According to its official website, the Federal Trade Commission's purpose is "to prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce as part of the battle to 'bust the trusts'", "police anticompetitive" and "unfair and deceptive acts or practices".   The Commission has a role in monitoring fraud in advertising and on the internet, adherence to labeling laws for clothing, and enforcing financial laws like the Truth in Lending Act, Consumer Leasing Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Telemarketing Sales Rule, and the all-important 900 Number Rule, among a host of other duties.  They claim to "deal with issues that touch the economic lives of most Americans".

The FTC does have some responsibilities that are at least arguably legitimate government functions; in a free market capitalist system, the government has a legitimate role in preventing fraud and coercion.  Of course, it can be a difficult decision to determine at what point a particular trade-related issue belongs more in a civil-type court situation, and where it crosses the line and becomes an issue for regulation and, ultimately, prosecution.  There's also a role for the private sector in policing itself, e.g., groups like Underwriters Laboratories.  But that's at least a valid debate, and in which intelligent people — even free market-oriented people — can disagree.

Unfortunately, government bureaucracies inherently expand their mission to include the mundane, no matter how lofty their intended mandate.  Such is the case with the FTC, as evidenced by their latest campaign to eradicate a serious issue of unfair competition in commerce and deceptive acts:  the FTC is pressuring Anheuser-Busch not to market Budweiser in cans modeled after college team colors.  Not using college symbols or mascots, just colors.  As reported in the Wall Street Journal, "Janet Evans, a senior FTC attorney who oversees alcohol advertising, says the federal agency has "grave concern" that the campaign could encourage underage and binge drinking on college campuses.  "This does not appear to be responsible activity...  We're looking at this closely," Ms. Evans says.

First of all, I can assure Ms. Evans and the FTC that college students aren't binging on alcohol because of the color of the can; make the cans pink, black, green, or chartreuse, and college students are going to drink beer.  The school color promotion might spur sales of the particular brand, but the sales will be by people who were buying beer anyway; those that buy the beers merely to get the cans as some sort of collectible would be saving the beer anyway.  Any person who's ever been to a college tailgate party would know this to be true. 

But there's a deeper point here than whether or not the color of beer cans can induce alcoholism, or even whether or not it is a valid government function to either promote or discourage the use of alcohol:  the lawyers at the FTC have enough time on their hands and sufficient budget to fret about the color of beer cans?  Seriously?

According to the FTC's "Performance and Accountability Report", the agencies appropriation from the government ("Net Program Costs") was approximately $126.2 million for fiscal year 2008 — an increase of 119% year-over-year!  Now that's not the total budget — the FTC collects revenue in the form of fees and such — that's just the amount out of the general fund. 

I'm not sure how much the FTC's action against Budweiser is costing, but whatever the amount, I'm certain that you can't put a price on being safe from predatory beer can color practices.  Thank goodness the FTC is out there being "grave[ly] concern[ed]" on our behalf.  Perhaps we can toast their success soon... with beer poured from non-threatening generic white cans, we can hope.