Are You A Capitalist Scumbag?

[coolzone]

I watch a documentary last night about yet another of the countless failings of capitalism. It was called "What lies upstream." In it they interviewed cool people and dirtbags. One of the half ways cool people they talked to they showed transformed into a complete dirtbag by our capitalist system.
But out of the many troubling things in the program, here what I found to be the most troubling thing. They talked about how pollutants in river samples were within "safe" levels. Turns out, there was a reason for it. Chemical companies are allowed to literally flush their toxins down the toilet! There it gets turned into sewage. That sewage is then turned into fertilizer. Some is put into fields to feed crops. Some of it is sold as fertilizer in places like Home Depot.
I don't usually get to say things for very long. But one of the things I have said elsewhere is that we don't need fewer regulations. We need more of them! Though as it is, many of the regulations we already have just aren't enforced.

 

[Irish Exit]

Watching now. Will let you now when done.

 

[Irish Exit]

I watch a documentary last night about yet another of the countless failings of capitalism. It was called "What lies upstream." In it they interviewed cool people and dirtbags. One of the half ways cool people they talked to they showed transformed into a complete dirtbag by our capitalist system.
But out of the many troubling things in the program, here what I found to be the most troubling thing. They talked about how pollutants in river samples were within "safe" levels. Turns out, there was a reason for it. Chemical companies are allowed to literally flush their toxins down the toilet! There it gets turned into sewage. That sewage is then turned into fertilizer. Some is put into fields to feed crops. Some of it is sold as fertilizer in places like Home Depot.
I don't usually get to say things for very long. But one of the things I have said elsewhere is that we don't need fewer regulations. We need more of them! Though as it is, many of the regulations we already have just aren't enforced.

Okay I watched it. It is not a problem of capitalism. That said, what are you willing to cut to pay for better enforcement? You did see the part where the guy talked about testing samples being "wickedly expensive" I assume. So we have a clean water act and a clean air act so if we have a clean soil act too what are you going to do with this stuff?

 

[Flash]

I watch a documentary last night about yet another of the countless failings of capitalism. It was called "What lies upstream." In it they interviewed cool people and dirtbags. One of the half ways cool people they talked to they showed transformed into a complete dirtbag by our capitalist system.
But out of the many troubling things in the program, here what I found to be the most troubling thing. They talked about how pollutants in river samples were within "safe" levels. Turns out, there was a reason for it. Chemical companies are allowed to literally flush their toxins down the toilet! There it gets turned into sewage. That sewage is then turned into fertilizer. Some is put into fields to feed crops. Some of it is sold as fertilizer in places like Home Depot.
I don't usually get to say things for very long. But one of the things I have said elsewhere is that we don't need fewer regulations. We need more of them! Though as it is, many of the regulations we already have just aren't enforced.

Government is one of the worse polluters in communist nations, so switching to socialism accomplishes nothing.

 

[Irish Exit]

Government is one of the worse polluters in communist nations, so switching to socialism accomplishes nothing.

But that is also a resource allocation issue. The thing is it is easy to say "Well raise taxes and pay for...." but when you add all the "Well raise taxes to pay for"'s together, it isn't doable, especially when a lot of this is state level stuff. It is something the DNC version of the left just never appreciates--there are fiscal realities. When the average HS teacher pay is higher than the average state household income, then that teacher's inflated pay comes at the expense of having less money to hire inspectors, investigators, prosecutors, etc. to enforce the existing laws. It is less money to address blight. It is less money to provide better medical services to the poor.

 

[coolzone]

Okay I watched it. It is not a problem of capitalism. That said, what are you willing to cut to pay for better enforcement? You did see the part where the guy talked about testing samples being "wickedly expensive" I assume. So we have a clean water act and a clean air act so if we have a clean soil act too what are you going to do with this stuff?

If you don't think it is a problem of capitalism, you are completely delusional. I think it was Calvin Coolidge who once basically said, "The business of government IS business." Also, we are supposed to elect politicians who work for the people who elected them. But obviously, the people they really work for are corporations. But nobody votes for corporations. Also, politicians are accountable. Corporations basically aren't. Yet they write our laws!
Next, you don't have to cut anything to pay for better enforcement. The only thing you need to cut is the heads off those who break the rules. Which corporations have also found a way around. They just make the laws so complicated that nobody can really be held accountable to that degree for breaking some rule.
Here is another point about "paying" for things. Did you forget what the program showed what that corruption is already costing us? Also, money is just a delusion. It is fiat currency. It is basically worthless. Another thing is that the U.S. is over 18 trillion dollars in debt. We have something around 61 trillion dollars worth of unfunded obligations. Also, our yearly trade imbalance with China alone is anywhere from 300 billion dollars to over 700 billion dollars. Another thing is that each year we HAVE to pay around 420 billion dollars just on the interest of our national debt. Nobody bitches much about paying for that. Also, without a doubt, universal health care would be cheaper. But where are we.
There are more problems going on than you could spend all day walking along and shaking a stick at. But the thing is, to fix any problem, you have to start from a sturdy foundation and work your way up. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time. To show you this sturdy foundation, I have a book to suggest to you. I will provide a link. It will take you to filehosting.org. Where if you choose to you can download the book. It is only about 100 pages long. (With quite a few pictures) So in that regard, it shouldn't be too much for you. It is called, "The Truth: Unforbidden!" Here is the link. http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/733832/THE TRUTH, UNFORBIDDEN!.pdf

 

[coolzone]

Government is one of the worse polluters in communist nations, so switching to socialism accomplishes nothing.

Just because places like Russia and China can't get it right doesn't mean it can't be gotten right. They simply started from an insecure and shaky foundation. You see, there is something people need to be taught first before being taught anything technical. What you have to teach them first is to not have their heads stuck up their asses. And why being that way is a bad thing. But the foundation of every religious, political and economic cult is to have your head stuck up your ass. So that has to change. Then you move on to the more technical aspect of science.
I can direct you to a book that shows the firm foundation from which to build from and for people to un-stick their heads from their asses. I will give you the link. it will take you to filehosting.org. Where if you choose to you can download the book. It is only about 100 pages long. (With quite a few pictures) So in that regard, it shouldn't b too much for you. Here is the link. http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/733832/THE TRUTH, UNFORBIDDEN!.pdf

 

[Irish Exit]

If you don't think it is a problem of capitalism, you are completely delusional. I think it was Calvin Coolidge who once basically said, "The business of government IS business." Also, we are supposed to elect politicians who work for the people who elected them. But obviously, the people they really work for are corporations. But nobody votes for corporations. Also, politicians are accountable. Corporations basically aren't. Yet they write our laws!
Next, you don't have to cut anything to pay for better enforcement. The only thing you need to cut is the heads off those who break the rules. Which corporations have also found a way around. They just make the laws so complicated that nobody can really be held accountable to that degree for breaking some rule.
Here is another point about "paying" for things. Did you forget what the program showed what that corruption is already costing us? Also, money is just a delusion. It is fiat currency. It is basically worthless. Another thing is that the U.S. is over 18 trillion dollars in debt. We have something around 61 trillion dollars worth of unfunded obligations. Also, our yearly trade imbalance with China alone is anywhere from 300 billion dollars to over 700 billion dollars. Another thing is that each year we HAVE to pay around 420 billion dollars just on the interest of our national debt. Nobody bitches much about paying for that. Also, without a doubt, universal health care would be cheaper. But where are we.
There are more problems going on than you could spend all day walking along and shaking a stick at. But the thing is, to fix any problem, you have to start from a sturdy foundation and work your way up. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time. To show you this sturdy foundation, I have a book to suggest to you. I will provide a link. It will take you to filehosting.org. Where if you choose to you can download the book. It is only about 100 pages long. (With quite a few pictures) So in that regard, it shouldn't be too much for you. It is called, "The Truth: Unforbidden!" Here is the link. http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/733832/THE TRUTH, UNFORBIDDEN!.pdf

China is the largest polluter in the world with land, air and water and they certainly are no capitalist. Yes you do have to cut a lot of things to pay for enforcement.

 

[coolzone]

China is the largest polluter in the world with land, air and water and they certainly are no capitalist. Yes you do have to cut a lot of things to pay for enforcement.

China is a large polluter. With India not far behind. But their main pollution is the number of people they have. You should download the book I mentioned. Then scroll down the pages until you see pictures of Chinese. You would find some interesting things. Also, these days China is a lot more capitalist than they used to be.
As for paying for enforcement, you don't need to pay for that. All you need to do is to get the corporations to pay for the bad things they do. One of the problems is that they are able to pay whoever more to look the other way. Also, did you ever see the documentary "The Corporation?" When companies are charged for doing something wrong, it is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. It is more profitable for them to keep doing illegal things than it is to fix the problems.
Also, even if some punishment was too onerous for the company to bear, the government would just bail them out. Basically making the people pay for their crimes. Because people having jobs at those companies is supposedly more important. But as long as there is a ditch that the government can pay somebody to dig, they aren't. Also, the government just needs to cut out the dead weight middlemen and run the companies themselves. That if those companies are even necessary to begin with.

 

[Minister of Truth]

Just because places like Russia and China can't get it right doesn't mean it can't be gotten right. They simply started from an insecure and shaky foundation. You see, there is something people need to be taught first before being taught anything technical. What you have to teach them first is to not have their heads stuck up their asses. And why being that way is a bad thing. But the foundation of every religious, political and economic cult is to have your head stuck up your ass. So that has to change. Then you move on to the more technical aspect of science.
I can direct you to a book that shows the firm foundation from which to build from and for people to un-stick their heads from their asses. I will give you the link. it will take you to filehosting.org. Where if you choose to you can download the book. It is only about 100 pages long. (With quite a few pictures) So in that regard, it shouldn't b too much for you. Here is the link. http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/733832/THE TRUTH, UNFORBIDDEN!.pdf

So, we should throw-out all of the actual case studies and just have faith in your mythical socialism, because the socialisms found in the real world aren't representative of how my ideology is "supposed" to work?

 

[Irish Exit]

China is a large polluter. With India not far behind. But their main pollution is the number of people they have. You should download the book I mentioned. Then scroll down the pages until you see pictures of Chinese. You would find some interesting things. Also, these days China is a lot more capitalist than they used to be.
As for paying for enforcement, you don't need to pay for that. All you need to do is to get the corporations to pay for the bad things they do. One of the problems is that they are able to pay whoever more to look the other way. Also, did you ever see the documentary "The Corporation?" When companies are charged for doing something wrong, it is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. It is more profitable for them to keep doing illegal things than it is to fix the problems.
Also, even if some punishment was too onerous for the company to bear, the government would just bail them out. Basically making the people pay for their crimes. Because people having jobs at those companies is supposedly more important. But as long as there is a ditch that the government can pay somebody to dig, they aren't. Also, the government just needs to cut out the dead weight middlemen and run the companies themselves. That if those companies are even necessary to begin with.

How many years did it take to get Exxon to pay anything for the Valdez oil spill? It was over a decade. As was shown in the documentary, they had a Monsanto plant, a chemical plant (Dow I think it was) and a sewage treatment plant all in the same stretch of river. If you do not have people constantly monitoring, you may not be able to connect the pollution to the proper party. In addition, the documentary went into detail about self-reporting, third party companies faking the data they were supposed to be gathering, etc etc. The only way you stop that is with DEQ or whoever doing the actual monitoring and inspections. Some of this is also a zero sum game because with public utilities being part of the mix, you have the government fining the government. My city has been fined a few times I recall in recent years for wastewater reaching the river when heavy precipitation events flooded tanks and ponds. In addition to the inspectors, you also have to have the lawyers, etc to do the enforcement actions, appeals, etc. And this is just one industry. You have food processing plants that not only need inspectors for food safety (who also operate with the same self-reporting regimen) but also are big players (or potentially) in water contamination. We have one that had the roof blow off the building used to collect just the solid wastewater by-products of food production that cannot be put into the sewage system. That stuff has to go somewhere.

 

[Flash]

Just because places like Russia and China can't get it right doesn't mean it can't be gotten right.

True, my point is that getting it right is not based on whether a nation has a socialist or capitalist system but what its priorities are.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I watch a documentary last night about yet another of the countless failings of capitalism. It was called "What lies upstream." In it they interviewed cool people and dirtbags. One of the half ways cool people they talked to they showed transformed into a complete dirtbag by our capitalist system.
But out of the many troubling things in the program, here what I found to be the most troubling thing. They talked about how pollutants in river samples were within "safe" levels. Turns out, there was a reason for it. Chemical companies are allowed to literally flush their toxins down the toilet! There it gets turned into sewage. That sewage is then turned into fertilizer. Some is put into fields to feed crops. Some of it is sold as fertilizer in places like Home Depot.
I don't usually get to say things for very long. But one of the things I have said elsewhere is that we don't need fewer regulations. We need more of them! Though as it is, many of the regulations we already have just aren't enforced.

Well you sure don’t know shit about chemical companies. They are militantly opposed to flushing toxic chemicals down the drain. Hell the margins they make for disposing of the toxic chemicals they sell you are far higher than those made by selling you the chemicals in the first place.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Okay I watched it. It is not a problem of capitalism. That said, what are you willing to cut to pay for better enforcement? You did see the part where the guy talked about testing samples being "wickedly expensive" I assume. So we have a clean water act and a clean air act so if we have a clean soil act too what are you going to do with this stuff?

The land equivalent of the CAA and the CWA is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). It defines what hazardous waste are and their treatment standards including land disposal restrictions (LDR).

 

[Mott the Hoople]

But that is also a resource allocation issue. The thing is it is easy to say "Well raise taxes and pay for...." but when you add all the "Well raise taxes to pay for"'s together, it isn't doable, especially when a lot of this is state level stuff. It is something the DNC version of the left just never appreciates--there are fiscal realities. When the average HS teacher pay is higher than the average state household income, then that teacher's inflated pay comes at the expense of having less money to hire inspectors, investigators, prosecutors, etc. to enforce the existing laws. It is less money to address blight. It is less money to provide better medical services to the poor.

This folks is a fine example of the logical fallacy known as a false dichotomy. Like most false dichotomies it is utterly false.

 

[Irish Exit]

This folks is a fine example of the logical fallacy known as a false dichotomy. Like most false dichotomies it is utterly false.

It also isn't a false dichotomy, troll.

 

[Irish Exit]

The land equivalent of the CAA and the CWA is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). It defines what hazardous waste are and their treatment standards including land disposal restrictions (LDR).

We were discussing the documentary in which the need for a Clean Soil Act was being discussed in the particular segment the person I was replying to got the information they were referencing in their post. Since you apparently did not see it, one of the issues was that the EPA, which is in charge of the RCRA, refused to accept peer reviewed research showing that one particular compound was toxic at half their allowed rate when the EPA's allowable rate apparently wasn't ever really even studied to begin with when it was set for the chemical.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

It also isn't a false dichotomy, troll.

It is completely a false choice. We do not have to choose between regulatory protection and paying competitive wages to educators. Just to clarify something. I'm a Hoople...and not just any Hoople. I'm "The" Hoople and I aint no damned troll!

 

[Mott the Hoople]

We were discussing the documentary in which the need for a Clean Soil Act was being discussed in the particular segment the person I was replying to got the information they were referencing in their post. Since you apparently did not see it, one of the issues was that the EPA, which is in charge of the RCRA, refused to accept peer reviewed research showing that one particular compound was toxic at half their allowed rate when the EPA's allowable rate apparently wasn't ever really even studied to begin with when it was set for the chemical.

You're right. I didn't see the documentary (there was no link posted to it). I'd have to see that to comment on the specifics of the compound in question.

My point is that RCRA all ready provides pollution prevention standards for land via its land disposal restrictions and treatment technology standards. Those standards for land disposal restrictions are established by the Toxicity Characteristics Leaching Procedure (TCLP) regulatory limit for regulated components which are arbitrarily set at 100 times SDWA standards for regulated components and when considering leach rates are pretty high standards of protection.

For example, the SDWA standard for lead in water in 8 micrograms/liter (8 parts per billion). The TCLP limit, therefore, is set at 8 milligrams/liter (8 parts per million).

Post a link to the documentary and I can give you a more specific informed response as this is what I do for a living.

 

[coolzone]

So, we should throw-out all of the actual case studies and just have faith in your mythical socialism, because the socialisms found in the real world aren't representative of how my ideology is "supposed" to work?

There are no "case studies" when it comes to capitalism. And even if there were, they would just be BS written by capitalists to support their cult. A cult that has nothing to do with reality. It has everything to do with criminality and greed. The thing is, socialist societies such as what China and Russia were famous for operated in the same way. And they still do. Though socialist countries tried to keep aristocracy at a minimum by limiting the amount of wealth people could accumulate.
Slavery is the basis for all of the societies that I have heard that ever existed. Or still exist. They just use different terms for it. Also, most creatures that have ever lived or still live seek status and power. (That includes humans) Which makes it easier for them to gain what most other creatures also seek. Which is getting as much as they can with as little effort as possible.
These are the reasons why my idea of government is "mythical." But it can be a reality. All it takes is a sane judgement of what the right thing is and to do it. What is that right thing? I gave a link to a book around here. Read it. It points out how a true democracy should work.