I’m fond of saying that government makes liars and weasels of the citizenry. A good example is the light bulb. Like everyone reading this, I have used incandescent bulbs by default for my whole life. Modern hipsters insist on calling them “Edisons.” The young guy who sold me the fancy new LED bulbs the other day seemed proud of himself when he had the chance to say “Edisons” with confidence of someone who is sure he is about to bring a new believer into his cult.

Anyway, I got talked into trying an LED the other day, so I decided to go to the local light bulb emporium. These stores are popping up all over. I guess that means we have joined the future in the same way small towns used to celebrate getting a McDonald’s. Right out of the chute you know we are headed to a bad place when you can build a nationwide retail chain around batteries and light bulbs. Then again The Christmas Tree Shops are built around a single holiday.

The store is not big and probably exists mostly on batteries. We have all sort or weird battery needs these days. I asked the kid for the LED bulbs and he took me to the display and started in on the sales pitch. While he was talking I’m looking at the price of these things. Looking at $19.99 for a light bulb is a bit of an eye-opener. I then hear the guy say something about the LED bulb producing the same amount of light as a much higher watt incandescent bulb.

At that point I started focusing again, realizing that it takes a good sales pitch to sell a $20 light bulb. He’s telling me about lumens and watts, while I’m thinking about physics.  A watt is equal to the amount of energy in 1 ampere of current flowing at 1 volt. A lumen has something to do with the amount of light visible to humans. It was one of those moments when I wish I had retained more of my physics training. It’s a safe bet the retail clerk really has no idea what any of this means.

I’m thinking about the lumens, trying to remember if there was a conversion to watts when he says, “The real benefit of the LED is that it will last 40 years.” I’m 48 so that means the bulb will still be going strong when I’m 88 or dead. I look at the kid and say, “So I can leave these bulbs in my will?” He just looks at me, probably trying to wrap his mind around the idea of his light bulbs lasting longer than my life. When you’re young, death is a foreign concept. I just give him the stony face to see what he will do.

Eventually, he just says, “I guess you could. I never really thought of that.” I take some pleasure in the knowledge he will now be thinking about that the next time an old person comes in the shop. When he gets ready to tell some old guy that the bulb will last forty years, but the old guy may not make it forty months. It underscores the ridiculousness of selling something people still think of as disposable, on the argument that it will last two generations.

Of course, no one thought about putting light bulbs in their will, unless they were a vindictive jerk. For close to a century now light bulbs cost a few pennies and you threw them away when you moved. The typical house may have a dozen or more bulbs. The total cost of all of them less than this one LED he was holding. Never have I heard someone complain about the bulbs in their house. Sure, you have to spend money on an outside spot light or those weird little bulbs in a dining room fixture.

Like everyone else to this point, I’ve never needed a professional consultation on my home lighting. At most, you spend time with an electrician on how best to wires the house or an outside area, so you can get proper lighting. That’s a different matter than getting professional advice on where to place the lamp. Government has created a whole class of people, who make a living helping people do what generations took for granted. We live in the age of make-work.

That’s not the end of it. The reason we’re now including our lighting choices in our wills is corporate titans figured this was a good way to monetize their country’s green obsession. In this case, “Big Bulb” got Congress to ban the cheap alternative so we will be forced to spend a mortgage payment to replace the light bulbs in the house. Phillips and GE are not even lubing up before they monetize us. It is just a full on prison rape with light bulbs. Yeah capitalism!

I know, these bulbs will save me money. I can do math. Looking at my electric bill, I fail to see how the energy savings is worth investigating. If I lived in a stadium or an arena, I could see it. The only real savings I can see is the replacement. Let’s pretend the guy at the battery store was right. My “Edisons” will cost about $20 until my death. That’s about the same as the LED. Since we know the LED will not last that long, I’m losing on that score. In fairness, the LED’s will get cheaper so the math will get better over time.

Here’s the math that matters. Big Bulb was making about 10% profit on bulbs before the green lunatics got involved. That’s about a penny per bulb when you consider the manufactured cost. If they have the same margins on the LED, they are making 100 times that per bulb. The bulb-person ration will not change anytime soon. Initially people will be buying these expensive bulbs in the same volume as the normal bulbs. Big Bulb gets to see their profit soar for a couple of years.

What are the odds that Big Bulb will go out of business in a few years after all of our bulbs are replaced with these lifetime bulbs? After all, if everyone goes to these new bulbs that last forever, how long before bulb sales collapse? That’s where you know the longevity argument is bogus. The LED will last longer, for sure, but the smart people at Big Bulb did the math and they know their new bulbs will not so long as to make the bulb business irrelevant.

The topper is the bulbs I bought are not all that great. Maybe it is just a matter of getting used to it, but my bedroom now looks like a film school scene. The area immediately around the lamps is brighter and whiter. Everywhere else is in shadows. Maybe I got bad bulbs, but for $20 a pop, well, I expected more. Forty bucks is not what it used to be, but it is lunch for the week. Thanks to the helping hand of government, I spent $40 to get monetized and I sleep in a film noir movie.