This week Barack Obama paid lip service to the idea that federal regulations somehow — shockingly — impose a negative burden on the economy. He promised that the various US government agencies would review existing regulations and only adopt non-harmful rules in the future.
Let’s not even pretend to take Obama seriously on this. We all understand the size and scope of the federal regulatory leviathan. Or do we? To help put regulatory addiction into context, I made a list of every product or service specifically regulated by one agency, the Federal Trade Commission. This list reflects certain specific industries, words, and practices where the FTC has exercised some direct power over their sale, advertising, or usage. It’s by no means exhaustive:
- All warranties or guarantees.
- Alternative fuels and alternative fuel vehicles.
- Any finely cut, ground, powered, or leaf tobacco that is intended to be placed in the oral cavity, including snuff, chewing tobacco, and plug tobacco.
- Automotive fuel.
- Breaches in the security of unsecured personal health information.
- “Business opportunities.”
- Businesses that are identified or associated with a franchisor’s trademark.
- Consumer credit reporting agencies.
- Credit and co-signor practices.
- Door-to-door sales of consumer goods and services valued at $25 or more.
- Electronic mail containing unsolicited pornography or commercial messages.
- Endorsements and testimonials in advertising.
- Energy consumption and water usage of refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, freezers, dishwashers, water heaters, room air conditioners, clothes washers, furnaces, central air conditioners, heat pumps, fluorescent lamp ballasts, fluorescent lamps, medium base compact fluorescent lamps, incandescent lamps, showerheads, faucets, water closets, urinals, pool heaters, metal halide light fixtures, and ceiling fans.
- Environmental claims.
- Fuel economy advertising for new automobiles.
- Fur products including but not limited to the furs of alpaca, antelope, badger, bassarisk, bears (polar and non-polar), beaver, burunduk, calf, cat, cheetah, chinchilla, chipmunk, civet, desman, dog, ermine, fisher, fitch, fox, genet, goat, guanaco (or its young, guanaquito), hamster, hare, jackal, jaguar, jaguarondi, kangaroo, kangaroo-rat, kid, kinkajou, koala, kolinsky, lamb, leopard, llama, lynx, marmot, marten, mink, mole, monkey, muskrat, nutria, ocelot, opossum, otter, pahmi, panda, peschanik, pony, rabbit, raccoon, reindeer, sable, seal, sheep, skunk, squirrel (flying and non-flying), susilk, vicuna, viscacha, wallaby, weasel, wolf , wolverine, wombat, and woodchuck.
- Home insulation, including mineral or organic, fibrous, cellular, or reflective (aluminum foil) materials that are in rigid, semirigid, flexible, or loose-fill form.
- Imitation political or numismatic items.
- Jewelry, precious metals, and pewter products, including gemstones and their laboratory- created and imitation substitutes; natural and cultured pearls and their imitations; and metallic watch bands not permanently attached to watches. These guides also apply to articles, including optical frames, pens and pencils, flatware, and hollowware, fabricated from precious metals (gold, silver and platinum group metals), precious metal alloys, and their imitations.
- Labeling of consumer commodities with respect to the identity of the commodity; the name and place of business of the manufacturer, packer, or distributor; the net quantity of contents; and net quantity of servings, uses, or applications represented to be present — excluding such items as camera film, Christmas tree ornaments, replacement bags for vacuum cleaners, chamois, paper table covers, bedsheets, pillowcases, cellulose sponges of irregular dimensions, candles, and solder.
- Leather or simulated-leather trunks, suitcases, traveling bags, sample cases, instrument cases, brief cases, ring binders, billfolds, wallets, key cases, coin purses, card cases, French purses, dressing cases, stud boxes, tie cases, jewel boxes, travel kits, gadget bags, camera bags, ladies’ handbags, shoulder bags, purses, pocketbooks, footwear, belts (when not sold as part of a garment) and similar articles.
- Mail or telephone order merchandise.
- Manipulation of energy market prices.
- Nurseries and nursery products, including all types of trees, small fruit plants, shrubs, vines, ornamentals, herbaceous annuals, biennials and perennials, bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and tubers which are offered for sale or sold to the general public and that are propagated sexually or asexually and are grown in a commercial nursery or collected from the wild state.
- Pay-per-call services.
- Power output (in watts or otherwise), power band or power frequency response, or distortion capability or characteristic of sound power amplification equipment manufactured or sold for home entertainment purposes, including radios, record and tape players, radio-phonograph and/or tape combinations, component audio amplifiers, self-powered speakers for computers, multimedia systems, and sound systems.
- Prenotification negative option plans.
- Privately owned schools that offer resident or distance courses, training, or instruction purporting to prepare or qualify individuals for employment in any occupation or trade, or in work requiring mechanical, technical, artistic, business, or clerical skills, or that is for the purpose of enabling a person to improve his appearance, social aptitude, personality, or other attributes.
- Recycled oil.
- Retail food stores.
- Telemarketing sales.
- Textile fibers.
- The collection, use, and/or disclosure of personal information from and about children on the Internet.
- The measuring, fitting, and adjusting of ophthalmic goods (eyeglasses) subsequent to an eye examination.
- The release, verification, and sale of contact lens prescriptions.
- The size of viewable pictures shown by television receiving sets.
- The use of nonpublic personal information of consumers by a financial institution.
- The use of the terms “cents-off,” “introductory offer,” or “economy size.”
- The use of the word “free.”
- Used parts and assemblies containing used parts designed for use in automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, tractors, or similar self-propelled vehicles whether or not such parts or assemblies have been reconstructed in any way, including anti-lock brake systems, air conditioners, alternators, armatures, air brakes, brake cylinders, ball bearings, brake shoes, heavy duty vacuum brakes, calipers, carburetors, cruise controls, cylinder heads, clutches, crankshafts, constant velocity joints, differentials, drive shafts, distributors, electronic control modules, engines, fan clutches, fuel injectors, fuel pumps, front wheel drive axles, generators, master cylinders, oil pumps, power brake units, power steering gears, power steering pumps, power window motors, rack and pinion steering units, rotors, starter drives, speedometers, solenoids, smog pumps, starters, stators, throttle body injectors, torque convertors, transmissions, turbo chargers, voltage regulators, windshield wiper motors, and water pumps.
- Used vehicles.
- Wool products.
In many cases the FTC labels its regulations “guidelines,” which makes it sound voluntary and non-threatening, when in reality any firm knows it better hire a bunch of lawyers to help them comply. And oftentimes following these “guidelines” won’t insulate you from FTC challenge. After all, the FTC makes the rules, and only they know if you’re truly in “compliance.”
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A fantastic example of job creation without wealth, perhaps even job creation via wealth destruction. I’ve seen a lot of local regulators stretching to justify their positions, since it’s becoming obvious that they can’t make themselves indispensable, but this takes the cake and eats it too.
Any estimate on how many people (lawyers, lobbyists, and, as was detailed this week on NPR, port inspectors who cut apart shoes for tariff assessments) the FTC hires or contracts for services?
Is there an FTC-affiliated training course to discern between the kolinsky (Siberian weasel)fibers used to make paintbrushes and pahmi hairs? Or between blue visacha yarn and navy chinchilla? A train-the-trainer course?
“Business opportunities.”
I would not be surprised if the FTC eliminated every single item on that list but that one and would still keep every single power it has today by calling everything a “business opportunity”. That way, they could claim to deregulate and still keep the status quo.
You trying to help them, J?
“Imitation political or numismatic items.”
WTH is that?
imitational numismatic items are fake coins/currency.
not sure about what an imitation political item might be. maybe a replica George Washington wig.
e.g. a replica of an “i like ike” button
Perfect example. I’m on a meetup group for haunted house enthusiasts, and every October we go to all the local haunted attractions. Since we’re part of a large group we often get to arrange behind-the-scene tours of the attractions given by the owners / operators.
Anyway, one of the ones we went to this year was new, and the owner was detailing for us everything he had to go through to get the place set up. First he had to convince the city council that having a haunted house wasn’t “degrading” the neighborhood and presenting a “bad image” of the town. He barely won that vote. A freaking town council vote on whether he would be allowed to open a private business!
Then he detailed the endless headaches with the fire marshall about what voltage the lights could be, how the wires had to be secured, how many exits there had to be and facing which directions, etc. etc. Finally, the icing on the cake, was that the town required him to have a health and safety professional on the scene during all hours of operation. The fire marshall was MORE THAN HAPPY to offer his services in this capacity (in his “off time”), and charged the owner $50 per hour to stand there and drink coffee all night. It was literally a shake-down! A legal shake-down! The bureacrat in charge of code compliance also moonlights as part of that enforcement. If I hadn’t been sold on libertarianism already, that would have done it.
They’re just gangsters. Nothing more.
Can we get a list of things the FTC doesn’t specifically regulate? Seriously, I’m curious.
Here you go:
Does that help?
Generally if the FTC can’t regulate something it’s because some other agency has jurisdiction. The FTC generally can’t regulate the legal profession. They tried to once — by relabeling law offices as “financial institutions,” but the courts said no to that.
Labor unions generally fall outside FTC jurisdiction — but again, there the National Labor Relations Board has authority.
Jeez, Skip,
When didja get the time to TYPE all that??
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