South Carolina loves nullification!

Reader comment on: Light Bulb Laws

Submitted by Lyle (United States), Jun 2, 2011 16:59

Once again they are charging at the same windmill, tried it once in 1832 and got slapped down tried it in 1861 and after 2% of the people in the US were killed over the issue they got slapped down again. When will the politicians learn. Note that the LED prices will come down due to the simple rule of technology where the cost of something goes down as the volume goes up.

Yes indeed the LEDs do do better than CF's both in life and in energy usage, since they are solid state compared to discharge tubes (just like a transistor radio is better than a tube radio). But without the ban the volume and the research would not have happened. (Recall that the EU has already banned the incandescent bulb.) Perhaps the government (since it needs the revenue) should have just slapped an excise tax on the old bulbs, say 200%, which is the Pigovian way to change behavior.

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