Sounds like the consumer cares. And where the consumer cares, companies will walk over hot coals to get a bigger market share by making things the consumer cares about.
And no politicians ever needed to get involved in the process.
In this one single case, the customer cares, because he was made aware that a TV uses a significant amount of power in a long and painful process.
Okay, I have to jump in this. You assume so many things it is almost painful to read...
Green Technology is just more efficient technology. And I assure you, there is a commercial interest for more efficient devices. For example, reducing power usage of a CPU has the application of increasing battery life. That right there is much more motivation than saving $0.06 a week.
Fuel prices went up, SUV sales have gone down, as has the interest and selling rate of smaller cars in the US. Without bans on SUVs.
I can go on and on about how consumer demand will lead to advances.
Like I said, there are cases where the free market regulates itself, just like there are cases where the consumer cares about the green-ness or efficiency of a device. But there also are cases where noone cares, and where companies can just go ape in the market. And when there's money in it, some of them will.
And imagine all the power that could be saved by people properly inflating their tires! Maybe even a mile or three more to a gallon! The government should enforce tire pressures checks then! And then we can mandate everyone must use tires will less rolling resistance, like on the Prius, because they get better economy. Then tire retailers can only sell certain tires.
There are programs done by independent automobile clubs in Germany which teach you how to save fuel by doing such things. Problem is that knowledge like this is available to everyone, but most people are too ignorant to notice. Only when you shove it in their faces, you can talk of some general awareness.
A clever thing the government could do (though I doubt they ever would) would be to give everyone who checks his tire pressure when refueling a 5% rebate from the taxes on his fuel bill. Surely, there are better ways than regulating things. And in fuel, self-regulation works well because it is well known that the amount we have left is limited, and people are very sensitive when it comes to fuel costs.
On the other hand, it is known that all major petrol suppliers regularly meet agreements where they coincidently raise fuel prices in certain periods of the year, such as holiday time. They know that people will need to fill up their cars prior to traveling, and as long as they all pull it through, they will all boost their profits. There is a cartel office in Germany to prevent that, but to this day, they were not able to prove it. This is where free markets can go wrong.
Or, they can force us to turn our heat down, since a few degrees difference can make quite a difference on energy consumption. Again, in colder regions, probably much more so than a TV. And everyone can live in a house that can't be warmer than 65 F during the winter months, just not everyone will love it.
Or force everyone to wear synthetics, like fleece, for coats and pants. Dries much faster than cotton based clothing, so less energy wasted drying it!
I think you get the point.
I do. But you see, you got me wrong. The things you described above are active and direct interventions with peoples lifes and their comforts. And that, I obviously did not put that clear enough before, is
not okay. There is a fine line between a government showing me a better way and the government telling me what to do.
Banning incandescent light bulbs clearly is crossing that line and therefore not okay. Setting a future standard in power consumption for TV manufacturers however is a totally different case. It does not worsen anyones life in any way, and it will decrease energy consumption countrywide over time. Noone will come and take away your old TV, noone will come and tell you which new TV to get. You will still have a broad selection of sets to choose from, it will just so happen that all TVs you can buy will achieve a certain level in efficiency.
Forcing idiocy on everyone or letting a free market decide what makes more sense? I dunno about this one, I kind of like not having to think about what I can and cannot buy at the store. Less choices in life makes it better, right? At least that is the new philosophy it seems like. Isn't that why Macs are getting more popular, less buttons and options?
Depends on the free market. If it works, I'm all for not having anyone external intervene. But letting the free market bloom in every single respect often isn't a very good solution either.
I think that our standpoints have shown that I tend to go for control in certain cases, where you tend to rather let a market develop by itself. Which way to choose is a matter of personal experience I suppose, but I actually think the matter is way too complex for one way to be the absolutely right one.
Basically, you want the government to tell people what to do with what they own. If you are a good employee, they wouldn't drop you for some younger gun because they've got you trained and you know the system. It is pretty well known that firing experienced workers to higher cheaper new ones generally leads to more actual costs due to training and such.
But it still happens everywhere every single day. Mostly, the experienced guys are not even asked to pass on their knowledge to the young guys. Even if a young, new employee costs more money in the long run, many companies still tend to get rid of the older, experienced ones if they get the chance to. All cases I know of where a boss intentionally decided to keep an old guy instead of getting a younger one happened in small companies, where the boss is aware of the qualities of every single employee. Large companies however, where you're just a number in a system, mostly don't really care.
And in this day and age, business that only care about profit margins over quality, employees, and general consumer interest tend to get called out on it fast.
No no, I didn't mean that. A company does care about consumer interest - they need to in order to make good profit. But how many companies do you know that really cares about how, where or under which circumstances its products are being made? If you have the chance to make your speaker in China for $5, or in Germany for $50, would you have it done in Germany? Would you really care under which circumstances your speakers are being made in China? I mean sure, you would ask the bosses of the plants whether they care about their workers, but would you really make sure that they're telling you everything?
Stop assuming every corporation is completely evil. True, Google is pure evil, with their food courts, gyms, nap rooms, 1 day a week independent research, solar powered, green technology complex. Yeah, clearly they just care about making those extra pennies at the expense of anyone.
I do not assume that, nor did I say that every company is completely evil. On the same basis, I could assume that you say every single decision met by a government has been and will be wrong.
You don't want a little bit of control, you want a lot. You want the government to basically run the companies, regulating profits, what R and D they focus on, and who they can hire and can fire.
No, I don't. And we wouldn't even have to talk about this if all companies would act like the few that do it right. Of course, there are companies that do it right. But there are some that don't. But why don't they care about people or the environment? Because it is extra work with extra costs. And extra costs means decreasing your profits. And your product probably won't even be better. And if it will be better, the customer probably doesn't even care, because the improvements are not being noticed.
The problem is that it is very attractive for many companies to cut corners in different areas, because it increases profit. This corner-cutting will likely come at someones or somethings expense. Letting that happen because over time it will regulate itself nicely may not be the best approach to the problem.
Interceptor, can you link me to the document that is the basis for how Germany's government operates? I'm curious if your country has a solid set of principles by which it operates. My country does (though it has seen better days), but does yours?
Sure! Here's some general info on the German constitution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundgesetz
... and the official translation of the "Grundgesetz":
https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf
