[wyager]

> Yet only one-thousandth of 1 percent of imports are inspected for fraud.

Yes, and? That's how statistical analysis works. You don't sample every single member of the population, as it would be infeasibly expensive. You can get almost as good results for a small fraction of the cost (through random sampling).

[kwhitefoot]

But when you do find a dud in inspection of say a batch of resistors for television production you reject the entire batch or shipment; you don't ask the supplier politely if they might consider taking it back. In an import context that could mean anything from a single case to a 40ft container or even a whole shipload in the case of fish. That seems to be a big part of the problem; in food inspections the inspectors don't have the same degree of power and authority as quality control inspectors in a factory (well at least in well run factories).