UK seizes breast milk ice cream

BBC:

Ice cream made from breast milk has been removed from a central London restaurant on health grounds following complaints by members of the public.

The dessert, called Baby Gaga, went on sale at ice cream parlour Icecreamists in Covent Garden in February.

But Westminster Council officers removed the product to make sure it was "fit for human consumption".

I hope they look into whether the company is adulterating the breast milk. No doubt this is the sort of free advertising the business was hoping for. If the government decides breast milk ice cream is fit for human consumption, then what?

My first thought when I read about this product was it's going to take breast milk from the mouthes of babes. It's like when corn is used to produce ethanol. That corn more expensive for human consumption. And that can even lead to revolutions.

To read more about the supply chain for breast milk for ice cream check out this article.

The milk has been donated by women who were paid £15 for every 10 ounces of their bodily fluid.

The dessert is offered up in a martini glass to those daring enough to try it for £14.

It's advertised as organic, but who is monitoring their diets? And what's this about the milk being donated when the women are being paid.

Iran approves haircut styles for men

It's all here. Be sure to check out the photos.

Pro-market policies are left wing

Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi Guido Tabellini © at voxEU.org:

Labour-market flexibility, deregulation of the service industry, pension reforms and greater competition in university funding is not anti-equality. Such reforms shift financing from taxpayers to the users themselves and, as such, tend to eliminate rents. They tend to increase productivity by basing rewards on merit rather than on being an insider. They tend to open up opportunities for younger workers who are not yet well-connected. Pursuing pro-market reforms does not imply facing a trade-off between efficiency and social justice. In this sense, pro-market policies are “left wing”, if that means reducing the economic privileges enjoyed by “insiders”.

Makes more sense than Italy's Economy Minister:

More than a third of Italian men over the age of 30 live at home with their parents, a phenomenon blamed on sky-high apartment rents and bleak job prospects as much as a liking for mamma's cooking.

Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa offered to come to the rescue with a 1,000 euro ($1,411) tax break for 20- and 30-something Italians who rent. He said the move was aimed at "bamboccioni," which evokes images of clumsy, overgrown male babies. "We must send those we call 'big babies' out of the house," the minister told a Senate hearing on the 2008 draft budget.

High prices and the state

Rising fast food prices in the UAE are viewed with concern by the state. Yet they are the result of higher costs to the retailers (mostly due to rising costs of imports transmitted through the fixed exchange rate with the dollar).

Meanwhile we wonder whether a reduction in the state's royalty burden on telecom profits (currently 50%) would be coupled with a change in state regulation that would allow price competition between etisalat and du. Price competition would reduce the burden of high prices on the people.

Shouldn't the mission of the Telecom Regulatory Authority be to promote competition rather than to protect competitors?

We also wonder why the telecoms don't capitalize their names.

A picture tells a 1,000 stories

Don't it?

Reuters reports:

DUBAI, March 26 (Reuters) - Privately held Dubai developer Damac Properties called on Monday for the Dubai government to help curb soaring construction costs by easing restrictions on foreign contractors and encourage more competition.

Construction costs in Dubai, the Gulf's international commercial hub, have doubled in the last four years as demand for building materials has outpaced supply and contracting costs have risen, Damac Chairman Hussain Sajwani said.

"There is a lot the government can do about this," Sajwani told the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit on Monday. It could cut the time it takes contractors to get a licence, which runs as much as a year, and encourage more foreign contractors to work in the emirate, he added.
...
Gulf Arab governments have been investing windfall oil revenues in developing tourism and infrastructure projects across the Gulf, driving demand for everything from cranes to cement.

... Sajwani said the government must ease restrictions on foreign contractors, or construction costs would continue to rise 15-25 percent annually during the next several years.
...
"Instead of a 25 percent margin, contractors' margins could go back to 10 percent if this [entry of new construction firms] happens," Sajwani said. "The government should encourage the world's contractors to come to Dubai."

Relaxation of government-created barriers to entry in other products -- from juice to nuts -- would curb the demand-driven inflation the UAE is experiencing. With fewer restrictions on entry of new competitors windfall profits prices would more quickly evaporate as prices returned to normal.