To prevent rail accidents like the one in East Palestine, dial back government regulation and allow the tort system to work.
Original Article: "Prevent Future Losses Like East Palestine by Reducing Regulation and Empowering Torts"
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Read More »When the Boeing 737 MAX had two crashes, the usual suspects called for more regulation. It turns out that the crashes were due more to regulatory failure than anything else.
Original Article: "Boeing 737 MAX Disasters’ Root Cause Was Government Regulation"
This Audio Mises Wire is generously sponsored by Christopher Condon.
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On February 3, 2023, on Norfolk Southern Railway’s general merchandise freight train 32N, a suspect bearing on the twenty-third car measured at 38°F above ambient, then 103°F above ambient, then 253°F above ambient. In East Palestine, Ohio, eleven tank cars derailed and hazardous materials ignited.
First responders mitigated the fire, but afterward the temperature was still rising in one tank car that carried vinyl chloride liquid. Responders expanded the evacuation zone, dug ditches, released the vinyl chloride into the ditches, and burned it.
There’s a better way.
Vinyl chloride presents a complex real-world challenge. It’s efficiently produced using competitively priced feedstocks and energy. Its product, PVC, is safe in use, cost-effective, and valuable in
On October 29, 2018, on Lion Air Flight 610 out of Jakarta, Indonesia, a Boeing 737 MAX’s safety control pushed the plane’s nose down hard, paused for five seconds, then repeated this cycle, over and over. The pilots fought to pull the nose back up, only to get overpowered again and again. The passengers fell back against their seats, then fell forward, over and over. The seconds stretched on across all these souls’ last moments alive.
On March 10, 2019, on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 out of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, another Boeing 737 MAX’s safety control operated in the same way and crashed this second flight.
Deadly consequences follow when simplicity, controllability, innovation, and safety take a back seat. This happens when regulation is done not through the
When a person is free to work, shop, and invest, he brings to each task his knowledge from doing the other tasks. As he works, he has a sense of what it takes to please customers, because he’s also a customer. As he shops, he has a sense of what workers can do for him, because he’s also a worker. As he invests, he has a sense of who adds value best, because he also works to add value and shops for value.
Deadtime Makes Economic Control Hard for Everyone
Government people reduce people’s freedom to work in the jobs they would choose, to shop for the products they would choose now (say, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, or N-acetyl cysteine [NAC]), and to save for the products they would choose later while earning returns now. Government people take taxes, inflate the
“If you don’t expect too much from me
You might not be let down.”
— Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”
Inflation is a mechanism that government people use to fund wars, tyrannical governments, and favors to cronies. Inflation takes away significant fractions of the real value of savings.
Savings are accumulated slowly. People add value, earn income, and defer purchases. Inflation depletes savings’ real value quickly. People then have to spend more to satisfy even their most basic needs and most modest wants.
Inflation most greatly hurts the people who earn less income and retirees, whose income doesn’t inflate as much and who therefore can’t reaccumulate savings. Through inflation, governments take big chunks of the real value of all people’s savings without just
