U.S. Won’t End Gulf Drilling Ban

Deuce said:

The free market can and will kill you to make a dollar. Some sort of authority needs to be in place to curtail that. So, you have to balance that government interference to make sure there's not too much or too little government, as both are harmful.

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Currently, we have far too much of the latter.

cholla said:

Will you please explain this statement without the hyperbole. Why do I need an authority to moniter/curtail the free market?

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The free market came up with products like Radium Water.

Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. Radioactive water, sold as an energy drink. People died, company kept selling it, claiming there was no conclusive evidence that the deaths were linked to their product. Wasn't until some famous guy died that the product was banned.

Then there's the elixer sulfanimade disaster. Some company had some stuff they were gonna sell to cure whatever. Needed something to mix it with. Picked a deadly chemical. Apparently, their lead chemist was not aware this was a deadly chemical. No testing of any sort was done. Even cursory animal testing would have immediately revealed that this product was lethal. Not "one in a thousand people develop complications that may lead to death" lethal, I mean "drink this and you will die before you make it to the hospital" lethal. Like a hundred people died. You know what liability the company was held to?

Minor fine. For labeling a product "elixer" when it didn't contain alcohol. See, there wasn't a law at the time that would make them test the product first. There wasn't a body that would enforce such a thing.