Incidentally, I just learned that CPSIA would not even have saved the life of the one child who died from ingesting the lead charm. According to Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota’s page, the charm wasn’t intended for children at all. It was given away with his mother’s shoes- shoes for an adult woman are not covered by CPSiA:

“Jarnell swallowed part of a charm bracelet that came with his mother’s new Reebok sneakers. Doctors said his lead levels were three times the danger level. His death caused Reebok to recall 300,000 bracelets and eventually pay federal regulators a $1 million settlement.”

So I’m on board with the ‘risk management gone amok’ camp. Unless children are actually being sickened by used items, then this is over the top.

It’s not like our kid won’t be clothed but it does represent a cost for people like us and people poorer than us—people who can’t afford to shop retail. (We can manage OK without Goodwill but not everyone can, especially now.) I guess you can add that into the problematic side effects of the bill.

I’m kind of cringing thinking about the brutal competition for craigslist and yard sale kids stuff! Without thrift stores, that will get even worse than it is. The battle for toddler snow suits, boots and coats (very pricey items retail) is already pretty extreme.

“Unfortunately, once you are ideologically committed to the idea of regulation, you can’t say that a given regulation is bad—or, worse, that maybe doing nothing new would have been the best course.

Maybe, as I argued to a skeptical editor, the system worked in the case of lead in children’s toys. Recalls, lawsuits, and reputational damage solved the real problem, and the CPSIA is just an extraordinarily costly way of demonstrating after-the-fact concern. But you simply cannot say such things in polite company. ”

The funny thing is that this is exactly the type of thing that Rich seems to want to fight against, but is it worth even considering, for a second, that it might be correct? Initial legislation got rid of the low-hanging fruit that was causing serious damage: lead paint, lead pipes, lead in gasoline. And it was really effective at that. Legislative spending might be good in the remediation area (replacing old paint for example). Why aren’t we doing more of that by the way?

But that fact that broad legislation is good in some cases doesn’t necessarily make it good in all cases. And just be cause it fixes some things, doesn’t mean that other methods aren’t better for related problems.

I wonder if there isn’t some sort of heuristic like “The government is better at making broad initial changes and getting at the first 80% of a problem, but other things work better the further along we get to the last 20% and 10% and 5% and 1% of a problem.”

Banning lead paint and pipes and gasoline dealt with an enormous part of the problem and was effective. Rich is right that libertarian arguments against that type of legislation shouldn’t be paid much attention to. (Were they?) But on the flip side, the reason they shouldn’t have been paid much attention to is that the benefit side of the cost benefit ratio was very high. Here the benefit side of the equation is MUCH smaller, and the cost side is at least as large and potentially larger. Which is where the libertarians or conservatives have their best arguments.

It seems to me that the objections are sliding scale. As the benefit goes down and the costs go up, almost everyone agrees that at some point the government needs to give up. The main differences between libertarians/rightists/conservatives/liberals/leftists is about what counts as a cost, what counts as a benefit, and how much of a cost/benefit ratio is appropriate.

What seems really weird is to react to the fact that libertarians tolerate certain cost/benefit ratios that liberals wouldn’t tolerate by asserting that even when the cost/benefit ratio looks out of whack to a liberal that you still can’t fix it because it gives power to the libertarian argument.

The fact is that not fixing it is what gives power to the libertarian argument, because it lets them say “see, liberals are so into being controlling that they won’t give it up even when it is obvious to everyone in the world that the cost/benefit ratio is out of kilter”.

Scary, isn’t it. Though, it’s a morass of a bill. It’s hitting other types of manufacturers that are being blindsided by the law. Yamaha, Kawasaki and many other small motorbike and ATV manufacturers have told their dealers they can no longer sell the smallest sized vehicles aimed at children under 12. They are no longer allowed to sell the replacement parts either. Too much lead in the “substrates” of some parts, like brakes.

Remember, too, that the current amounts for lead 600 ppm, is going to drop over the next few years.

In short: you think what I say is wrong because … you agree with me?

“I’ve never denied that this imposes significant, and in some cases completely crippling, costs on small business.”

And yet you wonder why small business people are indignant at those who do deny this?

“Unfortunately, the only path available to people who want to see anything happen in the first place is regulatory overreach, followed by correction.”

And so the reason you object to my post advocating correction, in the aftermath of regulatory overreach is …. what exactly?

“So saying, every time that some other use of lead is attempted to be regulated, that most lead exposures are from old paint in houses, is true yet a dodge all the same.”

But despite the fact that this dodge is made ‘every time’, in the present case no one appears to be making it.

“If you don’t understand this, I think it’s time for me to give up.”

I think we can all agree that it’s time for you to give up in this particular thread, Rich.

“The end result, if the argument is believed that this is relevant to whether we should regulate e.g. lead in toys, is no action—not for toys and not for old paint, either.”

You are arguing against nobody. Nobody is saying that we should NOT regulate lead in toys. No one is saying that we should not regulate load in toys heavily. Neither of those options is even in consideration. The issue is entirely elsewhere. Can you not see this?

“I don’t really have the patience to look up a whole bunch of lead links for this comment thread, sorry.”

For frack’s sake, Rich. What is the point of taking the time to make multiple irrelevant disagreeing-to-agree contributions to a thread, but not have the patience to make a relevant one, if you actually have some expertise on the subject – which I believe you probably do.

I think this is the crux of it: you were trying to explain to people, who feel they are going to be hurt by an unreasonable legislative act, that no legislative act would have been reasonable. Your defense of this perspective has become increasingly wild, as we see in this from comment #40:

Give in to that nonsense and you lose the ability to do anything, ever.

That’s a dramatic sentence. But nobody’s requiring you to take some kind of Custer’s Last Stand here on a CT thread. A lot of people feel personally affected by this legislation, they’ve voiced their concerns here. You’re talking to people who despite substantial disability are trying to eke out a living for themselves, and who are frightened they’ll no longer have a chance to do that. In response you’ve been insensitive to people with genuine concerns, and you’ve been hurtful.

I imagine you feel you’re trying to fight some monumental tide of bullshit with the power of words as best you can, but it’s not working. Luckily, this isn’t a place where one needs to engage that fight. Take advantage of that. As you said:

I think it’s time for me to give up.

That sounds about right.

And I’ve tried to explain, for n times now, why a reasonable risk assessment and, accordingly, a reasonable policy prescription, was impossible. n+1: legislation via scandal leads to unreasonable policy prescriptions.

I’ve never denied that this imposes significant, and in some cases completely crippling, costs on small business. My reasonable risk assessment / policy prescription is, let’s say, exactly the same as what the handmade toys alliance wants. Now how exactly do we get to a situation in which large manufacturers are regulated, yet small ones are not crippled—which is what we all say we want? Unfortunately, the only path available to people who want to see anything happen in the first place is regulatory overreach, followed by correction. Needless to say, this is not the ideal system. But the ideal system really doesn’t matter; what matters is the actual system that we have.

I don’t really have the patience to look up a whole bunch of lead links for this comment thread, sorry. But I’ll try to explain just one little piece of it. People use lead in products for a reason, either because it does something or because it’s cheaper not to get rid of it. And all remaining lead uses are perched on the pyramid of old paint in houses and apartments. Everyone knows that our system is completely incapable of actually getting rid of the lead in them, because they are generally occupied by poor people, and there’s never going to be a scandal. So saying, every time that some other use of lead is attempted to be regulated, that most lead exposures are from old paint in houses, is true yet a dodge all the same. The end result, if the argument is believed that this is relevant to whether we should regulate e.g. lead in toys, is no action—not for toys and not for old paint, either. If you don’t understand this, I think it’s time for me to give up.

So everyone agrees that this should be fixed, yet the path by which we get to fixing it is still quite important. The legislative correction for the overreach is likely to be no more measured or well thought out than the original law was.

(/facepalm)

The weird thing is that you are actually agreeing on the major point(s) – this law overreaches and should be changed. And yet you have managed to personally insult people disagreeing with you on detail, told people their detail is nonsense without posting any evidence or really going into why you think they are talking nonsense. What’s going on?

And let’s say, for good measure, that two years from now I write a post about the CPSIA, saying something like ‘wow, it was surprising that this passed’. THEN you can leave comments saying that this is a bit pointless. But, until then, can we focus on the post I actually wrote? Fer pete’s sake, Rich, snap out of it.

“I don’t think that you really know enough about it to be able to inform people. For instance, you don’t think that they’re coming up with a bunch of BS about lead, when they really are.”

Do you have any evidence that they are coming up with a bunch of BS about lead? If so, what is it? No one is saying that lead standards shouldn’t be strict. But people object to mandatory expensive testing of items that have no risk of containing lead. Because they are made of components that are certified lead-free already (or materials that wouldn’t contain lead, like natural cotton.) That’s it. Ditto for the paint issue. No one is arguing for any practical lessening of the safety standards. Have you seen anyone arguing anything else? (And don’t say that the Act doesn’t require such things. The guidelines may try to correct for these problems, but people are worried that the Act doesn’t, and they are worried the guidelines can’t be depended on, legally.)

In my post I requested that someone make the case that the damage done by lead is so high that, indeed, some such measure as this one, even with all this cost to small businesses, is warranted. If you would like to make that case, I would like to hear it. I can well imagine, for example, that banning thrift stores from selling old clothes with rhinestones might make a lot of sense, for example. I just haven’t seen any attempts to make a reasonable risk assessment and, accordingly, a reasonable policy prescription. All I’ve seen are attempts to deny that the act, as it stands, imposes significant costs on business. And all this appears to be false, and you yourself seem to admit that it is false.

“And, again, it’s not that you’re just telling people that the problem exists. You’re saying that the anti-regulatory rhetoric is in this one case justified.”

Good grief, Rich. You’re just making yourself a rhetorical patsy for the other side with this stuff. The rhetoric against this Act has been very measured. By and large, people have bent over backwards to say they aren’t opposed to regulation, per se, merely to certain details of this one bit of legislation. But that isn’t enough for you. How, may I ask, is it possible to speak the truth about this issue without offending against this apparent ban against saying things that are superficially similar to what knee-jerk anti-regulationists say. If it isn’t enough to confine yourself to this case, and argue it on the merits, and say you aren’t making some sweeping anti-regulatory claim, then what would be enough to satisfy you?

You do it for me: articulate a forthright argument for reforming this legislation – make it sound impassioned and stirring and heartfelt – but without sounding anything like the people who are, currently, making forthright arguments for reforming this legislation.

But then we’ve established in the past that we disagree on a lot of other topics’ facts, too, so I’m not what anyone would want to call deeply surprised.