The Food and Drug Administration tried a sneak attack on the artisan cheese industry earlier this week, pushing a new rule, pretending it wasn’t a new rule, that would outlaw the aging of cheese on wooden board. The FDA has backed down from this new-not-new rule-not-rule.
What are the lessons?
1. Regulations disproportionately hurt small business and diversity. Gregory Macneal at Forbes explains:
(Wait, what? I thought regulation was about curbing Big Business?)
2. If Big Business isn’t going to battle a regulation, it only loses when the regs interfere with the lifestyle of elites. Uber, food trucks and artisanal cheese often win in the political realm against the Big Business-Big Government Combine. African hairbraiders and small-time tax preparers usually need the courts to help them.
