Questioning the Value of Regulation
So to benefit man, one must defend his freedom to think; not usurp it.
But if ceding our minds to the government isn’t the way to protect ourselves against ignorance, what is? The free market. For here, knowledge is efficiently shared, and authorities and standards naturally emerge. Yet everyone retains the freedom to follow their own ideas if they so choose. Looking once more to the computer industry, we see that there are computer magazines (PC Mag, Macworld), computer rating and standards groups (CNET, IEEE), and countless online message boards and forums where experts, aficionados, and neophytes alike congregate and share information. Knowledge is valued, but it’s not forced on anyone. This makes disagreement, dissension, and often breakthrough innovations possible.
Regulation reverses all of this. By barring action or by creating a false sense of security, regulation breeds the very ignorance and apathy it claims to shield us from. A sick person can’t choose which experimental drugs he wants to try, so there’s no point learning about them. Savers and investors see no need to evaluate banks and investment firms because supposedly the FDIC and SEC are doing their thinking for them (a notion many Madoff investors now rue).
These results aren’t accidental. Fundamentally, the regulatory approach is focused on the lowest common denominator: the person who needs a warning sign to ensure that he doesn’t spill hot coffee on himself or who shuns any responsibility for his own decisions. Acting in his name, regulators restrict everyone’s choices and freedoms. Conversely, the free market fosters the best within us. It rewards knowledge and innovation while continually raising the bar and inspiring achievement.
The choice then is stark but simple: the freedom to think and choose, or regulation. Which will you demand?
Nice piece.
The worst of it is that the person who could be creative has to spend his efforts running the gauntlet of regulation and reporting.
Superb analysis! If we don’t abandon our current course towards ever-increasing government regulations, then in the short term the result will be European-like economic stagnation and high unemployment.
In the long term, the result will be the economic disaster portrayed in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”.
I don’t want to live in that kind of a world — do you?
Thank you, Mr. Ghate, for laying out the nature of regulation and its alternative–freely learning in the marketplace.
One problem I have noticed in personal discussions about regulations is the absence of a clear definition of “regulation.” Often pro-regulation speakers equivocate between (1) regulations as dictatorial controls of private business or other proper activities and (2) regulations as administrative guidelines for government employees or for others in dealing with government employees. Courts, for example, must have such “regulations” establishing procedures–for instance, in filing a court case.
The first kind of regulation destroys individual rights — especially the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property — but the second kind re-enforces rights by ensuring that government (which should be dedicated solely to protecting rights) proceeds in an orderly and efficient manner in its work.
Again, thank you for your clearly written article.
How true! You capture the essence of regulation, that it shuts down the human mind. Free, individual thinkers — people who can fight the crowd — are behind all innovations and inventions. But regulation circumscribes and reins in their scope to think, forcing on them the dull conformity of the status quo and the consensus. The result is stagnation and, ultimately, tyranny and poverty.
The alleged reasons for regulation — that it protects us from ourselves — are aptly refuted by the spilt coffee analogy, and the fact that private individuals in a free market figure out which products are safe and worthy of buying. They do it through organizations such as Underwriters Laboratories and through branding, so that firms that make reliable, trustworthy products can gain large market share. They do it through private reputation and credential-building. In medicine, for example, private universities confer degrees and medical associations confer designations that mark a good doctor.
We see all of this in the portions of our economy that are still somewhat free. For example, doctors seek voluntary board certifications, financial analysts take exams that designate they meet a standard of knowledge, and all sorts of professional groups sponsor self-education. And all companies, from McDonald’s to Google, work hard at building and protecting their brands reputations, which they have earned by making good products.
Yet, when government gives its seal of approval, it becomes a substitute for thought and prudent decisions by buyers, and for branding and reputation-building by sellers. People can lazily see “FDIC-approved” on a now-bankrupt bank’s literature and buildings that it used to lure a large depositor base which funded its incompetent banking operations, and they see “FHA-approved” on the “conforming” mortgages they bought, which led to the housing bubble and bust.
Regulation substitutes for and thereby shuts down human thought and judgment. That means shutting down the development of innovation and good products. Ironically, it also means creating abundant room for con-artists and sleazebags to operate behind the official approval of government regulators. The opposite of regulation’s alleged goal of protecting people is achieved.
All this so that the lowest common denominator can be “protected” (which does not happen in any case). The best safety and health — the best source of a rising standard of living — is individual freedom, the freedom to innovate, to stand out from the crowd, the freedom to act on one’s own judgment, whether one is a buyer or seller. Instead of that, regulators substitute their judgment for those of all those individuals.
Their petty tyrannies are accumulating. Each new regulation is an attack on our liberty. From the many nuisance regulations that buffet our daily lives — such as telling us whether we can smoke in restaurants or how much water our toilets can hold to the 10,000 other rules — is emerging a true tyranny where government controls every aspect of our lives.
I adhere to the Darwin approach: If we get rid of all warning labels, then only the strongest would survive and we wouldn’t need all these regulations.
In the course of my life, I have found most “refugees” to do better than naturally born citizens. Could it be that the “smartest” were able to flee their country?
At a more fundamental level, regulations violate rights — the right to act. I question the hubris of those who would preempt my right to act in my self-interest, as I see fit. By what right?
Well-written and oh so true!
Politically, the dilemma is which do you choose? Candidate A knocks on your door and promises you freedom to think for yourself. Candidate B promises you free ________ (fill in the blank). Most people, soft socialists they be, jump at B.
Thank you, Amit Ghate. With this clearly-written editorial, you have nailed the major political problem of our (or any?) time. Government regulation of people’s freely chosen activities is stultifying and dispiriting.
Control government; not citizens!
Good piece, Mr. Ghate. Thanks PJM.
We have here a critical, fundamental idea that needs to be part of our political, social, and moral discourse: force destroys thought. The fact that we cannot think, decide or act in the face of a robber pointing a loaded gun at us and telling us “your money or your life;” in the face of pirates boarding our unarmed ship and taking it over by force of superior arms: AK-47s and grenades; in the face of government telling us to pay taxes, “or else” — all that is clear and obvious.
But Mr. Ghate brings up a more subtle angle to the issue of ‘force destroys thought:’ government regulation slowly numbs people to the need to think critically about their values, the products they buy, what they want to do to promote and protect their lives.
In this light, it makes more sense why some people who come from communist countries hate America for all the choices America offers. Some people from these countries hate that there are so many toothpastes to choose from; they cannot decide!! Their decision-making ability, their critical judgment, their personal preferences (and hence individuality) have been damaged and destroyed.
Government regulation corrodes thought and judgment — i.e., it corrodes reason, our tool and means of survival. (“Regulation” and “laws” are different concepts — I am by no means advocating anarchy.)
Excellent article Mr. Ghate. You’ve done an great job of pointing out that practically, respect for individual rights leads to prosperity, and is in fact the only way you can achieve such prosperity. But even more fundamentally the only moral way to live in a society is to insist on a rule of law upholding the individual rights of each and every member of that society to their own life, their own liberty, their own property and the selfish pursuit of their own happiness. The only alternative is the rule of physical force. Where some people get to dictate to others what they must do, where some men become the property of other men.
Great piece AG,
The chipping away of “free markets = bad” continues!!
–TK
Excellent piece. It’s so refreshing to hear an argument made from principle and then clearly demonstrated through reference to observable facts. Hmmm. that sounds like a scientific approach – an approach rarely taken in the social “sciences” today. Thanks again!
The mistake that both sides (liberal left and libertarian right) make is talking about regulation as if it’s a substance in a bottle, and the only question is “how much?”. The failure in the financial markets, pontification by Dear Leader not withstanding, isn’t too little regulation, but wrong regulation, probably motivated by a deliberate desire to wreck the economy (which Dear Leader has befitted tremendously from).
Beware the discussion about regulation quantity (yes, there is a such thing as simply too much); it obscures the more important question of regulation quality. When you have a group of people whose mission is to destroy capitalism, don’t be surprised if the regulation that they cause does precisely that.
Great piece, Amit. The example of how knowledge is treated in the computer world makes things so clear!
Excellent article, Mr. Ghate!
Any “amount” of regulations is an injustice, because regulations regulate voluntary and peaceful actions, and thereby infringe upon one’s right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
What IS needed is a legal system which outlaws *actual* violations of individual rights, such as theft and fraud — but in no way restricts non-injurious activities.
In. Deed.
What we’ve done as a society is attempt to remove the consequences of failure. In doing such, we have the consequence of stifling innovation and success. The freedom to succeed cannot exist without the freedom to fail.
REGULATION FROM THE LEFT HAS KILLED THE LATE GREAT GOLDEN STATE
And to date there are no signs of life.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/05/california-has-been-strangled-to-death.html
The Obama Litmus Test is does this (or any) proposal add or subtract freedom?
In the good old days, the government was the referee and the players contested. Now, the referee is making the plays, taking the shots, franchising the teams, setting limits on the scores, and setting the fixes on the outcomes. Captcouv said it with “to remove the consequences of failure.” Some of us still like freedom and have no interest into becoming European again. I will take the risk if I can have the reward, knowing that I will pay the price if I do dumb.
The issue of regulation and the hot cup of coffee reminded me of a lawsuit brought against Burger King about the same time that the lady sued McD’s over the hot coffee. This lady burned her tongue on a pickle from her WHopper, they supposedly nuked the burger before giving it to her. I believe she won. But the best part was that her husband filed suit as well. It seemed that in her immense pain, she was unable to hmmm……give to him what Clinton received in the Oval Office. He lost his case. Imagine if BK had to put a warning on their wrappers had he won.
Great article.
Two 23-year-olds invented the search algorithm that revolutionized the Internet. A teenager created Linux. We could expect similar feats in fields like medicine or aviation, if only we dismantled the onerous control of the FDA and FAA.
Search Engines and Operating Systems couldn’t kill us even if buggy, but faulty medicines and airplanes can.
Charvakan, your plane relies on computers.
Anyway, Great article.
#24 Charvakan – so? Regulation isn’t the correct answer here – accountability through the courts is. In other words, if your product harms someone, you are in trouble – so you have great incentive to ensure this does not happen. Note I do -not- mean to imply “if your product’s user is a moron” such as current “liability” cases routinely allow for.
Thanks for posting this excellent article.
I particularly like the inspiring historical examples making the positive point that human beings *can* think for themselves–we’ve done it before with very good results. The examples from the computer/tech industry are also very relevant and convincing for making the point that freedom is the foundation for innovation.
Imagine what improvements and developments would occur in the health care industry if it had as much freedom as the tech industry…..I think Amit Ghate’s article shows very well that what is necessary for such growth and advancement is for people to be free of government regulations.
Thanks again!
Ghate — “Social Security is mandatory because we can’t be counted on to save for retirement.”
What complete idiocy! In reality SS is a necessary failsafe because bad things happen to good people. It’s there to protect the weak, the trod upon, and the unlucky.
Things are going well for you, and at age 55 your spouse gets cancer. Wipes you out. Free market regulation-free medical care took care of that. No SS? Starve, sucker. Sucks to be you.
Your argument assumes that everything being equal you don’t need SS because you’re young, strong, smart, lucky, and nothing crappy happens to you. No debilitating and financially ruinous illness, no war, no pestilence, famine, or plague, no bad luck, nothing.
Real life isn’t theory and it certainly isn’t ideological.
So this is conservative “thought?”
Charvakan:
“faulty medicines and airplanes can” kill us. Quite true; but is it in the interests of makers of medicines and aircraft to create medicines that kill the taker and aircraft that kill passengers?
G Alston,
How does someone elses need justify the use of goverment force to expropriate the earnings of an individual for their benefit? Please explain who determines how “unlucky” or how “trod upon” one has to be to justify the legalized theft of other peoples money?
There are some good basic analogies, and then very dangerous ones.
Caveat Emptor seems to be the philosophy here, which is fine when buying a cell phone or a Laptop. The problem is when it is applied in such a broadbrush to ALL of society.
Banking regulations are in place so your bank doesnt take your funds and run off with them. Auto standards are in place so you dont blow up when someone hits you from behind. ( hard to sue someone when your dead, or compensate you for loss of limbs and third degree burns).
You are communicating on the Internet because of regulatory standards that insure secure connections and manufacturing standards. The Irony of this article and most of the responses are self evident. The issue is the level and common sense rules applied to regulations. Like the previous poster stated, it is quality of regulation, not quantity that is important. Dont throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Great article!
Great article. Thanks.
Excellent! If more people understood the dull, grey, stultified world created by increasing government regulation over more and more areas of life, they would tell government to leave us alone! Quibbling about “good” and “bad” government regulation isn’t the solution. The solution is indicated in Mr. Ghate’s article: questioning the premises behind government regulation and differentiating it from free choices coming out of evaluation and studies done in the free market.
#30 — How does someone elses need justify the use of goverment force to expropriate the earnings of an individual for their benefit? Please explain who determines how “unlucky” or how “trod upon” one has to be to justify the legalized theft of other peoples money?
Government is legitimate via consent of the governed. We The People of these United States *are* the government.
A legit function of government is the general welfare of the people. A safety net such as SS is a legitimate thing to do.
The common argument here is to yammer about the founders.
When the founders were busy revolting against tyrrany, the avg lifespan of a male was just the same as it had been historically to that point, about 50 to 55 years. Aging and retirement on the scale as we know it in the modern world didn’t even exist. Modern technology (food production, labour saving devices, medical technology, etc) allows man to live for around 80 years on average now. (Indeed, at the time of the founding we also had slavery and voting was restricted to gentlemen landholders.)
The common (founders) argument goes sideways because like ALL political and so-called philosophical musings, those who are engaged in this fail to grasp technology and how it shapes the landscape in ways that weren’t anticipated.
Then of course there’s genetics etc to consider: statistically, half of us are below average intelligence. Those who carry on about libertarian and/or objectivist principle advocate meritocracy. Works great if you’re in the above average half. But a legitimate question is raised in how a society cares for the half who are below average. Not everyone can be a stockbroker or an engineer. Somebody has to flip the burgers and pick up the garbage. Yammering about how this may impinge upon your perceived freedom says you’re not a team player and to hell with everyone else. It’s not a particularly well considered position.
And then let’s get pragmatic. Look up city data, and you’ll find that in the average town the annual household income is in the area of say $45,000. At modern prices this doesn’t let the average family save *and* live any sort of a life other than a modern version of serfdom. A medical problem of any significance wipes them out. So much for retirement.
As a society we agree that a legit function of government is to help care for all. We The People of these United States *are* the government. I’m quite sure that if SS were the big horrible thing claimed by objectivists and libertarians that We The People could and would rise up and cause it to be removed. Everyone knows this. This has yet to happen, so conclude what you will.
G Alston:
It’s nice that you want to be in a society where people have a good standard of living. Me, too.
But your argument that the government must provide SS rests on a faulty premise: that it is and will be the only source of income/funding for people who do not plan or whose fortune/savings are wiped out by medical emergencies or disasters or financial malfeasance. We clearly have family, friends, charities and other organizations in society to help. And we’d have more if government would get out of our pocketbooks and bank accounts, and would get the hell out of our way in general.
People are benevolent toward their fellow man when left free and self-sovereign. The magnitude of the charity in the early US is documented historically — e.g., as noted even by travelers from Europe. The fact that not everyone was benevolent does not contradict the “for the most part” generalization about American culture, so don’t even try that on me (if you were; I don’t know…). The fact that some people were malevolent shows, rather, that people have free will and are self-sovereign — man is a being of self-made soul. And the fact that some people in America suffered even with the benevolence of Americans shows that humans are not omnipotent, that we are subject to the forces and limits of nature; the world does not revolve around us and our wishes. One implication is that some people just couldn’t afford to help others as they might have.
But charity is not an essential argument for or against a culture, anyway. What is important is whether a political system allows man to survive, whether a political system allows man to live according to his nature as a free, independent, rational animal.
That is the standard of judgment.
So your statements “What complete idiocy! In reality SS is a necessary failsafe…”, “Your argument assumes that everything being equal you don’t need SS…”, “Real life isn’t theory and it certainly isn’t ideological”, “So this is conservative ‘thought?’ ” are inappropriate and ill-thought out. You should not resort to such ad hominem remarks.
Please follow the three Rs: reading, research, and reasoning. I am not seeing you do so in your writing.
Also “We The People of these United States *are* the government” is a major equivocation, as is your use of “welfare” in “A legit function of government is the general welfare of the people.”
Please do some research on the nature and founding of our system of government. (It’s a constitutional republic, not a democracy. What is a republic? What is a constitutional republic? What is a democracy? What is government?)
In regard to your statements “I’m quite sure that if SS were the big horrible thing claimed by objectivists and libertarians that We The People could and would rise up and cause it to be removed. Everyone knows this:” I don’t.
So how do you explain the fact that people did not rise up against the SS in WWII? (I’m referring to Germany, by the way…) And how do you explain the fact that other evils in history weren’t magically wiped from a society by ‘the people rising up and causing them to be removed?’ Some issues are not that simple and not that easy to remove.
Furthermore, what makes you think that no one will notice that you are saying only “objectivists and libertarians” are against SS? Is that what you are saying/implying? If so, the claim is clearly false, as there are others against social security, too.
Again, please follow the three Rs: reading, research, and reasoning. I am not seeing you do so in your writing or thinking.
Mr. Ghate. Thanks for that excellently reasoned article.
“A free mind and a free market are corollaries”–Ayn Rand.
#36 — So how do you explain the fact that people did not rise up against the SS in WWII?
You’re comparing social security with nazis, and you accuse me of not being able to reason. Fascinating.
26. TimC:
29. Brother John:
This is all very good in theory. By this argument, we should not have any govt. mandated standards for anything, including building bridges or buildings, for how to deal with industrial waste, etc. The fear of lawsuits should deter everyone from doing anything wrong. Your reasoning is good if humans always behaved rationally. The truth however is that they don’t. If that were the case we should not have any successful lawsuits where products have actually harmed anyone. Do a little bit of research and you can get information on thousands of such cases. Or are you saying that all such lawsuits where bogus ones???
BTW, why hasn’t any republican administration ever done anything towards eliminating FDA, FAA, all standard bodies etc? After all there have been times, including in the recent past, when republicans controlled all branches of govt. The reason is that this is not practical. It is good only for having theoretical discussions like this on paper.
Human beings have never been free as individuals to do as they wished, only free to do what the authorities that governed them were willing to tolerate. I think a lot of people in this thread have been taking the films of that jew hating alcoholic dwarf Mel Gibson too seriously. Those filkms are the fanstasies of a megalomaniacal mind.
Wallace was an educated gentleman who was born and lived in a large manor house in the west of Scotland, not in an iron age settlement in the highlands. The lifestyle depicted was at least 1000 years before the events took place. For the record Wallace’s battle cry (in French, the main language of Scotland at the time) was “pour la liberté de l’Écosse. …” a much more articulate phrase than the flim’s “they can take our lives but the will never take our freedom.” Wallace, unlike Mel Gibson, would have been sufficiently well read in Platonic philosophy to understand how idiotic that phrase is because a dead person enjoys no freedoms.
Similarly the rallying call of the American War Of Independence was “No Taxation Without Representation” and not “give us liberty or give us death,” another half witted Gibsonism that is now accepted as historical fact.
And for the record, Jesus, if he actually existed, would have spoken Greek. not “Hebrew” which at the time was a purely liturgical language.
History shows that when people are left to think for themselves mob rule is the result. And mob rule will give way to tyranny as is happening now with the Obamanazis squeezing your bollocks harder every time someone yells “freedom”.
Forget all this silly sentimental nonsense about fredom. Get organised or get shafted. in a well governed society everybody can enjoy the maximun amount of liberty possible under the law.
G. Alston:
Yup. If you are going to classify social security as a “big horrible thing,” then you had better be able to defend and stand behind your claim.
Do not, again, resort to ad hominem.
Great piece – I hope to see more like it (i.e. well written and extremely rational)… Thanks.
40. Ian Thorpe:
History shows that when people are left to think for themselves mob rule is the result. And mob rule will give way to tyranny as is happening now with the Obamanazis squeezing your bollocks harder every time someone yells “freedom”.
Can you please expand on the idea that “when people are left to think for themselves mob rule is the result,” using historical examples? And in each case, could you be so kind as to note whether such “mob rule” ensued despite the existence of a rational, state-enforced rule of law which banned physical force from human relationships and prohibited the abrogation of individual rights?
Or are we doomed to be subjected to this endless confusion between individual freedom and anarchy?
As Ayn Rand pointed out so many years ago, anarchy – the kind of lawlessness which leads to mob rule – is not ‘freedom,’ since the individual is at the mercy of whichever marauding gang wishes to physically coerce him. Real freedom means the freedom to do anything except abrogate the rights of others to do the same. When we talk about freedom in a rational libertarian sense, this is the kind of freedom we mean.
Mob rule is the result of two things – either a complete breakdown of law and order, or a democratic system without a Constitution to limit the power of the state. This last point is very important. Democracy is only a good thing when the state is prohibited from having the power to abrogate the rights of the individual. Give the state too much power in democracy and you effectively have mob rule; the majority has the power to trample over the rights of the minority. We are seeing this now with the exploitation of populist rage against the rich, which is being harnessed in order to legitimize an anti-rich agenda. ‘What the majority want’ should never be unconditional. What if the majority suddenly decides it doesn’t like Jews, or that rich people should be imprisoned and have their wealth confiscated?
The concept of freedom is not “sentimental nonsense” and I’m frankly embarrassed on behalf of anyone who would utter such thoughtless nonsense. You compel us to “get organized.” Yet the right to “get organized” depends on one thing – freedom. In a free society you have the power to cooperate and collaborate with anyone you wish. Relationships – the element of any ‘organization’ – are entirely voluntary, as they should be.
And for heavens sake, let’s have an end to the tedious habit of insinuating that whenever someone talks about anything remotely libertarian, they’re advocating anarchy. It’s one of the most annoying straw man arguments of our time.
I am rather surprised that no one has pointed out to G. Alston that health insurance, life insurance, single event emergency insurance are all things that would readily protect a great majority of free Americans. I am sure there are other options before the last resort: charity.
In a free market with a rational court system (where insurance companies are not victims of “deep pocket litigation”) such insurance costs would only be a problem for the truly indigent.
The inability to consider such possibilities, which are more available to men in the absence of Big Brother, is itself a consequence of (~5 generations) being educated by & living under Big Brother. The more control the state is permitted to acquire, the more it seeks, and the fewer minds there are with the intellectual ability to oppose it.
I should add that here in Canada per capita charitable donations are half that of Americans… but in both countries, as government intrusion and taxation increased, charitable donations decreased. Hardly surprising.
All laws prohibit behavior, and produce nothing.
Each steals some aspect of freedom. Who benefits from any new law? Lawmakers – special interests – enforcement – lawyers. While most are unfunded and/or unenforceable, all sit poised and waiting to trap the unknowing, at that point when enforcement is deemed appropriate.
In 2008, the Congress enacted 60,000 NEW Federal laws. Add hundreds of thousands across the fifty states, and tens of hundreds of thousands by local gov’ts. I’d bet big bucks no one here can name more than ten, at any level. Sixty thousand NEW Federal laws! This Congress is on schedule to pass 65,000+ in 2009.
We’re all guilty of something now, or will be. Ex post facto enforcement is now de jure. And ignorance is NO EXCUSE. So, start reading those 10s of millions of pages tonight.
Perhaps a plank for the revolution (or the raison d’etre for a constitional convention) should be that no new law or regulation can be enacted unless 10,000 laws/regs are recinded, abolished, or revoked. Let’s give the politicos at all levels of gov’t a real job simplifying our legal and regulatory system. Numbers reported on the nightly news. They need to realize they’re not in the new law generating business.
We don’t need even one more new law! This mandate would destroy cronyism and the entire patronage network.
Also “loser pays” in civil court, needs to be implementd to destroy the lock lawyers have on our society of getting paid, win or lose.
I sincerely see no other way out of our “regulatory enslavement” by the political class.
Alex@31
Granted some regulation is necessary. But, shouldn’t every law be evaluated in light of it’s cost to greater society? Otherwise it’s just benefiting a select few: aka a “special interet.”
And what should be the penalty for “falsifying the evidence,” as was done in more than one case regarding cars exploding when rear-ended?
All new regulation is by it’s nature a quest for the perfect, at the expense of the good; and is thereby immune from cost justification.
Charvakan said: The fear of lawsuits should deter everyone from doing anything wrong. Your reasoning is good if humans always behaved rationally. The truth however is that they don’t.
Irrational or not, some people are criminals. More laws do not alter that.
Timely article. Given how far the Obama administration has gone in its 100 days plus reign in inserting the State (without ever using the word ‘nationalizing’)in a multitude of areas where the Market should determine the outcome.
Would we have aircraft if the govt had known what the Wright brothers were up to?
I have gotten so very tired of the govt fixing even the simplest things, gas cans, they have fixed those such that you are almost guaranteed to spill gas when you are trying to pour it. I wish I could find a bunch of the old WWII GI gas cans with the nozzle, they worked great.
They are so in our lives it is a wonder we are even able to get out of our drive ways. I am sure they will fix that as quickly as they can.