"the prime villains behind the mess we’re in were Reagan and his circle of advisers — men who forgot the lessons of America’s last great financial crisis, and condemned the rest of us to repeat it."
[Eisman, hedge fund manager]: ‘Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I’d always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.’ He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S.& P. couldn’t say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. ‘They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,’ Eisman says.” [emphasis mine]These are the guardians of our markets.
Thus, when Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, was asked about his ultimate goal, he replied that he wanted a restoration of the way America was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.” (emphasis mine)Republican Congresses have steadily cut FDA funding and, with it, oversight.
As Krugman says, let's bring back the socialists.Perhaps even more important, however, was the systematic appointment of foxes to guard henhouses.
Thus, when mad cow disease was detected in the U.S. in 2003, the Department of Agriculture was headed by Ann M. Veneman, a former food-industry lobbyist. And the department’s response to the crisis — which amounted to consistently downplaying the threat and rejecting calls for more extensive testing — seemed driven by the industry’s agenda.
A senior lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers nominated by President Bush to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission will receive a $150,000 departing payment from the association when he takes his new government job, which involves enforcing consumer laws against members of the association...Yeah, he's going to be all about consumer safety, this one.
...As a major trade organization for the largest companies in the country, the National Association of Manufacturers often has issues before the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It recently prevailed on the agency, for instance, to relax the requirements for when companies must notify the agency about defective products.
President Bush yesterday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency and three other federal departments to write new regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and trucks, reversing his position that the federal government lacks the authority to mandate changes to curb one of the chief causes of global warming.The turnaround is somewhat surprising, given Bush's slow conversion to fact-based theories on climate change. And yet, I've been baffled by the President's rationale for holding out so long. Since when has President Bush said he lacks the authority to do anything?*
“The US has the most comprehensive regulations of anywhere in the world when it comes to consumable products…understandably there is a cost associated with that. It doesn’t come free….But it is a lot less expensive that the price we are paying now due to a product that has been brought into this country with questionable safety and integrity.”Food safety is considered a farm subsidy? Who are they kidding? It's an additional cost to farmers - a price consumers are willing to pay to keep melamine and other adulterated substances out of their food.
Strangely enough, when it comes to trade negotiations, those safety regulations and food inspection services count against the US. For you see, inspection services that are a part of a system of “control of quality and safety of food, agricultural inputs, and the environment” are a part of the over $300 billion in farm subsidies that, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), industrialized countries pay to their farmers.
[There are] three different sets of fuel economy values- NHTSA’s CAFE values, EPA’s unadjusted dynamometer values, and EPA’s adjusted on-road values:The NHTSA values are the law for the manufacturer, but the manufacturer's fuel economy average is computed via one of two methods:
- NHTSA’s CAFE values are used to determine manufacturers’ compliance with the applicable average fuel economy standards
- The EPA's unadjusted dynamometer values are calculated from the emissions generated during the testing using a carbon balance equation. EPA knows the amount of carbon in the fuel, so by measuring the carbon compounds expelled in the exhaust they can calculate the fuel economy.
- EPA’s adjusted on-road values are those values listed in the Fuel Economy Guide and on new vehicle labels, adjusted to account for the in-use shortfall of EPA dynamometer test values. (formatting mine)
EPA is responsible for calculating the average fuel economy for each manufacturer. CAFE certification is done either one of two ways: 1) The manufacturer provides its own fuel economy test data, or 2) the EPA will obtain a vehicle and test it...using the same laboratory test that they use to measure exhaust emissions (fuel economy standard #2 from above).This laboratory test has always been modified down to better mirror real world fuel economy (#3), so the CAFE standard has apparently been overestimating actual average fuel economy of the American fleet for years.
Wikipedia: Melamine is...combined with formaldehyde to produce melamine resin, a very durable thermosetting plastic, and of melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. The end products include countertops, fabrics, glues and flame retardants.Problems with contaminated feed aren't the only danger. Adulterated Chinese chemicals being used in pharmaceuticals caused several dozen deaths in Panama when the materials were used in cough syrup. The Chinese manufacturers, interested in boosting the bottom line, first replaced pharmaceutical quality glycerin - a sugar alcohol - with industrial grade material - used in smokeless gunpowder and as a lubricant - and then substituted another chemical entirely. The substitute, diethylene glycol, is not intended for human consumption:
The syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in some antifreeze.The behavior of the Chinese manufacturers mimics that of American food processors a hundred years ago, before Upton Sinclair's The Jungle generated momentum for the Pure Food and Drug Act and the beginning of government safeguards over the food supply. The challenge now is that these regulations govern American made products and do not sufficiently shield Americans from adulterated substances produced overseas:
The tainted ingredients were not caught at the borders because with the growing volume of food and food ingredient imports, only 1 to 2 percent of these imports are inspected, let alone tested for foreign matter like melamine. (emphasis mine)Not only does the Food and Drug Administration inspect far fewer imports (1%) than the USDA does meat imports (16%), the FDA lacks another crucial safeguard:
The FDA also doesn't require that exporting countries have safety systems equivalent to those in the USA. The USDA does that for countries that export meat and poultry, and the Government Accountability Office — the investigative arm of Congress — has said for at least a decade that the FDA should, too.In addition, the FDA has actually reduced its inspection of foreign foods in recent years as it has cut back on inspection staff. This despite evidence that imports probably need inspection more than domestic food:
A 2003 FDA study found pesticide violations in 6.1% of imported foods sampled vs. 2.4% of domestic foods. It has not been updated. Several years earlier, the FDA found salmonella and shigella, which can cause dysentery, in 4% of imported fruits and vegetables vs. 1.1% of domestic products.If you think the FDA should consider doing a bit more to ensure food safety, write your representative or your senator. You can also learn more about food safety from the folks at Kansas State University, who tell you: "don't eat poop."
