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Comment by mrlonglong | Hacker News Reader

If anything, the Turkiye government are dodging the finger of blame. The fault lies with the politicians for not stamping down hard on developers who flout building regulations and/or allowing them to construct buildings with a 'waiver' that lets them get away with substandard building.

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"The fault" isn't some finite and indivisible thing that needs to be assigned to only one group of people. Politicians are at fault for not cracking down on scammers, and the scammer contractors are also at fault for being scammers. One does not diminish the other, stop thinking of fault as zero sum.

But if it isn't politician's head on the line they won't do shit

I disagree. It is the Government's responsibility to its people to ensure buildings remain safe during earthquakes. If their building regulations are not being obeyed then it is their job to enforce it. It is their responsibility.

In the third world, building contractors collude with politicians and bureaucrats. This is a mutually reinforcing mechanism.

Now I realize why it's called a fault line.

While it's not zero sum, government policies create competitive pressure, potentially creating a situation where only scammers can compete.

Heavily fining the whole industry and using the money to finance new companies being created would likely still be a better policy than letting them off the hook though.

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