Crashbat

This seems like the most likely explanation. Whoever left the device in the plane isn't likely to own up to it (if they even remember where they left it!) since they may lose their job.

The US government (like all liberal, democratic governments) is a massive, many-headed bureaucracy, with competing and sometimes contradictory objectives. Those objectives are long-term, shaped by committee and subject to organisational inertia, so the departments will function regardless of the political weather. It doesn't matter what public sentiment is, nor how widespread that sentiment may be. Being able to utilise any part of it requires connections and a high level of managerial competence - in George W Bush's case that was through his own personal, familial connections, and through his cabinet, many of whom were career civil servants who'd served in previous administrations going back decades. The feeling of "unity" people may have experienced doesn't come into it.

The article states there are more than 250 of these cases all throughout the world, it's nothing to do with 'bureaucracy' or Egypt.

I'm pretty sure the farmers know very well the lifecycle costs of their heavy machinery, the problem isn't ill-informed consumers. The problem is the time as well as expense of repairs is controlled by the manufacturers.

The razor example isn't analogous here, you can pretty much plan for when you need new blades. A farmer can't predict when the equipment will break down.

Except then you can't eat? It's not that it's not profitable, it's that the earnings drivers make are meager compared to what people need to sustain themselves. You make it sound like anybody who's on minimum wage just doesn't realise that they could go elsewhere for higher wages!

That's fine if you are prepared to take on significant risk - it took six years for the index to recover after the 2007 financial crash. If anyone was looking to retire on their investment then they'd be screwed. At least with a bank your savings are guaranteed.

Very well said, and I think you've hit the nail on the head with regards to the 'deregulation agenda'. The subtext of articles like this is always that interference, in the form of regulations, is a negative action, and by stripping away the messy human meddling we'll reap the rewards. It's never considered that the human meddling is so often done to protect the humans themselves, most often the very weakest or most powerless.

Well done buddy, it's great to hear about people taking a principled stand, especially when money's involved.