The Best Way to Cheat - Continued

On August 15, I posted the "The Best Way to Cheat."  Within days, I found two items that seem to me to further support my points.

A Wall Street Guru adds his voice

On August 15, Henry Kaufman, one of the most influential voices on Wall Street, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, itself not a citadel of liberalism, decrying the excesses that led to the current economic uncertainty and calling for the Fed to "take the lead in formulating a monetary policy approach that strikes the right balance between market discipline and government regulation." 

The "cost of doing business"

Now that it has been established that China is selling to the US millions of toys that are dangerous to children, as well as toothpaste that contains poison, will American corporations import fewer products from China? Not on your life. When Kathy Davoe of Gilcrest & Soames was asked that question on the August 15, 2007 edition of All Things Considered, she responded that the scope of imports from places like China depends on "the cost of doing business."  What she meant was that if the profits from selling Chinese products continue to exceed the penalties a corporation will face when caught red-handed, corporations will continue to market these dangerous toys, cosmetics and whatever else they peddle. Only if the balance sheet tilts the other way, toward loss instead of profit, will they desist from selling these potentially deadly products.

I can hardly find a stronger case in support of my original point: let's make the fines and penalties high enough that corporations will carefully screen and test whatever they are importing from places that are known to make out like bandits by selling products that should never been allowed into the market place.