Because if we'd let the magic free market fairy (left) wave her (his?) magic wand and sprinkle free market magic fairy dust on the oil well, then BP would have run the platform more safely, so there!
What, you haven't heard about this? Well, you will, I'm sure. Because that's what believers in the free market fairy always do -- any failure of the free market isn't really caused by the fact that the free market, sans government intervention, rewards fraud and cutting corners on safety. Instead, they'll insist until their face is blue that it wasn't really the lack of government regulation that led to the fraud and to the cutting corners on safety, but, rather, too much regulation that led to the fraud and lack of safety! It's as if they live in some bizarro world planet where the sky is green, unicorns are pink, and cotton candy grows on trees... because the universe they describe certainly doesn't describe this world, where we have instance after instance where a lack of government regulation leads to unsafe meat, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities, oil well blowouts, etc. But then, reality has a liberal bias, so we can't bring reality into the discussion, right? Right?!
Folks, fairies aren't real. Well, except for the kind that march in gay pride parades, but they're not magical, and their magic wands do not sprinkle magic free market fairy dust when they wave their wands. They sprinkle something else entirely, something which George Alan Rekers is undoubtedly familiar with intimately, if ya get my drift...
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
I think you are right, Badtux. Government interference and regulation added so much extra cost to their operations that BP could not afford the $500,000 it would have cost them to add an acoustic valve. After all, they only earned about 6 BILLION dollars in the first quarter of 2010.
ReplyDeletePoor BP! They could not afford the extra 0.0005 billion dollars for that extra valve.
When Shrub the Jr. took office I knew two things: One that I would have to watch my ass as even the rules that existed would not be enforced and Two that at some point I'd be out of work. I managed to survive One not so with Two.
ReplyDeleteRules! Rules! We don't need no stinking rules! Ya right, tell that to the families of 29 dead miners.