WTH Is Going On with the Baby Formula Shortage? How Government Created This Crisis
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2022
⏱️ 49 minutes
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Summary
This is America - how can we have a shortage of baby formula? That’s the question many parents are asking as they face bare Soviet-style store shelves. In a country with ample means, how did America arrive at what is essentially a food shortage? How did three main domestic baby formula companies come to control 98% of their market? Parent or not, this issue has implications for everyone—it is a case study that involves government regulations, supply chain, monopolies under the guise of capitalism, and barriers to free trade. Or, as one of the podcast’s guests notes, “a perfect storm.”
Marc and Dany explore this puzzling situation with guests Annie Gasparro and Jesse Newman, Wall Street Journal reporters covering the scandal. Gasparro is a food reporter with the WSJ Chicago bureau and writes about packaged food companies and consumer tastes. Newman is also a food reporter with the WSJ corporate bureau, covering farmers, ranchers, and food companies.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:03.0 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell he's talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's going on? |
| 0:01.1 | Who in God's name |
| 0:21.6 | knows what it's all about. Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. And I'm Mark Dyson. |
| 0:41.2 | Welcome to our podcast. What the hell is going on? |
| 0:43.0 | Mark, what the hell is going on? |
| 0:47.4 | Well, Danny, during the pandemic, we had an episode about the toilet paper shortage, |
| 0:50.6 | and it was probably one of the most fun episodes we've ever done. |
| 0:52.8 | Prompted a lot of scatological humor. |
| 0:55.8 | But we're now in the midst of something that's not funny at all, which is a baby formula shortage. And the reality is a lot of Americans are |
| 1:01.4 | looking and saying, what is this, the Soviet Union? How can America, the most advanced economy in |
| 1:06.7 | the face of the earth, have a shortage of baby formula where you literally have parents |
| 1:11.0 | going to grocery stores and pharmacies and seeing empty shelves, like Goom Department |
| 1:17.1 | Store in the old Soviet Union where there's nothing to buy. It's really a government-created |
| 1:22.3 | crisis. We have such a highly regulated industry when it comes to baby formula. I don't think people even |
| 1:28.8 | realize how the baby formula is made, how the government impedes competition and production of |
| 1:34.9 | baby formula. It's really a terrifying story of government intervention that is now causing a crisis |
| 1:41.1 | across this country for parents all over the place. |
| 1:44.3 | Okay. |
| 1:49.6 | So, I mean, for all of us who, now that we're coming out of the COVID pandemic, |
| 1:57.6 | are so bloody sick and tired of hearing supply chain, COVID, supply chain as an excuse for everything, let us now recognize that part of the problem here has nothing to do |
| 2:02.8 | with supply chain and everything to do with the incompetence of the Food and Drug Administration. |
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