Dave (imported) wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2010 5:41 am the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

bobover3 (imported) wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2010 8:08 pm Yes, that's right Dave. I think companies should murder their employees for profit. Not.

I find it hard to believe you really think that's what I was saying.

My point was crystal clear: no one does anything for nothing, or should do anything for nothing. To force them to do so is wasteful and ultimately immoral. It's you who read this to mean that the lives of miners are nothing. I was saying it would be useless and coercive for the government to steal the mine and try to run it, totalitarian style.

If you re-read my post, without your ideological glasses on, you'll see that I was criticizing the cynical and opportunistic post-disaster posturing of all parties who should have been involved, and weren't. Exploiting this tragedy to advance a political agenda is contemptible.

bobover3 (imported) wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2010 3:30 pm Why would anyone, including the government, want to do something that couldn't add value to society? If some activity produces less value than is consumed to perform it, that activity is destructive. The purpose of work is to create value, for a net gain to society. Society's gain is what we call profit, no matter how it's measured. I understand that the liberal establishment has taught many of you to believe the profit motive is immoral, but it's just the opposite. The profit motive is an assertion of our responsibility to produce, rather than consume; of our responsibility to add, rather than subtract; of our responsibility to meet the needs and desires of our fellows. "Waste not, want not" expresses the profit motive. So running a mine at a loss, whether the loss is born by investors or taxpayers, invites a question - why?

As to today's disaster - the post hoc finger pointing has begun, and there's plenty of blame to share. Where were the workers and their union? Surely, they knew the mine was operated unsafely. Where were the complaints, the protests, the strikes, the law suits, the motions to regulators, the campaigns to write and call politicians, the calls to sympathetic journalists, etc.? Where were the press exposes, the TV coverage of accidents? Where were the politicians and community leaders? The press and politicians are eager to display their indignation and concern after the fact, but not before. And what about regulators? Yes, they're woefully under-staffed, but the safety record at this mine was so egregious, so conspicuously bad, wouldn't that command greater than routine interest?

Have the mine's managers helped their careers? It doesn't look like it. The upshot will be a storm of penalties, bad press, and losses that will erase whatever profit they thought they were making. Just as business, their policies seem stupid and reckless, the very opposite of what savvy, profit-oriented businessmen do. People who want to make a profit don't walk into the shit-storm these guys have. Yes, I know that's not what they expected, and that's why they're incompetent boobs, far from the ruthless profiteers they probably consider themselves.

So who looks good here? Union, journalists, politicians, regulators, and even the workers all failed to do what they should have. The workers probably thought they were securing their jobs by agreeing to cut corners. It's only after a catastrophe that everyone postures for the cameras.

Every time there's a catastrophe of any sort - 9/11, a mine tragedy, etc. - politicians and journalists start looking for "mistakes" and for people to blame. The assumption is that nothing bad would ever happen, if people had done what they should. In theory, that may be so, but the resources don't exist - ever - to do everything in the best, most careful, way. That would multiply the cost of everything we do many times. The people, the money, the infrastructure, the analytic methods don't exist to manage, inspect, and control every aspect of life to perfection. Life is heuristic. People make guesses, and allocate resources according to the apparent mix of risk and reward. If the government allocated unlimited resources to running this mine, the mine would be much safer, but it's impossible for the government to run everything that way. The cost of such regulation would far exceed the value of the regulated activities. Yet whenever something bad happens, we hear the opportunistic complaints - "if only they doubled our budget, we could have prevented this." That may be true, but society must ultimately produce more value than it consumes, or it will perish. The automatic resort to government intervention only increases the cost of things, to the point of futility and abandonment.

So this mine disaster has been a bonanza for a lot of people. Union bosses, journalists, politicians, regulators are all reminding us how much we need them. The only losers are the dead miners and their families. Funny how it always seems to work out that way.

bobover3 (imported) wrote: Sat Apr 10, 2010 10:08 am Dave, your experience was different in two important ways. First, what you were doing was experimental, so great attention was paid to every detail of method. When people are following a standard routine with a long history of success (within limits that people have come to tolerate), they pay less attention. Second, you were largely free of financial constraints. You had to operate within a budget, but your work was not evaluated by its cost. You were spending taxpayers' money, not your own or that of your bosses. That makes a huge difference. Society as a whole can't be run that way, because society can't consume more than it produces. Most economic activities must show a profit, or the country would be in the position of someone living off his savings. Once the savings were gone, destitution would result.