Recently Michelle Obama visited Mars Inc. and bitched about the size of their candy bars. She insisted that they reduce their standard size bars, which contain 280 calories, to 250 calories, a number she pulled out of her first-lady butt. She also asked them to stop making king size candy bars.<\/p>\n
What they should have done: Say, “Thank you Mrs. Obama. Now please enjoy this goody bag full of delicious candy and our security men will walk you to the exit.”<\/p>\n
What they did: Bowed down and kissed her feet. They are going to reduce the size of their candy bars and eliminate king size bars.<\/p>\n
When government makes “suggestions” most business comply very quickly. Their compliance is often used as an excuse to turn those suggestions into laws. (“XYZ Inc. did it, and they’re still in business, so we should make it a law.”) When Big Brother makes “suggestions” or concocts rules, regulations or laws very few businesses will resist them, even if it means closing their doors. Those rare business that do resist deserve our respect, support, and money.<\/p>\n
Like all government agencies The Consumer Products Safety Commission has laudable sounding job description. They are in charge of making sure unsafe products are pulled from the market. When you see notices that “Bottle Rockets for Babies” has been recalled, that’s the CPSC in action. And to be fair, most of their product recalls are justifiable.<\/p>\n
But like all government agencies they like to overstep their authority, make stupid decisions, and destroy businesses based on those stupid decisions.<\/p>\n
Buckyballs are small rare earth magnets designed to be an adult desktop toy. Their packaging clearly indicates they are designed for adults and is covered with warnings that boil down to “keep these out of the reach of children” and “don’t eat these, idiots.” The company worked with the CPSC to design the warnings, even going so far as to recall 175,000 sets that labeled for ages 13 and up and replacing the warnings to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a614 and up. Maxfield & Oberton, the manufacturer, has steadfastly refused to sell them to retailers who only cater to children, like Toys R Us. The balls sell for about thirty bucks a set, not something a kid is likely to purchase on their own.<\/p>\n
Despite their ethical behavior and their cooperation with the CPSC, the CSPC has decided to put them out of business.<\/p>\n
Eating magnets is a very bad idea. They stick together and can pinch off areas of the stomach or colon, causing perforation and other nasty effects that require surgery to resolve. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.don’t eat magnets. And don’t leave them around where little kids can eat them either.<\/p>\n
But stupid parents will be stupid, and some have left these adult toys in the reach of children, who then ate them and suffered the ill effects. This has happened to twenty-two kids – out of two and a half million sets of Buckyballs sold. Many of them were teenagers. Eleven of them required surgery.<\/p>\n
The CSPC started by going after sellers, asking them to “voluntarily” remove them from their stores. Most have complied – a search on “Buckyballs” on Amazon, for instance, only returns a book about how to play with them. But you can still get them from Maxfield & Oberton, who refuses to shut down their business to placate the idiot bureaucrats at CSPC. They are selling them directly at their website and report a 50-fold increase in orders. This ridiculous ban has not only given them gobs of publicity via the Streisand Effect, it’s also prompted people to buy them now out of fear they may not be available in the near future.<\/p>\n
One set is fun, two sets is even more fun. They’re available in a variety of colors, and recently the company has introduced BuckyCubes, which creates a whole new bevy of possibilities.<\/p>\n