Kinder eggs are a type of candy that enjoys worldwide popularity. They are chocolate eggs with a plastic shell underneath the outside layer of chocolate. After kids enjoy the chocolate, they can open up the plastic shell and find a toy inside. They are especially popular around Easter.
They are also illegal in the United States. The Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration have declared the toys to be a safety hazard. Children could choke on them.
A third agency, Customs and Border Patrol, confiscates about 25,000 kinder eggs per year. Most people know that kinder eggs aren’t actually a choking hazard, so they don’t know about the ban and think nothing of bringing some home from a trip.
NRO’s Mark Steyn recently had just such a run-in when he and his children returned from a trip to Canada:
My kids asked the CBP seizure squad if they could eat the chocolate in front of the border guards while the border guards held on to the toys to prevent any choking hazard — and then, having safely consumed the chocolate, take the toys home as a separate item. This request was denied.
As I noted in previous Regulation of the Day:
According to WebMD, 66 to 77 children under 10 die every year from choking on food in the U.S. That’s out of more than 42,000,000 children under 10, according to my calculations from U.S. Census data.
That means your child’s odds of choking to death on food are about 1 in 545,000. And that’s assuming 77 deaths, the high end of the range. Little Timmy is literally more likely to be struck by lightning (1 in 500,000) than choke to death on a hot dog.
I’m sure that SPSC, FDA, and CBP would love to credit their diligence in enforcing the kinder egg ban for those reassuring numbers. But common sense says they shouldn’t.
Today, I hankered for fried chicken for a take-out lunch but discovered there wasn’t a fried chicken place within 10 blocks of CEI’s 19th and L Sts. offices. So I grumpily settled for the less appetizing but ubiquitous broiled chicken.
After lunch, I found out that there is justice in the world – and the dearth of fried chicken has economic consequences. John Hood, writing in NRO’s The Corner this afternoon, skewered KFC (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken) for listening to politically correct execs rather than to its customers and thus experiencing a 7 percent drop in 2nd quarter revenues and a suit from its franchisees. And it seems to be the result of KFC’s de-emphasis of fried chicken and its national ad campaigns that focus on healthy broiled chicken without a nod to Colonel Sanders’ Original Recipe.
What’s the lesson from this? Well, Hood explains:
What’s the larger significance of KFC’s internal battles? In both the public and private sectors, far too many decisions are made on the basis of silly fads, partial glimpses of nebulous trends, a temptation to placate powerful interest groups, or a pathetic desire to be seen as enlightened. In the private sector, companies sometimes waste time and money on pointless public-relations exercises, senseless recycling programs, and the like. But subjected to the rigors of competition, these firms tend to pay the price over time and adjust their behavior accordingly. In the public sector, however, politicians don’t have to worry as much about losing ground to competitors. Their absurdities persist. Their pretensions multiply.
Amen to that. And, next time I get the urge, I’ll just fry my chicken at home.
Great point by Carter Wood over at the excellent Shopfloor blog of the National Association of Manufacturers. Building on my point at NRO about the tension between infrastructure projects and existing regulation, Carter says:
There is good reason to fear that any significant project that promotes both quick economic investment and long-term competitiveness — say, modernizing and expanding the nation’s electrical grid — will immediately be hit by litigation lasting years and years and years. In which case the only thing being stimulated is the fundraising drives of alarmist, anti-growth environmental groups.
The plain fact is that any so-called stimulus that relies on infrastructure projects has to contain a significant deregulatory element. Of course, environmental groups will be able to raise money whatever happens, whether because “polluting” projects are given the go-ahead or because regulations they have fought tooth-and-nail for are lifted. It should be apparent, therefore, that if the President-elect wants to avoid conflict with environmental groups that he has so far rewarded with at least 5 major appointments, he should choose another route for the stimulus than the Keynesian infrastructure route, such as individual and corporate tax cuts. In the end, however, if he wants infrastructure improvement – whether initiated by government or the private sector – deregulation is almost a necessary price to pay.
Or he could attempt to live with government funding and regulatory delay, and hope the taxpayer will be willing – and able – to bear the cost…
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