Expecting a Different Result

It goes almost without saying that one of the roles of government (and some argue the only role of government) is to protect people.  Feudal kings justified taking large shares of peasant crops by providing protection from other warring tribes.  Not much has changed since then except the things we need protecting from are a lot more sophisticated than some club bearing Viking.  Ponzi-scheme investment firms, greed consumed mortgage lenders, nuclear bombs, you get the drift.  What is simply amazing to me are the myriad examples, recently, of how the government protections either have broken down or don't exist, endangering people's lives and welfare.

Today, there are two great examples in the news.  First, peanuts.  In the Washington Post there is an article about how this peanut processor in Georgia had salmonella in it's peanut products, knew about it, and got away with sending it all over the North American continent to be used in products from Little Debbies to dog biscuits.  The federal government, tasked with the job of ensuring food safety, relied upon self inspections done by the company and the state of Georgia to run tests.  And, why we expect a different result than the incidents of mad cow, the spinach, tomatoes, or...I don't know.  I am beginning to believe we are not any different than China when it comes to food safety (or any other safety issues for that matter).  In China, though, they met out penalties when the food issues finally become public.  It seems to me that our food processing system has become all about making more money on the margins than it is about providing a safe product.  In an issue close to my own home this was evident during the dog and cat food recalls during the summer of 2007.  When all of a sudden pet owners became aware that the food they were feeding their dogs, whether it was expensive or bought at Costco, contained gluten that was processed in China without any inspection mechanisms.  Not much has changed since those revelations, only that the same issues are now apparent in human foods.

In another sector, there was an interesting but not surprising article in the Seattle PI this morning that the FBI knew about mortgage fraud for a number of years, but because many of the agents devoted to white-collar crime had been reduced and put on terrorism cases, nothing was done about the problem.  I plan on writing about terrorism in a few days, but it seems to me that ignoring the financial sector is beyond short sighted.  As the federal government knows, one of the key elements to conducting terror is funding.  It pays, I think, to be attentive to what is going on with money.  Additionally, it seems to me that a tremendous amount of "terror" has been unleashed upon the world's economy by men and women in expensive suits, driving nice cars, and eating at swanky restaurants.  Families are losing their homes, tough choices are being made, retirees are wondering whether they can sell their houses, and today, Boeing announced it is laying of 10,000 people.  By any count, that is almost 100,000 jobs lost in less than 3 days.  Where was the government during all of this?

But this really isn't news, is it?  It's been happening for years and years (and yes, my Bush hating friends, it happened before Bush, too, and it happens with state and local governments).  Lax state supervision on mortgage brokers or in reality, no supervision, the state of Georgia never inspected the peanut processing plant, failure by local governments to repair roads and bridges yet building huge new city halls.  We expect a different result?

While we're all yelling for the heads of these huge corporations, I think we also need to look at the heads of governments and ask for the same accountability.  After all, it's our safety.