Takin' on water..

[flacaltenn]

JonL:

I stripped that quote from Whell's post at #98. The words are no longer there OR in your original at #95.. Didn't make them up. You can retract them if you want to.. Despite the last rant that it's all about profits, I'm sticking to:

Which just points out that even WITH ZERO GOVT intervention, regulation, taxation or oversight -- the free market has many significant checks and balances including

1) Public Relations
2) Customer Satisfaction
3) Legal challenges due to harm bodily or otherwise
4) Competition
5) Contract law for products and services.

MANY other considerations in the board room, the conference room and water cooler OTHER THAN profits. Profits are not chased ""with a disregard for things that happen outside of the immediate financial view"" without first considering the 5 fundamental checks above. (Could be more, I'm not an expert).

An elevator manufacturer that routinely kills low-income people is no more immune from market pressures than one that kills Park Avenue residents. And in that case, HOW DO YOU excuse the failure of

1) The govt agency who accepted and bought those low-income elevators.
2) The city inspector whose name appeared in the deadly elevator.
3) The warnings from the competitors who tried to tell you not to go with the lowest bidder or insist on a "minority owned enterprise" because they might kill people.

What motivates all THOSE PEOPLE to be moral and competent? What's their incentive to remove all risk from the equation.. That's my point JonL. I've given you SEVERAL solid motivations beyond profit for the mean greedy capitalist. You give ME a couple for all of these equalizers you value so highly. Do they have a job after the bodies are pulled from wreckage?

A SINGLE accident is not neccessarily a failure of design. Could be a fluke. Could be misuse. Could be maintenance. Your blanket assumption that this stuff happens SOLELY because of GREEDY manufacturers, is a little too convienient. And not just for elevators.