begin quoting Todd Walton as of Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 08:14:04AM -0700: > On 6/7/05, Stewart Stremler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > begin quoting Todd Walton as of Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 07:35:07AM -0700: > > > So overlooking violations of the standard would not mean more money, > > > when it is claimed that the overlooking is for the purpose of gaining > > > more money. > > > > What standard? I thought you were presuming a situation where there > > was no standard to refer to, and the loss of revenue was with regards > > to the business in question. > > We're assuming here that revenue between the business in question (the > Zoo) and the government (City/County of San Diego) tracks each other.
Ah, I wasn't making that assumption. That probably explains a lot. > What's good for the business is good for the government. Well, I _never_ buy *that* statement. :) > The claim is > that the health inspector, or the system in which the health inspector > works, is willing to turn a blind eye to some degree of > standards-violation, because he/she/it doesn't want to do anything > that will diminish the revenue of the business, and thus the > government. That wasn't the claim that I inferred, as I saw a comparison between "certification" and "non-certification", as in US vice Vietnam, and not "why do we bother to inspect and certify the Zoo?". In short, we were talking about different things. > I'm pointing out that this represents a contradiction. Let's say the > "A" is so important that some people, upon seeing it, will choose not > to buy food there. Um, "A" is the highest ranke, isn't it? > They may want to avoid the disgust of finding a > bone part in their beef or they may fear salmonella poisoning or some > other unpleasantness. So, if the possibility of those things exist, > someone is going to end up with a bone in their beef, or salmonella, > and they're going to be pissed off and decide not to come back, or at > least not buy food, and they're going to tell their friends and > perhaps the media. Are you implying that this does not happen? Most of my friends have places that they Will Not Go because of an experience they had at a restaurant. We've found bone bits in our food, contracted some sort of mild food poisoning, left a meal uneaten because the meat was obviously uncooked... (plus bad service...but that's a separate issue) I don't eat at Red Lobster anymore because I was served a steak that was well-done on the outside and still had ice crystals on the inside. Miguels put a friend of mine on a weak-tea-and-toast diet for a month. Etc. etc. etc. > The Reader would *love* that kind of story. And > thus the Zoo will lose money. In this scenario the government would > have maximized revenue by forcing the business to earn their "A". I don't think most people even consider calling up the Reader everytime they get bad food; it's something that people would do in theory, but only a few do in practice. > But what if the "A" is *not* so important that people won't avoid > buying food just because the place has a "B"? Or, alternatively, what > if not getting an "A" doesn't mean anything in practical terms? "B" > standards don't mean the possibility of any sort of unpleasantness. To some people, it's not. To others, it's very important. They won't go _in_ to anyplace without an "A" rating, much less eat food from there. > Then what's the point of having the standard in the first place, if no > one benefits from it? At a minium, it lets you know what to expect. It also lets the business know that they "can do more"... if they slip from an A to a B, they may slip from a B to a C unless they change their ways, and they might get closed down entirely. By providing levels of compliance, you can avoid suprising a business. And suprise shutdowns, well, that's bad for business. > Logically, one or the other is true. Either the standard really > matters, or it really doesn't. Logically, you've just fallen into the fallacy of the excluded middle. > Since the existence of the standard is > an implicit statement that there *is* a benefit, then, logically, the > government will be losing money by not enforcing it. What remains is > to juggle the risks. The standard is a stick, and sometimes a carrot. And "the government" isn't a terribly farsighted, rational, reasonable, single entity... it often subverts itself, so to speak. -Stewart "I screwed up and brought this back from kooler, didn't I?" Stremler
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