The Losertarian Party - Look at This List of Winners - LMAO

[bripat9643]

The rule part MIGHT be important. Except that one size fits all rules force small communities to spend EXTRADORDINARY amount of money to comply with little gain. There is no prioritization of enviro gains when it's done from the Federal level.

The "enforcement" part of the EPA role is much less important except when it comes to throttling state and local authorities into compliance. Corporations can be sued class action on the basis of EPA RULES by anyone. And that's what they fear the most.

Volkswagen just demonstrated that. They PLAYED the EPA for 6 or 8 years. Got the EPA to glowingly ENDORSE those vehicles. The EPA doesn't and will never have the resources to litigate every polluter.. They don't even seem to care very much about pollution when it comes from the LARGEST polluter --- the Federal Gvt itself. Largest stash of really dirty coal plants in the US belong to the TVA -- a Federal agency...

If SOME industries are prevented from polluting, then the EPA is doing it's job. If you think for a moment that these industries will regulate themselves . . . well that's just foolish!

The tort system is sufficient to prevent industry from polluting, that is, as long as the water or land being polluted doesn't belong to the government. selling off all land and water rights to individuals and private firms would solve that problem. The air pollution problem is more difficult since we can't sell the air, but we don't need some Gestapo like organization like the EPA to solve it.

Industries hide this kind of stuff. They don't let people KNOW about it. It takes money and resources to find out about these things.

Yeah, because we know little guys have never sued big corporations before.

It's pretty difficult to keep secrets when you have thousands of employees working for you that all know the secret.

It's happened MANY times in the past. Lol. Employees don't want to risk their job security, of course.

Big corporations have been sued before. How do they control what employees who quit say? Employees who retire? Furthermore, how can they prevent anonymous tips? The idea that a huge corporation could keep the fact that it's committing crimes a secret is too absurd for words.

 

[ChrisL]

If SOME industries are prevented from polluting, then the EPA is doing it's job. If you think for a moment that these industries will regulate themselves . . . well that's just foolish!

The tort system is sufficient to prevent industry from polluting, that is, as long as the water or land being polluted doesn't belong to the government. selling off all land and water rights to individuals and private firms would solve that problem. The air pollution problem is more difficult since we can't sell the air, but we don't need some Gestapo like organization like the EPA to solve it.

Industries hide this kind of stuff. They don't let people KNOW about it. It takes money and resources to find out about these things.

Yeah, because we know little guys have never sued big corporations before.

It's pretty difficult to keep secrets when you have thousands of employees working for you that all know the secret.

It's happened MANY times in the past. Lol. Employees don't want to risk their job security, of course.

Big corporations have been sued before. How do they control what employees who quit say? Employees who retire? Furthermore, how can they prevent anonymous tips? The idea that a huge corporation could keep the fact that it's committing crimes a secret is too absurd for words.

By then it's too late a lot of times! The damage has been done! That's why we have a proactive agency and proactive laws. You want your kids contracting cancer from drinking poisoned water?

 

[bripat9643]

The tort system is sufficient to prevent industry from polluting, that is, as long as the water or land being polluted doesn't belong to the government. selling off all land and water rights to individuals and private firms would solve that problem. The air pollution problem is more difficult since we can't sell the air, but we don't need some Gestapo like organization like the EPA to solve it.

Industries hide this kind of stuff. They don't let people KNOW about it. It takes money and resources to find out about these things.

Yeah, because we know little guys have never sued big corporations before.

It's pretty difficult to keep secrets when you have thousands of employees working for you that all know the secret.

It's happened MANY times in the past. Lol. Employees don't want to risk their job security, of course.

Big corporations have been sued before. How do they control what employees who quit say? Employees who retire? Furthermore, how can they prevent anonymous tips? The idea that a huge corporation could keep the fact that it's committing crimes a secret is too absurd for words.

By then it's too late a lot of times! The damage has been done! That's why we have a proactive agency and proactive laws. You want your kids contracting cancer from drinking poisoned water?

All those laws are created after the fact. An incident occurs, and then the EPA drafts a regulation to prevent it in the future. The complaint that the tort system only takes effect after the fact is a non sequitur, because so does the regulatory system.

 

[flacaltenn]

They catch a lot of big corporations doing some really shady things, like it or not.

Sure sure sure. That's how VW got away with cheating on emission tests RIGHT UNDER THEIR NOSES for 6 or 8 years. EPA even declared them a TOP ENVIRONMENTAL choice for auto buyers while VW was fooling the pants off of them. It is Hit and Miss. Mostly miss actually.

Corporations are MUCH MORE afraid of group action or state or local lawsuits and public opinion than the enforcement side of the EPA. The EPA may serve a purpose to homogenize national standards. (which is good and bad in itself since one size fits all standards are very expensive),. But their enforcement side is NOT what keeps corporations up at night.

I totally disagree with everything you say.

So how long have you two been married?

I can see merit in both of your positions, or at least can see how they don't necessarily contradict each other. The difference I see is that FCT is talking about ideals and ChrisL's speaking of realities.

Between the two I gotta give the edge to the latter.

To single out the point above, the fact that VW may have got away with -- whatever, doesn't refute Chris' point. They DO catch corps doing really shady things, even if they didn't catch that specific one. As for their being concerned with PR, well that varies with the business; some take it more seriously than others. But it's impossible to not see that they do need rules to be set down without which they'll run roughshod over the earth, the people, and each other. We found that out in the 19th century. The only argument left is what the degree of it should be.

The rule part MIGHT be important. Except that one size fits all rules force small communities to spend EXTRADORDINARY amount of money to comply with little gain. There is no prioritization of enviro gains when it's done from the Federal level.

The "enforcement" part of the EPA role is much less important except when it comes to throttling state and local authorities into compliance. Corporations can be sued class action on the basis of EPA RULES by anyone. And that's what they fear the most.

Volkswagen just demonstrated that. They PLAYED the EPA for 6 or 8 years. Got the EPA to glowingly ENDORSE those vehicles. The EPA doesn't and will never have the resources to litigate every polluter.. They don't even seem to care very much about pollution when it comes from the LARGEST polluter --- the Federal Gvt itself. Largest stash of really dirty coal plants in the US belong to the TVA -- a Federal agency...

If SOME industries are prevented from polluting, then the EPA is doing it's job. If you think for a moment that these industries will regulate themselves . . . well that's just foolish!

Corporations will never risk losing their public image. That is their most important asset. When Scotts was sued for selling bird seed treated with toxic pesticides --- it was because THEY TURNED THEMSELVES IN.. And the short story is --- Scotts walked away with a puny $4.5Mill fine for pushing out 73MILL bags of potentiallly tainted bird seed. Now let's examine this further.

1) the EPA fine was about 2.5% of just their PROFIT on that tainted load. And only about 2Mill bags were ever recovered before sale. No wonder they turned themselves in before there were 100 class action suites filed against them.

2) The EPA acknowledges that the labeling of pesticides was INSUFFICIENT and vowed to correct the matter. But they ALSO acknowledged that the MANUFACTURERS largely WRITE those labels and restrictions.

3) Do the math -- to THIS day I will not buy ANY SCOTT product for my palatial Tennessee homestead. About $500 per year.. So if there's 10,000 of me or 100,000 that know about this and spend less --- That's $5Mill per year or likely MORE that their CUSTOMER BASE is punishing them for. WHICH is the BIGGER fear of Scotts????

4) Turning themselves in AND getting the small expected slap on wrist is a PUBLICITY WIN for the company. A cheap PR way to show "how sorry they are"..

THAT'S how this stuff works.. You anti-free-markets parrots have a WAAAAY bloated expectation of what you're getting for your money. And how "protected" you really are..