Understanding Government

Ever wonder why more aggressive government regulation makes sense?  Read Ian Shapira’s minute-by-minute account in the Washington Post about seafood buyers for major supermarkets who are trying to make sure Americans have fresh, safe fish to eat.  Just the hint of petroleum in the fish Americans buy every day is enough to force seafood purchasing overseas, where suppliers don’t maintain as high food safety standards as U.S. companies.  The money goes abroad.  The fish may be worse in quality and come from rapacious fish harvesting practices.

If government’s regulation of the oil industry had been better, the fishing industry wouldn’t be in such trouble.  Weak enforcement by the former MMS on the Deepwater Horizon is reverberating up the food chain (all the way to the top) and causing economic havoc along the way.