Where profit is king

From recent evidence that Boeing sacrificed safety for profit with Federal Aviation Administration complicity (essentially letting Boeing self-regulate and the last country to ground 737s), we again realize we vitally need strong regulations and independent regulators. Absence of oversight in our profit-is-God culture encourages cost-cutting that compromises safety.

In his 2003 book, “The Future of Freedom,” noted analyst Fareed Zakaria describes the vanishing social responsibility over time of wealthy interests such as corporations. Accompanying this has been a huge increase in wealth inequality, further exacerbated by President Trump’s tax cuts for the rich that gave the top 1% an average 2018 after-tax income increase 55 times that of the middle fifth of American households (nonpartisan Tax Policy Center).

With corporate culture totally beholden to profit, and power increasingly held by the richest, perhaps our greatest long-term safety threat is climate change. Our primary hope – as with shorter-term gun safety – may be our youth who are increasingly holding us accountable, realizing it’s a life-or-death issue and we’re sacrificing their lives.

Yet we still aren’t taking it seriously. Maybe if Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate change activist, wins the Nobel Peace Prize, we’ll take note. But don’t count on it, especially with Republicans in charge. President Trump is extreme on “profit-is-everything” and “global-warming-is-a-hoax,” yet Republicans, including Cathy McMorris Rodgers, characteristically won’t stand up to the president on such extremely important problems.

Norm Luther

Spokane