The road to the Liberal Nanny State.

[Kulindahr]

Yeah.

And if we've learned anything from the health care debate, it's that healthcare insurance companies put people over profit every time, right?

(And who does these class action suits? Just... "concerned citizens?" Lawyers doing pro-bono work out of the kindness of their hearts? You? Me? wouldn't it make more sense and save money to have a government agency kinda... making sure it didn't have to come to class action suits? Just made sure it got done? Does everything in America have to be about making a profit and filing a lawsuit?)

It isn't about people over profit, it's about profit: inspecting thoroughly would aid the companies' profit. That's already been demonstrated to work -- in fact with UL insurance got cut out of the loop; manufacturers submitted their products to UL for testing because if they got that seal of approval they didn't need to worry about paying insurance.

And no, it wouldn't save money by having government do it -- inspections of materials/component got more expensive when government stepped in.

As for class action, run it like the Americans with Disabilities Act: there's no separate agency maintained for enforcement, and disabled people who get discriminated against under the reach of the law don't have to sue -- we just call the Justice Department. That provision, that the Justice Department would take action on behalf of the citizens, gave the thing "raptor's teeth", to quote another disabled person who's had to call on the law.

I really shouldn't have to point out that having the government there doesn't eliminate class action suits, and that it's still citizens who catch most problems. And since having government get involved didn't improve safety or standards for the products UL and its kin already dealt with, it's plain government intervention is pointless.

That's really the big item: the private sector had already shown how the job could be done. Government butted in and didn't improve things at all except to make things more expensive. So government's role should be limited to getting private outfits like UL going in other sectors, then get out of the way.

 

[Supersix]

Since it was government that did this to us -- the bankers merely went along -- I don't think it's "entitlement", I think it's justice.

Or if a thief came along and not only took a third of what you own but mashed down a wall in your house to do it, would you say "Okay, I'll downsize, and rent an apartment or another house somewhere. Life isn't always fair"?

People had property. It was stolen -- this was no natural disaster, it was done to us. Demanding restitution is not about "entitlement". And letting the people who did it continue to enjoy the privileges of stolen wealth is criminal.

So, nearly, is making excuses for them.

No one's door was banged on by a bank, who forced their way in and held a gun to people's heads demanding that they sign mortgage applications, the terms of which they could not afford. My own brother and his wife made this mistake, and sad as it is, he is gonna suffer for it. As for letting people who were responsible get away with it, lets start by prosecuting the pompous politicians who started all of this. Their intentions may have been noble, but as we have all learned, good intentions do not always equal good results.

 

[Kulindahr]

And just like other insurance companies... they would just keep those class action suits in courts until the poor people with dead kids ran out of money and gave up.

I don't believe for one second that insurance companies can be trusted with anything like that. Unless we're talking about an elected official... that's answerable to the public, nothing is going to get done.

We've seen in a million times... if the cost of letting 20 people die is lower than fixing the problem... they'll let 20 people die. Every time.

Sorry, but your "do away with a responsible body that the people can hold accountable and turn it over to people who can make a profit" model is begging for disaster.

You're not getting it: this was already being done before government started getting in the way. The private sector was starting to do quality regulation on its own, and was doing so quite well.

The insurance companies would be suing in order to keep their profits up. And that would most likely only have to happen once -- once it was established which inspection agency(s) were dependable, that would end it -- just as with UL, without that lab's stamp of approval, the product just wouldn't sell. Why? Because neither the insurance companies or the manufacturers want to waste money on lawyers if they can help it; both would just rather make a product the certifiers will approve, and happily do business.

And that has been seen to work -- no government necessary.

Oh -- no profit necessarily involved, any: UL has been non-profit its entire existence, and brought industry standards up quite high. I'd rather count on them than on your naive faith that thousands of bureaucrats are going to give a shit that some elected official got turned out of office -- Nixon and Reagan both learned that government bureaucracies pretty much ignore the elected people, and do things the way they always have -- slowly, inefficiently, and more expensively.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

It isn't about people over profit, it's about profit: inspecting thoroughly would aid the companies' profit. .

Oh please.

Cutting corners and hiding evidence aids the company's profits.

It's why every single McDonald's food item contains high fructose corn syrup and trans fats.

It's why insurance companies will hold off tests until they know it would be too late to treat you and they let you die faster.

It's why holding companies build condos below code and then close down the company and sell the building to themselves... absolving themselves of having to make repairs.

No, sorry... if we've learned anything it's that for-profit corporations will screw anyone and everyone over if given 1/4 of a chance.

And you want to let them inspect your food, water and elevators? You're braver than I thought.

 

[Kulindahr]

No one's door was banged on by a bank, who forced their way in and held a gun to people's heads demanding that they sign mortgage applications, the terms of which they could not afford. My own brother and his wife made this mistake, and sad as it is, he is gonna suffer for it. As for letting people who were responsible get away with it, lets start by prosecuting the pompous politicians who started all of this. Their intentions may have been noble, but as we have all learned, good intentions do not always equal good results.

???

The politicians leaned on the banks. The banks lied to the people (some have admitted it).

Prosecution is not enough -- nor will it happen. We're talking hundreds of politicians, for starters, but we're also talking the dollar-barons at the top who buy those politicians -- the Koch brothers, and Soros, for example.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

No one's door was banged on by a bank, who forced their way in and held a gun to people's heads demanding that they sign mortgage applications, the terms of which they could not afford. My own brother and his wife made this mistake, and sad as it is, he is gonna suffer for it. As for letting people who were responsible get away with it, lets start by prosecuting the pompous politicians who started all of this. Their intentions may have been noble, but as we have all learned, good intentions do not always equal good results.

I do partially agree with that.

I saw that whole collapse coming miles away. Those "$500,000 mortgage for $1,000 per month" web site banners... nobody could be that dumb. But they were.

I AM pretty pissed that someone such as myself who was smart enough to not over-extend myself and buy things I couldn't afford has to bail out the idiots who bought McMansions and are now being evicted.

 

[Kulindahr]

Oh please.

Cutting corners and hiding evidence aids the company's profits.

It's why every single McDonald's food item contains high fructose corn syrup and trans fats.

It's why insurance companies will hold off tests until they know it would be too late to treat you and they let you die faster.

It's why holding companies build condos below code and then close down the company and sell the building to themselves... absolving themselves of having to make repairs.

No, sorry... if we've learned anything it's that for-profit corporations will screw anyone and everyone over if given 1/4 of a chance.

And you want to let them inspect your food, water and elevators? You're braver than I thought.

You still don't get it.

When a company is paid to inspect someone's product, you think they're going to cut corners? That's like saying if it's my job to make sure the yard is free of dog shit, I'll skip looking, because somehow I'll make more money by failing to do my job.

I'm trusting the people who job it is to find anything at all wrong with a product, and pounce if they do -- that's how the safety companies who got inspection started in this country did things: if your product sucked, they told everyone who could possibly be your customer.

So show me one single instance of a place where a company whose business it is to pounce on those doing low-quality stuff has ever screwed the customers who use those products.

 

[Keelandson]

So show me one single instance of a place where a company whose business it is to pounce on those doing low-quality stuff has ever screwed the customers who use those products.

I ran a Scroogle search for

U.S. " private food inspectors"

and this headed the list.

When food industry giants like Kellogg want to ensure that American consumers are being protected from contaminated products, they rely on private inspectors like Eugene A. Hatfield.

So last spring Mr. Hatfield headed to the Peanut Corporation of America plant in southwest Georgia to make sure its chopped nuts, paste and peanut butter were safe to use in things as diverse as granola bars and ice cream.

The peanut company, though, knew in advance that Mr. Hatfield was coming. He had less than a day to check the entire plant, which processed several million pounds of peanuts a month.

Mr. Hatfield, 66, an expert in fresh produce, was not aware that peanuts were readily susceptible to salmonella — which he was not required to test for anyway. And while Mr. Hatfield was inspecting the plant to reassure Kellogg and other food companies of its suitability as a supplier, the Peanut Corporation was paying for his efforts. . . .

. . . An examination of the largest food poisoning outbreaks in recent years — in products as varied as spinach, pet food, and a children’s snack, Veggie Booty — show that auditors failed to detect problems at plants whose contaminated products later sickened consumers.

In one case involving hamburgers fed to schoolchildren, the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company in California passed 17 separate audits in 2007, records show. Then an undercover video made that year showed the plant’s workers using forklifts to force sickly cows into the slaughterhouse, which prompted a recall of 143 million pounds of beef in February 2008.

Robert A. LaBudde, a food safety expert who has consulted with food companies for 30 years, said, “The only thing that matters is productivity.” He added that “you only get in trouble if someone in the media traces it back to you, and that’s rare, like a meteor strike.”

 

[Supersix]

I work for a private company that is contracted to run a large utility system for a local government. New equipment upgrades are given priority because it is profitable to install them. Maintaining old equipment is ignored for the same reason. The company preaches safety at all costs, but forces employees to be near and work with aging, badly neglected and abused equipment all the time. Inspector's reports are lost, ignored, or excuses made to justify the years it takes to get repairs made on anything. Based on my experiences, I believe that private inspections may not always be the answer. Of course, the reasons for the above have to do with the language in their contracts, and maybe if the local government knew about this, it would negotiate different terms, I don't know. What I do know is that in the case of my employer, the profit motive is not beneficial to the customers of the utility. Then again, maybe they are aware, and just go along with the bean counters who say that running equipment into the ground, and then scrambling like hell to replace it works out to be a few pennies less in the long run. Who knows??

 

[Kulindahr]

I do partially agree with that.

I saw that whole collapse coming miles away. Those "$500,000 mortgage for $1,000 per month" web site banners... nobody could be that dumb. But they were.

I AM pretty pissed that someone such as myself who was smart enough to not over-extend myself and buy things I couldn't afford has to bail out the idiots who bought McMansions and are now being evicted.

Actually we're not bailing out those idiots, we bailed out the banks. I wouldn't have been so upset if it was the idiots we were bailing out, rather than bankers who played this game yet are still getting massive bonuses (most of those bonuses are large enough just one could end all threat of homelessness for me).

I ran a Scroogle search for

U.S. " private food inspectors"

and this headed the list.

So they're doing it wrong.

The people doing the inspecting have to be allowed to inspect when they please, look at what they please -- and that includes records of what's going on in a process.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Actually we're not bailing out those idiots, we bailed out the banks. I wouldn't have been so upset if it was the idiots we were bailing out, rather than bankers who played this game yet are still getting massive bonuses (most of those bonuses are large enough just one could end all threat of homelessness for me).

That's true too. Although we certainly did have to do a lot of bailing out to save our own hides because of the over-lending and over-extending of people AND the banks.

So they're doing it wrong.

and would there be anyone accountable to the people to make sure it gets done right?

 

[Kulindahr]

I work for a private company that is contracted to run a large utility system for a local government. New equipment upgrades are given priority because it is profitable to install them. Maintaining old equipment is ignored for the same reason. The company preaches safety at all costs, but forces employees to be near and work with aging, badly neglected and abused equipment all the time. Inspector's reports are lost, ignored, or excuses made to justify the years it takes to get repairs made on anything. Based on my experiences, I believe that private inspections may not always be the answer. Of course, the reasons for the above have to do with the language in their contracts, and maybe if the local government knew about this, it would negotiate different terms, I don't know. What I do know is that in the case of my employer, the profit motive is not beneficial to the customers of the utility. Then again, maybe they are aware, and just go along with the bean counters who say that running equipment into the ground, and then scrambling like hell to replace it works out to be a few pennies less in the long run. Who knows??

In a proper inspection system, inspectors reports couldn't get lost, because they wouldn't belong to the company that got inspected.

At any rate, there's a place that a government agency that's there for whistle blowers to holler to. When you're running equipment to make products, and the products have to be quality, then you've got a UL-like situation, where it's pretty obvious there's a problem and certifying quality is pretty easy. When your equipment doesn't manufacture a product, but delivers it directly (transformers, etc.) to the customer, slacking on it is a lot easier to hide: the electricity gets there the same, or doesn't get there at all, and so long as the former is happening, customers won't know the difference. That's a whole different kind of inspection situation.

At any rate, I'm hardly maintaining that government shut down all inspection and regulatory agencies; there are some where the process requires more development -- but plain manufacturing (even of bridges) is something the government has no business inspecting; the market has already shown it can do it without the government, and it should be allowed to do so.

 

[Kulindahr]

and would there be anyone accountable to the people to make sure it gets done right?

They need to be accountable to their own profits -- don't get it right, your income suffers. I don't particularly trust altruism much more than I trust bureaucracy; I do trust people's desire to get that profit and keep their company in business.

Though UL did it all this time without profit being involved, and they were never accountable to anyone but themselves. Maybe there's a key there: a system where their very jobs are dependent on getting it right, and no profit either way.

 

[Supersix]

In a proper inspection system, inspectors reports couldn't get lost, because they wouldn't belong to the company that got inspected.

At any rate, there's a place that a government agency that's there for whistle blowers to holler to. When you're running equipment to make products, and the products have to be quality, then you've got a UL-like situation, where it's pretty obvious there's a problem and certifying quality is pretty easy. When your equipment doesn't manufacture a product, but delivers it directly (transformers, etc.) to the customer, slacking on it is a lot easier to hide: the electricity gets there the same, or doesn't get there at all, and so long as the former is happening, customers won't know the difference. That's a whole different kind of inspection situation.


The people responsible for approving inspector's reports also work for the private company, and from the perspective of an air conditioned office miles away from the problems, reports do get lost, or put on the back burner, and only the greatest of emergencies ever gets dealt with. This is partly due to cutbacks of the responsible people. And you firgured out pretty quickly what kind of business I work for, and show an impressive understanding of it!

 

[Supersix]

As for whistleblowing, there's so few of us left that care and speak up at meetings and in reports (if anyone looks at them), it wouldn't take too long to figure out who the whistleblower is, and subtle retaliation would be fierce.

 

[Kulindahr]

The people responsible for approving inspector's reports also work for the private company, and from the perspective of an air conditioned office miles away from the problems, reports do get lost, or put on the back burner, and only the greatest of emergencies ever gets dealt with. This is partly due to cutbacks of the responsible people. And you firgured out pretty quickly what kind of business I work for, and show an impressive understanding of it!

I had an uncle who owned a phone company -- lots of parallels.

And my dad had a friend who worked on the road for the local electric utility -- and even when it's a public, co-op company, bureaucrats played the same games.

I wouldn't object to a law that required all the executives and bureaucrats to be using their company's 'product' -- having to use their own service certainly helped keep my uncle's people honest!

 

[Kulindahr]

As for whistleblowing, there's so few of us left that care and speak up at meetings and in reports (if anyone looks at them), it wouldn't take too long to figure out who the whistleblower is, and subtle retaliation would be fierce.

That's why the whistleblowing would have to be to the government -- I don't care what Friedman dreamed, there's no way I can conceive of as working to keep whistleblowers safe in a totally private system.

I'd make it really easy -- follow the ADA, where the government comes after the violators. Transferred to whistleblowing, it would work like this: first instance of retaliation, $50,000 fine to the company; second one, $100,000 fine; third, $200k -- and so on, doubling for every instance.
And this would include mandatory parallel fines for the perpetrators themselves, with any repeat violations the fines would be accompanied by jail time.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

I do trust people's desire to get that profit and keep their company in business.

Um.. yeah... and that's what's lead to health insurance companies screwing people for every penny they can.. it's what's lead to banks screwing people, oil companies screwing people, corporations screwing people... and you want to add public safety inspectors to that?

Um.... ok.

 

[herewego]

For anyone to be calling for laissez faire economic policies at this point, is just plain batshit insane! Deregulated markets is what got us into the mess we're in now. There's a reason why the breaks were put on full blown capitalism in the early 20th century: IT DOESN'T WORK! Greed, corruption, death, destruction, etc., have all result from deregulated markets. Put those children back down into the mines!

The Right plays the victim at every given opportunity. These are the people who push "family values", want prayer in schools, want Creationism taught, want to tell women what to do with their bodies, created the Patriot Act, enacted the Red Scare, want gays to remain in the closet, and so on and so forth. But it's the evil Liberals who are building a nanny state. LMAO!

Abortion and capital punishment are NOT the same thing. The government has no business killing its citizens. Everyone agrees that after a certain trimester, abortion shouldn't be an option, except when a mother's life is at risk. A fetus is not a baby.

 

[Keelandson]

this headed the list.

So they're doing it wrong.

The people doing the inspecting have to be allowed to inspect when they please, look at what they please -- and that includes records of what's going on in a process.

The gulf oil spill.

That's two, without half trying.