“Can’t we just all go out there and say everything’s OK?” - President Bush during contentious negotiations over his 700 billion dollar corporate welfare program

I make a comfortable living exposing defects in the work products of others. It matters not whether it be a system of integrated software components, a supply chain, transportation system or electrical grid; the search for defects in processes or their physical implementation that result in the failure of major systems must always start at the failure itself and work backwards until the root cause(s) can be found.

Most major disasters cannot be traced to a single point of failure. Rather they are the result of a combination of factors. Generally speaking, if any one of those factors is removed from the equation, the disaster becomes a near-miss. But the fact remains, every disaster is dependent upon one or more root causes that often involve human intervention. And many disasters turn out to be completely avoidable. 

The root cause of our current economic woes can be summed in one, single word:

Greed

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