View Poll Results: Do you eat Hershey's and/or Nestle's chocolate?

Voters
153. You may not vote on this poll
  • Yes, I eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, and yes, I know how they get their cocoa beans

    14 9.15%
  • Yes, I eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, but no, I don't know how they get their cocoa beans

    103 67.32%
  • No, I don't eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, because I just don't eat chocolate

    20 13.07%
  • No, I don't eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, because I know how they get their cocoa beans

    16 10.46%
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Thread: Who eats Hershey's and or Nestle's Chocolate?

  1. #241
    This thread made me buy a candy bar today. I got the Chocolate Hazelnut bar at Aldis, it says it's made in Austria.



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  3. #242
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    Not necessarily. Companies usually don't do this kind of thing unless there's a real market demand for it. It may not seem like much, but there is cost involved in adding information to a label. The designer has to create it and then add it to the existing template. This may even involve creating custom colors (spot colors)! Then the printer has to adjust the press and various settings accordingly. Perhaps create new plates, depending on the type of press used. Does it need to have fancy embossing, foil, etc? More cost. You get the idea.
    Dove paid not only to obtain a RFA certification, but also to add the logo to their wrapper, which includes an entirely new color.

  4. #243
    You can say and do what you want about the way Africa treats its own, but if you boycot Nestles or whatever, you might be harming a poor man in Brazil who works in the Nestles factory there, or the farmers who supply the milk. Big economic impact if Nestles shuts down there.

    Here in the US, we are financially comfortable enough not to need to work in the chocolate industry and can make other choices with our dollars and our labor. It might be wise to take the focus off of Africa, which certainly won't change the way it does business, and see who else is hurt or helped by that decision.

    I'm not criticizing anyone's choice. I'm just saying that Africa has a history of mistreating its own folks for power and profit. Maybe its the libertarian thing to do to let them do what they want and look at the impact on places that have improving human rights records.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  5. #244
    Quote Originally Posted by tobismom View Post
    You can say and do what you want about the way Africa treats its own, but if you boycot Nestles or whatever, you might be harming a poor man in Brazil who works in the Nestles factory there, or the farmers who supply the milk. Big economic impact if Nestles shuts down there.

    Here in the US, we are financially comfortable enough not to need to work in the chocolate industry and can make other choices with our dollars and our labor. It might be wise to take the focus off of Africa, which certainly won't change the way it does business, and see who else is hurt or helped by that decision.


    I'm not criticizing anyone's choice. I'm just saying that Africa has a history of mistreating its own folks for power and profit. Maybe its the libertarian thing to do to let them do what they want and look at the impact on places that have improving human rights records.
    Now, that's a wise consideration IMHO.

  6. #245
    Quote Originally Posted by tobismom View Post
    You can say and do what you want about the way Africa treats its own, but if you boycot Nestles or whatever, you might be harming a poor man in Brazil who works in the Nestles factory there, or the farmers who supply the milk. Big economic impact if Nestles shuts down there.

    Here in the US, we are financially comfortable enough not to need to work in the chocolate industry and can make other choices with our dollars and our labor. It might be wise to take the focus off of Africa, which certainly won't change the way it does business, and see who else is hurt or helped by that decision.

    I'm not criticizing anyone's choice. I'm just saying that Africa has a history of mistreating its own folks for power and profit. Maybe its the libertarian thing to do to let them do what they want and look at the impact on places that have improving human rights records.
    It was actually in the last three years that the situation begun to improve enormously. I belabored the point 5 years ago why it was so horrible, and did not want to do it again, but here is a timeline which demonstrates the improvement in conditions which have taken place since we began to put pressure in the Chocolate majors to change. For those seeking to do legitimate research, here is a great point to start.

    In June of 2002 a BBC reporter Humphrey Hawksley filed a report from Mali, having travelled to Mali and the Ivory Coast to collect first-hand accounts, and to see it for himself.

    Thursday, 13 June, 2002, 15:46 GMT 16:46 UK (events in 2002)
    Meeting the 'chocolate slaves'

    Kidnap attempt

    "I was playing football," said Karim Sadibe. "This man said I should come with him to the Ivory Coast. He would sign me up for the national team and I would get lots of money and that I shouldn't tell my parents."

    Karim went, but luckily was intercepted by police. The man who was to have sold him into slavery - probably for about £50 - melted away.

    Former child slave

    Karim was sent back to Mali, to a centre run by Save the Children Fund, Canada. All of that had taken place within the past week.

    Next door was 20-year-old Moussa Doumbia. He slipped off a freshly pressed pink shirt to reveal welted scars where he had been made to carry sacks of cocoa until he managed to escape two years ago.

    At night he slept on the floor in a locked room. He was given food once a day. If he complained, he was beaten. The boys who tried to escape had their feet cut with razors.

    "I don't know how one human being can treat another in the way they treated me," he whispered.
    On January of 2012, CNN ran an expose series collected from an in-house documentry produced in 2011 "Chocolate's Child Slaves" that focused on first hand accounts and visiting the affected areas to determine if non consumer oriented reforms had been effective.

    This series demonstrates that while there may have been marginal improvements since the 2002 expose, by and large nothing had changed.

    Finally, in 2014 CNN produced a documentary in 2014 that re-visits child slavery in cocoa today, where they actually took the CEO of Nestlé Chocolate around to afflicted areas and then a 'panel' to discuss in depth the improvements that have taken place since January 2012.

    Problem with this last (linked) panel discussion, is they were strongly downplaying the improvements in order to advocate for more government action Because government action did SO MUCH from 2002 to 2011, while the efforts of the private free market did SO LITTLE from 2012 to 2014. What the last panel discussion reveals is that even the nanny-staters have to agree that significant improvements have been made, and the timeline reveals these improvements have all really happened between 2011 and 2014.

    What is so dramatically different between the periods 2002-2011 and 2011-2014? Mostly by the type of efforts that have been made. Until 2011, efforts focused mostly on private negotiations between suppliers, buyers, corporations, and governments. From 2011 and on is when efforts focused on publicly shaming the industry and affecting public demand.

    This last strategy, publicly shaming the interests which contribute to cocoa slavery, has been a thousand-fold more effective than the private, government and lobby route. Slavery free brands have proliferated bountifully, and everybody (and particularly Nestlé) are beginning to take some extraordinary steps to correct the issue.

    In nine years of supply-side reform attempts, almost nothing was done. In three years of demand-side reform attempts, the difference is truly night and day.

  7. #246
    I am a lot happier than the CNN people I linked above, because I do not have a problem with children working their own parent's plantations. Zero problem at all. They are working to create value that is handed down through the generations. If the son who will inherit the cocoa plantation starts learning the trade as early as six, it will make him a better owner at 30. What better way to ensure fair treatment of the workers, than for the owner to come up from the ranks of workers? In fact, I believe that children working their own family plantations is a kind of free-market perfection.

    So I am fine with Ghana cocoa and such, where these people are not. The point being, is you have to take all this reporting with several grains of salt, and still look at what actual facts are related. If MSNBS reports a bombing in such a city, I have no reason to believe it didn't happen. That doesn't mean I'm going to buy their spin on the event.

    Nestlé is actually making more remarkable improvements than either of the other majors. If, after you watch the documentary where they took the Nestlé CEO around to the Ivory Coast and you like what they have been doing enough to reward their efforts, then please let them know in some way that you are buying their product to reward their efforts to end the practice of chattel slavery. This will encourage them to continue further in the direction of positive reform.

  8. #247
    We have friends doing medical work in Ivory Coast, and sometimes it's a little dangerous for them. I get that they do things a little differently there.

    What I'm saying is that there are not necessarily good solutions to the problem. If we can persuade Africa to stop using slaves, maybe poor kids in Brazil turn to crime and drugs until the economy adjusts and dad and mom can go to work.

    Africa is not anywhere close to a free market. They are socialist to the core and probably communist in some places. Brazil is somewhat socialist, but less so.

    Who do you help?

    In the long run, Brazil has proven to be a better ally, has just as many natural resources as Africa, and a lot more opportunity for free trade. They have many poor people who maintain their family structure. Our child spent some time in Brazil, and I think the better opportunity is to support their economy through fair trade. They do not use slaves, and American companies are providing a way out of poverty for many. Family-owned dairy farms are very common there. Nestles buys most of the milk produced there. Brazil is also noted for sugar cane production. I'm just saying they have an economy that we don't need to support, just encourage.

    Again, not judging people's choices. People can do what they want to do. I just get a little tired of Africa consuming so many American resources and maintaining hostility toward the US and exploiting their own people.
    Last edited by euphemia; 10-19-2014 at 01:20 PM.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  9. #248
    Now, bear in mind that this was first 'exposed' to the public by the BBC in 2002. This has been a pet issue of mine since 1998 or 1999. My understanding of the situation came from 'underground,' accounts on USENET and BBS postings from Africa. Anonymous chatter and witness accounts. The first 2 or 3 years I was just working to get some media source to go investigate it at all. I remember posting to one news org or the other a detailed comparison to blood diamonds and asking why they weren't paying attention.



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  11. #249
    Quote Originally Posted by tobismom View Post
    We have friends doing medical work in Ivory Coast, and sometimes it's a little dangerous for them. I get that they do things a little differently there.

    What I'm saying is that there are not necessarily good solutions to the problem. If we can persuade Africa to stop using slaves, maybe poor kids in Brazil turn to crime and drugs until the economy adjusts and dad and mom can go to work.

    Africa is not anywhere close to a free market. They are socialist to the core and probably communist in some places. Brazil is somewhat socialist, but less so.

    Who do you help?

    In the long run, Brazil has proven to be a better ally, has just as many natural resources as Africa, and a lot more opportunity for free trade. They have many poor people who maintain their family structure. Our child spent some time in Brazil, and I think the better opportunity is to support their economy through fair trade. They do not use slaves, and American companies are providing a way out of poverty for many. Family-owned dairy farms are very common there. Nestles buys most of the milk produced there. Brazil is also noted for sugar cane production. I'm just saying they have an economy that we don't need to support, just encourage.

    Again, not judging people's choices. People can do what they want to do. I just get a little tired of Africa consuming so many American resources and maintaining hostility toward the US and exploiting their own people.
    I don't understand your hesitance to use the tools of the free market to end African slavery, when it would seem that plantations such as those in Brazil, are profiting the most from these efforts?

    You don't really think people will stop buying from Brazil just because slavery was ended in Africa? I don't understand that line of thought.

  12. #250
    Assume slavery were ended in the Ivory Coast by efforts to make the majors stop buying slaver beans.

    This will have happened because the Ivory Coast slavers saw a dead end in their markets by that practice, and stopped to avoid bankruptcy. Perhaps some supply will return as a 'reward' for fixing their business, but by and large existing stable supply lines will remain static. In the "new normal" African cocoa will cost a little more, because the workers are actually being paid. This will mean that the larger demand from Brazil will remain, and possibly expand.

    Pretty much all of this effort has been to give more business to Brazil, and tell the Ivory Coast that "this is why Brazil is buying beans that you could have sold."

    Even if we fixed the problem today, the new demand that Brazil has gotten will remain. If you want to help the Brazilian laborer, then buy more Brazilian cocoa! Hell yes, that's pretty much what I've been saying all along.

    Which is why I do not understand your argument.

  13. #251
    I'm not hesitant to use tools of a free market in a place that uses a free market. Africa does not. They exploit for power and profit. They really get more than their share of attention, while not doing very much to adapt to new ways of doing things.

    I said I wasn't judging anyone's choice--especially not over something like chocolate. I'm just saying that it is worth thinking about the broader impact of a decision. I don't know where Nestles purchases the cocoa beans they use in their Brazillian plants. I know they employ a lot of people and many children have better opportunities for education and a better life because of it. Brazil is a rapidly developing nation. Even in the most primitive areas they are accepting of ideas to improve sanitation and prevent disease. They demand very little from the US.

    I'm just wondering why changing Africa is more of a priority than simply encouraging Brazil. Why are we not also focusing on changing China. They mistreat people and ravage the environment and refuse any suggestion that their way is not the best. You sure couldn't prove anything by what goes on here. Practically everything the US has was built in China.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  14. #252
    OK, I think I see what you are saying. Maybe if we boycott Hershey's, then maybe someone in a Brazilian Hershey factory suffers.

    First there are no Brazilian Hershey factories. There are just people who grow harvest and sell beans. Some guy from Hershey's or Cargill walks in and and says "I want to buy your beans" That guy buys a bunch of beans, and ships them off to processing somewhere in the first world.

    Whether it's Nestlé, Hershey's, or Mars, shifting more business to Brazil can only mean that Brazil sells more beans, and makes more money.

    Buying specialty chocolate you can even specify Brazilian beans if you like.

    Nobody is eating less chocolate behind any of this. It's not like people who fail to buy Hershey's are failing to buy chocolate at all; indeed, usually they buy more cocoa, because these specialty brands have a much higher concentration of cocoa. The boycott on slaver cocoa has actually led to increased cocoa demand worldwide, and Brazil in particular is reaping the rewards.

  15. #253
    Quote Originally Posted by tobismom View Post
    I'm just wondering why changing Africa is more of a priority than simply encouraging Brazil. Why are we not also focusing on changing China. They mistreat people and ravage the environment and refuse any suggestion that their way is not the best. You sure couldn't prove anything by what goes on here. Practically everything the US has was built in China.
    "Brazil cocoa is awesome!" is way less real-world effective than "Ivory Coast cocoa is bad."

    The first has done basically nothing to end child slavery, the second has already been remarkably successful.

    I do not think it is wrong to say "slaver beans are bad."

    I do not want slaver beans, because to me, they are bad.

    I would hope that anybody who believes in a free market, would also conclude that slaver beans are bad.

    The more I expose the problem, and ask others to encourage a shift away from buying slaver beans, the less child slavery will exist.

    Conditions in China are several orders of magnitude better than the conditions in the Ivory Coast. Maybe once I have ended the first 2/3 of the world's child slavery, then I will start working on the next 1/10th. And the difference is not only volume but depth, so also maybe once I end the chattel slavery then I will consider working on improving indentured servitude.

    It appears you are asking me why I am so focused on 66% of child chattel slavery, when I could be focused on 10% of juvenile indentured servitude. Let's help the 66% in actual chattel slavery and then maybe worry about the 10% indentured servants. Doesn't that make sense?

  16. #254
    To be very clear: I am not in favor of slavery. I am especially not in favor of abusing children through slavery.

    I have never said Hershey. I know for a fact there are Nestles factories in Brazil because I have eaten its product. Our child went down there to do benevolence work because their homeless child issue is very serious. Nestles put a plant in an area where people need jobs.

    Again, not judging anyone's choice. Just saying there is a tension to the economy, and one part affects the other. It doesn't happen in a vacuum.

    Here's another example. When I was in a volunteer organization, we talked about environmental ethics. Having friends in Ivory Coast, I know that one of the leading cottage industries there is charcoal. The clear cut the forests to produce charcoal to sell so they can support their families. Some of my volunteer friends were rather smug about their choice to use only charcoal when they camped. I said, "Well, I guess that depends on whether you think globally about your environmental impact. A choice to use downed wood (abundant after a storm) for a camp meal might kill a few bugs. The tree is already dead. But the choice to use charcoal creates a demand in a market where the culling of wood is not selective."

    What I am saying is that it is wise to think globally about choices, if one wants to be global. There are horrible things about the way Ivory Coast does business. We have close friends there. A few of them have practically fled for their lives because of the way Africans do things. One was beaten and barely managed to escape, zig zagging down the street to avoid gunfire. Unfortunately, Africa does not exist in a vacuum. Our friends are there for medical benevolence. Our church supports a dental clinic in the hospital right at the heart of the Ebola problem. We understand the issues.

    I think slave labor happens here. Think about who picks the fruits and vegetables that make it to market. It's not always that nice family snug little house. It might be the children of families that move around from place to place depending on when the picking seasons are. We don't call it slavery, but I think it is. Unless you go and pick it yourself, there is no way to know.
    Last edited by euphemia; 10-19-2014 at 03:00 PM.
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    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  17. #255
    Quote Originally Posted by tobismom View Post
    To be very clear: I am not in favor of slavery. I am especially not in favor of abusing children through slavery.

    I have never said Hershey. I know for a fact there are Nestles factories in Brazil because I have eaten its product. Our child went down there to do benevolence work because their homeless child issue is very serious. Nestles put a plant in an area where people need jobs.

    Again, not judging anyone's choice. Just saying there is a tension to the economy, and one part affects the other. It doesn't happen in a vacuum.

    Here's another example. When I was in a volunteer organization, we talked about environmental ethics. Having friends in Ivory Coast, I know that one of the leading cottage industries there is charcoal. The clear cut the forests to produce charcoal to sell so they can support their families. Some of my volunteer friends were rather smug about their choice to use only charcoal when they camped. I said, "Well, I guess that depends on whether you think globally about your environmental impact. A choice to use downed wood (abundant after a storm) for a camp meal might kill a few bugs. The tree is already dead. But the choice to use charcoal creates a demand in a market where the culling of wood is not selective."

    What I am saying is that it is wise to think globally about choices, if one wants to be global. There are horrible things about the way Ivory Coast does business. We have close friends there. A few of them have practically fled for their lives because of the way Africans do things. One was beaten and barely managed to escape, zig zagging down the street to avoid gunfire. Unfortunately, Africa does not exist in a vacuum. Our friends are there for medical benevolence. Our church supports a dental clinic in the hospital right at the heart of the Ebola problem. We understand the issues.

    I think slave labor happens here. Think about who picks the fruits and vegetables that make it to market. It's not always that nice family snug little house. It might be the children of families that move around from place to place depending on when the picking seasons are. We don't call it slavery, but I think it is. Unless you go an pick it yourself, there is no way to know.
    I used Hershey as an example because Nestlé is doing a way better job than Hershey, and I can totally see rewarding Nestlé for the improvements that are being made. I wasn't arguing with your point to do business with Nestlé but with the underlying economic assumption that Brazilian cocoa will suffer from improvements in Ivory Coast cocoa.

  18. #256
    I don't know where Nestle gets their cocoa for Brazillian operations. I know they have operations in Brazil. Those employees and the dairy farmers in Brazil are dong well because of Nestle investment.

    The only point I'm making is that there is a tension to the economy. One part affects the other. The ethic of doing business with a company might affect people who have nothing to do with the wrongs in another part of the industry.

    Thomas Sowell says there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
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    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi



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  20. #257
    I think slave labor happens here. Think about who picks the fruits and vegetables that make it to market. It's not always that nice family snug little house. It might be the children of families that move around from place to place depending on when the picking seasons are. We don't call it slavery, but I think it is. Unless you go an pick it yourself, there is no way to know.
    Bad things happen everywhere. Maybe I am trying to 'end all evil' and I just am starting with the most evilest thing I can find. Or maybe I'm attacking the biggest monster right now because I just want to do my part to make the world a better place. Yes, indeed, the world is full of monsters, and right now I am fighting this one. I have fought and will continue to fight other monsters, as the opportunity lay at hand.

    I do not think an argument that "you cannot possibly be perfectly free from all evil, so why fight any of it?" is a good argument. I won't judge you for fighting evil however you want, but if someone wanted to just give in to the evil and not bother to fight it at all -- or even help it, then that would bother me, and change my perception. That may go back to my theology; a will to life vs a will to death. Someone may mistakenly support a monster like Mao, but if they themselves believe in their heart whatever they are doing legitimately supports 'a fight against evil' then I don't judge their heart. God places people in key places especially in the worst of times.

    Thing is, everyone fighting their own 'monsters' is not the problem. The problem is the people who say "there are too many monsters, why bother to fight them at all?" Because they have given up, and given them over to evil. It is a "will unto death" vs a "will to life."

    I would rather a million people each fighting their own tyranny and I be the only voice for cocoa slaves, than to be ten thousand voices for cocoa slavery, and that issue alone being attacked. Does that make sense? If your liberty issue is another thing then take it loud, and we'll high-five as we pass along the way. It doesn't have to be cocoa beans.

    It's not someone's priorities that bothers me. "which monster am I fighting at the moment" is not the point. It's whether one opposes evil or encourages it.

    Sure, let me be the one and only voice for cocoa slaves in a world FULL of voices for everything else. That would be way better than to be a million voices in a world echoing with silence. I'm not fighting the other voices, I'm fighting the silence.

  21. #258
    I admire the way you have researched the issue. I came away better informed because of it. We won't derail your thread with my issues. I'm sure they will come up somewhere else here.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  22. #259
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    So, am I to take it that you did not accept my apology, Gunny, and are choosing instead to have an over-the-top conniption fit and hold a grudge? Could you answer one way or the other? I mean, I know us shame-inducing, slavery-advocating, inhuman, lowest of the low, horrific, selfish beings don't deserve to be spoken to as if we are human (obviously we're not), but maybe just for the record?

    Also, again just to correct some inaccuracies:

    "Helmuth says I do not comprehend the free market"

    Actually, I did not say that, nor do I think that.

    "He started out by claiming I was factually wrong"

    Actually, I never claimed that. I never wrote any such thing. Please provide the quote of where I started out by claiming you are factually wrong. If you will take the time to actually look for such a quote, you will find that it does not exist, and then maybe you will realize it was all in your imagination and your hyper-defensiveness hyper-sensitivity was an unwarranted over-reaction. No hard feelings. We all do it sometimes.

    I am simply highly skeptical that we have all the relevant information as to this alleged Ivory Coast slavery. Based on oodles of past human rights scandals and crusades, which turn out almost invariably to be over-blown, I harbor serious doubts as to its scope and exact nature. Even if we had all the necessary information, I would remain highly skeptical that we have the necessary wisdom to swoop in and solve all their problems. That is my position. If it's too practical and too ambiguous for you, so be it.

    I am very much against slavery. But I am not going to get all hopped up about an overblown crusade against Hershey's and Nestle; a crusade very possibly imagined and whipped up by unscrupulous competitors seeking a niche for themselves.

    I agree completely with your explanation that "A free market, by definition, requires voluntary and consensual interactions." That's totally true, of course. The thing to realize is that economics does not just apply to free markets. Economics is universal. The laws of economics were in full operation in classical Greece, 1800s America, and Soviet Russia. They apply today to North Korea. They work as well in deepest Africa. Economics can tell us about how slavery economies will work. It can inform us about trade among prisoners in concentration camps. I believe my analysis is sound, as set forth most clearly in post #234 above. If you believe it is logically flawed, then I enthusiastically welcome you to show me my error(s). I'm serious! Punch holes in my arguments! The reason I am here is largely to discuss and cross-pollinate interesting ideas with interesting people. If you can show me a different way of looking at something, expand my mind, and challenge my views in a rational, high-level way, that would be an extremely valuable service to me.

    Anyway, once again I offer you the olive branch of peace and friendship. I wish you all the best, Gunny!
    If you are sincere, then of course I forgive you, but every time you ask, you also post things to make me doubt your sincerity.

    There are sources galore, if you want to know where I've gotten my current understanding of the situation, then just ask. It is OK to be skeptical, but dismissal isn't skepticism, it is silencing.

    As to the artificial crusade, when I first started hoeing this row, there was no such thing as "fair trade" or even a real market for alternative chocolate at all. I believe you are making a "which came first" error. The problem came first and then all these alternative sources and certifications grew up in the market to fulfill that demand. It was not, as your argument implies, that alternative producers and certifiers were sitting around and trying to figure out a way to gin up business. This stuff just didn't exist when the problem came to light. The issue became generally available to the public in 2002. None of the certifiers even existed until something like 2009 or 2010. It wasn't wag the dog, the dog didn't even exist when the problem was discovered.

    I also have no problem with rational disagreement, but that entails disagreeing from a rational place. I have never disputed that the laws of economics are universal. I have never disputed that they apply to slaver economies. I have never disputed that they apply to every conceivable economy in the universe.

    I have advocated for an application of the laws of economics in order to advance the cause liberty on Earth. In this specific case, the Ivory Coast.

    I would far rather be friends than enemies, but if you are skeptical of what I am saying, then approach me as an investigator trying to ascertain the truth, and not as a cynic as though I were simply invalid. One is a truth-seeker, whom I respect enormously no matter where they stand. The other is a silencer, which kind I can not respect.

    If I mistook your methods, I do apologize for that, and as I said I would rather be friends than enemies. Understand that my position on the reality of cocoa slavery did not come from a vacuum, and it did not come from the media. I was fighting this war long before any media even knew it was a thing. I'm pretty sure I first heard whispers of it from Hawaiian cocoa farmers in 1995 when I was stationed there. It took me three years of my own investigations to become convinced.

  23. #260
    Me in 1995 half out of uniform in a barracks room on Kaneohe Bay on a Mac Performa Classic looking "chocolate slaves" up on dialup (modem screech) AOHell through an Internet portal to AltaVista and Yahoo! in my brand-spankin' new Netscape browser lol and finding....nothing. Installing a freeware NNTP client in 1996 and dragging the West African and French news groups for stories, and striking up conversations. Finding stuff and later, I think by 1997 or 1998 trolling for people in West Africa on IRC who knew something about the situation and finding even more. I didn't hear about this through CNN or even the BBC.

  24. #261
    Quote Originally Posted by GunnyFreedom View Post
    If you are sincere, then of course I forgive you,
    Well, thank you. That's right decent of you.

    but every time you ask, you also post things to make me doubt your sincerity.
    I don't know what those would be, but thank you for casting those doubts aside. It's so much better and easier to just take people at face value.

    There are sources galore, if you want to know where I've gotten my current understanding of the situation, then just ask. It is OK to be skeptical, but dismissal isn't skepticism, it is silencing.
    Label my attitude however you wish. I choose to characterize my thoughts and feelings as skeptical. Perhaps I (like you) am the one best able to assess and then label the goings on in my own mind.

    Your post #245 was somewhat persuasive as to why to believe in the atrocious slavery in the Ivory Coast. Unfortunately, I do remain skeptical, but certainly I can see your point. You would have far more credibility to me, personally, if you had in fact lived in the Ivory Coast and witnessed these things first-hand and studied them in depth first-hand. Surely you can understand that. I think that's a reasonable position to take.

    My own bias is to be highly skeptical of claims about how horrible and atrocious situations in foreign countries are, because usually the reality is much different and more nuanced and complex. I am also skeptical of Grand and Holy Crusades to stamp out sin or fix distant problems of which the crusaders have no first-hand knowledge. That said, you are going about it in the right and libertarian way: freedom of association. You don't like what they are doing, based on what you think you know. Great! So you don't associate with the folks you don't like. Great again! It's a big win!

    I just like always trying to look at things from a different perspective; with a twist, if you will. Seeing chocolate boycotts in light of the female wage gap qualifies as a twist, I think. Hopefully it was stimulating to someone, got someone's mind racing.

  25. #262
    How Government Meddles in Your Easter Chocolate

    ...

    Western Governments Push Down African Wages Through Tariffs

    Unfortunately for the west African workers, this "capital, technology, and opportunity" that Powell mentions is being artificially restricted by government intervention in the cacao trade.

    Specifically, governments in the West — i.e., in the United States and Europe — tend to encourage only the importation of unprocessed cacao while punishing any higher-productivity cacao processing. That is, Western government will allow for tariff-free importation of cacao — the cacao beans — while slapping taxes on cocoa powder and cocoa butter. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization:

    Cocoa producing countries limit themselves to mainly exporting beans -rather than manufactured cocoa, or chocolate products- mostly because of tariff escalation. The EU has a bound rate of 0 percent for cocoa beans, but a 7.7 percent, and 15 percent ad valorem duty on cocoa powder and chocolate crumb containing cocoa butter respectively;
    Similarly, Japan applies a bound rate of 0 percent for un-processed cocoa beans, but charges a 10 percent tax for cocoa paste wholly or partly defatted, and a 29.8 percent duty on cocoa powder containing added sugar;
    The US has no ad valorem on cocoa beans, but imposes a duty of 0.52 cents/Kg for cocoa powder -with no added sugar- and tariffs could go up to 52.8 cents/Kg for imported chocolate products containing cocoa butter.
    Thus, thanks to government intervention, it becomes less profitable to invest in capital that could be used to process cacao beans in Africa. These activities, of course, would likely provide to workers higher productivity, because their labor would then benefit from the facilities, machines, and capital that would bring them higher wages.

    Instead, thanks to Western taxes, there's less reason for either African or Western capitalists to invest in processing cacao, and thus provide more competition for existing industries and firms. And, of course, Western consumers pay higher prices as a result.

    As Calestous Juma has noted this problem goes well beyond cacao and applies to other crops such as coffee. But in all these cases, the result is the same:

    The impact of such charges [i.e., tariffs] goes well beyond lost export opportunities. They suppress technological innovation and industrial development among African countries. The practice denies the continent the ability to acquire, adopt and diffuse technologies used in food processing. It explains to some extent the low level of investment in Africa’s food processing enterprises.
    If humanitarians in the US and the West are concerned about workers in Africa, they could perhaps best assuage their consciences for demanding a lowering of tariffs imposed against West African farmers and innovators.

    Moreover, the result of all this protectionism against food processing in Africa (and other low-income areas) is to make food more expensive for Western consumers. As demand for chocolate has increased, prices have increased too. But prices of processed chocolate goods are higher than they would be otherwise.

    Whatever You Do, Don't Boycott Chocolate

    But there's some good news to report, too. It appears that we've largely moved beyond the old-school demands that we boycott whatever goods are made by especially unfortunate low-income workers.

    Sethi's article in the LA Times, for example, avoids calling for any sort of boycott and recognizes that cacao farmers are helped when consumers buy more chocolate. As demand goes up, Sethi writes, so do cacao prices. And then wages go up, too.

    This is a welcome departure from the bad old days of anti-sweatshop rhetoric when we were told to boycott goods and services that were manufactured in a way that appears especially unpleasant to Western eyes. Obviously, boycotting cacao would only relegate cacao farmers to even worse poverty than they already endure. This nugget of wisdom was consistently lost on many activists of the past such as Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers union. Chavez encouraged consumers to boycott foods picked by his union members — if farm owners did not cave to union demands. Not buying grapes, however, never accomplished much more than making grape pickers' wages fall as demand fell.

    So, yes, to help cacao farmers, we should indeed buy more chocolate. But we should also recognize that those workers are locked out of a variety of related higher-wage industries by protectionist governments in the wealthy West.
    https://mises.org/blog/how-governmen...ster-chocolate
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  26. #263
    LibForestPaul
    Member

    Quote Originally Posted by torchbearer View Post
    I have eaten both, but don't really eat them much.
    I had a hershey's dark chocolate bar several months ago. i enjoyed it.
    Hershey's is junk. Read about their replacement for cocoa butter in their dark chocolate.

    I really couldn't care less how they get their cocoa.
    Third world has and will continue to be exploited for some time.

    The socialist in the EU can then claim how well their socialist sh1t countries are doing with free college, and free health care, all the while destroying the economies and lives of third world chattle. Imperialism stuffed up the @ss of a snuggly dead bunny called socialism.

  27. #264



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  29. #265
    somehow.. 8 years ago, I missed this thread.

    I needed another polling answer
    no.. I don't eat chocolate from those two companies because it's crap.

    I do eat organic cocoa nibs.. most recently from nuts dot com - they really perk up grassfed yogurt
    Disclaimer: any post made after midnight and before 8AM is made before the coffee dip stick has come up to optomim level - expect some level of silliness,

    The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are out numbered by those who vote for a living !!!!!!!

  30. #266
    Quote Originally Posted by opal View Post
    somehow.. 8 years ago, I missed this thread.

    I needed another polling answer
    no.. I don't eat chocolate from those two companies because it's crap.

    I do eat organic cocoa nibs.. most recently from nuts dot com - they really perk up grassfed yogurt
    Dang, that's a good idea! I've been putting almonds in my yogurt but nibs will be a nice change of pace.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  31. #267
    I've heard a little bit about the slaver bean issue... I tend to shy away from the mega-corp products anyway, gravitating to Fairtrade certified goods.

    had also heard of some controversy regarding Nestle's bottled water practices...
    https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/a...ness-in-canada
    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36161580

    Don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

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