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"The most secure and prosperous societies did not hide from the world. They were confident enough to remain open to trade and ideas, allowing the new to challenge the known. Progress emerges when people experiment, borrow, and combine ideas in ways no planner could ever foresee; decline happens when fear overcomes curiosity."

~ Johan Norberg from his article 'From Athens to the Abbasids to today’s Anglosphere, creativity and commerce drive greatness.' in which he explores the central lessons of history’s real golden ages in his new book, Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages.

California’s farcical Fast Food Council perfectly encapsulates everything that is wrong with this state’s governance. Wasteful, performative and overreaching, it’s time to abolish the thing entirely.

In 2022, the California Legislature approved the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act (Assembly Bill 257) by then-Assemblyman Chris Holden of Pasadena.

Among other things, that law, overwhelmingly approved in both the state Assembly and state Senate, authorized the establishment of a fast food council with the authority to set the minimum hourly wage for fast food workers as high as $22.

After the Save Local Restaurants coalition responded with a signature gathering effort to put the matter before voters via referendum, a compromise was made. Assembly Bill 1228, also carried by Holden, was approved in 2023.

Under AB 1228, the minimum wage for fast food workers was set at $20 an hour as of April 1, 2024, with the Fast Food Council tasked with overseeing the “hourly minimum wage for fast food restaurant employees and develop[ing] standards, rules, and regulations for the fast food industry.”

The council is to consist of two representatives from the fast food industry, two from franchisees or restaurant owners, two of fast food employees and one member of the public. In addition, the council must include a representative from the Department of Industrial Relations and a representative from the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. It is also supposed to meet at least every six months.

The absurdity of ceding so much power to such a Soviet council aside, recent reporting from KCRA 3’s Ashley Zavala indicates the full council hasn’t met at all this year and hasn’t had a leader since May.

Nick Hardeman left his post as chair of the council to accept an appointment by Gov. Gavin Newsom California Housing Finance Agency’s Board of Directors and hasn’t been replaced since.

This leaves at least a few problems, one being that the council isn’t free. “California’s Department of Finance confirmed this year’s state budget included $1.1 million for the council to fund four staff positions,” reported Zavala.

Meanwhile, as part of the mess made by AB 1228 and AB 257 was the uproar known as “Paneragate.”

It was Zavala who reported in 2024 that the negotiations over the law were subject to nondisclosure agreements.

Zavala uncovered this as she tried to figure out why the law exempted restaurants that make and sell their own bread.

This raised concerns that perhaps this was included to aid billionaire Greg Flynn, a friend of Newsom’s who happens to own dozens of Panera Bread restaurants in California.

Even now, businesses have relied on the Fast Food Council for guidance on how to navigate the law in light of all of this. Zavala notes one Handel’s Ice Cream Parlor franchisee in Southern California has tried to get clarity from the council for a year. But it’s AWOL.

It all raises the question: What’s the point of all of this?

Just scrap the thing and let fast food operators do their jobs.

To accelerate progress in space, the U.S. should withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty

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"How did we get to the point where having an old-fashioned see-saw on the playground is something almost no park ... would consider? ...

"[I]t all began in the ‘60s. Not with the hippies – with the experts.

“'The idea we had back then was that we could prescribe the correctness of public choices with detailed rules,' say [Philip] Howard, author ... of Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America. 'But actually, that’s not correct. Practically every situation involves human judgment in the circumstances.'

"The post-war optimism about technocrats led America to start substituting regulations for what some of us call common sense. ... This combination, which was supposed to make our world safer and more fair, had the unintended consequence of making it stagnant and scary. Lots of rules meant lots of opportunities for punishment. ...

"The result is not just boring playgrounds. It’s bored kids, with fewer chances to learn to solve problems. “You no longer have the brain learning these social skills, because you have an adult overseeing them,” says Howard.

"Perhaps Howard’s biggest bugaboo is the burgeoning books of standards that schools and other institutions, like day care centres and nursing homes, are required to follow. ...

"And when we are busy trying to make sure that we have done things exactly as outlined on page 78, sub-paragraph 5-H, we’re not getting smarter. 'The regulatory state is literally mind-numbing,” Howard says. Load it up with rules and it can’t see the slide as anything other than a piece of equipment that is noncompliant, should it angle more than 43 degrees in a vertical direction'."

~ Lenore Skenazy from her post 'One Reason Childhood Is So Boring Now'

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