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Month: April 2024

Vermont’s Pesticide Bill Ignores Key Data

It has only been six months since I wrote for Newsmax about a pesticide bill in New York state that will ban the use of neonicotinoid pesticides starting in 2029. In my op-ed, I laid out why New York’s bill was a bad idea, that it would hit vulnerable farmers and consumers and put the state at an economic disadvantage.

Unfortunately, since my piece was published, the state’s Legislature passed the bill anyway, disregarding the ongoing farmer protests in Europe, which bemoaned this exact type of overregulation.

The passing of the New York bill and its not being vetoed by Gov. Kathy Hochul isn’t the only thing that has happened since October. The Vermont House has passed what is almost a carbon copy of the New York bill, also set to go into effect in 2029, and also banning neonic-treated seeds for agricultural use.

The motivation for Vermont’s bill came from the same 2020 Cornell report that triggered the New York ban, even though the authors wrote, “While this risk assessment is intended to support evidence-based decisions, we make no recommendations or policy prescriptions.”

Vermont’s House also said that similar decisions in Canada and the European Union laid the groundwork for their ambitions, even though both Canada and the EU are offsetting the adverse consequences of the bans by paying more farm subsidies than the United States. The fiscal note presented to the Vermont House does not lay out how much this will cost taxpayers — unless, of course, the state expects farmers to just carry the costs themselves or put it on consumers who are already suffering from reduced purchasing power.

The main argument for these bills is that neonic insecticides harm bees. Not only is there no scientific evidence to support that, but it is also negated by the most recent Census of Agriculture, which found that bees are at record highs, with the U.S having added 1 million bee colonies since 2007.

The Washington Post reported that bee colonies are the fastest-growing livestock in the U.S, with a 31% increase in the past 15 years. If neonics, which have been in use since the 90s, were to cause bee population decline, they would be awfully bad at it.

As always, these bills have little to do with protecting birds or bees. They are the work of environmental campaigners who have the ideological view that agriculture needs no chemical input whatsoever. They argue for a switch to an all-organic model, seemingly ignoring that a shift to organics would not just explode consumer prices but also increase carbon dioxide emissions since organic farming requires more resources to achieve the same yield as conventional farming.

The Vermont Senate is currently considering the bill and will hopefully reject it not just on account of it being unscientific but also on the fact that Vermont farmers, who heavily rely on exports to other states, simply cannot afford it.

Originally published here

Misinformed Jon Stewart Applauds FTC Chair Lina Khan

It’s not often that the head of a U.S. federal agency is given the red carpet treatment on Comedy Central, but for Jon Stewart, it’s to be expected.

Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), appeared on the revamped Daily Show featuring Stewart as host on Monday nights, to hype up the FTC’s work battling the “monopolies” of the current era. Khan was certainly in need of a pep rally, as even reporters at New York Magazine have taken note of her tumultuous tenure marked by mass resignations, continuous defeats in court and confused mission statement.

She championed efforts by the agency to scrutinize patents on medical inhalers, blocking ‘pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli from ever working again in pharmaceuticals and a tidal wave of lawsuits against Big Tech firms, namely Amazon, Meta and Apple.

Eager to add cases to the FTC’s docket, Stewart provided an anecdote about Apple allegedly blocking him from interviewing Khan on his now-defunct Apple podcast, The Problem With Jon Stewart.

Khan remained poised and professional in her response, but also revealed her ideology when it comes to modern business and competition.

“I think it just shows one of the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of companies,” she said.

The drawn-out interview reveals a contradiction in what the FTC is even supposed to do as a government agency. Is it about the consumer having choices and not being “bullied”? Or is the FTC just a bulwark against any and all corporate “bigness”?

To dissect her quote, there was no central decision to “concentrate” power or decision-making in Apple or any other tech company. Consumers voted to support these companies by buying their products and using their services to improve their lives. Because those companies now rake in billions and serve millions of customers, does that mean the FTC has to intervene?

The role of the FTC has never been to remedy concerns about higher prices, low wages or broader social ills. As stated in the eponymously named act signed by President Woodrow Wilson that created the agency in 1914, the FTC exists to prevent unfair competition and deception as it relates to commerce and to seek monetary redress when consumers are demonstrably harmed.

Stewart asks Khan to define monopolistic and oligopolist practices, and she downplays the traditional metric of “market share,” instead labeling “behavior” the most straightforward way to render judgment. That would explain her dismal win-loss ratio in both antitrust and mergers.

The FTC has struggled to demonstrate harm to the consumer under Lina Khan, because consumers are actually pretty pleased with the services she and Stewart loathe, like Amazon Prime. Khan is attempting to lead a revival of the Progressive Era antitrust movement, once spearheaded by former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who long crusaded against the “curse of bigness” in America and sought more active policing of private enterprise by the federal government.

This “New Brandeis movement” includes academics and government advisors such as Tim Wu and Lina Khan herself, who was a leading anti-monopoly voice as a staffer at both the FTC and the House Judiciary Committee, as well as a fellow at Columbia Law School. Stewart and his old colleague John Oliver might be vying for membership cards as well. Their primary target is tech companies and their innovations, ranging from artificial intelligence to algorithms, and digital app stores.

Antitrust authorities are carving out new theories about why innovations by tech firms are harmful to consumers — even if it can’t be proven. As she did on The Daily Show, Lina Khan labels companies as monopolistic even after her accusatory lawsuits are defeated in court.

It’s telling that when Stewart asks Khan if she’s “had success: with her antitrust cases, she only cites the layup Martin Shkreli case instead of what she’s staked her tenure on, which is breaking up Amazon, Meta and Google.

No questions from Stewart about Khan’s failed cases such as blocking Meta from buying a VR workout app, or her bizarre effort to jam Microsoft’s purchase of the video game company Activision-Blizzard. Her lawyers were in court armed with flimsy arguments about consumer welfare related to access to the popular Call of Duty series, and what kind of in-game skins Microsoft could make exclusive to Xbox. Embarrassing defeats.

Every week, there are vast new breaches of personal data that put millions of consumers at risk and should be promptly investigated by the FTC and other federal agencies. There is plenty of deception used by online ad firms, crypto scams and other companies that harm consumers and lead them to pay more, lose privacy or even their identities. This is met with little action from Khan’s distracted, ideological FTC.

Instead, she’s laser-focused on consolidation. Why do we have fewer companies in certain sectors of the economy, whether it be in telecom, airlines or meat-packing, as mentioned by Khan?

Once you increase the compliance costs to do business in any given industry with heavy regulation, the result is less competition. Large firms are best positioned to comply because compliance is very, very expensive. The more you regulate, the fewer firms can compete.

Originally published here

Farewell, Insulin? The Diabetes ‘Cartel’ Is Disrupting Itself, Proving Cynics Wrong

Diabetes affects nearly half a billion people worldwide, and the numbers are only going up with each generation. Recent research published by the American Diabetes Association and the CDC projects that by 2060 there will be at least 220,000 young people in the U.S. under the age of 20 with Type 2 diabetes. That’s a roughly 700 percent increase from just a few years ago. The disease poses one of the most significant known challenges to modern healthcare systems and has contributed to a new race for innovative, affordable solutions to weight gain and obesity. That race is led by Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, and it defies much of the usual cynicism about pharmaceutical giants. 

The impact of diabetes extends beyond individual suffering. It’s a condition with huge downstream economic effects – costing the United States a staggering $412 billion annually. Care for the condition accounts for about 10 percent of overall healthcare spending worldwide. As of 2023, people with diagnosed diabetes are responsible for one of every four dollars spent on healthcare in the U.S.

Insulin manufacturers frequently face criticism for escalating prices not making enough of the essential injections. Some U.S. states have even resorted to legal action, accusing insulin makers of maintaining artificial shortages. These companies are often vilified as the embodiment of greed, profiteers of patients’ misery.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders knocked Novo Nordisk at the end of March, saying “Novo Nordisk did the right thing by recently reducing the price of its insulin products by some 75% in America – a company that made nearly $15 billion in profits last year, must now do the right thing with respect to Ozempic and Wegovy.”

The world’s largest insulin producers, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, are spearheading the transition to make insulin injections obsolete for millions with developments of drugs classified as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1) such as Mounjaro/Zepbound and Ozempic/Wegovy. Eli Lilly was the first to commercialize synthetic insulin in 1982 and these companies are now actively betting on disrupting their own business models which made them global leaders in pharmaceuticals. 

These drugs work by essentially mimicking certain hormones produced by the human body, boosting feelings of fullness and satiety.

Patients crave less food and have even shown shifts in their overall food preferences. People taking the drugs were shown pictures of foods and demonstrated “less desire for salty, spicy, high-fat, sweet, and savory foods.” This was also the case with starch and dairy. Eating healthier becomes so much easier on GLP-1 drugs.

Beyond weight loss, GLP-1 agonists reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease. They even might mitigate dementia and Parkinson’s. Recently, the FDA approved Wegovy for treating severe cardiovascular conditions. Some reports even suggest that these drugs moderate alcohol consumption and addictive behaviors like gambling.

Will these myriad benefits help alleviate healthcare inflation? Presently, GLP-1 agonists come at a considerable cost, with an annual treatment cycle averaging $12,000 per patient in the U.S. Growing competition could reduce the sticker shock. More importantly, patients whose long-term health is greatly bettered by the drugs will enjoy lower healthcare costs. 

Thus, GLP-1 agonists have the potential to trim healthcare costs by a few percentage points of GDP. If realized, that’s a very different, more healthy world. Sheila Kahyaoglu of Jefferies Financial told Bloomberg that United Airlines alone stood to save $80 million annually on fuel costs if the average passenger shed 5 kilograms of body weight. Meal delivery services and fast-food chains are rapidly adapting, offering healthier options to accommodate customers embracing healthier lifestyles.

Perhaps the most misguided and longstanding accusation about pharmaceutical companies is that they aim to profit from perpetual illness rather than pursue the creation of curative drugs. The industry disruption we’re witnessing around diabetes management and weight loss should long stand as a reminder of just how wrong that cynical claim is.

Originally published here

John Oliver’s weird hatred for food delivery apps

On the latest episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver ripped into this branch of the sharing economyresponsible. We were told that the big players in this space — Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates — are “leeches” that “undermine” the business of brick-and-mortar restaurants. Oliver equated their use of gig workers to slavery.

It’s yet more silliness.

The first of Oliver’s claims to be challenged is the notion that food delivery apps are a “parasite” middleman in the eatery-to-consumer relationship. Is the delivery app taking something away from restaurants or adding new, previously unrealized value? A little bit of both. Here, Oliver is getting at the commission fees charged by delivery apps, which reserve anywhere from 13% to 40% of the final billing for themselves, depending on what the restaurant agrees to when it registers with the app. 

Restaurateurs do operate in a tough industry, and margins can indeed be slim, even as tight as 5% for most in the business. The apps argue that they not only serve as a logistics and delivery service but also as a discovery platform for consumers looking to get some food. Top line: An exhausted parent enjoying a night home alone and eating delivery food was never a prospective customer for the restaurants downtown. Their potential market on any given night is driven by foot traffic, search engines, and word of mouth. Their business is built around consumers who have specific plans to eat out that night and enjoy being waited on. 

Delivery apps change all of that, and yes, they are disruptive. Consumers on delivery apps are usually looking for something specific. They want pizza, Peking duck, tacos, or a hoagie. In turn, the apps present local options ranging from corporate fast-food chains to locally owned restaurants. Those eateries now have a new potential market. It’s important to note that these apps also helped save many restaurants that would have otherwise lost all their business during the COVID-19 shutdowns.

However, in Oliver’s eyes, something evil and corrupt is happening when a delivery service brings a new customer and essentially charges a finder’s fee for locating that new customer. I’m reminded of James Bond’s words to Miss Moneypenny in GoldenEye, “What would I do without you?” To which Moneypenny rightly replies, “As far as I can recall, you’ve never had me.”

Gone are the days of needing to pay for junk mail flyers and door-hang menu campaigns to reach the consumer. Third-party apps cover that base easily.

But Oliver shovels so much luddite mud in a cleanly delivered monologue that any possible critic would be daunted about where to start. One throwaway falsehood is that the sharing economy is “the main source of income for many,” which is hardly true. According to the IRS, as well as internal data from relevant companies, 96% of Lyft drivers work elsewhere or are students in addition to driving. Ninety percent of delivery drivers for DoorDash worked less than 10 hours per week on the app. Most are making ends meet and covering troublesome bills, not looking to build a career.

Oliver’s worldview contends that when consumers are reaping new benefits, the consumers are somehow propagating an injustice. But what is a more virtuous basis for a business than providing what the community and consumers want? 

Oliver is a millionaire who can dine out any night he wants, wherever he wants, and can make time for doing so since his economic needs are met. The rest of us use delivery apps to fill potholes in our plans or holes in our pans. We choose these apps in the same way we choose dine-in restaurants — when it works for us. 

Originally published here

FCC’s plan to make your Internet a ‘public utility’ will only make it worse

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, the Federal Communications Commission revived its proposal to reclassify Internet providers as public utilities under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, commonly known as “net neutrality.” The FCC vote will take place on April 25.

This marks a step back for all American Internet users, who have thus far profited from a more innovative Internet marketplace since the repeal of these rules in 2017 by former chair Ajit Pai.

Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, reacts:

“Resurrecting the idea of Title-II regulation of Internet Service Providers, after its successful repeal in 2017, is the idea that nobody needs, certaintly not in 2024. Since then, we’ve seen incredible innovation and investment, as more Internet customers begin using mobile hotspots and satellite Internet, getting more Americans online than ever before. No one is asking for this proposal and no one needs it.

“Regulating ISPs like water utilities or electricity providers is a path toward more government control and oversight of the Internet, plain and simple, and will only make things worse,” said Ossowski.

“As we’ve seen with the recent court cases before the Supreme Court, today’s major Internet problem isn’t broadband providers blocking certain access or services, but government agencies attempting to strong-arm and jawbone Internet providers and platforms into censoring or removing content they don’t agree with. This is more concerning than any worst-case scenario dreamed up by FCC commissioners.

“Bringing these dead regulations back to life to enforce Depression-era rules on the web will be a losing issue for millions of Americans who enjoy greater Internet access and services than ever before.

“Rather than support Americans’ access to the Internet, it stands to threaten the vast entrepreneurial and tech spaces across our country and will push companies to set up in jurisdictions that promise true Internet freedom rather than state-imposed regulation of content and delivery of Internet services.

“We implore the FCC to whole an open and honest public engagement process on these proposed net neutrality regulations, and we are certain consumers will have their say against this proposal,” added Ossowski.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva, Lima, Brasilia, and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org.

The DOJ’s Antitrust Case Against Apple is an Attack on Consumer Preference

The war between the US federal government and Big Tech continues. The next chapter pits the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) under Merrick Garland against Apple, wherein the DOJ has accusedAmerica’s most innovative consumer brand of sweeping antitrust violations. This allegation of anticompetitive conduct deserves intense scrutiny. Apple is a wildly successful consumer tech brand that inspires consumer loyalty like no other tech. So what’s the problem?

At the heart of the DOJ’s lawsuit is the claim that Apple has stifled competition by building barriers that prevent competitors from both entering the smartphone market and functioning on Apple’s platform. 

The Apple Watch is part of the DOJ’s case. They’ve argued that Apple doesn’t accommodate smartwatches from other providers to sync to iPhones and Macbooks. This is a strange line of attack. 

As I wrote in The Hill weeks before the case was unveiled:

“Imagine the classroom slacker making the case to the teacher that the straight-A student in the front of the class is being anti-competitive by not sharing their lecture notes with them. It’s one thing to maliciously penalize or seek to inconvenience consumers for having a mixed assortment of technology from Apple, LG, Samsung, Nokia and Google. It’s another thing entirely for the government to say that Apple has to design its products for Samsung to piggyback on and then offer to their loyal customers as a perk of not doing business with Apple. Investigators are spending taxpayer dollars to find out why the Apple Watch works more smoothly with the iPhone than with rival brands.”

It it not anticompetitive to not build products with your competitors in mind. It may limit the appeal of your product, your walled garden where each Apple device syncs nicely with another. That’s why I’ve said “Apple is a lifestyle brand.” This approach has made Apple very popular with consumers. 

One of the other key grievances outlined in the lawsuit is Apple’s control over its App Store, which critics argue gives the company an unfair advantage over rivals. However, what these critics fail to acknowledge is that Apple’s stringent App Store guidelines are designed to uphold the highest standards of quality and security for users.

An Apple user can feel comfortable and confident knowing that there is not malware and illicit apps on the App Store. It is more tightly controlled. That is to consumers benefits, though it may frustrate app developers, game makers and tech competitors. 

Apple’s ecosystem is not a nefarious scheme to lock users into its products but rather a testament to the company’s unwavering commitment to user privacy and data security. And make no mistake, the data security and privacy component of Apple’s brand has put them in an adversarial position with the Department of Justice and Homeland Security before. Are we supposed to believe this factor is not part of the DOJ’s motivation? 

Unlike other tech giants that have come under fire for their lax approach to privacy, Apple has consistently prioritized the protection of user data, even if it means sacrificing some degree of interoperability with third-party devices and services. This principled stance should be commended, not condemned, particularly in an era marked by rampant data breaches and privacy violations. Apple does good by consumers. 

In responding to the lawsuit, Apple pointed out that the DOJ’s actions threaten to undermine the company principles that have made its products synonymous with quality and innovation. At the Consumer Choice Center, we are inclined to agree. Consumers have ample market power to use other devices and mix and match as they please. There is more to this DOJ attack on Apple than meets the eye, and you can bet it has little to do with consumer welfare.

Originally published here

Pentingnya Hak Kekayaan Intelektual bagi Pelaku Riset

Hak kekayaan intelektual mungkin merupakan istilah yang sangat akrab di telinga bagi sebagian masyarakat. Umumnya, hak kekayaan intelektual, atau yang sering juga disingkat sebagai HAKI, dipahami sebagai hak yang dimiliki oleh seseorang atau lembaga atas karya dan inovasi yang mereka buat.

HAKI sendiri juga umumnya dipahami dalam ranah bisnis dan dunia usaha. Di dalam dunia usaha, HAKI memang merupakan hal yang sangat penting dan esensial, dan tidak bisa dipisahkan dari kegiatan ekonomi.

Melalui HAKI , perusahaan dan pelaku usaha bisa mendapatkan perlindungan atas karya, inovasi, dan produk yang mereka buat. Perusahaan pesaing misalnya, tidak bisa dengan mudah mencuri hal-hal seperti slogan, logo, dan desain produk dari perusahaan lain secara tidak bertanggung jawab dan mendapatkan keuntungan dari hal tersebut.

HAKI memang sesuatu yang harus dilindungi dengan kuat. Negara-negara berpenghasilan tinggi misalnya, umumnya merupakan negara-negara yang memiliki perlindungan HAKI yang sangat kuat. Melalui perlindungan HAKI, para pelaku usaha memiliki insentif yang besar untuk terus berkarya dan berinovasi demi memberikan dan menyediakan produk yang terbaik bagi para konsumen.

Bisa dibayangkan apa yang akan terjadi bila HAKI tidak ada. Tentunya, pihak-pihak yang tidak bertanggung jawab dapat dengan sangat mudah mencuri ide yang telah dibuat oleh pihak lain, dan hal ini tentu bukan hanya akan merugikan pelaku usaha tetapi juga para konsumen. Kalau ada pihak tertentu yang mencuri brand sebuah perusahaan misalnya, maka tentu para konsumen dapat terkecoh mana brand yang memang original dan asli.

Namun ternyata, HAKI juga tidak hanya penting dan esensial di dunia usaha, tetapi juga dalam dunia akademis dan penelitian. Sangat penting bagi para peneliti untuk bisa mendapatkan perlindungan atas karya dan juga publikasi yang ia buat, salah satunya agar tidak bisa diklaim dan dimanfaatkan oleh pihak-pihak yang tidak bertanggung jawab untuk keuntungan mereka semata.

Kepala Organisasi Riset Tenaga Nuklir (ORTN) misalnya, menyampaikan bahwa setidaknya ada 3 hal yang sangat penting untuk diperhatikan oleh para peneliti terkait dengan perlindungan hak kekayaan intelektual. Pertama misalnya, sangat penting bagi para peneliti untuk mengetahui bagaimana prosedur untuk pengajuan dan juga pencatatan hak kekayaan intelektual.

Kedua, para peneliti juga harus memiliki kemauan dan juga motivasi untuk dapat mengemas capaian dan juga prestasi yang dimilikinya. Sementara itu, yang terakhir adalah para peneliti juga harus mampu untuk bekerja sama dengan berbagai pihak yang memiliki wewenang dan tugas terkait dengan pengajuan HAKI tersebut, agar dapat tercapai dengan baik (brin.go.id, 15/9/2023).

Hal yang serupa juga disampaikan oleh dosen Fakultas Hukum Universitas Padjajaran (UNPAD), Novianty Muchar, S.H., M.H., di mana Beliau menyampaikan bahwa melalui perlindungan hak kekayaan intelektual, nilai tambah dari riset yang dilakukan oleh perguruan tinggi dapat meningkat. Selain itu, adanya perlindungan hak kekayaan intelektual juga merupakan bentuk penghargaan atas hasil harya intelektual orang lain, yang tentunya tidak dicapai dengan proses yang mudah (unpad.ac.id, 03/08/2022).

Untuk itu, adanya dorongan dan pendampingan kepada para pelaku riset dan peneliti untuk mereka secara aktif dapat mendaftarkan hak kekayaan intelektual melalui inovasi yang dibuatnya adalah hal yang sangat penting. Melalui adanya dorongan dan pendampingan yang tepat, tentunya proses untuk melindungi hak kekayaan intelektual dari para peneliti dan pelaku riset di lembaga akademis di Indonesia dapat dilakukan secara lebih cepat dan komprehensif.

Lembaga pemerintah Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional (BRIN) misalnya, yang memiliki tugas untuk menyelengarakan tugas pemerintahan di bidang penelitian, pengembangan, pengkajian, dan inovasi yang terintegrasi, berkomitmen untuk mendorong para pelaku riset agar dapat meraih hak atas kekayaan intelektual atas temuan ilmiajh mereka. Adanya dukungan kuat dari lembaga pemerintah yang memiliki tugas & fungsi yang luas seperti BRIN tentu merupakan hal yang sangat penting agar HAKI para pelaku riset di Indonesia bisa semakin ditingkatkan (antaranews.com, 7/5/2023).

Tidak hanya melalui BRIN, Direktorat Jenderal Kekayaan Intelektual Kementerian Hukum dan HAM (Dirjen KI Kemenkumham) juga menyatakan bahwa pendaftaran HAKI bagi pelaku riset dan peneliti adalah sesuatu yang sangat penting. Terlebih lagi, jika hasil dari penelitian tersebut masuk ke dunia industri dan belum memiliki HAKI, maka hasil peenlitian tersebut bisa ditiru dimanfaatkan oleh pihak-pihak lain secara tidak bertanggung jawab tanpa adanya konsekuensi hukum yang jelas (dgip.go.id, 8/10/2023).

Untuk itu, demi mendorong hal tersebut, Dirjen KI Kemenkumham juga menggelar berbagai pendampingan pendaftaran HAKI di berbagai universitas di Indonesia, diantaranya Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Universitas Diponegoro, Univesitas Hasanuddin, dan Univesitas Brawijaya (dgip.go.id, 8/10/2023). Diharapkan, melalui adanya pendampingan tersebut, akan semakin banyak HAKI yang didaftarkan oleh para pelaku riset dan peneliti di Indonesia.

Sebagai penutup, hak kekayaan intelektual adalah hal yang sangat penting, tidak hanya di dunia industri dan usaha, tetapi juga bagi para pelaku riset di dunia akademis. Diharapkan, melalui peningkatan HAKI di dunia akademis, riset dan penelitian di Indonesia dapat semakin berkembang dengan pesat, dan dapat membawa banyak manfaat bagi masyarakat Indonesia.

Originally published here

Ranked and rated: Europe’s best and worst countries for train travel

All travellers like trains. European travellers love them. An InterRail trip is a rite of passage that stays in the memory. The Eurostar is to millennials what boat trains were for Gen X: a portal to an entire continent. European railway stations – usually prominent, often palatial – suggest history and romance. They feature in classic films, novels and music. In a climate-conscious world, railways remain the greenest alternative. They are safer and cause less stress than driving. For anyone keen to see the world, is there any better place than beside a train window?

So, with this in mind, we’ve taken the rail networks of Europe’s 15 largest (open) countries to task, rating each one on the factors that matter most. Read on to find out which ailing national networks are best avoided (and those with a highlight that’s nevertheless worth the hassle), and which are the finest options for a successful rail-based escape – whether it be your next spring city break, or a glorious weeks-long odyssey that snakes from coast to countryside. 

15. Greece

Bringing up the rear in our ranking is this snaking country of jagged coasts, islands, mountains and peninsulas, which has never quite made the railways work for its people. There are trains every few hours linking Athens and Thessaloniki (under five hours), but much of the timetable is spattered with dreaded rail replacement buses. Floods in 2023 have led to a near collapse of the network. Toy trains operate in some touristy areas, such as the Odontotos rack railway – though that was recently stopped by landslides. Athens used to luxuriate in services to Berlin and was once a branch of the Orient Express. There were trains to Turkey via Pythio and North Macedonia via Idomeni. The pandemic shut down what was already a dwindling service and international lines to Sofia, Skopje and Bucharest remain closed. Athens has the most underwhelming main station of any country in Europe – which sort of sums things up.

Read the full text here

How Neo-Prohibitionists Came to Shape Alcohol Policy

IN JANUARY 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) dropped a bombshell-they announced there was “no safe level”1 of alcohol consumption.

For the past five years, the WHO has been treating light alcohol consumption as a grave public health emergency. It seems a surprising priority for the world’s premier health organization-until a closer read of their policy documents reveals who they are working with: Temperance groups, which have now found a way to introduce abstinence policies into the global health arena.

How an EU Conflict Opened the Abstinence Door 

In 2015, more than 20 public health organizations resigned2 from the EU’s Alcohol and Health Forum.

This committee was the place where legislators, alcohol representatives, and public health experts thrashed out how to reduce alcohol-related harms in the EU, which were significant:3 more than 120,000 premature deaths, and more than €125 billion ($135.4 billion) in crime, health, and social costs.

But the health organizations grew disgusted3 at the EU’s failure to develop an alcohol policy, seeing the Forum as fatally compromised by the alcohol industry.

“The forum has proved worse than useless, a free PR front for the industry,” Nina Renshaw, then secretary general of the European Public Health Alliance said at the time.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Forum’s science group, was equally scathing, saying that the Commission had prioritized “alcohol industry interests over public health.”

The collapse of the Forum left a gaping hole in European alcohol policy. According to Ignacio Sanchez Recarte, that was when the WHO arrived, “with what I call that Trojan horse-they said alcohol is dangerous because it causes cancer.”

Sanchez Recarte is the director general of the Comite Europeen des Entreprises Vins4 (CEEV), the voice of Europe’s wine producers. Based in Brussels, “we try to defend the interests of European wine companies and wine traders on all the topics that may affect them,” he explained. “One of the working groups that is getting more and more important in the last year is the one trying to follow all the attacks.”

Those attacks are becoming relentless.

Read the full text here

Litigation Finance Exposes Our Judicial System to Foreign Exploitation

Now that Congress has come to its senses about a forced divestiture plan to uncouple TikTok from the Chinese Communist Party, we’d be remiss not to explore other examples of how powers such as China influence American institutions. Let’s look at our justice system.

In a handful of local court cases around the country, a Shenzhen-based firm has been clandestinely funding intellectual property lawsuits to help upend a major consumer brand.

That company, Purplevine IP, is a Chinese patency consulting firm that provided the money for the Florida tech company Staton Techiya in its lawsuits against Samsung. The company claims the South Korean electronics firm used its intellectual property in its popular audio products.

How do we know this? Because the Delaware judge in this case demanded information on third-party financial arrangements affecting the litigants. In November 2022, Chief Judge Connelly issued a standing order requiring that cases brought to him would need all outside funding disclosed in full before he heard a claim.

This arrangement, known as third-party litigation finance, is a booming trend in U.S. civil courts and is estimated to be a $13.5 billion industry.

Litigation funders are hedge funds, credit lenders, and venture capitalists who front legal costs in exchange for a percentage of any monetary reward. They offer financing to legal firms and plaintiffs fighting major class action lawsuits and tort cases they normally couldn’t afford.

Proponents and industry leaders claim these funding arrangements help empower smaller litigants against massive corporations that wronged them and that may have some merit. But it is also pushing the tools of justice into unknown territory that could be vulnerable to exploitation.

In popular culture, an infamous example of third-party litigation financing is the case of Terry Bodea, the wrestler known as Hulk Hogan, against the embattled online tabloid Gawker. 

After a sex tape of Hogan leaked to the media outlet, a lawsuit was filed by Hogan against Gawker, claiming invasion of privacy. The moneyman backing this lawsuit, we later learned, was billionaire financier Peter Thiel, who had an axe to grind with the gossip site. 

The $115 million judgment against Gawker has proven to be a major cultural turning point on free speech, media malice, and how far public interest can peek into private celebrities’ lives.

Yet, it also revealed how quickly the fast-growing third-party litigation finance industry shifts the balance of justice in civil cases, whether good or bad. Even more so once foreign companies begin using these same tactics to file suits against U.S. firms.

That worries at least a few on Capitol Hill, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), who last year filed a bill to force disclosure of any and all foreign third-party litigation funders in court. The bill would also outlaw litigation finance—direct or indirect—by any foreign government or sovereign wealth fund.

A Senate bill introduced by Senators John Kennedy (R-LA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) turned an eye to foreign-funded lawsuits “undermining our economic and national security.”

Beyond national security implications, litigation finance is a creative and unique way to gamify legal proceedings, transforming justice into a game of chance mirroring prop bets and sports wagers.

But more than betting on stocks based on company earnings or games according to player stats, litigation funders have the sway to advise lawyers on witnesses, frame arguments, or even advertise cases to draw more participants in large class actions. Unless judges and courts make direct demands for transparency, there is a chance that much of this could be happening unabated. Is this what we want for the future of civil justice?

Lawsuits are not Monday Night Football or Wall Street. They are tools available to citizens and aggrieved parties in a liberal democracy to deliver justice.

As Business Insider writes, litigation finance has gone from a humble part of the economy to now a top-tier “asset class,” overshadowing the principal aim of our civil courts.

The United States offers a free market and the rule of law for global innovators. This is a great advantage for consumers who benefit from a more bountiful supply of goods and services.

However, as we have seen recently with TikTok’s abuses of privacy and security and the growing intellectual property cases from well-financed firms in China, openness can also be abused to consumers’ detriment.

Disclosure of third-party litigation funding is both necessary and achievable. Many states have already passed laws around this issue, while many judges require it in their courts. The bills introduced in the House and Senate would be reasonable and adequate calls for transparency that would help safeguard our judicial system.

If we want to uphold true justice in America and keep our system fair and accessible, we must turn a spotlight on third-party litigation funding. We all have a stake in it. 

Originally published here

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