The corporation vs. you and me, yet again--or still

There's a terrific article on the front page of the Star today (sorry, Tony), telling of Enterprise Rent-a-Car (one corporation) teaming up General Motors (another corporation) to take safety airbags out of 60,000 of their cars, in order to save money. It's figured they saved $175.00 per car (at 60,000 cars that ends up being $10,500,000.00, by the way--a tidy little sum of money). But at what cost did they save this money? And of course the answer is, they saved it at the expense of the safety of their clients, the renters of these cars while they owned them, but, eventually, at the expense of the people who bought these cars. What's additionally unconscionable about this--because that's what this is, unconscionable--is that Enterprise, when selling these cars didn't notify possible purchasers of the cars that what is otherwise standard on these new cars for safety would not be included. Eventually, Enterprise was successfully sued to release this information--they had to be forced--and the solution offered was that "everyone who owns one a $100 voucher that can be used for reting or buying something else from Enterprise." So on top of being made less safe so they could save millions of dollars, they add an insult of this voucher so you can do more business with them. Incredible. What chutzpah. This, then, points out, once again, why we need government. If there weren't government--first, the justice system, so the corporation could be sued and then the legislative branch so laws could be passed against this kind of thing--we wouldn't be able to have any redress to this ouotrageous unfairness and inequity. "Free market Capitalism"? No, no thank you. Corporations have proven themselves, time and again, that they are for themselves, first, last and foremost. Too often, they've shown they'll put even their own clients at risk if it means they can make more money. What we need right now, unfortunately, is a law from Congress making this kind of deletion of what would otherwise be standard safety equipment, illegal. And they've brought it on themselves. Link to original story: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/09/11/2216137/settlement-nears-over-missing.html