Why we need strong government and building codes.
Capitalism is wonderful in many ways, but not necessarily when it comes to protecting the safety of a country's citizens and infrastructure. There are simply too many unethical people out there that will rationalize short cuts to make a buck... Or millions of bucks !!! :-O
And yet many Americans seem to promote weaker government, fewer building codes, more lax environmental regulations, fewer inspectors, etc.
An ironic twist is that the GOP is trying to blame the Biden administration for the errors of a corporation. When the GOPers would be the first to reduce the regulations and oversight in order to allow the railroads to do as they wish.
I am curious if any GOPers will work to hold the railroad(s) accountable, or if they will just play politics with this rail disaster? Thankfully it happened in a place with sparse population.
4 comments:
One of the fundamental and and most dangerous qualities of capitalism is its vulnerability to crises. Markets react to crises, but sometimes too late.
--Hiram
I suppose the corollary is that government is vulnerable to over expenditure and waste.
It is an interesting balance that needs to be attained to be a competitive country in this competitive world.
I suppose the corollary is that government is vulnerable to over expenditure and waste.
Over expenditure and waste are loaded terms reflecting underlying and often disputed policy choices. In terms of crisis, it's often left to the government to deal with them because inthe a crisis, the capitalist system can't. When someone is perched on a rooftop with the markets rising, the reaction of Wall Street to what that means for someone's earnings statement certainly has the appearance of irrelevance.
A big reason hurting American competitiveness is that we allocate to business, burdens which other allocate to taxpayers, or extended families. We can call that waste or overexpenditure but it really is a policy choice. Do we really need to pay for everyone's schools? Should all of us assume the costs associated with an aging population? These are the debates we largely avoid or having, or if we do have them, we do it indirectly, talking about the numbers and not what they mean.
--Hiram
I was thinking more of building and safety regulations.
How safe is safe enough?
How much money in a society should go to building, maintaining, etc?
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