[Yardstick]

Just glad we didn’t get stuck with those miserable CFLs.

I do wonder what Friedrich Hayek would say about this whole lightbulb thing, though. LEDs are superior to incandescents yet they probably wouldn’t have been developed if not for the government intervening. Nor do we seem to have suffered much in the way of unintended negative consequences. Is it possible the government’s coercive action has yielded a better net result than if it had stayed on the sidelines?

[Magic Fingers]

“Is it possible the government’s coercive action has yielded a better net result than if it had stayed on the sidelines?”

This could be one of those exceedingly rare situations where that’s the case.

[Farmerbob]

I agree. Other than needing them for the residual heat, if you are still using incandesces you are retarded. Light 6 rooms for the price of 1. Plus the range of color/warmth. You just have to be able to read a label.

[Svartalfiar]

I do wonder what Friedrich Hayek would say about this whole lightbulb thing, though. LEDs are superior to incandescents yet they probably wouldn’t have been developed if not for the government intervening. Nor do we seem to have suffered much in the way of unintended negative consequences. Is it possible the government’s coercive action has yielded a better net result than if it had stayed on the sidelines?

Um, you do realize that the first LEDs were invented in 1961, right? They've been around for a long time, most of those little power lights on all your electronics have been LEDs since the 60s/70s. It's only recently, however, that they've become that much brighter and that much cheaper to where they're worth switching to. The FedGov ban on incandescents only accelerated this by a couple years, that's it.