"Tim Wescott" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:05:04 -0700, Too_Many_Tools wrote:

Today it is beef....tomorrow toys...the next day...well something
else...fasteners, tires, tools?

It would seem that lack of quality control has just cost this company
its existence and its employees their livelihoods.

Should a company be responsible for its own quality control or is it a
responsibility of government to protect us?

I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks

-- snip --

It is the responsibility of government to protect us. Us as consumers,
not us as manufacturers. I think that being able to assume that my food
is safe, and my kid's toys are safe, and my walls and roof and piping, is
a fine thing and I want to stick with that.

When it comes to toys, food, and drugs, the question is, if not the
government, then who? And if the answer is the manufacturers, the next
question is, since when? And if the answer to that is since now, because we
have a newfound willingness to let the markets determine even such outcomes
as the number of deaths we'll tolerate to expose a manufacturer's
irresponsibility and resulting bankrupcy, the question is, whose deaths?

The fact is that we, as consumers, cannot evaluate the safety of many
products. And we have a very flexible scale when it comes to tolerating
deaths. For example, our magic number for deaths due to vehicle accidents
seems to be around 30,000 - 40,000/year.

The incentives for manufacturers to go beyond a minimum effort on safety and
inspection are slim. So we're getting about what market forces should be
expected to produce: dangerous intestinal bacteria in beef, for example, and
lead paint on toys.

This isn't a place where market forces are going to work. But, who knows,
maybe we'll tolerate 30,000 - 40,000 deaths per year from poorly inspected
food, too. And who knows that those kids wouldn't have lost just as many IQ
points from playing football without a helmet? It is worth dismissing those
problems as long as it keeps the free market as pure as driven snow.
Whatever they do in response to the forces of the market is, by definition,
the right thing. Right?

--
Ed Huntress