5 ms·

> elect sane leaders in the US and elsewhere. honest question: can you point me to any US politician that has stood up to a corporation or corporate interest w

> elect sane leaders in the US and elsewhere. honest question: can you point me to any US politician that has stood up to a corporation or corporate interest with laws that effectively say, "No, you can't have what you want, the people need <this> instead." and - most importantly - got those laws passed? I can't think of one. I think obamacare came close (which became one of the most hardfought wins ever), and yet the health insurance lobby still came out ahead. I dare say that no congress shall ever pass a law that harms a corporation (a de facto constitutional amendment). What does that have to do with carbon control ? ICE auto industry, coal industry, oil and gas, etc, would all be "harmed" if US lawmakers passed anything that had a material impact on CO2 emissions. It would require multiple layers of alternative realities for that to ever happen, in my (admittedly cynical) opinion. I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm saying we should give up/not try. I _want_ us to solve global warming. I just can't picture it happening (at least for the redress method I listed above).

Brain_Thief 7y ago
I don't know if this is the kind of answer you were looking for, but Elizabeth Warren was very successful in her efforts to get the CFPB off the ground, much to the displeasure of the financial sector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_.... It's true that under the Trump administration the bureau's behavior is being...modified...but it was quite a success when running as originally intended by Warren. Furthermore, both Warren and Bernie Sanders seem to have genuine convictions w.r.t. climate change, health care, social inequality, etc. Whether or not their particular points of view are desirable is open for debate, but their multi-decade commitments to these issues are beyond question. They seem to have non-trivial support in the electorate as well - I encourage you to check them out, especially if you're feeling cynical or anxious about the future.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  ok, they created a bureau, not a "rip consumers off and your executives go to jail (viz. wells fargo, HSBC...)" law. Great convictions are a start. but in order for them to actually pass legislation, they need other congress members to vote for them. and that's where the dirty tricks start (I wont vote for your X unless you vote for my Y, etc). I guess I'm contradicting myself a bit, because I said "name one" without acknowledging that it takes a majority in congress to pass anything. So yes, Warren and Sanders have the courage to face corporate interests. Thank you. I just yearn for the day where shareholders of XYZ get a 30% haircut because laws were passed that reigned in their company's behavior.
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    This is a misunderstanding how how government works. You need to have some kind of institution in order to get anything enforced. Building up institutions full of competent people with a mandate to craft and enforce carefully designed regulations and respond to changing circumstances is the way to attack these kinds of big problems. (Of course, institutions can only be so effective when their leadership is unlawfully replaced with incompetent industry hacks by the next administration; the only way to tackle that is with higher-level political action: court fights, impeachment, and ultimately elections.) Just laws on the books doesn’t accomplish anything. There are already plenty of laws against ripping off consumers, but corporatist ideologues in control of the US Supreme Court have spent the last several decades watering down the potential liability via increasingly tendentious reinterpretations.
    - JudgeWapner 7y ago
      you misunderstand how enforcement works. It's done via law enforcement agencies that exist already. It doesn't need a special new "bureau" for each type of rule. If you don't believe me that there are law enforcement agencies, I can show you how to summon them very easily. Now, the question is, why don't these agencies enforce the same laws against corporations? That's the premise of my initial comment, which you also misunderstood.
      - jacobolus 7y ago
        There are many different organizations within the US federal government (not to mention state governments) which deal in one way or another with regulation and enforcement. Many of the ones commonly considered to be “law enforcement agencies” per se are listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_the_United_States#List_of_agencies_and_units_of_agencies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_the... but there are many other federal agencies which might also be considered “law enforcement” under a broader interpretation of that term. Different agencies have different focus, different mandate, different institutional powers, etc. Arguably the functions established for the CFPB to perform could be undertaken by some other institution. But the point of the legislation and its implementation (which Warren and others worked very carefully on) was creating a semi-autonomous institution solely focused on consumer financial protection. During the Obama years the CFPB was pretty effective, despite unified and extreme opposition from GOP politicians. (Its effectiveness explains why some folks were eager to see it defanged.)
- pound 7y ago
  Unfortunately we all know that dems will proceed with Biden and that's how we will get 4 more years of our current president.. :\
  - JudgeWapner 7y ago
    teach them to shaft Bernie next time!

Brain_Thief 7y ago

I don't know if this is the kind of answer you were looking for, but Elizabeth Warren was very successful in her efforts to get the CFPB off the ground, much to the displeasure of the financial sector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_.... It's true that under the Trump administration the bureau's behavior is being...modified...but it was quite a success when running as originally intended by Warren. Furthermore, both Warren and Bernie Sanders seem to have genuine convictions w.r.t. climate change, health care, social inequality, etc. Whether or not their particular points of view are desirable is open for debate, but their multi-decade commitments to these issues are beyond question. They seem to have non-trivial support in the electorate as well - I encourage you to check them out, especially if you're feeling cynical or anxious about the future.

JudgeWapner 7y ago
ok, they created a bureau, not a "rip consumers off and your executives go to jail (viz. wells fargo, HSBC...)" law. Great convictions are a start. but in order for them to actually pass legislation, they need other congress members to vote for them. and that's where the dirty tricks start (I wont vote for your X unless you vote for my Y, etc). I guess I'm contradicting myself a bit, because I said "name one" without acknowledging that it takes a majority in congress to pass anything. So yes, Warren and Sanders have the courage to face corporate interests. Thank you. I just yearn for the day where shareholders of XYZ get a 30% haircut because laws were passed that reigned in their company's behavior.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  This is a misunderstanding how how government works. You need to have some kind of institution in order to get anything enforced. Building up institutions full of competent people with a mandate to craft and enforce carefully designed regulations and respond to changing circumstances is the way to attack these kinds of big problems. (Of course, institutions can only be so effective when their leadership is unlawfully replaced with incompetent industry hacks by the next administration; the only way to tackle that is with higher-level political action: court fights, impeachment, and ultimately elections.) Just laws on the books doesn’t accomplish anything. There are already plenty of laws against ripping off consumers, but corporatist ideologues in control of the US Supreme Court have spent the last several decades watering down the potential liability via increasingly tendentious reinterpretations.
  - JudgeWapner 7y ago
    you misunderstand how enforcement works. It's done via law enforcement agencies that exist already. It doesn't need a special new "bureau" for each type of rule. If you don't believe me that there are law enforcement agencies, I can show you how to summon them very easily. Now, the question is, why don't these agencies enforce the same laws against corporations? That's the premise of my initial comment, which you also misunderstood.
    - jacobolus 7y ago
      There are many different organizations within the US federal government (not to mention state governments) which deal in one way or another with regulation and enforcement. Many of the ones commonly considered to be “law enforcement agencies” per se are listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_the_United_States#List_of_agencies_and_units_of_agencies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_the... but there are many other federal agencies which might also be considered “law enforcement” under a broader interpretation of that term. Different agencies have different focus, different mandate, different institutional powers, etc. Arguably the functions established for the CFPB to perform could be undertaken by some other institution. But the point of the legislation and its implementation (which Warren and others worked very carefully on) was creating a semi-autonomous institution solely focused on consumer financial protection. During the Obama years the CFPB was pretty effective, despite unified and extreme opposition from GOP politicians. (Its effectiveness explains why some folks were eager to see it defanged.)
pound 7y ago
Unfortunately we all know that dems will proceed with Biden and that's how we will get 4 more years of our current president.. :\
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  teach them to shaft Bernie next time!