Nanny State Absurdity

By Tom Rhodes, 4/15/2013

If the Nanny state has its way, we'll all be sleeping on the ground on grass mats. No product is safe enough, perfect enough, or good enough. This week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned consumers to stop using 73,000 more - specifically, drop-side cribs made by a company called PT Domusindo Perdana These cribs aren't exploding, don't spontaneously roll over, and in fact have a perfect safety record. Repeat there has been none, nada, zilch, zip, nil, ZERO, not any injuries or deaths to infants or anybody else using them. Yet the government is warning everybody to stop using them and forcing the company to recall them.

There were three reported incidents where the drop side rails didn't function properly, no report of how or what the malfunctions were and, let me repeat, zero injuries. Se we have a product with 3 complaints out of 73,000 sold, a perfect injury free record for over 20 years, and our government is telling us it's not "safe."

It is this type of oblivious government nannyism that is and will continue to erode the trust the people have in their government. Why should we trust any of their safety notices when they have proven to be demonstrably false. This is just another example of Too Much Government. The reason why a crib costs about $200 instead of $75 isn't when the cost to manufacture it is somewhere in the $30 range isn't because of greedy capitalists. The reason we pay 3 to 4 times what we should, and what people in other country spay for similar products is our government. When a company can be forced to recall products produced and sold over 20 years ago, that have a perfect safety record, those costs have to be incorporated into everything they sell.

Our laws protect big companies like GE, GM, and Monsanto small manufacturers can't afford big dollar lobbyists and huge donations to politicians, and actions like this one make manufacturing in the USA almost impossible. You'd have to be an idiot to keep your manufacturing in the USA, to protect your assets from absurd regulations and law suits by our government smart companies keep small shell companies to resell their product in the USA, but their assets overseas where the US government has minimal access.

This is government run amok. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, at one time existed for valid reasons, to protect people from products sold as safe but in actually where unsafe. Their job is to look for danger, but they have become ridiculous. Recalling a product that sold tens of thousands of units from 1991 to 2008 with a spotless safety record and a mere three complaints is not protecting the public. When a perfect safety record is not safe enough, what is safe enough?