5 ms·

Lets thank dupont for that

MichaelApproved 7y ago
Another example of privatization of profits and socializing losses. I live on Long Island (New York) and we have water problems from old factories that polluted the ground water. My water bill will now include $80/year charge for new filtering plants that are supposed to clean up the contaminated water. At best, the companies should’ve never been allowed to pollute the water. At worst, the cleanup cost should’ve been charged to the polluters immediately. Instead, they get a subsidy from my neighbors and me while we drink contaminated water. New York is trying to sue some companies to recover costs [1] but we can never be made whole. I doubt they’ll recover the full cost of the cleanup and I know they’ll never recover the cost to our health. [1] https://libn.com/2019/12/23/new-york-ready-to-fight-polluters-over-585m-cleanup-bill/ https://libn.com/2019/12/23/new-york-ready-to-fight-polluter...
- jp555 7y ago
  "privatization of profits and socializing losses." This is ideologically biased. You mean "externalize RISK", which governments and NGOs do all the time too.
  - MichaelApproved 7y ago
    I prefer my phrase because it’s not sterile. My intention is to spread the ideology. My comment isn’t addressing an economics class, it’s addressing an electorate.
    - jp555 7y ago
      it just seems to me to be only trading one kind of risk externalization for another. Simple top-down solutions are so very attractive, but are absolute folly for interconnected complex systems. The moral of the Tower of Babel. Or if you prefer a different ancient heuristic, simple utopian visions are always a Siren that will eat you. Nassim Taleb's concept of scale seems to me could be one root cause. The farther away the deciders are to the implications of their decisions, the less accountability they have. The more local and "market based" systems are, the more accountability, or Skin In The Game they have, and therefore more robust the dynamic. Example: Communism has worked wonderfully at the scale of the family for thousands of years, but has always turned monstrous at the scale of a nation.
  - licebmi__at__ 7y ago
    Going by wikipedia: "Cost externalizing is a socioeconomic term describing how a business maximizes its profits by off-loading indirect costs and forcing negative effects to a third party. An externalized cost is known to economists as a negative externality." I think the here bias is trying to hide with the more general technical term, that in this specific discussion, the third party which assumes the loses is the whole society.
briefcomment 7y ago
I'm a little confused at how this happens. Dupont is just made up of people. Those people need to live somewhere, drink water, and do normal people things. Do they not realize what they are doing as they are doing it, and only become aware it's a problem after the fact? Because if they knew it was problematic from the start, they would almost seem suicidal.
- GrumpyNl 7y ago
  Its all about the money.
- JabavuAdams 7y ago
  People need to eat. Lack of money kills you this year. Some technical science-talk spread by ideologically opposed people about how you're going to get sick decades from now -- who knows if it's even true?

Another example of privatization of profits and socializing losses. I live on Long Island (New York) and we have water problems from old factories that polluted the ground water. My water bill will now include $80/year charge for new filtering plants that are supposed to clean up the contaminated water. At best, the companies should’ve never been allowed to pollute the water. At worst, the cleanup cost should’ve been charged to the polluters immediately. Instead, they get a subsidy from my neighbors and me while we drink contaminated water. New York is trying to sue some companies to recover costs [1] but we can never be made whole. I doubt they’ll recover the full cost of the cleanup and I know they’ll never recover the cost to our health. [1] https://libn.com/2019/12/23/new-york-ready-to-fight-polluters-over-585m-cleanup-bill/ https://libn.com/2019/12/23/new-york-ready-to-fight-polluter...

jp555 7y ago
"privatization of profits and socializing losses." This is ideologically biased. You mean "externalize RISK", which governments and NGOs do all the time too.
- MichaelApproved 7y ago
  I prefer my phrase because it’s not sterile. My intention is to spread the ideology. My comment isn’t addressing an economics class, it’s addressing an electorate.
  - jp555 7y ago
    it just seems to me to be only trading one kind of risk externalization for another. Simple top-down solutions are so very attractive, but are absolute folly for interconnected complex systems. The moral of the Tower of Babel. Or if you prefer a different ancient heuristic, simple utopian visions are always a Siren that will eat you. Nassim Taleb's concept of scale seems to me could be one root cause. The farther away the deciders are to the implications of their decisions, the less accountability they have. The more local and "market based" systems are, the more accountability, or Skin In The Game they have, and therefore more robust the dynamic. Example: Communism has worked wonderfully at the scale of the family for thousands of years, but has always turned monstrous at the scale of a nation.
- licebmi__at__ 7y ago
  Going by wikipedia: "Cost externalizing is a socioeconomic term describing how a business maximizes its profits by off-loading indirect costs and forcing negative effects to a third party. An externalized cost is known to economists as a negative externality." I think the here bias is trying to hide with the more general technical term, that in this specific discussion, the third party which assumes the loses is the whole society.

briefcomment 7y ago

I'm a little confused at how this happens. Dupont is just made up of people. Those people need to live somewhere, drink water, and do normal people things. Do they not realize what they are doing as they are doing it, and only become aware it's a problem after the fact? Because if they knew it was problematic from the start, they would almost seem suicidal.

GrumpyNl 7y ago
Its all about the money.
JabavuAdams 7y ago
People need to eat. Lack of money kills you this year. Some technical science-talk spread by ideologically opposed people about how you're going to get sick decades from now -- who knows if it's even true?