Cheaper is not always better, especially at 31,000 feet

...the FAA is reporting that the newest passenger planes are held together with "substandard" parts. The oversight at several supplier factories was so shoddy that workers were caught using rulers made of scotch-tape and paper.

The report cited four engine failures in 2003 -- three on the ground, one in flight -- that were traced to "unapproved design changes made by a . . . supplier" of speed sensors on engine fuel pumps. It did not cite any more recent incidents, nor did it specify the degree to which continuing problems with parts threaten to cause similar failures.

During a visit to one parts supplier, the inspector general's office observed an employee who "used a piece of paper, scotch-taped to the work surface, as a measuring device for a length of wire on an oil and fuel pressure transmitter."

So we will now have airplanes falling out the skies because the corporations want to make more money? What happened to safety first? The lives of ... you know... the customers and crew and the people on the ground? Will these crashes be blamed on terrorists when it is actually corporate greed that causes them?