Patterico's Pontifications

12/3/2016

What #DumpKelloggs and Trump’s Threats Have in Common: Unintended Consequences

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 1:00 pm



A few days ago, Breitbart.com embarked on a jihad against the Kellogg Company, after Kellogg pulled its advertising from Breitbart, saying the sometimes incendiary site wasn’t “aligned with our values.” Breitbart then “launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of the ubiquitous food manufacturer.” (An amusing side effect of this was the emergence of a hashtag on Twitter called #BreitbartCereals, featuring cereals that would be approved by the alt-right, such as Special KKK, Count Cuckula, or Reich Krispies.)

I was reminded of Breitbart’s actions when I saw numerous articles about Donald Trump’s pledge to punish companies who decide to go overseas (as well as his decision to reward Carrier, a company that decided to keep some of its jobs in country, with Pence-induced state tax breaks that will apparently be specific to Carrier).

What concept links these two incidents? Let me answer that question by telling a third story which ought to make the connection obvious. Two women, Betty and Veronica, are standing on the corner watching Cheryl, a gorgeous redhead, walk out of Archie’s house. “Oh, it looks like Cheryl decided to leave Archie, ” says Betty. “What do you mean?” asks Veronica. “Don’t you see Cheryl’s black eye?” asks Betty. “Archie always beats up girls when they say they’re going to leave him. He thinks it will make them stay with him.”

Do you think Veronica is likely to want to date Archie?

Hopefully the point is clear. The statement: “If you leave me, I’ll punish you!” does not ensure people will stay with you. In fact, it often causes bystanders to ask: “Why would I want to be with you in the first place?”

Breitbart, by savaging one of its advertisers, is sending a message to all other companies that might consider advertising with Breitbart: “If you leave us, we may engage in a campaign to destroy your reputation.” (One might say that they are simply disincentivizing advertisers from declaring their discontent with Breitbart as they leave — but Kellogg’s, looking at Milo-penned Breitbart articles like “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive And Crazy,” may have felt it had little choice but to openly distance itself from the site. And other potential advertisers watching the whole debacle understand this.)

Similarly, Trump, by telling companies that they will suffer consequences if they leave America, is going to cause some number of companies not to set up shop in the United States to begin with.

The incentives created by Trump and Breitbart are examples of unintended consequences called “perverse results,” where someone intends one outcome and unintentionally creates the opposite result. Government actors are actually fantastic at creating such perverse results, because they love to throw their power around, and rarely reflect on how their actions might backfire.

Anti-discrimination laws in employment are excellent examples of this perverse effect. By punishing employers who allegedly fire members of a particular class (women, minorities, etc.) because they belong to that class, these laws often have the effect of making employers less willing to hire from those groups to begin with. These employers know that they are more likely to be sued by someone they fired than they are to be sued by people they turned down for jobs. So many conclude that it’s just not worth the hassle to hire such people, and consequently hire as few as they think they can get away with hiring. The net effect is that the laws end up harming the very people they were supposed to help.

Trump’s Carrier deal is likely to have another perverse effect: it will cause more companies to threaten to move to Mexico or overseas, in order to squeeze concessions from government. This is a different type of perverse result, which can be categorized as the “rat effect” after the famous and entertaining story about the rats in Hanoi.

The government of Hanoi, which was overrun with rats, decided to pay its citizenry to help kill the rats, offering a monetary bounty for a severed rat tail. Inexplicably (or so the government thought), the rat problem got worse! How on Earth could this happen? You have probably already guessed the answer: people started breeding rats to cut off their tails and claim their reward. This is known as the “rat effect” (or “cobra effect,” since it allegedly happened with cobras in Delhi as well), wherein if government pays for something, it gets more of it.

The citizens of Hanoi saw people getting paid for rat tails, and decided to produce their own rat tails, creating more rats, and making the initial problem worse. Similarly, companies in the U.S. see Carrier getting paid for threatening to move jobs overseas, and will inevitably produce their own new plans to move plants overseas, making the initial problem worse. It is likely that under President Trump, you will see more companies declaring an intent to move out of the country than ever before.

Trump will bribe some of them and “save” more jobs, and his more economically illiterate fans will applaud.

If Trump had been in charge of the colonial administration in Hanoi during the rat crisis, he would have simply made sure the TV cameras were there when he held up the bags of rat tails.

And his subjects would have applauded. You know, to the extent they had time to applaud in between dodging all the rats everywhere.

P.S. If this sort of discussion about free-market economics is your thing, you might enjoy my group The Constitution Vanguard. It’s a group of like-minded people who believe in the free market, liberty, and the Constitution. There’s a newsletter, a private Facebook group, and a private discussion forum, for members only. We’d love to have you! Join up here.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

45 Responses to “What #DumpKelloggs and Trump’s Threats Have in Common: Unintended Consequences”

  1. TL;DR

    But I’m not gonna buy any more Archie comics if he beats up on women!

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  2. I think that what Trump is saying is more like: dear, if you want to step out with other men, I’m gonna cancel your credit cards.

    Companies that attempt to have the benefit of US law yet feel no obligation to their countrymen are going to have some of their privileges curtailed.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  3. i want so bad to boycott kellogg’s but i bought exactly *one* box of frosted flakes this year and maybe some raisin bran

    mostly i get those overpriced small-bag granola + protein thingers like this one from our friends at General Mills who don’t hate America

    it’s all about portion control

    whereas Kellogg’s is all about “family-sized” and pissing on American values

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. There is no such thing as a free market while governments have such impact on economic activities. What we have now — including the so-called free trade agreements — are companies picking and choosing where they want a free market and where they want to game the state. The state should feel free to game them right back.

    I’m gonna bet that Apple did not insist on being treated like any other developer when they proposed their massive new campus to Cupertino.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  5. =yawn= Have you priced Kellogg’s cereals lately?

    Beef is a better buy.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  6. ==whereas Kellogg’s is all about “family-sized” and pissing on American values==

    and evil Carbs!

    elissa (b10ba6)

  7. kellogg’s is all about nasty disgusting interracial lesbian cereal that hates jesus

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  8. And, yes, I would prefer the happy day when government stays out of controlling economic activity and everyone uses the Golden Rule as their guide. But I don’t expect it.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  9. on the other hand check out that fiber count – Kellogg’s definitely goes the extra mile to help interracial lesbians poop on the regular

    i’m torn

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  10. I think that what Trump is saying is more like: dear, if you want to step out with other men, I’m gonna cancel your credit cards.

    Companies that attempt to have the benefit of US law yet feel no obligation to their countrymen are going to have some of their privileges curtailed.

    You sound like a union thug.

    Nice company ya got there. Be a shame if someone burned it down or taxed the shit out of it. Ya don’t want that ta happen, so youse better play ball, see?

    Patterico (115b1f)

  11. And, yes, I would prefer the happy day when government stays out of controlling economic activity and everyone uses the Golden Rule as their guide. But I don’t expect it.

    So you’ll discourage movement towards that situation you would prefer.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  12. it’s very similar to my disagreement with those odious social cons

    kellogg’s is making crunchy munchy saturday morning cartoon cereal senselessly political same as how social cons keep trying to do with church and jesus

    *not* doing this sort of gay stupid politicization stuff used to be 100% automatic as breathing in america (except for the occasional flagrantly stupid anomaly)

    hopefully Mr. Trump can bring us back to a robust and fun secular society we can all enjoy together instead of one where religious fundamentalism and religious liberalism poop all up in everything

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  13. 13. Interestingly enough, 2 generals mills plants closest to me, West Chicago and 104th/Torrence, revamped to Mexico, after many of those “mothasuckas”, as one Carrier employee said in the video, came up in the latter half of the 20th century to work at those 2 plants.

    urbanleftbehind (c51a53)

  14. lucky charms are my favorite

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  15. F*cking incentives, how do they work?

    The thing you actually incentivized is not always the thing you intended, either.

    One huge difference worth noting, between Bretbart and Carrier, is that Breitbart is asking for a voluntary boycott. If there aren’t huge numbers of customers willing to go along, then Kellogg will not be harmed a bit. We saw this with Chick-fil-A.

    But in Carrier the government is involved, which makes all the difference. Now there is not a voluntary association of individuals putting their money where they wish.

    And with unions it is the same thing. Certainly labor has every bit the same right to organize as stockholders do, and if labor contracts with management to agree to whatever that is both parties’ right. But laws that privilege unions over other voluntary associations is the government putting its big fat thumb on the scale. There is no law that will force me to become a shareholder of any corporation, but I can be forced into a union in some jurisdictions, at the price of my existing job.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  16. Agree with all statements there, Gabriel Hanna.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  17. Kellogg’s is definitely cukoo for Cocoa Puffs.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  18. Kellogg’s could probably use a little more bran in their diet.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  19. It actually did happen to me, that I faced the prospect of being forced into a union. This was is in graduate school. The law didn’t require anything like a majority vote of graduate students, but only a much small number demonstrating “interest”, and UAW agents went out with little cards with checkboxes on them, telling grad students that if they checked the box they were “interested” bu of course not explaining the significance of so doing. Thousands of us expressed indignation that we could be dragooned into a union that didn’t even primarily represent students. I was out of graduate school before it was resolved. I think the ensuing controversy led to UAW voluntarily withdrawing but I don’t know how it came out.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  20. Is Breitbart the equivalent of Archie (who beats women)? Breitbart didn’t do anything to Kellogg’s. They certainly didn’t demand advertisers to change their ideology. And their politics was well known before the election. Kellogg left the site and cited reasons that did not sit well with the editors.

    There’s some context not being discussed. Kellogg is taking part of a larger left wing to punish Trump supporters. What Kellogg’s is doing isn’t different from a fashion designer refusing to dress Melania Trump. THEY initiated the slight, and some Trump fans respond in kind.

    lee (55777a)

  21. UAW? I’ve heard of municipal accounting staff being part of the Operating Engineers (IUOE 150), but G.A.s under UAW would be an even stanger mismatch. They would have rued the day a professional student lives high off the job bank.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  22. They deserve each other.

    Kellogg’s crap is not even good for animal feed, at those prices. For human digestive systems, its nutritional value is even lower.

    Breitbart is mental pollution.

    nk (dbc370)

  23. Actually kellogg’s director of racial equity. A zampolit if ever there was one, might have a little to do with, only publication like breitbart point it out, just like the Charleston matter is straight up crump/ Julian agitprop, which really only the treehousr looked into.

    narciso (d1f714)

  24. @urbanleftbehind:UAW?

    Yes. This was one the problems. Unions like UAW are not growing, because the manufacturing sector is not adding union jobs very much. So they have expanded into student unions. They get to loot the students for their dues, and then they could give a crap about effectively representing them. This was one of the issues–why THIS union and not one of the existing education or faculty unions?

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  25. Reverend alvin herring, premier sjw activist, Castro groupy

    narciso (d1f714)

  26. UAW might have more cachet, particularly among reluctant male students, than AFSCME or some campus or system specific graduate student union. The UAW also gets access to younger cheaper just out of school recruiters, bookeepees and lawyers I.e. a farm team.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  27. kellogg’s cereal is just for weak pale liberal children from broken homes where mom used her food stamps for to get the frosted flakes so she wouldn’t have to cook

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  28. yes yes

    do that tiger all up in it

    it’s so great

    if by great you mean criminally negligent malnutritions

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  29. @urbaleftbehind:UAW might have more cachet, particularly among reluctant male students

    No. This move came entirely from the SJW-dominated disciplines and these were majority female; furthermore graduate students are not all that young. They would no more have thought it “cooler” to be represented by UAW than you would.

    The thing is there is a divide between the arts and the sciences. People getting graduate degrees in the sciences are invariably on a research assistantship, at least after their first year or two. Consequently they view the work they are doing as their own work, and they are getting paid to do that work.

    In the arts, the people getting graduate degrees are either paying for it themselves, with loans or trust funds or whatever, or they are on teaching assistantships. Teaching assistantships are largely grading and is most definitely scut-work and it gets in the way of one’s own research or scholarship. In the sciences, you might teach one or two years, and it’s more like paying your dues, but in the arts you would definitely feel exploited.

    Gabriel Hanna (9b1f4a)

  30. Take Voldemort, what prompted his nazguls, but the revelation of

    narciso (d1f714)

  31. His dark deeds more than s quarter century ago. Mediamatters attack on rush and beck, the burning scars of sunlight.

    narciso (d1f714)

  32. By punishing employers who allegedly fire members of a particular class (women, minorities, etc.) because they belong to that class, these laws often have the effect of making employers less willing to hire from those groups to begin with

    What they are less willing to hire are people without standard credentials. (Usually when heer are complaints about firing it is also about hiring0

    when it comes to individuals, they are less likelyt o hire anyone who sued, or informed on, a company. People who sotole, often resign in return for not getting a negative reference.

    Sammy Finkelman (a1e8fb)

  33. Greetings:

    I like Quaker Oats Granola with Honey, Almond and Raisins with some even more raisins and a container of Yoplait Blackberry or Rasberry regular yogurt.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  34. If you want to start your own company it will take a little money to get started and on your feet. Banks put many things into consideration when you ask them for money for startup business loans. Here are five of the most important considerations when you want money from a bank for a loan for your new company.

    Click thiss ….. https://www.facebook.com/Online-jobs-1817478715194253/app/190322544333196/

    aleena (766b83)

  35. Did a 12 yr old girl write this?

    The guy with the hair (90efb5)

  36. Again I’m going to weigh in here to point out that the oP doesn’t mention a very significant aspect of the action taken by Breitbart in calling for a boycott.

    While Kelloggs was an advertiser, Breitbart seemingly had no reason to take issue with the activities of the Kellogg Foundation. It was Kelloggs that struck first by announcing that it was pulling any ads from Breitbart, and called out Breitbart’s editorial POV as its basis for doing so.

    So you have a corporate citizen opting to involve itself in social policy, and based on its political POV it determined that it would no longer do business with a member of the press with which it disagreed.

    But when Breitbart called for a boycott of Kellogs, it did so in large measure based on its reporting of activities of the Kellogg Foundation.

    The Kellogg Foundation was created in 1934, and endowed with a gift of $66 million worth of Kelloggs stock by Will Keith Kellogg — which would equate to about $7 billion in 2015 dollars.

    The original name of the Foundation was the W.K.Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation. It remains among the Top 10 philanthropic foundations in the US, with current assets still in excess of $7 billion, about $5 billion of which remains in Kelloggs stock. It annually spends approximately $200 million on various grands in the US.

    But Breitbart has reported in the last couple days, and this information is available at various places on the internet, including the Foudation’s own website, that it has become deeply involved in left wing political activities, including giving 7 figure grants to operations set up and run by organizations connected to George Soros.

    Its also overtly involved in “racial equity” and “social justice” efforts across the US. It is deeply committed to “racial equity” efforts, and gave a large sum to “Black Lives Matters”.

    So, it tells only half the story to say that Breitbart has called for a boycott of Kelloggs products in retaliation for Kelloggs cutting off advertising on the website. Breitbart also makes clear that it wants its readers to understand how economically benefiting Kelloggs works to enrich Kelloggs Foundation, and allows them to put money into the pockets of left wing organizations antithetical to the POV of Breitbart’s readership.

    shipwreckedcrew (56b591)

  37. Kellogg corp was the one that decided to take sides in the social welfare war. They’ve spent millions on black lives matter and other leftist organizations. They publicly called out a rightist organization and said they are unworthy of support.

    It also ends up being an attack on the incoming administration because of the connection with Bannon. They are inferring the administration is racist.

    A pox on their house.

    Locke (a07d2e)

  38. Yes its that French proverb ‘what a wicked animal, when attacked it defends itself’

    narciso (d1f714)

  39. Well–There are other reasons for Kellogg to avoid a pissing match:

    http://ktla.com/2016/03/13/video-appears-to-show-man-urinating-on-cereal-products-at-kelloggs-assembly-line/

    BfC (5517e8)

  40. hah look at me not eating disgusting Kellogg’s products for breakfast

    it’s gonna be a grrrrrreat day!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  41. Mark steyn as usual has great comments

    narciso (d1f714)

  42. Disgraceful display

    NJRob (8d54f3)

  43. Breitbart are our Marines in our American culture war, willing to take on the enemy, progressives, on their battlefield using their weapons and tactics. Now it’s the time to engage the enemy with all our might. When the battle is over and the smoke has cleared we can then evaluate the effectiveness of our weapons and tactics.

    ustuplay (4dd398)

  44. Archie is a pimp. He’s been bouncing back and forth between two smokin’ hot best friends for over half a century, and they really don’t seem to mind sharing him.

    Hmmm…is he one of them fundamentalist Mormons?

    L.N. Smithee (b84cf6)

  45. KelLog apparently practices child labor, I guess in assembling the boxes.

    narciso (d1f714)


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