The thousands of competing multi-national corporations and millions of private business owners enjoying strict protection of private property laws and virtually zero trade tariffs wave back.
What alone should be self-evident? That the air was cleaned up before the foundation of the EPA, therefore it was business that cleaned everything up? EDIT: I guess you are. Actually, that was down to legislation
Smokers seem to forget that although they make the same contribution, they are likely to access the service more. Smoking costs the NHS £5 billion --about 5.5% of the entire NHS budget. I know, I know: smokers pay £10 billion in tax. But the cost to the NHS is not the only cost of smoking. There is absenteism from work associated with smoking related illness; there is the cost of accidental fire, the cost of disability and social care for people with chronic smoking-related conditions... Moreover the idea that the UK would lose out on taxes if smokers stopped smoking is false. They would just spend that money on other things --which also are taxed.
Quote from your source: I could not track down the actual source for that footnote but I would love to read anything titled "The UK Clean Air Act 1956: An Empirical Investigation" but it wasn't from a lack of trying or an attempt to obfuscate facts. The acts in 1853, 56 and 91 didn't seem to do the trick did they? And even after the 1956 law, a shortage of smoke-free fuel saw little improvement until they could become available somehow from someplace.
People who give up smoking often put on weight, now that would just be dandy. Proportionally someone buying cigarettes pays more in tax on those cigarettes than spending the equivalent amount of money on food or alcohol, for example. As you also mention indirect costs, what about the increased cost of looking after dementia patients? Aside from the increased number of people living longer from giving up smoking, hence the increase in dementia numbers, nicotine has been proven to be beneficial at slowing down its onset and progression. Of course patches are better. So, it's not quite as clear cut as you may think.
Also from my source: "the Government initially resisted pressure to act, and was keen to downplay the scale of the problem due to economic pressures" So what makes you think it would have happened anyway because of the market?
People only tend to gain between 5-10 pounds after quitting. Much healthier than smoking itself. Other studies have shown that the weight is water gain and does go away after time. I recently quit (again) using electronic cigarettes which still contain nicotine. But even with that, I have reduced the amount of nicotine to very nominal amounts since I have switched over.
Contrasting the UK experience with the US you see similar problems with offset government involvement yielding similar results. The EPA was not created until 1970. I'm not saying that the quality of air and water were not improved as a result of that regulation questioning the cause/effect notion that a lot of people assume about regulation. Merely pointing out that significant improvements were made before government had any regulatory role to play. That, and the goals set by said regulations could only be accomplished by alternatives and technologies produced by the market, not government. Government may provide the direction and the will but not the tangible tools by which it is accomplished and some improvements are made with no direction from the government at all. Saying these things can sometimes evoke reactions that I advocate total corporatism or anarchy, that's not the case. That and that the government-can-do-no wrong in regards to regulation or that it upholds some untouchable mantle of nobility or relinquishes it of guilt chaps my hide. Several times in this thread, I have named positive roles assumed by governments and agreed to others provided. I don't think the conversation we are having is as contentious as you think.
A quick comment on environmental problems being addressed by the polluting companies' own accord: look up the Cuyahoga River fires. This river was so polluted that flammable substances being poured into it were heavily concentrated enough to catch fire on the river itself. Multiple times, in fact. Thirteen fires were recorded between 1868 and 1969, when environmentalism was finally getting big enough for the media (and therefore the general public) to pay attention. Here are reoccuring and destructive disasters directly caused by pollution and still no one does anything about it for an entire century, until legislation (and by extention, the EPA) forced change. I question how that fits in with "improvement might have happened anyway". EDIT: Understanding that you accept that legislation can and does have some beneficial effects such as this case, I still question what should make any other company act differently when no outside factors pressure them to stay clean.
So are you arguing that smoking is a better preventative approach than, say, eating healthily and leading an active lifestyle? Ignoring the fact that smoking increases the risk of dementia through arteriosclerosis.
@eddie_dane You simply cant admit that both S Korea and Singapore are the successes they are due to protectionism, govt subsidy, discounted taxation rates, centralized investment in infrastructure and education and in essence - both planned economies..... "virtually zero trade tariffs" lol - ever tried importing a car to S korea?.... re: smoking - you cant deny that an addictive stick that kills at 60 isn't economically a good thing?
That statement was a direct response to you bringing up Albert Winsemius and therefore specifically addressing Singapore. If I implied that about S. Korea, that was not my intent.
interesting discussion. because i work for the legal rights of the economically disadvantaged, i have the expected biases. civil gideon doesn't exist in this country; our impoverished criminals have a legal right to counsel that a poor person with a family, housing or health matter does not. i found naomi klein’s meticulously researched book fascinating, if necessarily conspiratorial. how could she not be while building a case against the documented and seemingly callous collusion of the u.s. government, the international monetary fund and powerful private corporations? ever hear of an economic intelligence brief (EIB)? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112829960 i’d love to read some wikileaks from that quarter! also, klein has been a very vocal critic of president obama’s policies since he's taken office. i wonder what milton friedman would say about the current economic “crisis” and when it will correct itself? how long before academia finally champions a new economic theory? perhaps not harkening all the way back to keynesian days, but hopefully something more realistic and centrist. governments and wealthy corporate entities deserve our vigilant scrutiny. the responsible citizen analyzes both from a number of perspectives. caveat emptor and market place freedom for innovation’s sake should never be used to deflect or minimize corporate responsibility to that same marketplace which determines, supposedly, its solvency. and like it or not, the mature citizenry know, “vulnerable” populations exist that cannot, and cannot be expected to, protect themselves from business and government that place profit and prestige before people and principle. for these, regulation, as law, is a reactionary and necessary “evil.” for those interested, here’s a policy note from the levy economics institute of bard college from 2008 (i read some quality things in the course of my work): “the collapse of monetarism and the irrelevance of the new monetary consensus:” http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/pn_08_1.pdf @nexxo, as you seem to well know, things are a mess with health care in the u.s. individual states are struggling with bringing federal dollars into the mix and thereby helping or hindering their own state deficits. federal health care reform thus far is a joke and lots of us lost “the faith” when the public option failed to materialize. “lefty consipracy-theorist paranoia or the tolling of the bell? i say tolling of the bell and welcome to the states. for more on what's going on here (especially if you like statistics, pie-charts, graphs, etc.): http://www.statehealthfacts.org/
I agree that the private sector does most of the innovating (Universities do a lot too), but frequently that innovation is driven by government actions. This may be in the form of regulation, funded innovation (DARPA) or through the contracting process (Here's what we need, go figure out how to do it). I think you'll agree that there is a role for both in the innovation process. Are you defining a well regulated economy as a planned one, because I see a significant difference. I would argue that a smart government should play a role in regulating the economy both to prevent abuses of the citizens by business, but also to stabilize the economy. The current financial mess is directly due to massive risk taking in search of short term profits. Had a proper regulatory system been in place that served as something of a brake on this behavior then the growth would not have been as massive, but then neither would the crash afterwords. Economic stability and runaway economic growth are not compatible. You can't have the sorts of massive gains we saw in the last decade without the massive losses we see now. IMHO, slow, steady growth is far better then massive rapid growth followed by massive, rapid crashes. Sure, the economy is going to go down sometimes regardless, but how far and how fast makes a difference. I see a key role of the government as protecting the people from business. One of the things the government must do is to force business to make changes that are un-economic but benefit the society as a whole. Banning lead from gasoline undoubtedly cost a lot of people their jobs and made it somewhat harder for oil companies to be profitable, but the net result was a healthier populace. Forcing companies to properly dispose of their waste significantly affects the bottom line and makes US companies less competitive globally, but does that mean we should allow them to keep polluting and causing significant health effects to the community? And granted, it doesn't always work out right. You mentioned MBTE, but I have an even better example. During the 1990s the EPA promulgated a rule requiring plants handling ethylene oxide (EO) to use a thermal decomposer to prevent EO emissions to the air. Problem is, no one realized that if the waste gas were to become too rich in EO, these units could cause a situation where the decomposer would ignite the gas in the waste stream and blow up the plant. IIRC it wasn't until 3 plants handling EO suffered fatal explosions that they got that problem figured out and solved. The point is, as you said, the law of unintended consequences bites us all. I find the concept of free market regulation of safety issues to be fallacious. What do you do when the market decides that it's OK to kill workers and members of the public so long as the price of <insert commodity> doesn't rise? In so many cases, businesses have a significant, even overwhelming, economic disincentive to do the right thing in terms of environmental health and public safety. If the public by way of the government doesn't step in to force business to behave then no one else will. The market has shown time and time again that it, that WE as consumers, are willing to sacrifice the health and safety of someone else for the holy grail of cheaper prices. This is especially true for businesses that don't directly produce consumer goods. It's hard to boycott (for example) BASF since they don't make the things we buy, they make the chemicals that go into the things we buy. We have no idea where Tupperware (again, just for an example) sources their plastic, whether it comes from BASF or Shell, or Dow or whoever. Finally, there has been a longstanding tradition of socializing risk in this country. Free marketeers talk about the value of being able to fail, but they don't talk about the costs to the public of that failure. Businesses complain about regulation, asking why they should be penalized for the actions of others in their industry. What gets lost is how much the taxpayer ends up paying to clean up after these failures. A dry cleaners who decides to save a few bucks by dumping their chemicals down the drain instead of properly disposing of them (or even who has a leaky pipe they don't know about) can result in a cleanup costing millions of dollars. Some of these cleanups end up costing far more money that the company earned in it's entire lifetime. Once again, the business keeps the profits and the public pays to clean up the mess. When a state starts charging $1000 to renew a business license if you're a dry cleaners the owners get seriously pissed claiming it's unfair, but if not them, who should be contributing to the risk the operation of their business creates?
While I was watching the documentary I was having the same thoughts about most of the private contracts that were mentioned. The rebuilding after war etc. I think the first time I heard about these examples was from a chap called Mark Thomas in the UK, political comedian, many years ago. I was shocked and appalled then. But now we have the privately run armies ... So what happens in the future if the UK or US people decide to make a stand? Will it be a privately run army that gets called in to 'sort it out'? Surely a conflict of interest? :tinhat: smiley needed!!!!!!!
You know who the first armed presence in New Orleans after Katrina was? Blackwater. No tin hat needed.
After reading your comment, I read a news story about N & S Korea sitting down and having talks for the first time since N Korea bombed an island belonging to S Korea. And then I pictured a Blackwater suit sitting on a shoulder of the S Korean diplomat whispering in his ear ... To make money, 'they' create industries. Carbon. Flu. War. Found one!
