Baby formula shortage is not Biden's fault. It isn't even COVID's fault

[Takket]

Link to tweet

?s=21&t=NQMOYcFZJ4NjVWcwgrWUyg

Billion to buy stock while the machinery falls apart.

[Budi]

1. Its a RW meme blasted out by Kevin McCarthy.

He prob owns stock.

Kevin McCarthy's Talking point
.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

From greedy market drivers straight to...
RW Talking pts.
"Why doesn't Biden Do Something!"
"Biden's Inflation is out of control!"

Wait for it....

[Baitball Blogger]

2. The government should step in and seize the factory when lives are in danger due to

greed and mismanagement.

If Putin had been more attentive and paid more attention to what his supply officer were doing to his weapon stache, he could have been singing a different tune today in the Ukraine.

Biden needs to move and make sure the baby food factory acts accordingly

[Igel]

3. Others point out that the reduction due to this one plant

was small and that supply issues started before this particular problem even happened.

In other words, we can argue it contributed to but not that it caused the problem, and that this made the problem worse even though it can't account for the entirety of the worsening.

I haven't seen an explanation that accounts for the initial shortfalls, much less why a minor decline caused a much larger shortfall. (Granted, some may be due to hoarding. I'm not pleased blaming panicked parents for hoarding when it's something so important. "Sure, I'll only buy one container. I may not get another for 4 months, but let's have all the infants suffer, including mine, equitably." Just don't see that happening. And can't fault the new parents.)

We already need a second cause to account for the evidence, and may well need more, depending on whether the Abbott issue + the other original cause can account for the observed trajectory of the supply shortage. Just for the logic of the situation.

It's also baby formula, not so much "baby food."

[LiberalFighter]

8. Don't see how seizing the factory would solve the problem.

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Seize it, invest money and get it up to snuff, and then

charge the owner for the upgrades he failed to do.

[LiberalFighter]

28. How do they decide who knows how to get everything up to snuff?

It would just create more of mess if and likely the wrong actions are taken.

[Captain Zero]

31. The workers there probably know

Plenty of working people there knew it wasn't being maintained right, just wanted to keep their jobs and pay check.

[MichMan]

35. Mandate that employees work 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week?

Would that help increase production?

Not ideal, but if people truly can't feed their infants, it may be necessary

[TomSlick]

4. The formula shortage is a real crisis. Babies need feeding.

It is time to invoke the Defense Authorization Act and take over plants.

I have two infant granddaughters that expect regular feeding. Breastfeeding is not an option. The parents are being told it is dangerous to attempt home-made formula. Something must be done - now.

[WarGamer]

6. And oddly enough... people are ordering from Canada or overseas.

And Customs is seizing it.

[Rebl2]

17. Why would

they do that. Do they treat it like medication?

[PatrickforB]

24. The last time Customs seized cases of baby formula at the border was in

April 2021. It was apparently mislabeled.

[WarGamer]

5. It's just politics... the current administration ALWAYS gets the blame for everything.

[dalton99a]

7. Kick

[Tickle]

9. I've been trying to help my

niece who just had a baby. I found some on ebay but they wanted $40.40 to ship it.

My brother has been going into multiple stores to try and find formula

It's very real for my niece anyway

[Hekate]

21. See my post #20 and this link

https://wehavekids.com/parenting/Emergency-Baby-Formula

[Tickle]

22. Thank you very much nt

[Submariner]

10. I don't remember formula

but I recall the sweet Karo syrup and Carnation condensed milk my mother used for my siblings, which I was likely fed earlier.

Try that if formula is out of stock.

[ggma]

15. Carnation

Milk, plus equal amount of water, plus a teaspoon of white Karo syrup. Store in sterilized bottles, heat as needed.

ggma

[Hekate]

20. Right. Plain canned evaporated whole milk, boiled water, 1 Tablespoon Light Karo syrup..

It’s what my mom fed us in the 1940 - 50s — she had no support for her desire to breastfeed, so didn’t do it long. We had supplemental vitamins — I still remember the B-vitamin smell from the younger babies. All of us were healthy and grew well.

Main thing to understand, aside from the modern concern about getting it exactly right with a page full of ingredients you can’t pronounce, is that if you follow the directions regarding sterilization, you will have something perfectly safe for your child. Canned milk is sterilized milk — raw cow’s milk is not, and can carry diseases that can kill infants. It was a big advance when introduced. In addition, it is cheap, unlike packaged infant formulas.

Personally, I was part of the natural-childbirth-and-bust generation of women, so in addition to LaMaze, I nursed each kid for a year. Karo syrup? Ewww.

Still, when I think about American infant formula corporations shilling their expensive powdered product to underdeveloped countries where the water supply isn’t even safe, it occurs to me that a clean can of Carnation with instructions to boil the water vigorously would be better. Same with poor working mothers in America.

https://wehavekids.com/parenting/Emergency-Baby-Formula

[PhylliPretzel]

16. Small corrrection . . .

It was Carnation EVAPORATED milk which was used, and diluted with boiled water. Canned milk and boiled water were used because they are sterile. (The condensed milk has LOTS of sugar in it.)

[Submariner]

23. Roger that.......evaporated milk

And I remember the milk bottles being boiled in her big spaghetti pot. Mothering was hard work with me run in’ around

[kiranon]

27. That's what I used in the 60's and 70's for my children.

Later when I adopted 2 more children, came to love the ready made bottles and new powdered formula. One daughter was allergic to milk and I ordered potato milk powdered formula for it. It tasted great. We all used it. The old ways work along with vitamins. And, I too had the big pot and insert made just to hold glass baby bottles.

[IronLionZion]

12. Banning abortion now should help

in about 18 years there will be lots more workers for the baby formula factory

[ret5hd]

30. 18? Why not 10 or 12?

Them kids need to learn responsibility!

[IronLionZion]

33. Yeah and pay them less than adults

Lazy entitled children need to learn that the world is cruel and life isn't fair

[SWBTATTReg]

13. This points out one of the major problems w/ this stock buyouts etc., when the govt gave (during

tRump's admin., w/o telling who received funds until six months later), that companies put the money to not improving their factory lines, business operations, etc., but in buying back stock. Now, the companies that did this are stuck w/ out-of-date business operations, unable to seize increasing business by increased market demands, another way of how business shot themselves in the foot, by poor management of cash received.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Not To Mention...

...two huge recalls from which neither supplier has recovered.
A recall of a couple months supply takes at least 4x the inventory volume time to recover. At least!
If these 2 recalls hadn't happened, this would be local, or maybe regional news. Not national news.
This shabby reinvestment plan may be the cause, but the recall created an avalanche instead of a speed bump.

[Captain Zero]

32. This sounds like the mafia gutting a business

Are we sure a Russian Mafia oligarch didn't get hold of the factory?

[elleng]

18. Thanks

[peppertree]

19. It's a small - but telling - example of the Third world-ization of American business

In much of the 3rd world - particularly in Africa - businesses are routinely treated by their boards as little more than cash cows.

Any re-investment into the business is, accordingly, seen as a burden - and as something that defeats the real purpose: which is to line the owners' pockets, and as quickly as possibly.

Naturally, these businesses fail before long - and with it the entire national economy itself, where this mindset becomes generalized.

Sadly, that's the model more and more of Corporate America is following.

[DENVERPOPS]

25. Hey Pepper tree

They are all one millimeter from succeeding!

Welcome to the Facist Corporations of America..................AKA The Republican Party...........

[peppertree]

26. I hear you.

May it never come to pass - but the CEO-cracy's greed is definitely getting the best of them.

Human nature, alas.

[DENVERPOPS]

29. I don't even want to think about

the life we would be living, here in the U.S., if Trump and Republicans had won...........

None of the Republicans must have children or grand children. Either that or they just don't give a shit about anyone but themselves...

[Emile]

34. Predatory Capitalism creating a shortage and jacking up prices.