Japan's Gaming History Now Safe

An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian today has covered the final part of the ongoing saga regarding the Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law in Japan. Thankfully, the law has been almost reversed allowing the continued sale of second hand electrical goods (including games consoles)." From the article: "The Japanese secondhand electrical goods market was officially estimated last year to be worth around £500m ... The government probably hoped the law would go largely unnoticed and bring a variety of benefits. By taking the money out of the secondhand market and injecting it into the market for new goods, regulation (of old products) and revivalisation (of the economy) would be achieved in one fell swoop. On paper, anyway. In practice it was rather different."

Right wing zealot mode

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Another example of government thinking that they can artificially manipulate the market.

I'm grateful...

[parasonic]

The environmental impact of this law alone made it a preposterous idea to begin with. I'm glad that it was halted. I think that this would have made Japan look really bad in other nations' eyes. They probably didn't want to take any of the US's "credit" in collossal wastefulness.

Revivalization

[Bombula]

"By taking the money out of the secondhand market and injecting it into the market for new goods, regulation (of old products) and revivalisation (of the economy) would be achieved in one fell swoop."

Wow, that was a winner of an idea. I wonder why they didn't think to apply the same regulation to, say, used cars?

"Revivalization" is a awesome word, by the way.

Re:Revivalization

[Rakishi]

I believe this law siginificantly cuts down on emissions and improves fuel efficency,

Because a new USV is so damn fuel efficient...

Anyway it's a stupid way to do this and probably doesn't help that much, if you want to cut down on emissions and increase fuel efficiency then make a law to ban cars which don't pass rigorous standards.

I guess it really is a brave new world, he.

Re:I'm grateful...

[Elfich47]

The rich can afford to get the next shiny thing. The poor still pick up the scraps. The law will make it that anyone who can't afford new will have to go without. No one said the law was not being implemented, just the testing will be free for the first six months.

Japan to break windows with bricks next!

[RexRhino]

Banning the purchase of perfectly good 2nd hand items, in order to "stimulate the economy", is a perfect example of "The Broken Window Fallacy". Apparently government central planners haven't taken basic high school level economics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy [wikipedia.org]

To sum it up... yes, a person by being forced to purchase brand new TV, instead of second hand TV, does spend more money on the new item than second hand... but it doesn't add more money to the economy. The person might have been purchasing a second hand TV, so that they could purchase a new watch. Or they might have purchased a second hand TV, and then spent the money saved on school books. In order words, they have to do without some other item in order to spend more on the television. And that doesn't even include the hidden enviornmental costs - not only is there poluttion from building the new TV, but now you have a perfectly good old TV that you need to get rid of.