Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Cavalcade of Capitalists: When the Threat of "Unnecessary Public Concern" Trumps Poisoning and Death

What did a Home Depot business partner do when they found out that their product was poisoning consumers? Tell the truth, accept responsibility, and make amends? I think not. Effective marketing does not require that much. It does not even requiring obeying the law by immediately notifying regulators. The company sold consumers a product that could be considered an improvised chemical weapon (ICW) that aerosols industrial solvent into their lungs.

Then the company and Home Depot kept marketing the product for months after consumer medical reports started coming in. Some of those reports included deaths. Rather than pulling the product, the creators of the ICW did "everything to convince the Home Depot that there is no reason to take these batches off the shelf."

And the government's toothless and mute watchdog, the Consumer Products Safety Commission (an overblown misnomer), did not recall the Home Depot product after it was damaging the lungs of consumers and innocent bystanders; not even after the company merely made the odor of the spray stronger in a feeble attempt to send consumers a hidden message that the spray was unsafe to breathe. But if consumers are smelling the stronger odor, then they have already paid to spray it and to make themselves dizzy and disoriented, which would impair their nasal cipher for subtle scent codes.

It just warms my central nervous system to know that such rational industry is the backbone of our country.

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