Rick Woldenberg reacts to a peculiarly inutile suggestion, in a Baltimore Sun interview, from CPSC chair Inez Tenenbaum (“We think if we had a small-business ombudsman who was out there regularly educating small businesses, we could help them prevent problems in terms of compliance.”):
…The necessary implication is that we small businesses are just too stupid to understand their complicated rules – I guess she thinks only Mattel can read the English language. Of course, the pending testing frequency rule (which I believe will be implemented in the coming weeks, get ready for it) will cause our company to spend $15 million per annum on testing. This sum far exceeds our profits. Perhaps the ombudsman will help us terminate our people to pay for testing, or provide a shoulder to cry on.
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What a disaster.
So the CPSIA folks want to expand their empire AND tout that they even have an ombudsman to “prove” their compassion? Color me cynical.
Perhaps Sebelius could do the same for Healthcare Reform.
(yep, a bit o’ sarcasm)
I wonder if Ireland could apply to sell beaded step dance costumes in the United States. Upon refusal of a permit because of CPSIA, Ireland could sue under TWO that CPSIA had no logical basis. The vaccine court took the wind out of the moronic vacine/autism cause. Maybe something can be done about lead nuts.
I realize that my idea did not work for GMO’s. Prayer and lighting vigil lights isn’t working either. DRAT!
Yes, a feckless ombudsman– someone to hear you scream as the CPSC bends you over their knee and beats you bloody– THAT’s going to help.
My neighbor doesn’t need an ombudsman to tell her that she can’t afford $4K in testing per game for four games. These are board games made from silkscreened organic cotton with hand-cut wood pieces. They were supposed to help her family make ends meet. Now they’re packed in boxes in her garage. The more government we have, the worse our lives are. When will people get that into their heads?
The CPSIA debacle did not rise from government per se, but rather from the inherit stupidity of the American people (Europe with its precautionary principle is just as bad.) and a media that works up anxiety. Every newscast that I have seen that mentioned damage from the PB oil spill talks about decades of recovery. The surface oil disappeared witinh three days of capping the well. No fish were ever harmed because the oil was on top of the environment of the fish. Shore and marsh damage was limited.
When lead is mentioned in news casts, it is an absolute toxin at even barely discernible levels. There is no evidence for this. People, including those who lost their business, go along with the grotesque overstatements of the lead nuts. Government agency failed because it did not truthfully inform the citizenry of the extreme overstatement of risk by the lead nuts. It is the malfeasance of government, not government itself, that has let us down.