- Thread starter
- #101
As to the Cleveland steel mills: the owners knew when they built them they would eventually be obsolete, foxfyre. IMO, this is no different from clawing off the top of a mountain for coal and then walking away, leaving the environment so degraded people who live there get sick. It is wrong and should be illegal.
By contrast, my paint company client did not know at the time they dumped the waste that it was hazardous. Their conduct complied with the law at the time, and when it changed, they quit dumping. Why's it all their fault and expense to clean up a site when the prevailing science did not recognize the need to act differently until later? A big fat "gotcha" that served nobody's interest.
I disagree with you that the government owed it to the American steel industry to assure profitability. What the government should have done, IMO, was run up the expense of shipping jobs off-shore so that American businesses would continue to prefer American steel.
But if you asked 1,001 Cleveland residents about it, you'd get 1,001 answers....reasonable people can disagree.
No you misunderstand. Those who operate within the law, as your paint company did, should not be punished for the unintended consequences of things they legally do. Certainly at the very least the authorities should work with the company to resolve the problem and remove the hazard in a practical manner that produces the best possible outcome for all concerned.
And no the government does not owe it to anybody to ensure profitability. The conservative point of view, however, is that the government does owe to to everybody to not create a climate that unnecessarily hinders profitability.
If the steel mills knew their plants would eventually be obsolete, then so did the authorities that zoned them in and licensed them to operate. I can tick off any number of businesses that have operated profitably for generations by retooling and adapting to changing technology. Those who do that stay in business. Those who don't go out of business. But since the Great Society was implemented, the U.S. government has done no favors to ANY manufacturing industry in the USA with its excessive regulation, requirements, mandates, controls, and ever growing government requiring more and more in taxes etc. etc. etc. that have made it impossible for many to survive in a global market. So many things we once led the world in manufacturing are no longer made at all in the USA.
Wouldn't you think that would be a wake up call to a government who has created an increasingly anti-business environment in this country? But we seem to have a government gung ho to not only continue those destructive policies but are stepping them up.
I'll tell you a true story in my next post.