I was searching through an (online) catalog of plug-in power adaptors for my portable CD player when I found what I wanted to replace the original, which I had lost. But I couldn’t have it. It was listed, but it was obsolete – by act of Congress, no less. Since April 15 of this year, its manufacturer couldn’t sell it in the US because of EISA (the Energy Independence and Security Act of) 2007.
In its infinite wisdom, Congress decrees minimum efficiency standards for even the little wall warts that we use to charge countless battery-powered devices such as my CD player. Mine is rated at all of 9 Watts maximum.
The millions of these things that are in use all over the US account for, all together, an amount of power consumption that is much more than I use in all of my house, plus all of what you use in your house, but that is miniscule in comparison to the total use of power for all purposes all over the country.
But Congress has got it covered by EISA. Here is the page they put up on their Web site to explain it to their hapless customers. The curious will be pleased to learn that the page, in turn, provides a link to the full text of the Act, during reading which I ask you to consider, if you were a congressman voting on this among dozens of other Acts (possibly including some more important than this one), would you have to read it all through in order to discern that it is pure trash, and to vote against it?
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/8537/congress-obsoleted-my-wall-wart/
Congress Obsoleted My Wall Wart
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Most government laws and documents are complete and boring trash. That’s one of the most notable ways they try to circumvent democracy.
Most government laws and documents are complete and boring trash. That’s one of the most notable ways they try to circumvent democracy and make themselves unaccountable to the public.
Most government laws and documents are complete and boring trash. That’s one of the most notable ways they try to circumvent democracy and make themselves unaccountable to the public.
They are trying to herd us into all these “energy-saving” devices. For example, if you check Google, you will find that various states want to enact legislation that would eliminate incandescent lightbulbs. Meanwhile, not all lamps will work with the flourescent bulbs, and a lot of the flourescent bulbs make a humming sound. It’s infuriating!
If I could make a recommendation about your missing power adapter. See if you can find it on ebay or look it up at Amazon.com and see if it is available in the “new and used” section. It may be that they can get around the law if the adapter is considered “used”.
EBay.
As long as there is 1) at least one country without such rules 2) only selling is prohibited in your country, buying is not, the market can work it around. At a cost, of course…
It is time to rise up against the system! IMPORT Powerplugs ILLEGALLY NOW! lol….what a joke
Congress already banned incandescent bulbs, starting in 2014.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59298
Idiots
The financial world is in the midst of a down regulation spasm. Central banks and their sycophants are starting to see an unraveling of their money for nothing schemes.
Down regulation is a medical term that describes drug action, but it is apt for central bank money creation: it takes more and more drug/money for less and less efficacy.
The system will survive this convulsion, but that only brings us closer to the day when there is NO efficacy.
One more time the benighted masses see their future stolen by “privileged and expert elites”.
@george
“The financial world is in the midst of a down regulation spasm. Central banks and their sycophants are starting to see an unraveling of their money for nothing schemes.
Down regulation is a medical term that describes drug action, but it is apt for central bank money creation: it takes more and more drug/money for less and less efficacy.
The system will survive this convulsion, but that only brings us closer to the day when there is NO efficacy.”
The actual medical term for this is tachyphylaxis: “1. the rapid development of tolerance on administration of closely spaced successive doses of a drug or poison. 2. a decreasing response that follows consecutive injections at short intervals.”
It is what happens to addicts who end up chasing the high with ever increasing doses, and end up depleting their neurotransmitters so that the drugs stop working altogether. Then they crash and suffer terrible withdrawal when they stop using, as the brain attempts to correct its deficiencies. And “convulsions” or seizures can actually occur. Some people do not survive that.
This analogy is excellent and appropriate for the credit binge we have had for the past couple of decades. My fear is that we may not survive the convulsion. Today the central banks are pumping more of the credit drug into the system as frantically as they can, fearing the crash and withdrawal, which will only make it worse when it does come.
@Potts:
Not only will congressmonkeys not read the 300 pages of the document, they would have to be engineers to understand whether the standards they are setting are actually feasible and appropriate if they did try to read it.
There are scores of federal laws prohibiting things like this. Just recently I was denied buying a GAS CAN made of plastic by Scepter because it is the same can as is sold to the US Armed Forces. Security risk?
The company is in Canada so I just ordered the silly things from a auto parts store in Canada (freely available there) and mailed via USPS to the states.
Unbelievably silly rules.
I am so comforted and amazed at how much knowledge 535 people can possess, and how fast they can read. By the way, I happened across the furnace section on about p. 87-89. I was thinking of upgrading my boiler, and now I have more incentive to increase its resale value.
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