9 ms·

It's really weird how, if there's one thing that a large majority of Americans seem to hate, it's forcing companies to take responsibility for negative external

• mogadsheu 7y ago
  I think the public backlash against BP was tremendous. The HBO documentary in 2016 was very popular, six years after the incident occurred.
  • marricks 7y ago
    Often we have a “backlash” but they lead to no real consequences probably because we feel so disenfranchised. Once something bad happens the public kind of already knows there will be a fine but none of the board/shareholders will ever really be held responsible.
  • gumby 7y ago
    Tremendous? A congressman even apologized to BP for people saying they were unhappy with the company, and the company's fines had both no effect on their business and did not compensate for even the economic loss of the people in the area.
    • mogadsheu 7y ago
      Weren’t there some $5B ordered for civil penalties? I worked in Houston just after the spill and heard BP was in shambles at the time.
      • klyrs 7y ago
        > Weren’t there some $5B ordered for civil penalties? Weren't there some $63B in cleanup efforts?
        • jcranmer 7y ago
          The fines were in addition to the cost that BP bore for cleaning up. Most of that $63B was paid by BP, in addition to all the fines.
    • rbg246 7y ago
      I thought the opposite from outside the US - I thought the US lambasted (rightfully) BP which caused BP to almost go out of business - they had asset sales at the time to pay for the costs. There were pension liquidity fears at the time due to the costs that it needed to pay. BP provides a large percentage of dividend payments on the the London Stock Exchange which pension funds rely on for paying out pensions. The wikipedia page is quite clear on how much BP paid in damages and they were not insignificant - $42Billion had been paid into a trust fund. To say no effect is incorrect.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    • drilldrive 7y ago
      Glad to see Joe Barton dishonorably not to go for reelection[0]. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/30/politics/joe-barton-re-election/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/30/politics/joe-barton-re-electi...
  • maxxxxx 7y ago
    There was a backlash but no real consequences (the fine was pretty low compared to the cost of the cleanup). Same for Equifax. Just sit it out and it will be forgotten quickly.
  • antod 7y ago
    > I think the public backlash against BP was tremendous. I do wonder if the backlash would've been less if it was an American company though. Or at least a less obviously "foreign" company. There did seem to also be plenty of blame to go around with local contractors etc, but they seem to have escaped the backlash - or at least had a public narrative absolving them.
• e40 7y ago
  You are 100% right and it has baffled me ever since I noticed it. Anyone have a hypothesis as to why this happens/is happening?
  • slg 7y ago
    Hangover from the cold war is my guess. The US is at the extreme compared to other western democracies on a lot of the old cold war battle lines regarding governments role in everyday life. Some examples include the generally pro private business environment and our objection to a greater social safety net including public healthcare.
    • BrandonMarc 7y ago
      Another side effect of the cold war - apathy. If the human race is going to nuke itself soon, anyway, what's the point doing things the right way, especially if that may make gas or food x% more expensive. The fear of Armageddon is less now, but the defense mechanism takes far longer to wear off.
      • iguy 7y ago
        But the big swing to environmental protection happened right in the middle of the cold war.
  • momokoko 7y ago
    Because there is no social safety net. If you don't have a job you have to live on the street. Companies have the jobs. When the alternative is seen as living on the street, Americans see these issues with fear for their immediate well being. The environment being destroyed is a far-ish off problem. To many Americans, homeless could be a month or two of joblessness away.
    • gwright 7y ago
      What are you talking about? EITC, SNAP, Section 8 housing, SSI, TANF, WIC, Medicaid, etc. This site estimates over $700 billion per year spent on these programs: http://federalsafetynet.com/safety-net-programs.html http://federalsafetynet.com/safety-net-programs.html
• la_barba 7y ago
  Sure, I'll protest with you against corporate greed, but can you explain exactly under what moral principle a company is responsible if a hurricane damages their oil platform?
  • groby_b 7y ago
    Under the moral principle that most three year olds learn from their parents: "Clean up your own shit". If you build an oil platform in a known hurricane area, well, you're responsible for cleaning up when a hurricane hits your (shocker!) insufficiently prepared oil platform. (I vaguely remember there's also a children's story about people building with the cheapest shit and not wanting to take responsibility - "Three little pigs")
    • la_barba 7y ago
      >Under the moral principle that most three year olds learn from their parents: "Clean up your own shit". They didn't cause the hurricane. Your moral principle is invalid here. >If you build an oil platform in a known hurricane area, well, you're responsible for cleaning up when a hurricane hits your (shocker!) insufficiently prepared oil platform. Is this your own opinion or are you claiming this is exactly what happened? I don't want to get into an argument over opinions, thats why I'm asking.
      • delecti 7y ago
        If a hurricane causes an oil platform to release oil, the platform was by definition not sufficiently prepared. The bar for "sufficiently prepared" might be prohibitively high, but that should just be the cost of business.
        • la_barba 7y ago
          >The bar for "sufficiently prepared" might be prohibitively high, but that should just be the cost of business. I don't agree, and neither does centuries of established moral legal arguments adopted by developed nations.
• harmmonica 7y ago
  I don't have any numbers to support this, but I'd question whether "large majority" is accurate. I think most people aren't remotely aware of the types of negative externalities caused by corporations because they struggle plenty in their day-to-day lives that they have no bandwidth to form an opinion about or, heck, even _learn about_ such things. Like if I ran a survey of random US citizens and asked "do you think a corporation, that through their own neglect did x damage to people/place/thing, should be made to pay for x damage?" I think the vast majority would respond "yes." I do agree that it's baffling that anyone would reply "no," but that is absolutely true and any number >0 in the no column is an indictment of us. And it's even more damning when elected officials in the US, the purported stewards of being informed, seem to be in the "no" camp. I'm tempted to say we've lost our way, but maybe we never had it to begin with.
  • SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    Chomsky would say advertising companies have put a great deal of effort into intentionally directing people’s energy into consumption and away from everything else, including basic education about the world and one’s own level of contentment. Blaming the individual is missing the forest for the trees IMHO. Edit: phrasing.
    • reubenmorais 7y ago
      Agreed. When the GP comment said > they struggle plenty in their day-to-day lives that they have no bandwidth to form an opinion about or, heck, even _learn about_ such things It reminded me of Chomsky's anecdote about listening to the radio and hearing random people calling into the station during a sports discussion program and arguing at length with paid experts, suggesting average people are perfectly capable of doing research and building nuanced opinions on complex topics, they just choose to do that for sports/cars/technology/consumption rather than politics. Or rather, are bombarded by marketing until they forget they can choose.
      • flukus 7y ago
        I don't know what Chomsky was listening too but IME talk back radio + sports is anything but nuanced and well reasoned, it's even more emotionally charged and driven by bias (particularly confirmation bias) than normal talk back. Blaming the coach even though there was a good performance with an ordinary team, blaming a key player for a loss because the screwed up at a key moment despite an overall great game, blaming a player for doing nothing despite drawing 2 defenders to let his team run riot, the complete inability to realize that bad games happen. I'd rather read youtube comments than listen to sports talk back.
• MR4D 7y ago
  A freak storm hits your house. Crap flies for miles around, including every single material used to build your house and everything in your house. How much are YOU going to pay ME because of “negative externalities”? Seriously, your comment is incendiary by making Americans look like greedy monsters.
  • antonvs 7y ago
    Your house is not a business and doesn't pay out large profits every month by taking large risks that can be mitigated. > Seriously, your comment is incendiary by making Americans look like greedy monsters. The people involved in these decisions, and in supporting them, look like greedy monsters because that's precisely what they are. That, or ignorant stooges.
    • MR4D 7y ago
      FTA: “Hurricane Ivan caused 80-foot waves that led to the walls of the canyon giving way, resulting in a mudslide that chopped down Taylor Energy’s oil platform in 2004. The event buried the broken wells under more than 100 feet of sediment.” So, you’re smart enough to mitigate not one, but multiple 80-foot waves AND determine that the waves will cause a landslide a full 20 years AFTER you put it into production? Damn, you’re fucking brilliant - which Nobel prize winner are you? Think before you type up a comment like that.
      • antonvs 7y ago
        Thanks for implicitly conceding the point about the house analogy being inapplicable. Also FTA: > the study said a similar event happened during Hurricane Camille in 1969. Eleven years later, a report commissioned by the Interior Department identified areas in the gulf that were susceptible to mudslides. Mississippi Canyon 20, the site of Taylor Energy’s platform, was one of those areas. That was years before construction of the Taylor Energy MC-20 platform began. So, no "brilliance" is needed, just paying attention to the known information about the area, which any responsible oil company should be doing. Taylor Energy clearly doesn't fit that category, because it hid this oil spill for six years, tried to clean it up secretly, and once discovered, repeatedly lied about the extent of the spill. If you needed more evidence of the "greedy monster" characterization, that's it right there. As I said, "the people involved in these decisions, and in supporting them, look like greedy monsters because that's precisely what they are. That, or ignorant stooges." > Think before you type up a comment like that. I'm curious what's motivating you to support such unacceptable behavior. Perhaps you react badly to the "monster" characterization because you feel attacked by it? If so, you might want to start listening to that voice of conscience, for your own mental health.
• drilldrive 7y ago
  I am confused. What does your first link refer specifically to Louisiana?
  • quasse 7y ago
    Louisiana is #5 in the nation on the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (despite being 31st in the nation by size). Related reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
• RyanAF7 7y ago
  Externalities are free market opportunities. The fact you've been 'data saturated' convinced that all things began must end in known qualities is pathetic. That's how market's are born.
  • RyanAF7 7y ago
    Whoever downvoted me is a Russian spy. Or else an uneducated overly privileged bitch fuckwad. :) Love you!
    • wolfgang42 7y ago
      Whoever downvoted you is probably someone who doesn't think that calling people "pathetic" and other ad-hominem insults belong on Hacker News.
  • gbrown 7y ago
    How is excess carbon in the atmosphere a free market opportunity in any meaningful sense?
    • RyanAF7 7y ago
      Did you take chemistry or just pretend based on popular sentiment? Then, what's everything around you made of? What's that nano-tube stuff made of?? Oh, well then, stfu and start realizing chemistry isn't definite outside of fear based political mongering.
      • dang 7y ago
        Could you please stop breaking the site guidelines so we don't have to ban you? I understand how irritating other people's internet comments can be, but we need you (as well as every other user) to have the self-discipline not to respond in kind or worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• coding123 7y ago
  It's really inconvenient to be the guy that has to tell 1000 partiers to turn down the music. If the rest of the neighborhood actually came together and told the guy how much support he has, he would be more confident and be able to make change happen - make the music stop. In our age of 15 minutes for any topic - the support just doesn't really exist. For me personally nothing sums up our collective lack of accomplishing anything moreso than Kony 2012 [1]. So when it comes to affecting change that goes against the grain, I'm just not really all that surprised anymore. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012
• nine_k 7y ago
  "Negative externality" is a word meaning that something valuable is destroyed but it's no one's private property. If it were property, it could have a price, and compensation of damage to it could be sought. But not everything is easy to price in a market: e.g. a national park. Anyway, if damage is real, or a risk is real, a court could look at it. If not people themselves, an insurance company could, in some cases.