14 ms·

"That's it?" is my immediate reaction. Maybe per year? Paid out by all former executives from the point PFAS were manufactured?... after all, if they claim res

"That's it?" is my immediate reaction. Maybe per year? Paid out by all former executives from the point PFAS were manufactured?... after all, if they claim responsibility and the associated bonuses for the good stuff, they should be held accountable for the bad too, right?

29athrowaway 3y ago
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/3m-co/summary?id=D000021800 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/3m-co/summary?id=D000021800
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
  What is the point of this URL exactly ? The company's damage starts in the 1960's and wast most actively protected by states, in the 80s. Your link barely covers only to 2012.
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    The point of this URL: - They lobby the government - Their lobbyists go to work to the government, and then go back to work to the company and so on The government won't touch them.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >The government won't touch them. That's clearly not true, as evidenced by this settlement.
      - abenga 3y ago
        There are some actions (e.g. killing people, poisoning entire communities, getting thousands addicted to drugs, etc) that if perpetrated by an individual, society generally either puts the perpetrator's lives on pause for decades by imprisonment, or actually ends them altogether. Yet companies do the same things and are fined a few months' worth of revenue (and the shareholders who received profits due to the crimes keep them anyway) due to limited liability.
    - techwizrd 3y ago
      Settling for almost twice their net annual income (and similarly large lawsuits against Dupont's subsidiaries) does not strike me as the government not touching them. This is certainly a better result than the Purdue opioid lawsuit where the Sackler family received immunity and in exchange for a $6B settlement.
      - r00fus 3y ago
        The real damage is going to be so much more to the US and world populace. 3M (along with Dupont) should get the corporate death penalty and their boards/C-levels should never be allowed to work or advise in industry again. That's the bare minimum we should set. China/USSR had a more severe consequence for officers of the company that isn't likely feasible here in the US but is probably the real deterrent to this behavior in future criminal endeavors.
        NickC25 3y ago
        >That's the bare minimum we should set. China/USSR had a more severe consequence for officers of the company that isn't likely feasible here in the US but is probably the real deterrent to this behavior in future criminal endeavors. Completely agree. In China, it's pretty straightforward - you become the nail that sticks out. If you fuck with the population at large and make people sick, or you rob them blind, etc... it doesn't matter if you have or you haven't given The Party their cut of the action - your C-Suite will all disappear. A few will be lucky enough to be re-educated. Whereas in America if you beat the regulators or catch them sleeping on the job, you'll have one side of the political aisle cheering you on no matter how many people you kill.
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        > This is certainly a better result than the Purdue opioid lawsuit where the Sackler family received immunity and in exchange for a $6B settlement. Nothing of note was accomplished. People just switched to fentanyl.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
      Sorry. Who is "they" or "them" ?
      - 29athrowaway 3y ago
        Corporation board members, top stockholders and lobbyists.
basch 3y ago
Their net income per year is $5b. This plus the ear plugs settlement is a disaster for them.
- katbyte 3y ago
  for those wondering: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/3m-earplug-lawsuit/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/3m-ea...
  - dataflow 3y ago
    > The federal district judge [...] has ordered the parties to begin mediation in an attempt to facilitate a settlement and avoid overwhelming the federal judicial system I didn't realize even judges go out of their way to try to make parties settle out of court.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      They definitely do. I know a judge personally and he's very proud of his 'settlement rate', the fraction of all cases he sees that end up being settled without a judgment rendered.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        What's the motivation for them? Is it risk avoidance?
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Trials burn a large chunk of the judge's time. The more cases settled out of court, the faster the judge can move through cases, and the less delay between bringing a case and the case being resolved.
        salawat 3y ago
jlmorton 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dcsommer 3y ago
  The negative effects of PFAS on animals and humans is widely studied and reported. There is no confusion on this. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906952/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906952/ is one starting point.
  - dataflow 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - nitwit005 3y ago
      You're acknowledging you won't do a detailed read of links people give you, but demanding detailed answers.
      - dataflow 3y ago
        Yes, it's a heavy paper for a layman and I neither have the expertise to read it nor the opportunity to read it right now. The reading I have done in the past hasn't been clear that problems occur at real-world concentrations, so I was hoping you could clarify if that's the case or not.
        hedora 3y ago
        Did you read the abstract? It uses longer words than necessary, but I’d guess it is still written at an 11-12th grade reading level: > Epidemiological studies have revealed associations between exposure to specific PFAS and a variety of health effects, including altered immune and thyroid function, liver disease, lipid and insulin dysregulation, kidney disease, adverse reproductive and developmental outcomes, and cancer. Concordance with experimental animal data exists for many of these effects. However, information on modes of action and adverse outcome pathways must be expanded, and profound differences in PFAS toxicokinetic properties must be considered in understanding differences in responses between the sexes and among species and life stages.
etothepii 3y ago
There are no insurance towers with over $2b of limit. As a consequence this is going to seriously hurt 3M. In addition this will drastically increase the cost of their (and their peer's) insurance policies over the next 10 years.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- occamrazor 3y ago
  PG&E had a 26b$ insurance tower IIRC. It was completely blown by the wildfires.
  - etothepii 3y ago
    Do you have a source for this? Is this not based on reinstatements? Which insurers could between them put out that kind of limit?
    - occamrazor 3y ago
      I didn’t remember correctly. PG&E had just above a billion tower. 21bn is the total capacity of the new California Wildfire Fund, that provides liability insurance to the California utilities. https://www.guycarp.com/insights/2020/05/california-wildfire-fund-and-flood-re-in-the-united-kingdom-protecting-our-planet-and-the-public-purse.html https://www.guycarp.com/insights/2020/05/california-wildfire...
hedora 3y ago
A charitable reading suggests this is paid out to just one city, which would seem to be about right (If you value a house at $100K, then $1B would cover ruining the water supply of 10,000 houses. A city could easily contain 100,000 such buildings. A less charitable reading is that it covers 300 cities. Maybe they can filter the municipal water supply of that many cities in perpetuity with currently unavailable commercial filter technology? If it is nationwide, then $10b is a bad punchline.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
  Are you claiming that value of any home in one of these towns with PFAS in the water is now $0? This seems straightforwardly untrue, people are happily buying those homes. Whatever penalty 3M should pay ought to be based on actual damages PFAS causes.
  - jychang 3y ago
    Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth The value of those houses (as a place to live) is $0 to anyone who cares about not consuming PFAS, and thus should be $0 until the problem is fixed. I guess you can rent them out to people you don’t care about, which would make them worth >$0, but also clearly unethical. In a society that’s functioning correctly, sane people would pass a law prohibiting consumption of water with PFAS; those houses would be declared uninhabitable, the same way a fire marshal now can declare a building uninhabitable as it violates a fire code.
    - taosx 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - Zandikar 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - prepend 3y ago
neximo64 3y ago
Lets dig those people out of their graves and punish them, considering how old the decisions are
chiefalchemist 3y ago
Fines? We've been issuing such fines for decades and the behaviour persists. Why? Because ultimately the companies and insurance companies don't pay those fines...we do. Sooner or later. One way or another. Those costs find their way to us. Simply put, we - the market - pays those fines. Unless executives lose freedoms (i.e., go to jail) nothing is going to change. The problem is, that wealthy ruling class can buy freedom when they need to. Those that miraculously lose freedom go to country clubs. On the other hand, if you or I rob the local convenience store (using a fire arm?) we will likely go to jail. When they endanger the health and welfare of a child...millions of them...we pay the fine. Anyone who calls that justice is a fool.
- thumbuddy 3y ago
  Even without a firearm if you rob anyone you go to jail buddy. Also if you or I dumped forever chemicals into public water supply, knowingly doing so, we'd be called terrorists. Probably rightfully so.
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    re: Terrorist Funny, I say similar about tobacco. That is, if a terrorist said, "I'm going to come to your country,and I'm going to sell an addictive carcinogen..." There would be protests in the streets demanding that terrorist be drone-strike'd to hell and then some. As it is, the state and federal governments allow the product, *and* profit from it (via taxes). Talk about a page right out of an Orwellian novel.
Medh_Suk 3y ago
Consider watching Dark Water movie. Real life story of lawyer who goes after Duport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)?useski...

29athrowaway 3y ago

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/3m-co/summary?id=D000021800 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/3m-co/summary?id=D000021800

IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
What is the point of this URL exactly ? The company's damage starts in the 1960's and wast most actively protected by states, in the 80s. Your link barely covers only to 2012.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  The point of this URL: - They lobby the government - Their lobbyists go to work to the government, and then go back to work to the company and so on The government won't touch them.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >The government won't touch them. That's clearly not true, as evidenced by this settlement.
    - abenga 3y ago
      There are some actions (e.g. killing people, poisoning entire communities, getting thousands addicted to drugs, etc) that if perpetrated by an individual, society generally either puts the perpetrator's lives on pause for decades by imprisonment, or actually ends them altogether. Yet companies do the same things and are fined a few months' worth of revenue (and the shareholders who received profits due to the crimes keep them anyway) due to limited liability.
  - techwizrd 3y ago
    Settling for almost twice their net annual income (and similarly large lawsuits against Dupont's subsidiaries) does not strike me as the government not touching them. This is certainly a better result than the Purdue opioid lawsuit where the Sackler family received immunity and in exchange for a $6B settlement.
    - r00fus 3y ago
      The real damage is going to be so much more to the US and world populace. 3M (along with Dupont) should get the corporate death penalty and their boards/C-levels should never be allowed to work or advise in industry again. That's the bare minimum we should set. China/USSR had a more severe consequence for officers of the company that isn't likely feasible here in the US but is probably the real deterrent to this behavior in future criminal endeavors.
      - NickC25 3y ago
        >That's the bare minimum we should set. China/USSR had a more severe consequence for officers of the company that isn't likely feasible here in the US but is probably the real deterrent to this behavior in future criminal endeavors. Completely agree. In China, it's pretty straightforward - you become the nail that sticks out. If you fuck with the population at large and make people sick, or you rob them blind, etc... it doesn't matter if you have or you haven't given The Party their cut of the action - your C-Suite will all disappear. A few will be lucky enough to be re-educated. Whereas in America if you beat the regulators or catch them sleeping on the job, you'll have one side of the political aisle cheering you on no matter how many people you kill.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      > This is certainly a better result than the Purdue opioid lawsuit where the Sackler family received immunity and in exchange for a $6B settlement. Nothing of note was accomplished. People just switched to fentanyl.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
    Sorry. Who is "they" or "them" ?
    - 29athrowaway 3y ago
      Corporation board members, top stockholders and lobbyists.

basch 3y ago

Their net income per year is $5b. This plus the ear plugs settlement is a disaster for them.

katbyte 3y ago
for those wondering: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/3m-earplug-lawsuit/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/3m-ea...
- dataflow 3y ago
  > The federal district judge [...] has ordered the parties to begin mediation in an attempt to facilitate a settlement and avoid overwhelming the federal judicial system I didn't realize even judges go out of their way to try to make parties settle out of court.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    They definitely do. I know a judge personally and he's very proud of his 'settlement rate', the fraction of all cases he sees that end up being settled without a judgment rendered.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      What's the motivation for them? Is it risk avoidance?
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Trials burn a large chunk of the judge's time. The more cases settled out of court, the faster the judge can move through cases, and the less delay between bringing a case and the case being resolved.
        salawat 3y ago

jlmorton 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dcsommer 3y ago
The negative effects of PFAS on animals and humans is widely studied and reported. There is no confusion on this. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906952/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906952/ is one starting point.
- dataflow 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - nitwit005 3y ago
    You're acknowledging you won't do a detailed read of links people give you, but demanding detailed answers.
    - dataflow 3y ago
      Yes, it's a heavy paper for a layman and I neither have the expertise to read it nor the opportunity to read it right now. The reading I have done in the past hasn't been clear that problems occur at real-world concentrations, so I was hoping you could clarify if that's the case or not.
      - hedora 3y ago
        Did you read the abstract? It uses longer words than necessary, but I’d guess it is still written at an 11-12th grade reading level: > Epidemiological studies have revealed associations between exposure to specific PFAS and a variety of health effects, including altered immune and thyroid function, liver disease, lipid and insulin dysregulation, kidney disease, adverse reproductive and developmental outcomes, and cancer. Concordance with experimental animal data exists for many of these effects. However, information on modes of action and adverse outcome pathways must be expanded, and profound differences in PFAS toxicokinetic properties must be considered in understanding differences in responses between the sexes and among species and life stages.

etothepii 3y ago

There are no insurance towers with over $2b of limit. As a consequence this is going to seriously hurt 3M. In addition this will drastically increase the cost of their (and their peer's) insurance policies over the next 10 years.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
occamrazor 3y ago
PG&E had a 26b$ insurance tower IIRC. It was completely blown by the wildfires.
- etothepii 3y ago
  Do you have a source for this? Is this not based on reinstatements? Which insurers could between them put out that kind of limit?
  - occamrazor 3y ago
    I didn’t remember correctly. PG&E had just above a billion tower. 21bn is the total capacity of the new California Wildfire Fund, that provides liability insurance to the California utilities. https://www.guycarp.com/insights/2020/05/california-wildfire-fund-and-flood-re-in-the-united-kingdom-protecting-our-planet-and-the-public-purse.html https://www.guycarp.com/insights/2020/05/california-wildfire...

hedora 3y ago

A charitable reading suggests this is paid out to just one city, which would seem to be about right (If you value a house at $100K, then $1B would cover ruining the water supply of 10,000 houses. A city could easily contain 100,000 such buildings. A less charitable reading is that it covers 300 cities. Maybe they can filter the municipal water supply of that many cities in perpetuity with currently unavailable commercial filter technology? If it is nationwide, then $10b is a bad punchline.

fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
Are you claiming that value of any home in one of these towns with PFAS in the water is now $0? This seems straightforwardly untrue, people are happily buying those homes. Whatever penalty 3M should pay ought to be based on actual damages PFAS causes.
- jychang 3y ago
  Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth The value of those houses (as a place to live) is $0 to anyone who cares about not consuming PFAS, and thus should be $0 until the problem is fixed. I guess you can rent them out to people you don’t care about, which would make them worth >$0, but also clearly unethical. In a society that’s functioning correctly, sane people would pass a law prohibiting consumption of water with PFAS; those houses would be declared uninhabitable, the same way a fire marshal now can declare a building uninhabitable as it violates a fire code.
  - taosx 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - Zandikar 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - prepend 3y ago

neximo64 3y ago

Lets dig those people out of their graves and punish them, considering how old the decisions are

chiefalchemist 3y ago

Fines? We've been issuing such fines for decades and the behaviour persists. Why? Because ultimately the companies and insurance companies don't pay those fines...we do. Sooner or later. One way or another. Those costs find their way to us. Simply put, we - the market - pays those fines. Unless executives lose freedoms (i.e., go to jail) nothing is going to change. The problem is, that wealthy ruling class can buy freedom when they need to. Those that miraculously lose freedom go to country clubs. On the other hand, if you or I rob the local convenience store (using a fire arm?) we will likely go to jail. When they endanger the health and welfare of a child...millions of them...we pay the fine. Anyone who calls that justice is a fool.

thumbuddy 3y ago
Even without a firearm if you rob anyone you go to jail buddy. Also if you or I dumped forever chemicals into public water supply, knowingly doing so, we'd be called terrorists. Probably rightfully so.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  re: Terrorist Funny, I say similar about tobacco. That is, if a terrorist said, "I'm going to come to your country,and I'm going to sell an addictive carcinogen..." There would be protests in the streets demanding that terrorist be drone-strike'd to hell and then some. As it is, the state and federal governments allow the product, *and* profit from it (via taxes). Talk about a page right out of an Orwellian novel.

Medh_Suk 3y ago

Consider watching Dark Water movie. Real life story of lawyer who goes after Duport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)?useski...