Cyrillic Partners

President Bush called for strict import supervision and the expansion of both the FDA and Health and Human Services to monitor products coming into the U.S. (Thanks to Lolpresident.com for the image.)

Free market economists can’t be too keen on the measure, which would act as a barrier to trade and prevent an efficient long-term equilibrium.

“For many years we have relied on a strategy based on identifying unsafe products at the border,” Bush said and Reuters reported. “The problem is that the growing volume of products coming into our country makes this approach increasingly unreliable.”

If unsafe products are truly a problem the U.S. public should be concerned about, why has no business developed to independently inspect and certify the goods coming in? Silicon Valley developed just such a company during the dotcom boom. Remember Verisign? One of the company’s many businesses is its VeriSign Secured Seal, which says that a business is what it says it is and any transactions you make on its site will be safe. It is a Certificate Authority.

Certifying is a good business to be in, unless you’re the government. Private businesses step in to help when people have real concerns about doing business with a group, country, or business that they’ve never worked with before—as VeriSign did during the nascent days of eCommerce.

But is this really designed to protect American consumers? It’s pandering to the least common denominator: the mid-west mother of two-point-five children who is freaked out about Chinese-made toys containing lead paint.

“This is not about China,” Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said and Reuters reported. “This is about insuring that we have safe products.”

Right…you can just imagine him cutting his eyes when he says it. You can bet China will be pissed off about this though.

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