The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Regulation on Jul 29th, 2011
As I drive home for the weekend, I cannot help but think: “wow, how incredible is it that we have had all of these new and innovative American automobile start-up companies during my lifetime.”
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Regulation on Jul 12th, 2011
In this week’s episode of the Economic Apocalypse, via Popehat via Coyote: You may think that your child care center can determine by itself which toys to stock, and that maybe you’ll supplement it with donations. Once again, you’re wrong. The CDHS knows, down to the number of paintbrushes and the type and number of [...]
Posted in Health Care, Market Failures, Regulation, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jun 22nd, 2011
One of the few things I am actually an alarmist about is biological pandemics. Given the past 50 years of US history I have no reason to be this way, but as this Megan McArdle post illustrates, there has been a really disturbing trend happening in medicine over the last 30 years: The first shows [...]
Posted in Environment, Regulation on May 31st, 2011
All over the high desert of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona you will come across signs like this: We encountered this one just after emerging from the top of the Moki Dugway. You’ll notice that there is not much grass for the cows to eat here. Indeed, the image above comes from one of the [...]
Posted in Regulation on May 23rd, 2011
OK, back to the CPSC (see last Friday’s post). By my count, a total of 29 products were recalled in the month of April. Actually that is an overstatement, in that list are warnings from the CPSC like, “swimming pools are dangerous.” I’d like you to think back about all of the hysteria surrounding the [...]
Posted in Regulation on May 20th, 2011
When I am completely bored, I like to peruse the website of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). In case you were not aware, here is their mission: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products under [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Regulation on May 15th, 2011
I was writing up a couple of posts on the CPSC when I ran across this product recall: Active Leisure Tents Recalled Due to Fire Hazard; Sold Exclusively at Costco OK, I buy that. If a tent is going to spontaneously combust, I’d like to know about it. But let’s examine what makes this a [...]
Posted in Regulation on May 7th, 2011
From a new article by David Henderson and Charlie Hooper: At first, the FDA “grandfathered” older drugs. But in 1997, the FDA decided that some older drugs were actually “new drugs.” Therefore, Forest needed to navigate the FDA’s expensive and difficult new drug approval process. Forest didn’t act quickly enough to follow all the proper procedures [...]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Regulation on May 7th, 2011
California makes it illegal for … … hotels to use flat sheets on their mattresses instead of fitted sheets … hotels to use short handled tools to clean hotel rooms What’s next, it is illegal for hotel customers to use soap that is not on a rope? HT: Coyote via Overlawyered. Here’s a thought – [...]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Regulation, Religion on Apr 11th, 2011
When people point to a government success (don’t laugh) it usually comes with a call for more government. You might profitably think about the invocation of the “success” of deposit insurance (I disagree) being used to impose similar rules on the modern financial system. However, when government fails I usually see these failures as a [...]
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