20111027-Stossel-[Stupid Consumers]-Fox Business.CF.avi

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STOSSEL - [Stupid Consumers] - Fox Business Network
2011, October 27, Thursday

Xvid/MP3 AVI - encoded from medium quality ReplayTV stream

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Were it not for the protective coercion of government in the "public" interest, checking the inherent evil of doing business, consumers would be exploited mercilessly. Thank goodness for beneficent government!

John Stossel attempts to convince viewers that this commonplace notion is all wrong.

[excerpted from John Stossel's blog:]

I built my career doing consumer reporting, exposing bad businesses for pulling scams on people. I called for more government regulation. This kind of thing won me 19 Emmy awards.

Now I realize that I had it wrong. The free market deters and punishes scams better than regulation does. Also, government rips-off more people than business ever does.

Another point: some consumers are just stupid.

To illustrate this, tonight we turn to Candid Camera. We'll show video of a blind taste test, in which consumers are asked to analyze the differences between several glasses of wine. They find "differences" even though every glass is the same. In another experiment, people vividly describe the "smell" from a perfume that is actually just water.

These Candid Camera bits are funny, but they prove a serious point. Consumers fall for everything, including bogus "eco fads" like cage free eggs, organic produce, and much more.

Why consumers are stupid, but DON'T need protection from government. That's my show, tonight.