A Cost of Doing Business

Markets self-regulate, conservatives tell us. Just get government off our backs, companies tell us (after we pocket whatever subsidies we can grab).

The Washington Post reports today on the safety of theme parks that feature rides that can whirl kids at speeds reaching 100 miles an hour. Most parents think the government makes certain the rides are safe. Think again.

Under President Jimmy Carter, the Consumer Product Safety Commission probed ride accidents at Marriott theme parks. In 1981, with the election of Ronald Reagan, the industry carried the fight to the Congress, complaining that government policing was creating "economic hardship," and would "make the rides worthless." Legislators, awash in industry campaign contributions, exempted permanent parks from CPSC oversight. The only regulation comes at the state level which is scattershot at best. For the most part, the industry now polices itself.

So accidents are simply a cost of doing business. Last year, four people lost their lives in theme park rides; many more were injured and maimed. The companies make a simple calculation because markets do self-regulate. If the number of unnecessary deaths and injuries is small enough that it costs more to put in safety equipment than to pay the costs of litigation with the victims and lobbying the legislature, then the deaths of a few kids is simply written off as a cost of doing business. Kathy Fackler, who founded Saferparks.org after her son lost part of his foot on a Disneyland roller coaster when he was five, concludes: "I see a stream of human suffering that isn't broad enough to matter to Congress or to matter financially to the companies.... It's like this small number of children are expendable to them."

This isn't about small government. The theme park industry lobbies hard for big-time subsidies, even as they work to disembowel regulatory agencies. The Post quotes Robert W. Johnson, president of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association, who helped create the federal exemption 26 years ago: "Amusement parks need less taxes, less government oversight but they need federal support," with the industry pushing to tap more than $200 million in federal funding for a program to bring more tourists to the United States.

Even where regulations do apply, conservatives and the corporate lobby have succeeded in disemboweling the regulatory agencies. So George Bush names Nancy Nord, a former Chamber of Commerce lobbyist against regulation, to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Between industry-financed junkets, Nord declaims loudly on the effectiveness of corporate self-regulation. She opposed more resources and staffing for an agency that has half the size and budget it had when it was founded in 1974. Toxic toys are regulated. But with 80 percent of our toys imported from China, the CPSC has about 90 field investigators, most of whom work from their homes and are based on the East Coast, tracking 15,000 products. It has, although Nord denies it, exactly one staffer -- a guy named Bob- - tasked full time to test toys.

Worried about unsafe Chinese imports, with one toy recently exposed as laced with the "date rape" drug? Don't worry. Nancy Nord says the CPSC is more effective than ever. How can you doubt her word?

Comments

[JScott]

Regulation and lobbying of the amusement/theme park industry.
Disney's the biggest. (Actually you'd think Walt would turn in his grave)
Ya just know they got HUGE handouts from FL when they made Disney World they coulda put in a nuclear power plant with virtually no oversight in their 'Reedy Creek Improvement District' (google the terms folks). And every time (that it's reported) there is an accident/incident at Disney theme parks, the 'handlers' are there right away to obfuscate and spin the story to the media as well as making the victim sign off that they won't sue speak to the media etc. (google that too). Happiest place on earth indeed (more like the town in the TV series 'The Prisoner'-google that)

[drblack]

Big Business uses the government through lobbying and "gifts" to get what it wants...it would rather just take it though.
Business has one goal; make as much money each quarter as possible. Business in todays world doesn't have a trace of ethics or decency.
Capitalism is supposed to be the form our economy takes not our government.
Lobbying needs to be illegal for a business, those who hold office should have to give up the right to lobby for business, business cannot have the same rights as an individual without the responsibilities and Congress needs term limits.
these are a few changes which would put government back into the hands of the American people instead of big money.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

August 2005, I took my kids to Rye Playland a day after a kid had died there.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=3626540

To my surprise, there was an on-site local paper's newstand with story all over page one above the fold, reported at the time as a drowning in an indoor log ride. I ran back to the car for a camera, so as to take a juxtaposition photo.

By the time I got back, the newsstand had been emptied.

By the public or the park, I've always wondered. But who buys 20 papers at a time?

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Similarly, all sports should do away with referees and umpires.

What competitor wouldn't want a fair game?

And what dominant competitor wouldn't want to self-police?

Let Balco run the drug-testing program.

Play ball!

[leftLibertarian]

Anyone who thinks that the US has a 'free market' economy is living in a fantasy world.

[Hawise]

I love BOB. We all need to send Bob alot of love, he needs it with the bosses that he has to deal with everyday.

[radmul]

As we debate the myths associated with privatization and its benefits and ills the Fed will again steal from the poor reducing rates to prop up the stock market and print billions to protect banks all while passing the bill off to our grandchildren.

[flim62]

away with the "protection" mentality that infects our society! long live evel knievel! i agree, rides-- and everything else should be reasonably safe, but take away the risk and you take away the joy.

i want my childrren to be allowed to run with scissors if they're that stupid. it's my job to teach them not to do that. keep the government out of it. they've already proved how effective they are at "protecting" people.

all safety measures oare basedon economics-- motorcycle helmets aren't to protect the riders-- they're to protect insurance companies against head injury claims.

[wrabbitt]

Is protecting our children from harm a yes or no choice? If we cannot be 100% sure that the toys they play with are 100% safe then we need to stop buying them. In ten or twenty years are we going to find another substance that was toxic? I am not going to take that chance, Call it revenge,or justice, for all the jobs,that were eliminated when the companys went to foreign countrys for cheaper labor. Still think its cheaper? Why are we "toying" with our childrens future? If it costs American companys doing business in foreign countrys money ,oh well what goes around comes around . To bad congress don't answer to anyone.

[SamThornton]

The "free market" has about as much substance and reality as that other mythological beast, the Unicorn. Governments at all levels in the US intervene frequently in the economic system, most often to protect business interests at the expense of consumers.

Ironically, it is the lopsidedness of the interventions on behalf of business that create most of the disasters our economic system blunders into from time to time.

In addition to the numerous threats to public health, safety, and equity unregulated or improperly protected businesses happily visit on their captive consumers, on the evidence of the past 200 years in the US, their excesses are ultimately self-destructive when allowed to progress to their ultimate goals.

Business excesses in the last century required two extraordinary presidents, T.R. and F.D.R., to rescue them from their short-sighted greed and save capitalism from itself.

Yet to emerge in this century is a popular leader with the necessary vision to effect a similar rescue.

[PlanetKansas]

I was legislative staff when an attempt was made to create state regulation of amusement park rides in Kansas. Contrary to what Mr. Borosage presumes, the industry actually sent their suits to push for more Kansas regulation and oversight of amusement parks. Their logic was that government oversight gave their industry more status, protection and responsibility.

What killed it was the Republican dominated Legislature feared all government regulation, much less actually paying for it, even when the amusement ride owners offered to fund the agency with a ride surtax. This is a classic case of ideology actually overriding what the free market actually wanted!

I am not a fan of Reaganomics and believe it is the responsiblity of government to regulate for the public good. Corporations have no conscience, only the bottom line, so without government regulation, we'd be seeing a lot more pollution, theft and labor violations.

We are now seeing the price of deregulation madness by the chaos caused in the Airline, mortgage and public utilities. Few actually saved us money and made millionaires of others. It will take another Great Depression before people realize that government really does have a place in the public good, and we should look to the models provided by Canada and Western Europe to restore federal regulation.

A final note, not only has the private sector been deregulated, but the federal employee workforce has been downsized and privatized. Think about it. Do you really want Halliburton overseeing government regulations and oversight? Do you really think a private company really cares about the public good, or do they just create more billable hours? Does privitizing government actually create a more efficient workforce, or can contracts be rewarded to party hacks and donors?

[Jane22]

See: "Cracking the Code" by Thom Hartmann. This and other methods are our remedy for continued exposure of persons like these "businesses" giving us the business and government in collusion to rob the commons.

[Progress08]

Less regulation and let the market manage itself and if someone breaks the law let the justice system deal with it... There's only 3 problems with that;

1. A lawsuit cannot bring a dead child back to life.

2. Dupont can afford a hell of a lot more lawyers than you.

3. Tort-reform. Once they've eliminated the regulation they (like the insurance companies) will begin attacking the power of litigation and limiting damages.

[jwws007]

Businesses have soved the cost of doing business problem by outsourcing manufacturing china, where you can pollute as much as you want and pay people a buck an hour with no worksite protections. I'll always be thankful to Bill, Hillary, and Gore for creating that mess

[PAFirefighter]

"It has, although Nord denies it, exactly one staffer -- a guy named Bob -- tasked full time to test toys."

And that Bob is "Smilin' Bob" - the guy from the Enzyte commercials...

PA Firefighter