Excellent CD grey import firm CD-WOW has, rather upsettingly, backed down in its case against the hopeless monopolists at the British Phonographic Industry. No longer will hapless Brits be able to pick up (genuine) CDs from Asia at £8 ($13) each; instead, we’ll need to pay at least £10 for European-sourced discs.

Grey importing – in particular, the Levi Strauss vs Tesco case – is probably the only economic issue about which I’ve ever had a vicious row with my girlfriend. But since she doesn’t read SBBS, I’m going to go with the position that any trade regime that stops grey imports is barely worthy of the name, that the decision in Tesco vs Levis was insane, and that exactly the same logic applies to the US banning Canadian drug imports.

Yes, if grey importing were legal and easy, the pricing differentials between Hong Kong and the UK for CDs, between the US and the UK for jeans, and Canada and the US for prescription drugs would collapse. However, this would be a Good Thing for all concerned, except the incompetent monopolists (if only because the final example would stop irritating rightwing Americans fron droning on and on and on about how they subsidise our socialist living experiments, making them Morally Right and us Terribly Bad People. And also because the second example would mean I could bring clothes to New York next time I’m on a work trip out there, instead of an empty suitcase).