Yeah, but aren't you the one who is against making them list things on labels?

If there's no label, and the name of the product is "Vitamin Water", people are going to assume it is water with added vitamins. And food coloring.

I have given up on the present generation and some of the last. They are bleeding stupid. Ignorance I can excuse but inability to actually think is not.

Sometimes it drives me to hurt myself via banging my head against wall.

A phrase or sort of motto that keeps popping in my head is "common-sense is so uncommon."

Is it worth it to take a girl out of class for a skirt that is a little above the knee? Probably not.

Will problems be raised shipping baked goods or fresh food to another country. Likely.

Is it worth raising a stink about a little boy singing and dancing to "I too Sexy..." song? it's a kid and a silly song. Rolls eyes tell kid to sit his ass down.

Is it likely that email promising me a bigger dick is likely going to work via a simple pill? If it did ALL men likely be using it.

If I eat McDonald's everyday will I not get fat?
Yes I would.

Idiots! It is horrible that the law and lawyers are now making stupidity acceptable.

My favorite is the bracelet that helps you keep your balance. It could work, if it had gyroscopes in the links...

Stupidity should hurt.

Skechers outright lied in their advertising. It wasn't just the hyperbole, opinion, or half truths we expect from ads.

More interesting to me are all the consumer reviews raving about the sneakers.

See the labeling is the cherry on top of the idiocy. All it takes is a minute to read the label. Apply a little of the grey matter and some questions can pop up like. "Hmmm this vitamin water has sugar in it?" or "what are these other chemicals/ingrediants in this drink". I bet it even has a good old warning on it akin to "part of a complete breakfast"

Really are people so stupid to believe anything written on a bottle. Sounds like an advertisers wet dream.

GOD this is making me angry again. How is it in this day and age with the Google, smorgasboard of media from radio to streaming video, and the ability to speak and read people still can not figure out stuff. For fuck sakes I suspect humanity is de-evolving all thanks to on demand Internet, facebook, twitter.

Actually thinking about it the major problem is people just do not want to do the work. Even if it is a little bit. Time and time again in forums and facebook groups I see questions that could be answered with applying the work. Of thinking logically, try to expand or defeine the question or details, putting that time in ie reading a couple of articles, or even knowing when and where to ask - like law question a lawyer.

What further drives me bonkers is my peers in my community all need/have University Degrees and still some could not think their way out of an open door. The have expensive pieces of paper that show they know how to think.

How come I can not find a English speaking plumber in my little town? Smack do you understand you are in a foreign country that speaks another language?

Where can I get "unique product"? Once again foreign country! Have you considered an alternative or just accepting not having it.

How come the European soccer game is ______ language? Because 99.9 percent of the other customers speak that language in that country.

Breath! Sigh!

I volunteer on a tech website. I constantly have to resist giving them a link via Let me google that for you

I think that some resist using the internet because they know how ignorant they are.

I like the shoes, it helps my lower back pain since I'm on my feet all day. I never thought they'd tone me.

Okay you are ignorant - that I can excuse a little. But being ignorant and lazy is inexcusable.
Okay you do not know, what have you tried?

Just think if I spend 5 minutes learning and reading I can improve my ability with something. If I spend more time I might learn more.

Google is amazing. Learning to use "quotes", minus symbols - and AND or OR I have been able to find answers to my questions.

People really need to work on their google-fu skills.

I think there is an argument to make that the government has made it worse with excessive regulation and labeling laws. It implies a degree of oversight the government could not possibly attain and it shifts responsibility from the offending companies.

To make it even more odd, the government has extremely lax regulation of the health supplements industry where it's buyer beware. Some people complain and I agree that most of the supplements are bogus, but buyer beware.

(Unfortunately, lawsuits sound great until you realize that the lawyers take most of the money and throw a few crumbs to the plaintiffs. I've received more than a few of these "settlements"; the worse of which give me coupons for more of the offending company's crappy products.)

Duh! Read the label.

You literally took the words off my keyboard.

And in general, avoid drinking anything radioactive pink.

I find that it generally causes me to climb the walls like a spider.

What?

John Paulson mentioned google-fu. Here is an article that may improve your google-fu.

It reminded me of things I had forgotten, but other things I didn't know. For instance: need to define a word? feed google this:

define:malaprop

I'd rather see class-action law suits against companies making false claims than more government regulation and meddling.

"I like the shoes, it helps my lower back pain since I'm on my feet all day. I never thought they'd tone me."

There's no scientific evidence that they alleviate lower back pain either. So you're kind of saying you didn't buy them for the implausible reason prominently advertised, but you bought them for an off-label implausible reason, and this make you smarter. If you buy into their ability to strengthen lower back muscles, which the advertisers did claim, why is it a leap to believe they'd tone thighs?

I'm willing to bet your results are as psychosomatic as the people's who wrote glowing reviews.

If you explicitly advertise a product as being capable of doing something that it is not capable of doing, you should have to refund money to dissatisfied consumers.

I like to eat an apple cored with the Knife of the Future with a glass of Vitameatavegamin.

Such a lawsuit should be thrown out. Corporations make money on advertising, be it truthful or not. Consumers should be keeping their money by thinking clearly and rationally. If you could REALLY get fit by wearing shoes, how come there are so many (an INCREASING number) of unfit people?

Just realized the inconsistency in my reply. Sorry. Been up since 3am.

Anyone who believes you can get fit through any other method than exercise and careful eating deserves to be ripped off.

"So you're kind of saying you didn't buy them for the implausible reason prominently advertised, but you bought them for an off-label implausible reason, and this make you smarter."

I bought them because they were neon pink and looked cool, and were fun to walk in. The fact that my back hurts less is a noticed bonus. Backs hurt for any number of different reasons and any number of different things can help. This helped me. Who cares?

So companies should be able to engage in fraud as long as their customers are gullible enough to believe them? That doesn't make much sense to me. There are truth in advertising laws for a reason. Follow them and you'll stay out of trouble.

Also I don't quite understand why anyone is complaining that a company engaging in false adverstising is being forced to settle the issue though the court system. The counterargument made by libertarians whenever it's pointed out that lifting a government regulation could cause harm to innocent bystanders is: 'We don't need government regulation to deter fraud or theft. Issues like that can always be settled though the court system.'

Well that's exactly what's happening here. So what's the problem?

Let's see ... I bought Skechers rocker shoes and started walking every day ... and I lost weight! It's gotta be the shoes!

Corporations make money on advertising, be it truthful or not. Consumers should be keeping their money by thinking clearly and rationally.

Advertising is not a license to outright lie. It is a vehicle through which companies inform people of the benefits of using a product or service.

Exaggeration is part of the game, but not outright lying.

• Nutella is part of the nutritious breakfast being shown here [on this Nutella] ad ... it's just not the nutritious part of it.
• Axe body spray will help you get lots of chicks ... as long as you're the kind of guy who gets lots of chicks anyway.
• Subway low fat sandwiches will help you lose weight ... as long as you follow a good exercise plan and stop eating mounds of unhealthy foods.

Skechers deserves every lawsuit thrown at them - despite the fact that every single person who purchased a pair of those shoes should have checked with a doctor or healthcare professional about the promised benefits of wearing them before shelling out the money for them.

"I bought them because they were neon pink and looked cool, and were fun to walk in."

Fair enough.

"...but she's nobody's fool."

You may think that the purchasers of the toning shoes were foolish, but that does not mean they weren't legitimately wronged. Since when do we give lawbreakers a pass because their victims were dumb for trusting them?

"Advertising is not a license to outright lie."

Exactly. An image of Gisele holding a bottle of conditioner suggests that using it will give you hair that is more like hers, but this is not promised. Skechers and Reebok both got very scientific and explicit about what those shoes could do.

Since when do we give lawbreakers a pass because their victims were dumb for trusting them?

Since they started contributing to reelection campaigns

I never believed the "shape up" claim, but if they help back pain I may have to check them out.

Okay you are ignorant - that I can excuse a little. But being ignorant and lazy is inexcusable. Okay you do not know, what have you tried? -- John Paulson at May 25, 2012 6:33 AM

The other issue is that the googler is not only are the ignorant, they also fear that if they learn that their opinion/ beliefs/ ignorance is challenged they might also realize their progressive attitude is also wrong.

Over the years the scales have fallen off my eyes about our various governments. I initially couldn't believe the facts of Ruby Ridge. Over time I have come to question anytime that a SWAT team is used. There are people who still think that the FBI was in the right with Ruby Ridge.

> Over time I have come to question anytime that
> a SWAT team is used

Jimmy, J.P., Jipperz—

Study the work of this man. Follow his Twitter feed.

I see everyone's point, but seriously, even the most forceful suggestion is only a suggestion. The consumer must still make a decision. I think I have a zero tolerance mentality toward stupidity of this nature. The cost of these lawsuits is passed on to other consumers even though I was smart enough to not take the bait.