Everybody Wins

Here's Felix Salmon talking about US fuel efficiency standards:
Fuel-efficiency standards are a way of preventing car companies from being forced to hedge their bets by working on gas guzzlers as well as efficient runabouts. As a result, those companies can take the money they’d otherwise spend on developing six-ton monsters, and invest it instead in the efficient cars of the future. Everybody wins, and the cost — contra Porter — is negligible. He’s absolutely right that higher gas taxes are a very good idea. But that’s no reason at all not to implement higher fuel-economy standards as well.
Felix has written a 2 page editorial complete with color charts without considering the curious question of why Ford sells so many inefficient SUVs.  He says "everybody wins", except that is, the people who currently choose to buy Ford Explorers over Ford Fiestas.  These people will be prevented by law from using their own money to buy the car they want.

 Felix could make all sorts of arguments about the benefits of the Fiesta, but he can't argue the facts, that many Americans weigh this same decision and believe the Explorer is better for them.  Why is Felix in a better position to judge what car they should drive?  How is limiting his fellow citizen's choices a "win"?  Felix commits the classic Progressive mistake of confusing his own preferences for that of all his countrymen.   Perhaps his next editorial can suggest that every car should be blue- then companies wouldn't have to bother with all those different paint colors! Everybody Wins!

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