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How do you come back from this? Their whole schtick is absolute, unadulterated quality. Perfection. From this they garnered extremely high prices. They had it

How do you come back from this? Their whole schtick is absolute, unadulterated quality. Perfection. From this they garnered extremely high prices. They had it in the bag.

vkou 2y ago
Easy. Just keep spending on marketing and bribing stores to give them preferential placement. You think they were a premium brand, that did not compromise on quality. Do you have any evidence of this? Or did you believe it because they told you they were, and because they charge more? This is the beauty of unregulated free markets. With no actual baseline for quality, it's often easier to dupe people into believing that you're not cutting corners, than it is to not cut corners. And for all intents and purposes, this is an unregulated market. The inspectors have been finding a horror show for years, but couldn't shut it down because, well, that would impact the meatpacker's bottom line, and some apparatchik somewhere is getting paid off to make sure that won't happen, and he will make your life very unpleasant if you try to make waves. Regulations with no teeth aren't regulations. Everyone's mad at Boar's Head, but the actual problem is in the systemic failures that lead to the plant being open after it failed inspection after inspection. The business should be liquidated, it's current owners are clearly incapable of operating it.
- from-nibly 2y ago
  It wasnt unregulated though. We have this thing called the FDA. Problem solved right?
  - vkou 2y ago
    When regulators can't shut a plant down for a violation like this, it's not actually regulated. People watch historic documentaries (like HBO's Chernobyl /s) and ooh and aah about how stupid the Soviet safety and bureaucratic culture was, without a shred of self-reflection about how our systems also make ruinous outcomes inevitable.
    - parineum 2y ago
      Underregulated and unregulated are different things. Saying that it's unregulated makes the solution appear simple, just add regulation. Recognizing that it is already ineffectively regulated implies that regulation doesn't have to just be present, it has to be good. But then again it's a lot harder to come up with a solution that works past spherical cows in a vacuum so let's just call it unregulated.
      - vkou 2y ago
        It's a problem of incentive alignment, which is a core problem in politics. People and organizations love to maximize their gain at the cost of distributed harm - and all the political incentives, in any system of government are strongly aligned with this sort of thing. The answer to this is, of course, good governance. The answer to how to get good governance is, of course, a shoulder shrug emoji. (I can't give you a recipe for good governance, but I can definitely give you one for bad governance...) Nine people are dead, the firm is at fault, and there are two broad forms of recourse. You can do something that lightly taps the owners' pocketbook, through suits filed in civil court, or you can start holding congressional hearings until you find nine or more people that you can execute. You won't get the latter unless there is enough public outrage to get meaningful action. Unlike the courts, it is a very limited resource, it requires incredible effort to activate, and the payoff (better food safety, justice, encouraging the others) is distributed. The solution is there, it's just infeasible given resource limitations.
        parineum 2y ago
        > you can start holding congressional hearings until you find nine or more people that you can execute. I like it when people just out themselves as extremists.
        vkou 2y ago
        These deaths weren't caused by an oopsie daisies accident, this was a clear, blatant prioritisation of personal profit over human lives, with numerous warnings and opportunities to pull back. The plant's been operating despite years of failing inspections, and anyone in the industry knows that it shouldn't have. Evil is the pursuit of personal gain at the direct expense of the welfare of others. This is the poster child for it. It's not an indirect consequence, it's not a 'we tried and there was still a bad outcome', it's not a 'this stuff is hard and we got unlucky', it's not a 'there are inherent risks to this activity that can't be well mitigated', it's not a 'we didn't know this was dangerous', it's not a 'all the alternatives looked bad'. It's actively and playing Russian Roulette with the lives of your customers, and it killed people. There's nothing extreme about wanting justice for such blatant disregard for human life.

How do you come back from this? Their whole schtick is absolute, unadulterated quality. Perfection. From this they garnered extremely high prices. They had it in the bag.

vkou 2y ago

Easy. Just keep spending on marketing and bribing stores to give them preferential placement. You think they were a premium brand, that did not compromise on quality. Do you have any evidence of this? Or did you believe it because they told you they were, and because they charge more? This is the beauty of unregulated free markets. With no actual baseline for quality, it's often easier to dupe people into believing that you're not cutting corners, than it is to not cut corners. And for all intents and purposes, this is an unregulated market. The inspectors have been finding a horror show for years, but couldn't shut it down because, well, that would impact the meatpacker's bottom line, and some apparatchik somewhere is getting paid off to make sure that won't happen, and he will make your life very unpleasant if you try to make waves. Regulations with no teeth aren't regulations. Everyone's mad at Boar's Head, but the actual problem is in the systemic failures that lead to the plant being open after it failed inspection after inspection. The business should be liquidated, it's current owners are clearly incapable of operating it.

from-nibly 2y ago
It wasnt unregulated though. We have this thing called the FDA. Problem solved right?
- vkou 2y ago
  When regulators can't shut a plant down for a violation like this, it's not actually regulated. People watch historic documentaries (like HBO's Chernobyl /s) and ooh and aah about how stupid the Soviet safety and bureaucratic culture was, without a shred of self-reflection about how our systems also make ruinous outcomes inevitable.
  - parineum 2y ago
    Underregulated and unregulated are different things. Saying that it's unregulated makes the solution appear simple, just add regulation. Recognizing that it is already ineffectively regulated implies that regulation doesn't have to just be present, it has to be good. But then again it's a lot harder to come up with a solution that works past spherical cows in a vacuum so let's just call it unregulated.
    - vkou 2y ago
      It's a problem of incentive alignment, which is a core problem in politics. People and organizations love to maximize their gain at the cost of distributed harm - and all the political incentives, in any system of government are strongly aligned with this sort of thing. The answer to this is, of course, good governance. The answer to how to get good governance is, of course, a shoulder shrug emoji. (I can't give you a recipe for good governance, but I can definitely give you one for bad governance...) Nine people are dead, the firm is at fault, and there are two broad forms of recourse. You can do something that lightly taps the owners' pocketbook, through suits filed in civil court, or you can start holding congressional hearings until you find nine or more people that you can execute. You won't get the latter unless there is enough public outrage to get meaningful action. Unlike the courts, it is a very limited resource, it requires incredible effort to activate, and the payoff (better food safety, justice, encouraging the others) is distributed. The solution is there, it's just infeasible given resource limitations.
      - parineum 2y ago
        > you can start holding congressional hearings until you find nine or more people that you can execute. I like it when people just out themselves as extremists.
        vkou 2y ago
        These deaths weren't caused by an oopsie daisies accident, this was a clear, blatant prioritisation of personal profit over human lives, with numerous warnings and opportunities to pull back. The plant's been operating despite years of failing inspections, and anyone in the industry knows that it shouldn't have. Evil is the pursuit of personal gain at the direct expense of the welfare of others. This is the poster child for it. It's not an indirect consequence, it's not a 'we tried and there was still a bad outcome', it's not a 'this stuff is hard and we got unlucky', it's not a 'there are inherent risks to this activity that can't be well mitigated', it's not a 'we didn't know this was dangerous', it's not a 'all the alternatives looked bad'. It's actively and playing Russian Roulette with the lives of your customers, and it killed people. There's nothing extreme about wanting justice for such blatant disregard for human life.