Does the C++ design follow the zero-overhead principle? Should it? I think it should, even if that principle isn’t trivial to define precisely. Some of you (for some definition of “you”) seem not to. We– WG21 as an organization – haven’t taken it seriously enough to make it a requirement for acceptance of new features. I think that is a serious problem, but one that we (WG21) should be able to handle. This paper offers some examples.