The Millennium Shrimp

Interesting post from the Simple Dollar about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and it’s potential impact on thrift stores and stores that resell used children’s clothing.

Used children’s clothing stores, like Kid to Kid, are basically going to be forced out of business. With no way to easily distinguish between “safe” and “unsafe” clothes without testing every item that comes in for lead and phthalates (which is fairly expensive), these stores can’t stay in business. Either their business model will have to change or they’re done.

(Emphasis in the original)

Hopefully it won’t, but it does illustrate the unintended consequences of government legislation. The definition of tragedy is the conflict between two goods. Obviously we need to protect consumers from poorly manufactured goods, but we need to do so without imposing an undue hardship on lower income families or simply dumping what are otherwise still useable products into a landfill.

The first job that I remember having as a Freshman workstudy in college was the tedious task of “assholing” (sticking on those plastic hole reinforcements) the carbon copies of Meadowcroft’s F-1 Notes (i.e., the excavation’s master log). The logs contained everything from Adovasio’s precise notes on time, temperature, pressure and the day’s notable events to short stories and bizarre ramblings written by bored site guards and drunk people at 3 a.m. I remember coming across one page that was just filled with the word “f*ck” in capital letters all the way down. That’s about how I feel right now.