in-place (‘CIP’) washes. This, in turn, caused product flowing through the pipes to pick up the bacteria that was trapped in the defective areas of the pipe.’

A footnote of the whistleblower document states that the ‘complainant was advised by an operator that leadership at the Sturgis site was aware of the failing equipment anywhere from five to seven years from the [bacteria outbreak] occurring.’”

Abbot and its oligopoly friends have had an easy ride – thanks to tariffs, government licenses, WIC welfarism, and regulatory capture.

Which lets us observe that source of the baby formula problem is clear.

While some critics might focus on the corporation, or personalize things by blaming the man in charge of the FDA – that being the bow-tie-sporting Commissioner Robert Califf – such limited views miss the mark and do a disservice to the US Constitution (which does not provide for anything remotely like an FDA), economic fundamentals, and moral principles.

In a nation that is one of the richest on Earth, parents are encountering a formula shortage because the government of that nation has adopted the central planning model of Soviet Russia.

The Biden Baby Food Boatlift can show people.

And let’s hope they learn, because millions and millions already learned the tragic lessons of those collectivist mistakes.