The Pendulum Swings
posted by Frank Pasquale
Sometimes an editorialist does a particularly good job explaining a wide range of stories. Our administrative law archives over the past couple years have become nearly jeremiadic in tone. Though her column was provoked by problems at FAA, Ruth Marcus articulates the common thread tying many of the posts together:
Turns out, the FAA “did not ensure that its inspectors carried out critical safety inspections,” and . . . far from being unique to Southwest, these lapses were “symptomatic of much deeper problems with FAA’s oversight.” The lapses are symptomatic . . . of much deeper problems across the government. These are not outbreaks of sheer, “heck of a job” incompetence. There is some of that, certainly, but this administration’s allergy to government intervention and affection for the private sector have contributed to a spate of regulatory failures, from lead in imported toys to dangerous prescription drugs to subprime mortgages.
The course of these events traces a depressingly familiar arc: paeans to the free market followed by disaster followed by grudging acceptance of regulation. Just a year ago, Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel proclaimed that new regulation of financial markets was unnecessary because “sophisticated financial firms have both the direct financial incentives and expertise to provide for effective market discipline.” Right. Just ask Bear Stearns.
A few matters appear to merit consideration at the highest levels, but apparently not the nuts and bolts of flight, food, or financial safety. One more intensification of the risk society.
April 9, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Posted in: Administrative Law
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Responses (2)
KipEsquire - April 9, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I’m still not sure how a reality-based commentator can possibly assert that an incompetent government bureaucracy — one that has pre-empted, by fiat, private quality control — constitutes the “free market” or its inadequacies.
I’m also not sure what the entitlement-hungry mob electing a fiscally oblivious buffoon as president, twice, has to do with “market failure.” Sounds more like a case of majoritarian failure to me.
(And I suppose the recent credit card abuse stories within the federal government are also somehow the free market’s fault.)
Thomas - April 10, 2008 at 12:57 am
What else would you expect from the Bush administration? It was obvious when Norm Mineta was appointed as Secretary of Transportation that the anti-regulatory ideologues had won and that we would soon see some serious discontinuities from the policies of the prior administration.
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