A Stitch in Haste

Care to guess what topic could generate such schizophrenia?

There's no telling how many calories the restaurant industry has expended running away from New York's pioneering attempt to improve the city’s health by requiring chain eateries to prominently display calorie information. Fortunately, the city health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden, shows no sign of relenting as he pushes the industry and consumers toward acting responsibly.

That's right: The nanny-statist War on Happy Meals, led by the second worst example of Kip's Law in New York City: Gesundheitsfuerher Thomas Frieden. (The worst example is of course Mayor Bloomberg himself.)

Imagine the following hypothetical:

"Hi, welcome to McWenbell's! May I take your order please?"

--"Yes, I'm tempted to try your new McStatin™ value meal, but first you could tell me how many calories and grams of fat it has, along with the cholesterol and sodium content?"

"Sorry no, I can't."

--"Oh. Okay, never mind. Bye."

Now, that scenario is, to the Times, utterly impossible. Educated consumers are a fiction. The enlightened bureaucrats of the Health Commission must veto the market and force fast food chains to offer a service (information) that its (many, many) customers have repeatedly demonstrated that they simply do not want. The market does not work...

...except when it does:

The big chains fighting the city might take a cue from Subway. The sandwich maker is using calorie counts as a marketing tool and a way to build on its reputation as a more healthful fast-food alternative. It has voluntarily posted calories where customers can easily see them, usually on the menu board.

So demand creates its own supply, and when it doesn't — the market is wrong?

Words have meaning, even in economics. "Market failure" is not whenever some pompous bureaucrat is unhappy with what people sell or buy. If a restaurant chain finds that its customers don't care about calories, then that is, by definition, the correct outcome. The fact that Frieden — or Bloomberg, or you or I — happen not to like it is irrelevant. We can cry in our diet cola at the local Subway shop.