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skeltoac

First name: Andy. Last name: Skelton.

Recently Heinz announced they have reformulated their tomato ketchup with about 15% less salt. Because they hold six tenths of the ketchup market, and because their recipe has not changed in nearly 40 years, this must have been a hard decision to make. They probably predicted some negative reactions. Why did they proceed?

Heinz altered their flagship product under pressure from politicians, but not yet under force of law. Here is an oversimplified economical argument for reformulating ketchup with less salt.

Everyone who uses ketchup on food or in recipes uses it, to some degree, because it adds a desired saltiness. If you didn’t want salt, you wouldn’t add ketchup; Q.E.D. However, many people desire less salt now than they once did. Let’s set aside the reasons and just take it as a given that a lot of people are trying to consume less sodium.

The amount of salt desired is a variable so I will use it as one axis of a graph. For the other axis I will use the volume of ketchup applied to achieve the desired amount of salt. Then we can draw the amount of salt per volume of va

I miss schoolFebruary 17

Matt misses school. I miss school, too. Sometimes I think about returning as a part-time or auditing student. I would definitely be a much better student now but what matters most is that I would be able to engage the teachers without fear. I used to be scared to say anything to a teacher.

I think that feeling stems from the way my second grade teacher scolded me for my precocious objection to her rule that “you can’t subtract a bigger number from a smaller number.” I went in knowing about negative numbers and I came out embarrassed and confused and unable to trust teachers.

I vowed that I would quit school as soon as I could. Fortunately I forgot about my vow until my third year in college.

Heartbeat at 17 weeksJanuary 11

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Interstate Commerce AbuseJanuary 8

Let’s make a deal. I am a private entity and you are a private entity. Can our transaction ever be called Commerce among States? Am I a State? Are you a State? No. We are private entities conducting a private transaction. Then what gives the Federal government the power to regulate our transactions? They claim that power derives from this clause:

[The Congress shall have the power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;

Regardless of our communication or trading across State borders, this clause does not refer to us. It refers to recognized bodies of government: Nations, States, and Indian tribes. We are not governments. We are private entities.

If the United States Congress has the power to regulate my Commerce then I’m a State and I demand my own Representative and two Senators.

Nowhere does the Constitution give Congress the power to regulate our transaction. To quote the Tenth Amendment, that power is “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” If there exists a State law respecting our transaction then we must obey that law. No Federal law can apply to our transaction because we never gave Congress that power.

The only reason the State government should get involved is if one of the parties to a transaction (you or I) accuses the other of a wrong and seeks recourse. The Federal government has no power to regulate our private Co

Vermont OfficeJanuary 4