We also noted the predictable opposition of nanny-state activists and academics who cringed at the non-governmental standard setting and assertion of commercial free speech rights.

FORBES: Food Labeling And The Nanny State

It's a shame that behavioral economics has become associated with ineffectual nanny-state efforts like the big-soda ban, because it's actually a tremendously interesting field of study, one that offers widely applicable insights into human nature.

WSJ: Best of the Web Today: The Other Obesity Problem

Bloomberg justifies his nanny-state interventions by pointing to the social costs of obesity, but there is no direct causal link between obesity and 20-ounce sodas with sugar in them, and neither would it be anyone's business at all except for the increasing government control and subsidies for health care.

CNN: Big Gulp? Meet Big Brother

Theoretically, budgeting would mean that adopting a new nanny-state regulation that may offer a minuscule improvement in safety would be directly weighed against the much greater and more cheaply achieved benefits of (just for example, there are loads of them) painting white lines down the middle of unmarked public country roads.

FORBES: How About a Budget for Regulations?

And if you are a died-in-the-wool progressive doing everything you can to expand the nanny state, feel free to ignore the movie.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The employer must withhold state and federal income taxes and social-security taxes from the nanny's wages weekly and remit them to the various tax authorities every quarter, as well as dealing with the agencies that run unemployment-insurance and injury-insurance schemes.

ECONOMIST: Light on the shadows