Why I Support Government Paternalism
Jun. 14th, 2011 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleVarious folks are lining up against the ban on inefficient light bulbs, particularly standard incandescent ones. To quote a quote:
What matters, from a public policy perspective, isn’t any given choice but the total amount of electricity I use (which is itself only a proxy for the total emissions caused by generating that electricity). If they’re really interested in environmental quality, policy makers shouldn’t care how households get to that total. They should just raise the price of electricity, through taxes or higher rates, to discourage using it.
Yes, this is the standard efficient-market argument. Sometimes that's appropriate - for example, a higher gas tax would probably be more effective than the CAFE standards in the long run. But you know what? It doesn't work in this case.
When I buy a light bulb, I see that $0.50 hundred-watt bulb on the shelf and I reflexively calculate that over the thousand-hour lifetime of the bulb it will actually cost me $40. (Yes, our marginal electricity rate in CA really is that high.) But that's because I'm a nerd who loves numbers.
When Glenn Beck sees that light bulb on the shelf, he sees nothing beyond fifty-cent bulb, and spins hysteria on his radio show about how the new efficient bulbs will cost FIFTY DOLLARS EACH!!! Never mind that the expensive bulbs he is talking about are a new, high-end LED product that will last forever, while there are lots of lesser, equally efficient bulbs that cost only $4 while saving at least $20 over their lifetime. He doesn't tell you that because he's malignantly stupid, and his audience is incapable of performing arithmetic. This particular style of bad judgment is something he consistently enables and encourages.
(Really - I had the misfortune of tuning into his show by accident and that's what he was going off about. It's impossible to listen to him for more than five minutes without a facepalm moment.)
The government needs to ban inefficient bulbs because the great majority of consumers will NEVER be able to make effective judgments about what the best bulb is for their purposes, and will ALWAYS be suckered by low up-front costs that conceal a high total cost of ownership.
This is one of many reasons I am a "big-gubmint librul".
What matters, from a public policy perspective, isn’t any given choice but the total amount of electricity I use (which is itself only a proxy for the total emissions caused by generating that electricity). If they’re really interested in environmental quality, policy makers shouldn’t care how households get to that total. They should just raise the price of electricity, through taxes or higher rates, to discourage using it.
Yes, this is the standard efficient-market argument. Sometimes that's appropriate - for example, a higher gas tax would probably be more effective than the CAFE standards in the long run. But you know what? It doesn't work in this case.
When I buy a light bulb, I see that $0.50 hundred-watt bulb on the shelf and I reflexively calculate that over the thousand-hour lifetime of the bulb it will actually cost me $40. (Yes, our marginal electricity rate in CA really is that high.) But that's because I'm a nerd who loves numbers.
When Glenn Beck sees that light bulb on the shelf, he sees nothing beyond fifty-cent bulb, and spins hysteria on his radio show about how the new efficient bulbs will cost FIFTY DOLLARS EACH!!! Never mind that the expensive bulbs he is talking about are a new, high-end LED product that will last forever, while there are lots of lesser, equally efficient bulbs that cost only $4 while saving at least $20 over their lifetime. He doesn't tell you that because he's malignantly stupid, and his audience is incapable of performing arithmetic. This particular style of bad judgment is something he consistently enables and encourages.
(Really - I had the misfortune of tuning into his show by accident and that's what he was going off about. It's impossible to listen to him for more than five minutes without a facepalm moment.)
The government needs to ban inefficient bulbs because the great majority of consumers will NEVER be able to make effective judgments about what the best bulb is for their purposes, and will ALWAYS be suckered by low up-front costs that conceal a high total cost of ownership.
This is one of many reasons I am a "big-gubmint librul".
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-14 04:48 pm (UTC)It absolutely shocks me how many people actively resist the concept of Total Cost of Ownership - whether it involves lightbulbs or cars. There are cases where I can understand that it might be necessary to pay more in the long run because a high initial cost is a barrier to entry - but being aware that's the choice one is having to make is valuable.
Everything in my apartment is CFL except for a couple of enclosed ceiling fixtures where they overheat and fail early - so there I use more-efficient halogen incandescents instead of the old-fashioned type. And for the people screaming about the inefficient bulb ban - there have been halogen incandescents on the market for some time now that meet the efficiency standards, so no one's "forcing" CFLs on anyone; it's just requiring more efficient incandescents, at minimum.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-14 05:01 pm (UTC)Yet some people still manage to.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-15 12:55 am (UTC)