Fantasy Land?

Just for a moment I'd like you to imagine that you are living in a magical fantasy land. In this land there lives a man called Mr Mint who owns a number of widget factories. The factories are full of machines churning out widgets.

Unfortunately, the widget machines occasionally fail, and because they are running at speeds of up to 10,000rpm they tend to cause serious damage, and sometimes injury and death when this happens. This is a serious problem for Mr Mint because not only is it costing him money, but it is endangering the lives of his people.

One day Mr Mint comes up with an idea.
"I know!" he exclaims. "I'll run the machines at a slower speed. Then when they fail the damage will not be as severe!"
"Hang on Guv," exclaim the machine operators. "Why don't we look at why the machines are failing and try to stop it happening so often?? Maybe we need more training!! Maybe some of the machines are too old!! Maybe the materials being used are not suitable"
"No." says Mr Mint, shaking his head. "The speed is the problem. We'll run things slower and that will reduce the problem."

Unfortunately for Mr Mint the machines continue to fail, explode and generally wreak carnage with monotonous regularity. The machine operators are also having a harder time because now, rather than just monitoring the overall widget-making process and running the machines accordingly, they now have to keep an eye on the needle on the speed dial.

The continuing machine failures worry Mr Mint. "It must be those operators." he decides. "They must be running their machines too fast! I'll need to set some limits and penalties."

Mr Mint implemented fines for operators who were running there machines faster than the recommended limits, however there was still little change to the number of injuries, fatalities and the amount of damage created by exploding widget machines. He put in place random checks and cameras to ensure that the speed of the machines remained within the recommended limits, but still the carnage continued. The only consolation was the increasing amount of revenue from the fines,

Sadly for Mr Mint he was eventually fired for incompetence, but only after hundreds of operators had died each year and thousands were injured, not to mention the material costs involved.

But don't worry... this is all just a fantasy land... it could never happen in real life... could it?