How long did it take for people to blame Bush for the Sago mine disaster?
About 12 hours.
Last night we had the first of what I’m sure will be many people blaming President Bush for the explosion and loss of life. The argument laid on the table? That Bush hasn’t done enough to insure mine safety.
Why does it keep coming back to a nanny state?
Did we learn
nothing from Katrina this last year? It appears that even a Category 5 hurricane can go in one ear and out the other!
Let’s be frank here folks – it is not the government’s job to insure that you have work. It is not the government’s job to insure your safety. It is not the government’s job to provision your home for a hurricane, or to dictate to you what job you may or may not take, and its risks.
Just today I hired a crew to remove five dead trees from my yard, victims of the last two years of hurricanes. They had to come down, as repeated saltwater inundation had killed them off and bugs were starting to work on ‘em – dangerous, in that the NEXT hurricane would certainly topple them, perhaps on my house. It was not cheap either – guys like to get paid quite a bit to shimmy up a tree with a
chainsaw, cut the top off, drop it, then come back down and fell the rest. See, you have to do that when the tree is 100’ high and 50’ away from the house, lest you drop the tree on the roof. Needless to say, this is a fairly hazardous operation since you could drop the top of the tree on yourself or cut your own arm off – swinging a chainsaw around when you’re literally “up a tree” is inherently hazardous - and tree services typically charge several hundred dollars a tree to drop it, chip the wood up to mulch for you, and grind out the stump. They also carry insurance so IF they screw up your house gets fixed – by them.
Well, duh!
If it wasn’t dangerous I’d shimmy up the tree with chainsaw in hand and drop it myself!
These guys are making on average $50,000 a year mining coal. That’s pretty good money – the best wages available in the area – for what is essentially unskilled labor. Why such good pay? Because it’s a fairly dangerous job – in the 1920s over
one thousand people died in a single year in mine-related accidents.
We’ve come a long way since then, and now only a dozen or two, on average, die in this profession. Indeed, the rate of industrial accidents for miners isn’t too much higher than it is for all other private industry combined. Like, for example, tree services.
If the explosion was sparked by lightning, which is entirely plausible (there were severe electrical storms in the area at the time of the blast) then the explosion itself was an Act of God. Certainly, one can argue that more steps could have been taken to further reduce the risk, but reducing the risk of accidents to zero is simply not possible. This is where the “risk premium” comes from that leads to relatively high wages.
Next, we heard from family members that they’re going to sue the mining company because they were (falsely) led to believe their family members were alive – when they were not. However, none of the mining company employees made that statement – it was a rumor that was repeated by various officials, none of whom worked for the mining company, originated through an
overheard radio call!
Why aren’t these people going to sue the media – ALL the national media were broadcasting headlines that these people were “rescued” when it was false!
Let me guess – that was Bush’s fault too.
Folks, let’s get a grip. Some professions are more dangerous than others. That’s one reason that a particular job might pay better than others in a given area – say, mining coal .vs. working at WalMart. If the owner of the Sago mine has criminal liability for the conditions at the mine leading to these deaths, then bring the responsible parties up on involuntary manslaughter charges, and let them have their day in court.
But blame Bush for the accident?
What are these people smoking?
