It's hard for me to fathom the "Down with government!" mentality living in Germany, which is pretty much at the opposite end of the scale in its attitude towards government involvement. Here the government is expected to perform certain functions, and when it doesn't, it gets criticized. The idea that the private sector could wholly replace the government, as is de rigueur now more than ever in the U.S., is patently absurd.

Some things really are the job of the government. Companies are in business to make money, and if they are not held to account to provide the minimum required public service as in this case, nobody should be surprised when disaster strikes and the necessary precautions were not taken. These would have involved long-term investment and would have just pushed down the bottom line in the short term. You get what you pay for, and you don't get what you don't pay for.