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July 13, 2008 at 8:30 pm #587478
JoBParticipantThis tidbit came into my mailbox today…
http://www.truthout.org/article/us-environmental-agency-lowers-value-a-human-life
what is most enlightening is that the EPA says the numbers are based on science and “science” says the numbers are based on how much people are willing to pay to avoid risk and what employers are willing to pay to avoid risk.
When regulations protecting workers are rolled back, companies are required to spend less protecting workers.. and it is no surprise that they do so.
When regulations mandating medical care are rolled back, insurance companies are required to cover fewer illnesses… and hospitals are no longer required to cover medical care for anything which is not immediately life threatening… and it is no surprise that insurance companies deny care and hospitals make patients pay up front the amount they estimate insurance won’t cover… before giving medical care… whether your illness is ultimately life threatening or not.
and when all this makes times get tough… individuals calculate the risk and take more risk so save resources for providing for their families …
and all of this ultimately affects your environment.
politics.. the politics of de-regulation in this example..
affect how much both people and companies can pay .. regardless of how willing they are … and how much some are willing to pay..
and have direct consequences.. the value of human life…
and how much risk our government decides it is ok for companies to inflict on it’s citizens.
BTW.. i think the same numbers are used by engineers when they calculate risk..
soemthing to think about next time you cross the bridge or use the viaduct…
life just isn’t worth what it used to be.
July 14, 2008 at 2:40 am #631274
KenParticipantOn a related note…
The current salmonella contamination of veggies. I have not looked up the latest in the investigation but from my time in Yakima, I know that there is a trade off in the food handling business which has the potential to be the culprit.
In most canning and food packing methods (I used to work on computers of an apple packing millwright firm) whole fruits and veggies are transported via water flume from the intake to the first breach point in processing or to the stage right before packaging.
This flume has to be sanitized regularly and irregular surfaces need to often be scrubbed by hand thus shutting the production line down.
(The WA apple packers and processors are regulated by state laws that usually exceed fede3ral if I remember correctly)
The processors may have determined that the current administrations starving of the regulatory agencies made a calculated risk more profitable. The longer the time between sanitizing runs, the higher the production average. The down side is the possibility of contamination sickening the consumer. Here we involve insurance, lawyers and simple math. If a producer calculates the production down time as a “loss” then the savvy manager tries to reduce the loss even if he is gambling with the non zero chance that sick consumers suing the company will cost millions of dollars.
The recent supreme court decision that decided the Exxon Valdez spill had to limit its award to actual provable loss, sent the message (long before the actual case was finished) that award estimates for consumer harm lawsuits could be downgraded to the point where the risk of a lawsuit with damaging PR and punitive fines was so low that the risk of extending the period between cleaning and sanitizing of food processing equipment became a win-win situation for the producers from the point of view of the bean counters.
Even prior to the recent decision, global producers, agribusiness and even government owned facilities (Mexico?) have calculated the cost of doing business to include the cost of liability insurance, legal fees and the value of future dollars used to pay off any potential settlement.
Several federal agencies involved in the testing and evaluation of inspection procedures as well as hundreds of other departments of myriad agencies peripherally involved in anything resembling consumer safety or regulating industries that can possibly be the subject of consumer tort law, have been subverted by rule changes stealthily applied by political appointees in various parts of the executive branch.
For a three part series on this subversion of the commons look here:
July 14, 2008 at 4:14 am #631275
JoBParticipantit will take decades t totally straighten out the mess that has been created by decree and rule changes.
without the right rules, government agencies are little more than rubber stamps for practices that put consumers at risk.
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