EU Comrades tell you about bananas
So European Union decides for their citizens on almost everything. Like in good communist country. This is good for citizens, this is bad. I have been shocked by official regulation regarding banana sizes: COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 2257/94 that of course you can get in 27 official EU languages or so...
Just to get straight to the point let me quote a little part of it:
III. SIZING
Sizing is determined by:
— the length of the fruit expressed in centimetres and measured along the
convex face, from the blossom end to the point where the peduncle joins
the crown,
— the grade, i.e. the measurement, in millimetres, of the thickness of a
transverse section of the fruit between the lateral faces and the middle,
perpendicularly to the longitudinal axis.
The reference fruit for measurement of the length and grade is:
— the median finger on the outer row of the hand,
— the finger next to the cut sectioning the hand, on the outer row of the
cluster.
The minimum length permitted is 14 cm and the minimum grade permitted
is 27 mm.
This is sick and it is really hard to comment on it. Why the hell the free market cannot decide what people can eat? I can get perfectly tasty 10cm bananas in China not the wooden tasteless crap wrapped in yellow foil that EU wants to give me.
Of course it is all in the sake of making better life for citizens. Of course, I have been told those things in Poland for many years (when Poland was communistic). This is nothing different...
Then comes the cost of doing such regulations. Some people must write it, some must approve it, some must translate it for multiple languages. All of course paid by citizens from their taxes.
And of course it gets further. When you are farmer and you produce correct size bananas (so they must be engineered and pumped with any crap fertilizers) you will get subsidies also coming from taxes of people (even those who do not eat bananas at all).
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I assume that there is a
I assume that there is a logic behind the required size for the bananas.
Probably the regulation is tailored for the large kind of bananas, those that need to be of a certain size to be ripe enough to be eaten, and so on.
Hmmm EUSR =) European Union
Hmmm EUSR =)
European Union of Socialist Republics =)
I left Ukraine when I was 12, but I learned enough while I was there and heard stories from my parents to see that this is the same bullshit.
That's my point
I just see so many similarities between economic models (government interventionism into economy, regulations for "free" market, subsidies, etc). This is definitely going into wrong direction. Not talking about other bullshit. Just as example, EU signs the Kioto treaty about reduction of CO2 emission. I agree, it is not bad. But EU signs this treaty by themselves while other countries do not do it.
Therefore EU will produce less steel, less cement, less whatever... but still needs to import those goods from outside to keep economy working. So China or US or India will have to produce those things. With less restrictive ecologic laws, those countries to produce 1 ton of cement will pollute 3 times more than EU would do. And pollution does not need a visa or passport to travel freely from continent to continent. Therefore such decisions are sick. First you kill your economy, second... the world overall will get polluted more. Result is opposite to plan.