We Should All Be Furious About This New Law

Andy Snyder|October 10, 2022

It’s because of things like this that the world is a mess.

It got hardly any news coverage last week. It should have gotten plenty. Every talking head on TV… every columnist in the opinion pages… and every teacher in our public schools should be talking about the idiocy of what just happened.

It’s government gone wild… and we’re all paying for it.

To the uninformed, it may sound trivial. The folks who run the European Union just voted to force all electronics makers to start using the same charging cords within two years.

Whoop-de-do… right?

Wrong.

This is how economies die. It’s how entire nations freeze because they don’t have enough electricity. And it’s why manufacturing jobs dry up and move to the world’s shadowy economies.

No Choice

Most folks hear the news from the EU and feel some relief. Thank goodness they won’t need separate cords for their iPhone and their wireless mouse. We bow to our government overlords for making it possible to charge our laptop with the same cord we use to power our rechargeable flashlight.

People… we need to think.

The government should have just three mandates: protect our property, defend our borders and help those who can’t help themselves.

Making sure Apple doesn’t inconvenience you ain’t part of that.

So what rationale did the EU drum up to justify such an overreaching mandate?

Global warming, mainly.

Here it is, directly from the government:

The new law, adopted by plenary on Tuesday with 602 votes in favor, 13 against and 8 abstentions, is part of a broader EU effort to reduce e-waste and to empower consumers to make more sustainable choices.

Read that last line closer.

It says “make more sustainable choices.” It’s hogwash. The EU just eliminated choice. Every manufacturer has to use the same system… regardless of advancements or necessity.

Students of economics should be thinking about the opportunity cost in all this. Yeah, we’re talking about silly chargers here, but innovation remains a critical concept. What incentive is there for a company to come up with something better if the EU won’t allow it? There is none.

The folks behind the law say they have a solution for this. Every three years, they will pull together a panel of government experts. They’ll study the market and its latest innovations and decide which cords are best for consumers.

Here’s a big prediction: There won’t be any innovations.

There’s zero incentive to do something new when the government picks and chooses the winners.

That’s why we should all be screaming about what’s happening these days.

An Inconvenient Truth

California is banning natural gas in homes. So is New York City. There’s no choice. No room for innovation. Folks will heat and cook with electricity… and they’ll shut up about it.

Never mind that we have no idea where the electricity will come from – government hot air, maybe?

We’re seeing this in healthcare too. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (we should all be angry about that one), innovative drugmakers have far less incentive to test new things. With prices capped, so is the yearning to do more.

Sadly, many folks are cheering this news.

Consumers are celebrating as the first-world hassle of having too many cords fades into the history books. They’re blind to the true cost of it all.

Innovation… entrepreneurialism… and profit opportunity all vanish when the government oversteps its bounds.

Laws passed in the name of convenience should be an embarrassment to all of us.

Wonder why the economy is on the ropes… and why stocks are dropping day after day?

The answers lie above.

We’re in a government-created bear market.

Not tolerating legislative nonsense is the only way out.

Be well,

Andy