Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“When I was in 5th grade, I read a fun little book called Donkey’s Can’t Sleep in Bathtubs and Other Crazy Laws. Since I didn’t know any economics at the time, the idea of “crazy laws” was novel to me. My mature reaction: Even today, it’s striking how almost all of the book’s crazy laws are full prohibitions — the titular law aside, other examples include ‘You can’t keep ice cream cones in your back pocket,’ ‘You can’t wake a sleeping bear to take a picture,’ and ‘Women can’t drive in housecoats.’ The same mentality that looks at petty problems and thinks, ‘There ought to be a law’ almost never thinks, ‘This calls for a $.37 Pigovian tax.'” (08/26/25)