Monthly Archives: July 2012

CEI Podcast for July 5, 2012: Relic of Prohibition

Posted on July 5, 2012 | Comments Off on CEI Podcast for July 5, 2012: Relic of Prohibition


Have a listen here.

Prohibition ended 79 years ago, but in Washington, D.C., it is still illegal to buy liquor on Sundays. Fellow in Consumer Policy Studies Michelle Minton thinks these blue laws need to be modernized.

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Posted in CEI Podcast, prohibition, regulation

Regulation of the Day 223: Fred Flintstone Cars

Posted on July 3, 2012 | 1 comment


Sebastian Trager is an engineer in Germany who loves The Flintstones. He recently built a replica of Fred Flintstone’s car that looks almost exactly like the original. The only significant nod to modernity is that instead of being foot-powered, it has a 1.3 liter engine. Regulators, ever afraid that someone, somewhere might be having fun, quickly told Trager that he may not drive his car on German roads.

One reason is that German regulations require all cars to have windshield wipers. Trager didn’t think to install them, mainly because his Flintstone-mobile doesn’t have a windshield.

Other items are more substantive. Looking at pictures of the car, it also lacks side and rearview mirrors, and seatbelts. One imagines that it also lacks airbags. It also lacks turn signals, though Trager could use hand signals to alert fellow motorists when he’s about to turn.

After all the work Trager put into his creation, hopefully he’ll find a way to get at least some use out of it. It would be a shame to see this sparkling example of German engineering go to waste.

Or maybe he should have followed movie buff Paul Harborne’s example and created a replica Ghostbusters car instead.

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Posted in International, Nanny State, regulation, Regulation of the Day

Innovation Is Cool

Posted on July 3, 2012 | Comments Off on Innovation Is Cool

Steve Horwitz is amazed at how external hard drives have progressed over the last six years. So am I.

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Posted in Innovation, Technology

Regulation of the Day 222: Macaroni

Posted on July 2, 2012 | Comments Off on Regulation of the Day 222: Macaroni


According to federal regulations, you may not, in fact, stick a feather in your hat and call it macaroni.

I’m serious. 21 CFR 139, Subpart B, §139.110 defines macaroni as “the class of food each of which is prepared by drying formed units of dough made from semolina, durum flour, farina, flour, or any combination of two or more of these, with water and with or without one or more of the optional ingredients specified in paragraphs (a) (1) to (6), inclusive, of this section.”

If it doesn’t meet that definition, you can’t call it macaroni. Some other anti-feather provisions in federal macaroni policy include:

  • The shape. “Macaroni is the macaroni product the units of which are tube-shaped and more than 0.11 inch but not more than 0.27 inch in diameter.”
  • Spaghetti and Vermicelli are also considered macaroni products. Spaghetti is “tube-shaped or cord-shaped (not tubular) and more than 0.06 inch but not more than 0.11 inch in diameter,” and vermicelli is “cord-shaped (not tubular) and not more than 0.06 inch in diameter.”
  • Egg whites must make up at least 0.5 percent by weight of each noodle, but no more than 2 percent.
  • The protein content of macaroni products is capped at 13 percent.

And Yankee Doodle began to cry.

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Celebrities Are Not Immune from TSA Indignities

Posted on July 2, 2012 | Comments Off on Celebrities Are Not Immune from TSA Indignities

William Shatner’s pants fell down in public view during a recent pat-down.

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Posted in Security Theater

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The State of American Manufacturing

Posted on July 2, 2012 | Comments Off on The State of American Manufacturing

Here’s a letter I recently sent to the New York Times:

Gregory Cowles’ June 29 “Inside the List” item on Dave Eggers’ new book contains a factual mistake. Mr. Eggers claims that American manufacturing is in decline; it isn’t. Output is actually near a record high.*

And that record wasn’t set in the 1950s or the 1970s. It was set in 2008. As the economy continues to slowly recover, America’s manufacturers will soon break their own record for sheer output. In other words, U.S. manufacturing is quite healthy.

It is also good news that it takes far fewer workers to produce this deluge of goods than it used to. Freed by machines from having to toil on a factory floor, today’s children can grow up to instead be almost anything they want. The state of American manufacturing today should warm the hearts of young parents everywhere –as well as Mr. Eggers.

Ryan Young
Fellow in Regulatory Studies
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.

*Data available from the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s FRED database, http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/IPMAN?cid=3

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Posted in Correspondence, Economics

CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

Posted on July 2, 2012 | Comments Off on CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation


Just another week in the world of regulation:

  • 101 new final rules were published last week, up from 77 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every hour and 36 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 1,979 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 4,002 new rules.
  • 1,388 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 39,082 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 77,544 pages.
  • Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 25 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $14.5 billion. Two of the rules do not have cost estimates, and a third cost estimate does not give a total annual cost. We assume that rules lacking this basic transparency measure cost the bare minimum of $100 million per year. The true cost is almost certainly higher.
  • No economically significant rule was published last week. So far, 206 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2012.
  • So far this year, 364 final rules affect small businesses. 57 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

  • Under Coast Guard regulations, boats must meet a certain minimum size in order to help out with oil spill relief efforts.
  • The Agricultural Marketing Service allows non-organic pectin in organic food if the food producer doesn’t have access to organic pectin. Pectin is a powder made from citrus fruits.
  • If you employ child laborers, you should be aware that the federal government has amended its child labor regulations for “Occupations involving the operation of circular saws, band saws, guillotine shears, chain saws, reciprocating saws, wood chippers, and abrasive cutting discs.”
  • Want to import Dracaena plants from Costa Rica? Read this regulation first.
  • The federal tanning tax.

For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.

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Posted in regulation