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From the New York Times, another story about how business just can't ever do the right thing. Businessmen are selfish and greedy for rejecting the regulation that the liberals at the Times prefers, but are selfish and greedy all over again when they accept regulation:

For toys and cars, antifreeze and fireworks, popcorn and produce and cigarettes and light bulbs, among other products, industry groups or major manufacturers are calling for federal health, safety and environmental mandates. Some of those industries are abandoning years of efforts to block such measures, often in alliance with the Bush administration, which pledged to ease what it views as costly, unnecessary rules.

The consequences for consumers, though, are not yet clear. The tactical shift by industry groups is motivated by a confluence of self-interests: growing competition from inexpensive imports that do not meet voluntary standards, and a desire to head off liability lawsuits and pre-empt tough state laws or legal actions that were a response to laissez-faire Bush administration policies. Concerns that Democrats could soon expand their control in Washington have also prompted manufacturers or producers to seek regulations that they consider the least burdensome, regulatory experts say.

Now here's the Wall Street Journal, on a related theme:

Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Irish low-fare air carrier Ryanair...built Ryanair into Europe's largest airline by passenger volume and, along with such rivals as easyJet, transformed travel on the Continent. ...A generation of Europeans has come of age expecting ?1 flights to overlooked tourist gems hundreds of miles away -- a phenomenon that arguably has done as much to aid European integration as the EU itself (though it says a great deal about the myopia in Brussels that Mr. O'Leary's efforts have often drawn regulatory scorn).

Speaking of eurocrats, Mr. O'Leary also seems to adhere to the belief famously misattributed to the master showman: There's a sucker born every minute. Regulators? "Useless." Environmentalists who complain about airlines' CO2 emissions? "Eco-nutters." Most of Ryanair's rivals? "Doomed."

My DC-insider pay "Mick Danger" comments,

RyanAir is not just the best thing about business in Europe, getting hooked on it has the side effect of making Europeans a bit more American, at least about business. RyanAir gives the public exactly what it wants from a light bulb; oops, from an airline.

Both articles illustrate that big business loves big government. Old news, yes. Question, though, can big government learn to love big business?

Look at the lighting industry. They have invested heavily in the notion that high-efficiency light bulbs can be sold to homeowners. What did they learn? They learned that when homeowners make the decision, they say no. Consumers ignore all the mostly true blah-blah-blah about dollar and energy savings over the life of the bulb. Consumers want the quality of light from an incandescent bulb and they want it cheap.

Without enough volume, companies like Philips can't drive down the per-unit cost nor can they justify further innovation. The potential national savings in energy are substantial. The political appeal is obvious. With some states and localities jumping into the regulatory game, most especially in California, the pragmatic answer to big business is federal regulation of light bulb efficiency standards, the preemption of state and local laws, and an eventual ban on incandescents. The debate on the ban is illustrative of the noblesse oblige attitude prevalent in Congress these days as they speak openly about making the ban begin on a date long enough in the future as to fool consumers and not so long that it costs the light bulb business money. Yeah, that?s the sound of big government falling in love with big business.

Environmentalists are happy about all this, right? Wrong. They oppose state preemption because they assert that the California market is so important, they think it can set the operative national standard. They ignore the claims by Philips and others that without preemption there won't be a single national market big enough to drive down costs and sales up. Environmentalists like forcing companies to make products that are good for the environment and bad for business. Go ask Detroit.

As for the consumer, they don?t pay close enough attention to goings-on in Congress to know that there is a bill moving which will ban the bulb. If it happens, some folks will back up the SUV at Wal-Mart and buy cases and cases of the old standby, perhaps as inventory for the eventual black market.

Love LUV and RyanAir and want governments everywhere to stop protecting their loser competitors?

Love Philips? Just know that you are making a complicated bet. You are betting that

1. Congress is capable of drafting a truly light-touch (sorry) law,
2. the Department of Energy implements that law as intended, and
3. a protected big business will perform well.

My bet is that it will still be cheaper to fly RyanAir from Galway to Rome and back than to buy a case of bulbs.

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