Reasoning against the regulations...

The media and online arguments over the coming USA light bulb ban tend to focus either on how much of a "ban" it is, or how terrible or not the main pushed alternatives are, the fluorescent bulbs (CFLs).

Understandable enough, in letting people know what is happening. But there is a lack of wider perspective.

This video interview extract from a couple of days ago by Reason.com editor Nick Gillespie (pictured) with host John Stossel on Fox TV was a welcome change:
Short enough (5 minutes), and with a song interlude, but having time to mention why great products "getting better" should be bought voluntarily irrespective of price, and the big business push behind it.

The John Stossel site (http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/) has more about the show, and other clips from it - it was about the "unintended consequences of big government meddling in our lives".

It also covered the oddness of regulations reducing electricity use and emissions by targeting products people like to use, and how energy efficiency regulations anyway effectively mean cheaper use and greater (wasted) use, negating supposed energy savings.

One could add that the savings involved are very small in overall terms anyway, and all the other reasons against the regulations including the tax alternative for bankrupt governments (California) as summarized in a preceding post on this blog, but it is good to see the issue widened here and there in the media.