Comments for Think Tank West http://thinktankwest.com ...The best ideas from the institutes Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:07:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 Comment on Who Serves the Public Interest? by Joe Newman http://thinktankwest.com/2008/03/18/who-serves-the-public-interest/#comment-100 Joe Newman Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:04:18 +0000 http://thinktankwest.com/2008/03/18/who-serves-the-public-interest/#comment-100 So, you're saying we should do away with these silly consumer product safety regulations (thus reducing the size of government) and, instead, trust manufacturers to provide us with safe products, food and medicine (much of it produced overseas where there is cheap labor and virtually no oversight)? That's how a free market works, right? Corporations will do what's right and -- without the burdensome yoke of government regulation -- won't poison our children with toys made of lead, or send sickly cattle to meat-packing plants, or sell us untainted medicines. Oh, wait, all that is happening now under our poorly funded, understaffed regulatory system. Imagine if we had less regulation? Of course, you'd rather have the cheap, unregulated goods because, hey, what are the chances that your kid is going to be the one who swallows a lead charm or gets strangled in a poorly designed infant swing? So, you’re saying we should do away with these silly consumer product safety regulations (thus reducing the size of government) and, instead, trust manufacturers to provide us with safe products, food and medicine (much of it produced overseas where there is cheap labor and virtually no oversight)? That’s how a free market works, right?

Corporations will do what’s right and — without the burdensome yoke of government regulation — won’t poison our children with toys made of lead, or send sickly cattle to meat-packing plants, or sell us untainted medicines. Oh, wait, all that is happening now under our poorly funded, understaffed regulatory system. Imagine if we had less regulation?

Of course, you’d rather have the cheap, unregulated goods because, hey, what are the chances that your kid is going to be the one who swallows a lead charm or gets strangled in a poorly designed infant swing?

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