Little booboos have bigger booboos upon their back to bite 'em.

Something going wrong is embedded in an ecosystem of other bigger things going wrong.   Two Toronto guys shooting at each other happens in a neighbourhood where welfare rules reduce the motivation to get a job, and is linked in turn to drug laws that raise the payoffs for selling contraband and is amplified by an otherwise reasonable immigration policy that is a bit loosey goosey about weighting family ties. Meanwhile the press goes off about gun control. And no one is speaking up about personal responsibility.

Today's news has an example from bankrupt Detroit.
A million dollar cheque lay in a drawer for a month, un-cashed.

Chain reaction of little things
until the kaboom

How could someone forget?
How could there be no oversight in place to get a handle on this?
A bigger booboo is that a cheque was needed in the first place.
As of February, electronic funds transfer wasn't available at City Hall.

Anybody who services equipment knows how it goes.  A ten cent bearing is a little damaged from dirt. The dust cover on the hub was lost a month ago but no one had replaced it.  The owner had skipped a service check.   He tends to be casual like that in everything.  The driver heard a funny noise but didn't think it worth mentioning.  The hub seized.  An important delivery was late.  The tow truck couldn't come until the next day.  An angry customer cancels a big order.  The month shows a loss.  And so it goes, ad infinitum.  

The liberty I have taken with the title can be remedied by reading the back story on "Little fleas have smaller fleas...."   Johnathan Swift drafted the ditty and mathematician De Morgan gave it a lilt and made it funnier.  There's a second part, too:  "And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on.,,,,"

Did I do that?