Why Does the U.S. Tolerate So Much Risk?

[elleng]

The United States has a higher threshold than other developed nations for allowing corporations to risk the health and safety of consumers.

'The United States increasingly stands apart from European nations in its approach to regulation. Europe is willing to constrain potentially harmful corporate behavior on a precautionary basis, while the United States requires stronger evidence of danger.

The difference was on display this week as the European Union moved more quickly than the United States to ground a popular airplane, the Boeing 737 Max 8, after a pair of fatal crashes.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency acted Tuesday “as a precautionary measure.”

Britain, which acted separately, and slightly before the Pan-European regulator, offered an even more explicit account of its reasoning, explaining that it was grounding the Boeing planes because authorities did not know the cause of the most recent crash, of an Ethiopian Airlines plane on Sunday.

The Federal Aviation Administration, by contrast, said until Wednesday that the absence of information was the reason it was letting domestic airlines keep the planes in the air.

And on Wednesday, when the F.A.A. joined other nations in grounding the planes, the agency insisted that it was acting because it had obtained new evidence. Daniel Elwell, the agency’s acting administrator, defended the pace of its decision-making, telling NPR on Thursday, “We’re a data-driven organization. … We make safety decisions based on what we know.”

There were no crashes between the two decisions, but the difference remains significant. Both regulators had the same information in hand and, for roughly 24 hours, the F.A.A. decided to subject American airline employees and passengers to a greater degree of risk.

The difference in risk tolerance is only part of the story. The Trump administration has openly discouraged the enforcement of a wide range of existing federal regulations. The Wall Street Journal reported the total value of fines imposed on commercial airlines by the F.A.A. in 2018 was 88 percent lower than the total value of fines in 2016. The White House last year proposed to reduce funding and staffing for the F.A.A.’s Aviation Safety Office.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/federal-aviation-administration-boeing.html?

[Ohiogal]

1. That's a very good question.

Especially when so many right wing lawmakers pretend to "protect life at all costs."

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Some in this country tolerate risk because they have been brainwashed by predatory...

capitalists to believe that everything that business does in this country is solely for our benefit and that regulations, laws, etc. dictating the conduct of business (if there are any for that particular business) are all wrong and ill conceived.

The predatory capitalists believe that everything that a government does should be for the sole benefit of businesses and thus, the individual should be ignored since we don't know anything (ironic, since a lot of businesses don't even pay a dime in taxes).

History will show that this misguided belief is wrong and that rules, regulations, etc. were all put in place for very good reasons.

[KPN]

3. Because the right wing doesn't really value life --

at least not common peoples’ lives.