James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote in 
news:c1bc32f7685357f91395426fda0888a9@news.mybinaries.com:

>     --
> On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 18:22:39 GMT, Constantinople > How can
> capitalism even exist under these conditions? I can only
> imagine
>> it can exist if the regulations are simply ignored most of
>> the time. Hopefully, most of the regulations just follow
>> common sense, so that people tend to adhere to a lot of them
>> unintentionally.
> 
> By and large, the regulations are incomprehensible and unclear,
> so that each of us is arguably in violation of most of these
> regulations.
> 
> At the second last company I worked for the company lawyer gave
> us a long lecture on the regulations he deemed relevant.  It
> sounded to me as if his lecture amounted to "fucked if I know".
> I cross examined him on this topic, and it seemed to me that he
> agreed "fucked if I know".

My company nevertheless is going to a great deal of expense in order to 
give the appearance that it is paying deep respect to these regulations. We 
do a lot of worrying and running around about it, but in the end it strikes 
me, and some coworkers, as an empty ritual whose main visible effect is to 
reaffirm our submission to the FDA.

Some years ago, I was simultaneously amused and disgusted by the public 
self-flagellation of company execs in response to an FDA consent decree.