Has a corporation ever done anything environmentally sound that it was not forced to do by regulation?

Has the movement ever argued for less government control?

If corporations acted responsibly, there would be no need for regulations to control the evil #### they do.

A Wall Street Journal investigation provides the most complete account so far of the fateful decisions that preceded the blast. BP made choices over the course of the project that rendered this well more vulnerable to the blowout, which unleashed a spew of crude oil that engineers are struggling to stanch.

BP, for instance, cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and remove it before it becomes a problem, according to documents belonging to BP and to the drilling rig's owner and operator, Transocean Ltd.

BP also skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe—another buffer against gas—despite what BP now says were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from cement contractor Halliburton Co.

Once gas was rising, the design and procedures BP had chosen for the well likely gave this perilous gas an easier path up and out, say well-control experts. There was little keeping the gas from rushing up to the surface after workers, pushing to finish the job, removed a critical safeguard, the heavy drilling fluid known as "mud." BP has admitted a possible "fundamental mistake" in concluding that it was safe to proceed with mud removal, according to a memo from two Congressmen released Tuesday night.

Finally, a BP manager overseeing final well tests apparently had scant experience in deep-water drilling. He told investigators he was on the rig to "learn about deep water," according to notes of an interview with him seen by the Journal.

Sam, please bring your evidence to Holder forthwith. Your country needs you.

But "wacko lefties" (your words) don't argue for less government control in any area.

Has a corporation ever done anything environmentally sound that it was not forced to do by regulation?

Actually, yes.

Then they obviously aren't sufficiently wacko, Shalimar. I did not address the question of whether the "wacko lefties" of Ray's imagination actually exist in the real world, preferring to leave it as an exercise to the reader.

There are good actors in the corporate community. BP and big oil in general are not among them. I'm pretty sure the term "greenwashing" was invented exactly for BP's "beyond petroleum" campaign.

BP apparently can't be trusted -- for leak estimates, at any rate.

The U.S. government will no longer rely on the London-based oil giant for estimates on how much oil is leaking into the gulf, the White House said Monday.

Rather, flow rates calculated by the U.S. government will help determine penalties leveled against BP based on how much oil has been spilled, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Progress continued over the weekend on getting the leak under control.

The cap placed on the damaged well is now collecting 462,000 gallons of oil a day from leaking into the sea, Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen said Monday from the White House, in advance of a meeting with President Barack Obama and Cabinet members.

That's up from about 441,000 gallons on Saturday and about 250,000 on Friday.

Overall, the ruptured BP pipe is gushing as much as 1 million gallons a day, the feds estimate.

Small boats have been enlisted to help skim "hundreds of thousands" of individual patches of oil that are spreading on the surface.

Allen also said Monday that the clean up process will take years.

"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface will take a couple of months" but getting oil out of marshlands and other habitats "will be years," he said.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/07/2010-06-07_white_house_bp_estimates_of_oil_leak_into_gulf_will_no_longer_be_trusted.html#ixzz0qBiF3NXv

BP apparently can't be trusted -- for leak estimates, at any rate.

The U.S. government will no longer rely on the London-based oil giant for estimates on how much oil is leaking into the gulf, the White House said Monday.

Rather, flow rates calculated by the U.S. government will help determine penalties leveled against BP based on how much oil has been spilled, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

This is not some crazy Marxist spiel; this is like week three or four of freshman econ.

Allen also said Monday that the clean up process will take years.

"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface will take a couple of months" but getting oil out of marshlands and other habitats "will be years," he said.

I haven't the foggiest clue why anyone with two functioning brain cells would trust government's estimates on this.

Note that nature can handle a lot of this itself.

Evangelical faith that the government is evil and untrustworthy. Baseless.

How many people would they have to kill and lie about killing before that would become true for you?

I'm also capable of noting that at least until the last 8-10 years, our government hasn't been in the busines of killing people

Regulation attempts to PREVENT catastrophe. "Market pressure" only reacts after catastrophe has already occured.

Note that nature can handle a lot of this itself.

Huh? Madeline Albright's half-million kids? Arming both sides in the Iran-Iraq war? Cambodia? Laos? Vietnam?

The native Americans?

Certainly you could say the same thing about corporate libertarianism. In any discussion of what's good for the corp. vs. what's good for the people, the libertarian will come down on the side of the corp. That's a pretty long history of disdain for people.

I'll concede this relatively quickly, but I didn't think this was the direction this conversation was heading.

Note that nature can handle a lot of this itself.

Note that nature can handle a lot of this itself.

To a libertarian, absolutely everything they don't like is a conspiracy to control people.

edit: And the funny thing to me at least, is that despite spending a combined billions and billions of dollars every year on advertising, somehow corporations are pure as the driven snow and don't have any desire to control people. Or it's okay when they do it but not when any other entity does.

Or maybe it's just okay when they create a society that makes massive oil use a necessity, because Ray likes all the things oil lets him do. Or something. It's very confusing, like a group of masochists who enjoy being abused but only in certain ways that make them tingly inside.

Do any of you disagree that nature can handle a lot of this itself? If you do, please feel free to go on record.

Do any of you disagree that nature can handle a lot of this itself?

Do any of you disagree that nature can handle a lot of this itself? If you do, please feel free to go on record.

A corporation can only engage in voluntary transactions with others. (Except, of course, when it works through the government.

A corporation can only engage in voluntary transactions with others. (Except, of course, when it works through the government.

I don't understand this statement through any kind of historical or geopolitical context. Was slavery a voluntary transaction? Or when companies force workers to work unpaid hours or overtime? Intentional information asymmetry is a type of control as well.

What do you mean by "handle this"? I agree that at some point a new equilibrium will be reached in the gulf, but I have no idea what that will look like or how long it will take.

From "modern financial mechanisms" that drive massive bubble economies to oil-extraction ventures that drive massive energy sector contracts, corporations will choose short term profits every single time.

That is why you need a robust regulatory agency *external* to the corporate infrastructure to control for low-probability, high-harm outcomes. The entity best capable of providing that sort of ballast to the power and will of corporate titans today is, of course, the federal government market. That is the fundamental failure of 40 years of blind-faith deregulation.

We have removed the counterbalance to corporate will, and thus the ability to guard against socially horrific outcomes, because we have quite idiotically bought into the notion that "business will regulate itself."

Yes. The problem with the libertarian theory is that 1) it fails to test as true when applied to real world and 2) it fails to *pre-emptively prevent bad outcomes.* Even if the theory worked - which by evidence we can say somewhat certainly that it doesn't - the "market pressures" could only act in a reactionary stance. "Market pressure" is lame "boycott BP" sloganeering. "Market pressure" is changing batting practice to "hitting rehearsal" all after the fact, while poison continues to spew into the common seas. Market pressure doesn't prevent disaster, at best it merely punishes disaster after the fact.

Note that nature can handle a lot of this itself.

Has a corporation ever done anything environmentally sound that it was not forced to do by regulation?

See also "Citzens United." When presented with the opportunity to create from whole cloth "corporate human rights", as if that phrase isn't utterly nonsensical, where do the doctrinaire libertarians land?

Note further that regulation does not "prevent bad outcomes," either.

Every lefty I know thinks the drug war is a massive waste of money that accomplishes nothing positive. There is one area for you.

So why isn't Obama being questioned for the fact the regulatory authorities are FUBAR and that they had no possibility of following their own response plans due to lack of equipment and piss poor organisation?

I think this view is seriously deluded. Obviously, corporations seek profits. But to argue that they have no other considerations is an argument that a seventh grader would be embarrassed to make. You might have noticed that death and destruction and suffering is rather bad PR for a corporation. You might have noticed that these things ultimately cut into a corporation's bottom line, that bad PR leads to loss of market share and lawsuits and a drop in stock value and what not. So a corporation has an inherent incentive to avoid these things, rather than to seek profit at all costs.

The phrase may be utterly nonsensical, but it is also utterly a red herring. Citizens United was about constitutional rights, not "human rights" nebulously defined. (And of course Citizens United is made up of humans, anyway.)

I'll concede this relatively quickly, but I didn't think this was the direction this conversation was heading.

I don't understand this statement through any kind of historical or geopolitical context. Was slavery a voluntary transaction?

Or when companies force workers to work unpaid hours or overtime?

Intentional information asymmetry is a type of control as well.

Reforming regulatory authorities, which would have been mightily opposed by the minority party, was a low priority before the oil spill. Indeed, compromising with Republicans on drilling was a significant olive branch that Obama was trying to extend.

Depending on how loose your definition of "handle" is, sure, nature can handle a lot of it. That doesn't matter. WE can't handle a lot of it. We can't swim in that water, fish in that water, live around that water without adverse effects for years, perhaps many, many years.

Then you are an idiot. I knew what HCO was setting up out of the gate.

I'm assuming this was David, and then the comment was deleted?

"Force"? Companies pay workers to work; they don't "force" them to. (Companies that don't pay workers either don't have workers or are charged with kidnapping and slavery.) If a company says, "If you do X, we'll pay you," that's an incentive, not force.

Very like a whale.

I'm assuming this was David, and then the comment was deleted?

No.

I grant that BP has an incentive to downplay the leak estimates.

I haven't the foggiest clue why anyone with two functioning brain cells would trust government's estimates on this.

Do you see above, Bernal, the incentive government has to pump up the leak estimates? It's stated right there.

Nature can not just handle "a lot of it". Nature can handle ALL of it. The fact is, all of it *IS* nature. It's crude oil - where do you guys think it came from?

I'm assuming this was David, and then the comment was deleted?
No.

A gigantic hole in the ground drilled by human beings in order to drain million year old stored sunlight into their technological matrix. Is that "natural?" You might as well argue that nuclear fallout is natural. After all, uranium exists in nature.

Of course it wasn't David. It was someone that reports to the Queen - organi_s_ation was a complete tipoff.

The *oil* is natural. Could an earthquake occur that caused an oil repository to issue forth? Mos def.

But he was sold to the entire country as a transformative agent of change and someone so incredibly brilliant and competent that he could accomplish virtually anything.

Should we let nature run it's course there too?

The question of nature "handling it" came up in reference to the ability to remove the oil from the marshlands and other natural habitats. The fact that crude oil is natural is irrelevant to that discussion -- sure, it's natural, but that doesn't mean it can't damage or destroy the habitats of many plants and animals, including humans. Not to mention the potential effects of the chemical dispersants that are being used in the area.

The *oil* is natural. Could an earthquake occur that caused an oil repository to issue forth? Mos def.

No, we should sue cancer, and make laws against cancer. Anyone caught with cancer should be put in prison!

The gambling website PaddyPower.com placed odds today on what species would be first to become extinct as a result of crude belching from BP PLC's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Odds are the Kemp's ridley turtle, and endangered species that migrates to the Gulf this time of year, would go first. A $5 bet on the turtle would win $9 if it's listed as extinct at any time because of the spill. Less likely species -- the gulf sturgeon, smalltooth sawfish and elkhorn coral -- have payout rates of 20-to-1.

...

"We kind of have a very simple philosophy at Paddy Power -- within reason if there is a very newsworthy event that are people are talking about, people should be allowed to back up their opinion with some cash," said Ken Robertson, a company spokesman.

The website is also taking bets on who will be the next CEO of BP, the company responsible for the spill.

But the earth isn't here for *us*. That's the fallacy in all this. Same with climate change. We aren't screwing up the world - we're making it less how we want it. And I don't think that that's irrelavent. If we screw up the gulf, we, humans, will improvise, adapt, and overcome. We'll find something else to eat, somewhere else to live, some other forms of employment.

Telling someone who desperately needs their job that they'll get fired if they don't work overtime for free, even if it's not true, is a type of control.

The fact that crude oil is natural is irrelevant to that discussion

By the way, lawyers (the scourge of the earth for some around here) routinely work overtime for free.

No, we should sue cancer, and make laws against cancer. Anyone caught with cancer should be put in prison!

But he was sold to the entire country as a transformative agent of change and someone so incredibly brilliant and competent that he could accomplish virtually anything.


No he wasn't. You apparently weren't listening very closely.

The toxins spewing into the Gulf were not created by a natural disaster, unless of course you want to list "humanity" on the list of natural disasters.

I'm sure the people of Bangladesh will be glad to hear that the US lives happily ever after.

I love that the same people who accuse Obama of being a socialist monster are the same people who are accusing him of not being socialistic enough when it fits their partisan message (i.e., in responding to the spill). Why, it's almost as if they're more interested in scoring partisan points than in assessing the situation objectively.

Anything else you want to be wrong about today Sam?

I really don't understand this argument. Very few people are demanding an abolition of the federal government. Rather, what many are requesting is that it focus on areas where it can be useful and avoid areas where it is not. In short (as a crude analogy) stop worrying about how much salt is on my Big Mac (which I can deal with personally) and focus on things that individuals, and states, need a federal government for- like addressing problems off the coast of several states. And if they can't do the latter, why would anyone want them mixed up in the former? Not only are they going to foul that up too, it distracts (in terms of energy and resources) from the essential duties that the federal government has.

I have not been wrong about much of anything today. Thanks for playing, though.

I'll concede this relatively quickly, but I didn't think this was the direction this conversation was heading.