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For years we’ve heard that the cure-all for our economy is deregulation. The evangelists of deregulation tell us the market is the ultimate arbiter of good and bad. The market will correct itself, laissez-faire, Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and all that stuff.
The sad truth is, regulation never would have arrived to be deregulated if it hadn’t been needed. Nobody likes to have to do it. Regulation is an annoying labor and time-intensive process. It’s not only expensive to the company being regulated, it’s expensive to the government and ultimately the taxpayer.
Much better if a company can do it itself. Companies do know themselves best. They are the best people to regulate their business.
Unless they capitulate to the other driving engine of capitalism— Greed. Alan Greenspan seemed so beaten recently when he admitted he’d discovered a fundamental flaw in the system. Companies should have acted in their own best interest, but they didn’t, because the heads of the companies acted in their own short term self interest.
Company and Public be damned.
The guts of the economy oozed out like the center of a fried peanut butter sandwich.
So we see it again with the recent salmonella outbreak. Peanut Corporation of America, the huge peanut butter and peanut paste factory in Georgia, not only shipped salmonella tainted product, they knew it was tainted. They tested batches, found salmonella, then found a lab to test the same batch and give them a negative result, then shipped the batches anyhow.
The heads of the company had to be nuts, and greedy nuts at that. 8 people have died at the time of this writing. Many more are sick. And because PCA ships to wholesale users who render their peanut paste into all manner of products from energy bars to dog biscuits to ice cream this may end up being one of the most massive and expensive recalls of history. Check FDA.gov for a full list. You’ll be amazed how many ways we gobble peanuts.
So there you have it; dead people and lots of money lost.
Sounds like a job for regulation.
Sorry, but if your sole moral motivator is self-interest, things like this are going to happen.
Agreed?
America, ya gotta love it.
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Greedy Nuts and Greedy Repubes! I "studied" the list last night, and items that I (one who reads ingredient labels meticulously) could not imagine had anything whatsoever to do with PB or PB ooze are on the list. Organic products sold nationwide. Many don't have the word "peanut" listed at all, in any manner or form. So - these idiots knew the products had salmomnella - yet sent it out, and 8 people have died. I think that is murder! I hope I don't repeat myself. I wrote once, but it did not seem to register. Forgive me for my unsavvy ways in the world of blog.
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