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I'm not surprised at all, nor am I surprised by the brutal effectiveness of corporate funded influence on legal, regulatory, and community remedies to these pro

I'm not surprised at all, nor am I surprised by the brutal effectiveness of corporate funded influence on legal, regulatory, and community remedies to these problems. Its as if the system 'wants' people to suffer.

abawany 11y ago
Just finished reading Sen. Warren's book A Fighting Chance. It was remarkable how cozy the lobbyists got with "our" congressional representatives, how they continuously bombarded them with lobbyists to drown out the citizen perspective, and how many billions they spent on lobbying. All the bellyaching about not being able to afford regulation rings hollow given the huge scads of money corporations spend on elections and lobbyists.
- nickff 11y ago
  It seems you vastly overestimate the citizenry; there is a great deal of evidence that elected representatives listen when their constituents have a strong view, but the citizens rarely bother to take a side.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Partly because citizens expect the representatives to make the effort to ask them of their opinions. It's like software: most people won't file a bug report if it's broken, they'll just look for some other program that works properly.
    - abawany 11y ago
      In addition, it is a bit naive to expect a typical two income family that struggles to pay its bill to set up camp in DC or engage in a concerted letter writing campaign to outline their grievances to their congressional representative. For those that do stick their necks out, their alleged corporate-brought "representatives" often tell them to leave: http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/03/ms-state-rep-to-constituent-opposed-to-tax-cuts-move-back-to-illinois/ http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/03/ms-state-rep-to-constit... .
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    Most people aren't aware of any particular industry or business that causes difficulty for a minority or permanent damage to the environment somewhere most don't see or some critical infrastructure most people aren't aware of unless some media choose to point it out. There's no way to be aware of every scam that some faction with a bunch of lobbyists and business connections to media outlets is running - they thrive on silence and/or misdirection and the effort to keep it is a predictable business expense and an industry in itself. edit: If our government, in order to act, has to rely on the majority of the population both understanding every critical subject and forming a similar opinion on those subjects that is in opposition to current policy, then our government has become purely parasitic. Honestly, it's called policing, and it doesn't just have to happen to poor people.
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
    This overlooks the fact that citizens are expressing a "strong view" when they vote for said representatives and their platforms.
- jelly 11y ago
  An important factor on what a corporation might be able to "afford" is the return on that spending. There's a nice short story from NPR's Planet Money [1] estimating on the order of a 22,000% return for money spent on lobbying. Granted that estimate was for tax breaks specifically, but it rather suggests big industries can't afford /not/ to lobby. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forge...
vox_mollis 11y ago
Its as if the system 'wants' people to suffer. It's as if "the system" knows that without fracking, oil sands, and enhanced oil recovery technologies, with conventional crude and gas having peaked a decade ago, we would be facing a fairly significant energy shortage today, and an even worse one a decade hence. Everyone wants to eat the bacon but nobody wants to butcher the hog. Energy supply is THE NUMBER ONE THING that enables modern civilization to repel entropy as well as it does. We, as a species, will do whatever it takes to ensure the energy supply remains. We will accept climate change and poisoned water because the alternative, short of a miracle in solar capture, is the death of several billion people. The Spice must flow.
maxxxxx 11y ago
I don't think the system wants people to suffer. It just cares only about few people and the rest don't matter.
davidw 11y ago
People in places like Wyoming pretty regularly vote for less government interference and regulation of that kind of industry, so I guess they get what they're voting for. And meanwhile, the rest of the US is extremely car-centric, so we do our part to increase demand for oil.
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  >> And meanwhile, the rest of the US is extremely car-centric, so we do our part to increase demand for oil. This is the one thing I'll never understand. We always talk about getting off of foreign oil so we don't need to invade middle eastern countries for their oil (a crazy conspiracy theory, but a belief held by many) and other things yet we. . . 1) Don't support US oil companies when OPEC floods the market, crashes the oil markets here and puts American companies out of business - keeping OEPC's grip on oil production intact. 2) Absolutely refuse to build more refineries or seek out new areas where we can drill for oil to create our own supply 3) Are totally against new technologies that make drilling for oil easier (not necessarily fracking but other technologies as well) and thus do not support an industry trying to find a better way to create a US oil supply and compete with middle eastern oil countries. Everybody in the US complains about gas prices being so high, but literally everything we do to try and get off of foreign oil gets killed by environmentalists, lobbyists and other special interest groups because of some reason or another. It's such a contradiction, it's maddening at times. We want one thing, but we do everything to make sure it can never happen.
  - davidw 11y ago
    For that matter, it's also illegal in most places to build cities that are denser and thus encourage use of old technologies like bicycles that are extremely efficient in their use of energy. The most efficient form of human transportation, in fact, on anything resembling a road. Bailing out companies is generally fraught with problems and there are good reasons to avoid it. It quickly becomes very political.
  - justatdotin 11y ago
    maybe war-for-oil is > (a crazy conspiracy theory, but it remains > a belief held by many) because it is more consistent than the false claim of WMD (while ignoring those in nearby Israel), or the justification after-the-fact of defending the rights of women (while ignoring nearby Saudi Arabia)
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
A given "system" will defend itself if it perceives a threat. I don't think you realize how pernicious the long term consequences of USA v. RJR will turn out to be. Fracking looks like one front and CO2 another for similar with respect to oil operations. And I don't mean there aren't oil operators that do things wrong ( Macondo much?) . But that's really not what we're talking about here, is it? Vanishingly few stories about "fracking" are not essentially terrorism stories with "terrorism" lined thru and "fracking" substituted. The problem is that neither you nor I know as much as the "corporate funded influence" and we don't have anyone who works for us who does . The information asymmetries are profound. So the easiest thing to do is to cooperate with regulators, and have regulators cooperate with the regulated , which affords influence. The best example of this is perhaps the IBEW.
barney54 11y ago
Not necessarily. Check out the evidence first. The picture is definitely different from what the Stanford researchers claim in the press release: http://energyindepth.org/mtn-states/stanford-researchers-repackage-epas-discredited-fracking-study-pavillion/ http://energyindepth.org/mtn-states/stanford-researchers-rep...

abawany 11y ago

Just finished reading Sen. Warren's book A Fighting Chance. It was remarkable how cozy the lobbyists got with "our" congressional representatives, how they continuously bombarded them with lobbyists to drown out the citizen perspective, and how many billions they spent on lobbying. All the bellyaching about not being able to afford regulation rings hollow given the huge scads of money corporations spend on elections and lobbyists.

nickff 11y ago
It seems you vastly overestimate the citizenry; there is a great deal of evidence that elected representatives listen when their constituents have a strong view, but the citizens rarely bother to take a side.
- Retra 11y ago
  Partly because citizens expect the representatives to make the effort to ask them of their opinions. It's like software: most people won't file a bug report if it's broken, they'll just look for some other program that works properly.
  - abawany 11y ago
    In addition, it is a bit naive to expect a typical two income family that struggles to pay its bill to set up camp in DC or engage in a concerted letter writing campaign to outline their grievances to their congressional representative. For those that do stick their necks out, their alleged corporate-brought "representatives" often tell them to leave: http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/03/ms-state-rep-to-constituent-opposed-to-tax-cuts-move-back-to-illinois/ http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/03/ms-state-rep-to-constit... .
- pessimizer 11y ago
  Most people aren't aware of any particular industry or business that causes difficulty for a minority or permanent damage to the environment somewhere most don't see or some critical infrastructure most people aren't aware of unless some media choose to point it out. There's no way to be aware of every scam that some faction with a bunch of lobbyists and business connections to media outlets is running - they thrive on silence and/or misdirection and the effort to keep it is a predictable business expense and an industry in itself. edit: If our government, in order to act, has to rely on the majority of the population both understanding every critical subject and forming a similar opinion on those subjects that is in opposition to current policy, then our government has become purely parasitic. Honestly, it's called policing, and it doesn't just have to happen to poor people.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  This overlooks the fact that citizens are expressing a "strong view" when they vote for said representatives and their platforms.
jelly 11y ago
An important factor on what a corporation might be able to "afford" is the return on that spending. There's a nice short story from NPR's Planet Money [1] estimating on the order of a 22,000% return for money spent on lobbying. Granted that estimate was for tax breaks specifically, but it rather suggests big industries can't afford /not/ to lobby. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forge...

vox_mollis 11y ago

Its as if the system 'wants' people to suffer. It's as if "the system" knows that without fracking, oil sands, and enhanced oil recovery technologies, with conventional crude and gas having peaked a decade ago, we would be facing a fairly significant energy shortage today, and an even worse one a decade hence. Everyone wants to eat the bacon but nobody wants to butcher the hog. Energy supply is THE NUMBER ONE THING that enables modern civilization to repel entropy as well as it does. We, as a species, will do whatever it takes to ensure the energy supply remains. We will accept climate change and poisoned water because the alternative, short of a miracle in solar capture, is the death of several billion people. The Spice must flow.

maxxxxx 11y ago

I don't think the system wants people to suffer. It just cares only about few people and the rest don't matter.

davidw 11y ago

People in places like Wyoming pretty regularly vote for less government interference and regulation of that kind of industry, so I guess they get what they're voting for. And meanwhile, the rest of the US is extremely car-centric, so we do our part to increase demand for oil.

at-fates-hands 11y ago
>> And meanwhile, the rest of the US is extremely car-centric, so we do our part to increase demand for oil. This is the one thing I'll never understand. We always talk about getting off of foreign oil so we don't need to invade middle eastern countries for their oil (a crazy conspiracy theory, but a belief held by many) and other things yet we. . . 1) Don't support US oil companies when OPEC floods the market, crashes the oil markets here and puts American companies out of business - keeping OEPC's grip on oil production intact. 2) Absolutely refuse to build more refineries or seek out new areas where we can drill for oil to create our own supply 3) Are totally against new technologies that make drilling for oil easier (not necessarily fracking but other technologies as well) and thus do not support an industry trying to find a better way to create a US oil supply and compete with middle eastern oil countries. Everybody in the US complains about gas prices being so high, but literally everything we do to try and get off of foreign oil gets killed by environmentalists, lobbyists and other special interest groups because of some reason or another. It's such a contradiction, it's maddening at times. We want one thing, but we do everything to make sure it can never happen.
- davidw 11y ago
  For that matter, it's also illegal in most places to build cities that are denser and thus encourage use of old technologies like bicycles that are extremely efficient in their use of energy. The most efficient form of human transportation, in fact, on anything resembling a road. Bailing out companies is generally fraught with problems and there are good reasons to avoid it. It quickly becomes very political.
- justatdotin 11y ago
  maybe war-for-oil is > (a crazy conspiracy theory, but it remains > a belief held by many) because it is more consistent than the false claim of WMD (while ignoring those in nearby Israel), or the justification after-the-fact of defending the rights of women (while ignoring nearby Saudi Arabia)

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

A given "system" will defend itself if it perceives a threat. I don't think you realize how pernicious the long term consequences of USA v. RJR will turn out to be. Fracking looks like one front and CO2 another for similar with respect to oil operations. And I don't mean there aren't oil operators that do things wrong ( Macondo much?) . But that's really not what we're talking about here, is it? Vanishingly few stories about "fracking" are not essentially terrorism stories with "terrorism" lined thru and "fracking" substituted. The problem is that neither you nor I know as much as the "corporate funded influence" and we don't have anyone who works for us who does . The information asymmetries are profound. So the easiest thing to do is to cooperate with regulators, and have regulators cooperate with the regulated , which affords influence. The best example of this is perhaps the IBEW.

barney54 11y ago

Not necessarily. Check out the evidence first. The picture is definitely different from what the Stanford researchers claim in the press release: http://energyindepth.org/mtn-states/stanford-researchers-repackage-epas-discredited-fracking-study-pavillion/ http://energyindepth.org/mtn-states/stanford-researchers-rep...