by Juan_Bottom on Mon Apr 29, 2013 4:21 pm
None of those are true, you guys. BBS is talking out of his ass.
I actually work in a factory. All of our chemicals come from DuPont and AFCO labs, and they both have fierce competition, especially since the economic downturn. Yet these are companies with strong American roots and proprietary compounds, AND they're specialty chemical manufacturers. We're not talking fertilizer, we're talking "this Chlorine will target X pathogen best, this acid will leave a safe residue that protects food-grade stainless steel the best." In fact, we just switched to AFCO labs two years ago from another American source.
When it comes to the global market, other countries like Indonesia and Brazil are starting to push us out.
Every business that we sell to has their own inspectors that come through our facility. Wal*Mart has a global standardized safety evaluation, and they hire an impartial third party to carry out the inspections. OSHA will do a free safety inspection with no consequences for violations if you ask them to. The State Government will have their own inspectors as well. Plus there are several third party companies that you can hire to do safety checks. As we've all said before, when bad stuff like this happens it's a pretty safe bet that it was an internal problem.
The Army Core of Engineers is not a for-profit business, it's a public entity. They were not hired by New Orleans to build the levees. And apparently, according to your own link, the Army Core of Engineers has had "immunity" since 1928. Though I guess they were held responsible elsewhere. And while the Army Core of Engineers couldn't be sued for the deteriorated levees, the government it belongs to did appropriate $125 billion dollars for Katrina relief. Obama added something like another $2 billion, and smoothed out parts of the disbursement system. But a lot of that money is going to long-term rebuilding projects, and not to free blank checks.
If you want to talk about the new business practices of paying cheap fines or lawsuits instead of following the law, stealing worker benefits, and general business douchebagery, that's a different discussion than saying there's no competition for fertilizer, the government doesn't allow companies to be safe, and the Army Core of Engineers is a criminal organization. That's all just angry fantasy talk.