Drag a 100 Dollar Bill

21 thoughts on “Drag a 100 Dollar Bill”

1. John1282, your tinfoil hat is showing. The world is not cleanly divisible by two. There are shades of gray in politics and economics. Your stance on marijuana prohibition precludes you from claiming you are against all regulation. Like all statists, you have no problem with government enforcing its own standards as long as you agree with them. At best you could be considered a minarchist, but you keep insulting libertarians as well. Since you aren’t against all regulation, the intelligent approach would be to debate the pros and cons of specific regulations rather than inaccurately toss around political epithets unrelated to the issue being discussed.
   Of course, you’ve also admitted that you only post contentious articles about marijuana to start arguments in hopes of driving traffic to the site. A site that advertises a product, I might add. So, yes, there is a financial aspect. The fact that blogs like this make a lot less money than grant funded researcher just means you aren’t as good at the job, so you can drop the sanctimonious bickering over who gets the most funding and maybe focus on who’s supported by factual evidence regardless of motivation.
   I understand the need to be “edgy” to get an audience, but do you really want the kind of audience you’re going to attract by tossing around inflammatory comments laden with expletives? Is it your intention to drag this site down to the level of vulgar, sophomoric shouting matches? Because that is where your hyperbolic rhetoric and grade school name calling are taking us. Far from enlightening the uninformed or correcting the improperly informed, all you accomplish is branding yourself as an ignorant bigot that doesn’t know why he believes what he believes.

2. That is very true that government and business often do form unholy alliances. Companies investing in alternative energies, benefit from regulation of traditional energy sources, and often receive direct subsidies to compete in the marketplace. And big corporations often see regulations as a cost of doing business that their smaller competitors can’t absorb as readily. Plus it makes start up competition that much more expensive and difficult.
   What many fail to understand (my wife for example) is that regulations ALWAYS cost you and me more. Whether it be in higher prices, tighter job market, fewer work benefits, or making your life hell trying to put a shed up in your backyard. Resources are used to meet regulations, and they have alternative use value. I like to point out that the billions spent to fight global warming could be spent helping the poor or any other pet liberal cause. Why piss that money away on the basis of a far from settled science?
   Regulations should always be subject to a cost/benefit analysis. Some regulations are worth the cost, some are debatable. The problem today is the the government is intoxicated on regulation and few people are addressing the cost, and many who are, are being shouted down or disparaged.

3. So is your blather better than someone else’s blather? And is your subterfuge and rhetorical bellicosity — and your “sneer, attack, ridicule” better than someone else’s? I don’t think so. What a bore YOU are. So I’m a “commie” in your book. You’re a right wing ideologue in mine. I can discuss and learn things from reasonable people (see above). But you, sir, have nothing to offer. You’re just a bag of gas. Toxic gas, at that.

4. Is it alright to call a socialist a socialist? I think so. Don’t like being called a statist/socialist,don’t be one. A lot of righteousness and blather above–mostly as a reaction to being labeled socialist. What a bore.
   If you like the big lefty project and a totalitarian state, if you want leftist utopians to be in charge, just hang on, Looks like they are on the rise. I oppose them and find them and their projects and crusades harmful.
   Free markets, limited government and liberty are important, don’t you think?
   Utopians and central planners and statists offer tyranny that I reject.
   I reject their efforts to use environmentalism as a tool for control.
   Oh, and progressives are socialists are commies in my book–those who argue otherwise are making a distinction without a difference and playing word games to hide their true intentions. Kind of like some of the blather and bloviation that gets generated to ignore the reality, that we are in a war with the left–and they are not averse to subterfuge and rhetorical bellicosity. Alinsky recommends as tactics the sneer, attack, ridicule.

5. It’s certainly much more complicated than any slogan that fits on a bumper sticker. That’s why it bugs me so much when other people at this site try to silence opposition rather than have a frank discussion. People that don’t do their own research and come to conclusions based on their own intelligence feel threatened when they hear someone disagree with them. Shouting insults is their way of covering the fact that they’re unprepared for a well-reasoned argument.
   Here in the US, I think most of the political left/right or capitalism/socialism arguments are manufactured to cover the fact that neither party is interested in giving up the power and income that comes from partnering with multinational corporations. I’ve known people that lost sleep every night worrying about the UN and the coming “One World Government” and they never stop to notice how many business logos look the same in every country. It seems to me that neither democracy nor communism can hope to unite the world the way that commerce can.
   I’m not a libertarian, but their arguments that frame corporation as a form of government (as contrasted to private ownership) make a lot of sense. At the end of the day, only end consumers pay taxes, fees, or fines. No individual CEO at a giant corporation is going to pay money if they get fined by the courts, and the money that the corporation loses just gets folded into their prices. That legal protection from liability was created by the government and thus corporations are a government entity. That alone precludes them from inclusion in the term “free market”. If a private owner dumps a can of lead paint in a river the EPA would fine the individual directly.
   Honestly, regulations aren’t what kills laissez faire economics, it’s minimum wage that does that. The ultimate basis for our economy is the cost of one hour of unskilled labor. Labor prices should be subject to supply and demand. When the price is artificially raised then the demand is artificially lowered creating a glut. That basic principle is obvious in any form of trade. In terms of labor we call the glut unemployment. The only way for the equation to return to balance is for inflation to devalue the currency.

6. And Doubting Thomas, I think your proportions are a little off — at least in my part of the world and in my country. At least in relation to oil, the governments here (provincial and federal) are clearly the poodle and the industry is clearly the pit bull. It is that fight that I am chiefly involved in, so my perspective is undoubtedly skewed. But yes, governments DO like taxes and I’m willing to concede that I sometimes give governments a pass when I should be digging a little deeper and looking at motivations a little more critically.
   As I suggested in my post to GHo5T, I am thoroughly sick of the climate debate and at this point, I don’t trust anyone. I prefer to devote my attention to more tangible issues such as the preservation of the natural environment in the “here and now.” As such, I am obviously in favor of SOME regulations, although I try not to be a total Luddite about it. We do need oil and gas (at least for the foreseeable future) and trees just rot and die if you don’t cut ’em (the big issue with the timber harvest is the methodology).

7. I agree with almost everything you said, but the competition between government and corporation is an illusion. Pick any questionable regulation of the last century and you’ll find a large business interest behind it. The corruption lies in the collusion between the two. A collusion that remains obscured by the ongoing farce that Big Government and Big Business are at odds. The fact is that in today’s command economy the line between the two is becoming increasingly obscured.
   Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court have been allowed to pick winners and losers in the market with increasing frequency and audacity. Congress targets businesses with regulations and taxes for the companies they want to fail and they subsidize the companies they want to succeed. The executive branch hands out waivers to the high bidders and selectively enforces their own regulations. Anyone who tries to stand up and complain gets taken to the cleaners in the courts.
   Corporations pay good money to get the people they want elected to those positions. The favors have been passed back and forth so many times it’s difficult to tell who bought whom in the first place. The partnership works both ways in an infinite loop. The only time the public sees it is when two competing political/business partnerships get into a competition with each other such as the XL pipeline proponents vs. the railroad magnates. All the talk about the environment or the economy is just marketing to try to sway the court of public opinion so the right company’s politicians get elected.
   Take the recent talk of minimum wage hikes. McDonald’s isn’t going to go out of business if minimum wage is increased, but your local Mom and Pop diner probably will. Small privately owned businesses typically operate on tight margins. They hire as many employees as they can afford. If the price goes up they have to fire some employees. The quality of the restaurant suffers as a result and customers stop showing up. Otherwise they raise prices and customers stop showing up. The crony corporation can run at a loss for a year, stop paying dividends to non-preferred shareholders, get a tax deduction for the loss, and demand a bailout from the government. After the dust has settled and their competition is run out of business, then the prices will jump high enough to ensure ongoing profit.

8. Thanks, GHo5T. I learned a few things from your post and I agree with most of what you say. Unfortunately, this debate often degenerates into a pissing match those who see all government regulations as unreasonable vs.those who see all free market capitalism as an unwholesome, destructive force. People line up squarely on one side or the other and they don’t budge. I’ve been as guilty as the next person. Someone else’s inflammatory rhetoric (or obvious duplicity) tends to push me over the edge, and then I generate my own overreaction.
   I was aware of the term “crony capitalism,” but you’ve helped me to flesh it out, so to speak. Seems like the multi-nationals often work both ends against the middle. They can ignore legitimate regulations if it’s in their best interest, and will cheerfully continue to pay fines that are laughably small in relation to their profits. Or, as you illustrate, they can make a big deal of embracing regulations which they can afford, but which will put their competition out of business. Often, they even “help” to write those regulations, out of a spirit of supposed good will and cooperation. I always assumed that their “help” was for the purpose of dilution and insertion of loopholes but I can see how it could also be.directed at eliminating competition by imposing standards that only a select few players could meet.
   So-called Obamacare in the U.S. is a classic example of large HMOs and pharmaceutical companies being preemptive when they realized that new laws could cut into their profits. So they “cooperated” with the government, which resulted in complex, often impenetrable regulations and an end result which benefited themselves chiefly and made no one happy (except the HMOs). Our own government health care system in Canada is often plagued by inept bureauacries (and the Conservative Federal government is doing its best to undermine it), but at least no one in Canada presently feels that they are being “gamed” for someone else’s financial benefit.
   I was certainly aware of the disappearance of the corner gas station and the independent operators, but like most people, I never fully understood how the large oil companies accomplished it. I always assumed that it was simply a profit margin squeeze, i.e., the independent operator paid more and more for each unit of gas relative to what he was allowed to charge — or what he could realistically charge on the open market. I think that’s still happening (most independent stations have had to become Quik-e-Marts in order to make enough profit to survive), but I can see how even well-intentioned regulations for improved petroleum storage could massaged and manipulated so that only the big players could afford the cost and/or meet unrealistic deadlines for conversion.
   I personally have no resolved opinion on the causes, effects and ultimate consequence of climate change but I can also see how scare tactics can work to the advantage of the big players, who can either ignore regulations and pay the token fines or rewrite regulations to their advantage. Where I live, most of the players are big (oil, gas, mining), so what is most visible here the flaunting of reasonable, legitimate regulations and the payment of token fines. But the crony capitalism tag certainly fits the Alberta government, which has done little or nothing for the past thirty years to get in the way of an industry that it regards as its gravy train. The result as been gradual degradation of the regional environment and unwholesome dependence on a resource that creates an unstable “boom or bust” economy.

9. Exactly! No one is peeking behind the research labcoats worse than the government, who hopes to reap a windfall of regulations (read “control” and “growth”), taxes, and penalties from non-compliance as a result of research outcomes. As far as the dollars behind the research, the government spends orders of magnitudes more on research than the private sector.
   As for Rowrbazzle, do you really believe that the goverment doles out its billions in grant money without expecting a return on their investment? As far as the government is concerned, the whole raison d’etre of research is a grab for more regulation. Why does the government grant billions to research the CO2-global warming link and only millions go to solar research, with its very apparent link to climate? In a word “money”. The government hasn’t figured out a way to tax or regulate the sun, but they have come up with a nice racket for collecting big bucks by taxing and regulating CO2. So which climate factor gets all the research money? Hmmm. I wonder.
   Corporations spend millions pushing for their agenda under the guise of resesearch, but the government spends BILLIONS. And take into account that corporate research is already “tainted” by obvious self-interest and gets a jaundiced eye from the public. While the government gets a pass on that because we, the people, somehow can’t comprehend that the government has just as much self-interest in research outcomes as any corporation.
   The shear number of dollars thrown at research by regulators vs. non-regulators (government vs. corporations) is no contest. The government is the pit bull against corporation’s poodle in that dogfight. You really need to understand that unsavory human traits of greed, power hunger, control, and self-interest don’t disappear just because you so-call “work for the people” and not a group of stockholders. In a nutshell that is the pollyanna naivete of socialists, progs, and communists in general, that a body created by people filled with ambition (politicians,government) will somehow shake off all their self-interest for the sake of the greater good.

10. Rowrbazzle, you are unfortunately correct that many people here are uninterested in intellectual debate. The frequency of name-calling seems to be accelerating. This article is particularly contentious for no reason. The obvious truth is that there is big money involved in both sides, the question for me is one of motivations.
    I know you’re speaking in generalities for brevity’s sake, but I think you miss an important distinction between free-market capitalism and crony capitalism. When large corporations and government work hand in hand to selectively write and enforce regulation, it harms the economy and the environment.
    I don’t know of anyone who wants to return to the days of freely pumping bilge water into the bays. Free market capitalism theoretically tends toward self-correction, but it can be very slow in doing so. Reasonable regulations are not a problem for anyone I know, but here are many regulations that are excessive and unnecessarily prohibitive to smaller industries. The large multinationals often support these regulations because they stifle competition and favor monopolies. It is the regulations that, upon closer inspection, seem to be more effective at increasing the burden of government on smaller business than actually improving the environment that I question. PM2.5 is the most obvious offender. CO2 is the same. Little to no direct harm from CO2 can be proven. The massive costs of implementing CO2 controls could be absorbed only by the largest corporations. Once the competition has been destroyed by deliberately selling product at a loss, the monopolist corporation can raise prices and recoup its strategic losses. The ultimate victim is the consumer.
    The recent chemical scare targeting microban is a good example. The chemical in question is no longer protected by patent. The major companies have already developed a new patented formula. If the FDA could be pressured into banning the old formula then low-cost generics would be removed from the market.
    Many decades ago I remember every privately owned gas station near me being run out of business and bought out by the conglomerates. The last straw for many of them was changes in regulations about the construction of their storage tanks. With the stroke of a pen their business was suddenly out of compliance and would cost hundreds of thousands to retrofit.
    G.E. and Sylvania supported the ban on classic incandescent bulbs which destroyed the market for most of their competitors. Despite the green marketing logo, the cradle-to-grave environmental impact of fluorescent bulbs is much higher than the bulb it replaced.
    I’m hard pressed to think of any regulation sold as being for the environment or public health that was not supported by the largest corporations it would affect. When governments work so closely to craft legislation that targets competition or unfairly distributes the burden of compliance, then it is no longer truly capitalism; it is soft fascism.

11. It is my humble opinion that the largest and most arrogant “multinational corporation” in the world is the government of the United States.

12. I can perhaps have a dialogue with rczerenko, but clearly not with john. The former seems willing to weigh evidence; the latter does not. Without gong into detail, I have a part-time consultaing job that involves conducting environmental due diligence for a large corporation which leases sites throughout North America. As rczerenko suggests, I have found most landlords and “responsible parties” to be conscientious and helpful, but that’s at least partly because of federal and state government regulations (admittedly quite convoluted in some cases) that hold their feet to the fire. And I would agree that the threat of lawsuits is a strong incentive to “do good” — although most of the parties seem genuinely interested in proper remediation. It troubles me, though, that individuals like john would seem to be eager to do away with most of these burdensome government regulations, which would then postpone or eliminate cleanup of some quite nasty sites. And in some cases, government programs actually assist small business owners with cleanup costs. This is particularly true of dry cleaners, many of which would not be able to pay for cleanup on their own nickel.
    So far, so good. But the situation overseas — especially in third world countries — is much more troubling. International oil and gas companies have a terrible reputation in several Africa countries, Nigeria in particular. And oil and gas exploration is largely unregulated even in North America. Alberta has some environmental laws on the books, but they are never enforced. Other laws which promise further regulation of the tarsands area in Northern Alberta have been “in the works” for more than seven years and are still “being developed.” The Alberta government is more or less owned by the oil and gas industry, so it has no heart for enforcement. And the Canadian mining industry, sad to say (because I’m Canadian) wreaks havoc all over the world. There are even lawsuits based on downstream pollution into the U.S, portion of the Columbia River from the Teck Resources smelter in Trail, B.C. Teck has been in consistent violation of pollution laws for many years and seems content to pay whatever minimal fines are levied against it rather than improve its process.
    I could continue with this, but I hope you see my point. The conduct of oil, gas and mining companies throughout the world still leaves a great deal to be desired, especially in more remote areas and/or where local, provincial and federal governments provide minimal inspection and enforcement of regulations — sometimes because they are “on the payroll.” And I would disagree with your statement that “if the environment is destroyed, then there are no profits.” This is clearly not the case with large segments of the oil, gas and mining industry, where you take what’s there, in whatever way is least costly and most expedient — and then move on. According to the Alberta government itself, only 0.15% of the land disturbed by tarsands mining has been reclaimed to date, And none of it will ever be restored to its natural state.
    I don’t automatically think that all large corporations are evil. I worked for one for many years and I still work for the company as a consultant. But I know all about the pressure to maximize profits and deliver maximum value to shareholders, and I know where it can lead. That’s why I alternately cringe (or clench my fists and tear my hair) when people like john and others contributing to this blog continually moan about the onerous burden of environmental regulations and the wholesome purity of the free market when it is left to its own devices. That, to me, would be a nightmare.
    Thanks for listening.

13. You are a petty, arrogant blowhard who makes wild, unfounded assumptions and will follow your own rigid party line right over a cliff — and I hope you do. It doesn’t matter to you if salmon spawning streams are destroyed, rivers are polluted with toxic chemicals, the air becomes unbreathable, rain forests are destroyed, species are eliminated, mountain tops are blown up and indigenous people are displaced by giant open pit mines or oozing swamps of oil. All that is a joke to you and you ridicule those who make it their concern — or deny that it is happening by trotting out your self-serving industry propaganda and representing it as “true science.’ So go chase your effing dollars and bow down to your soulless, amoral free market, you smug, cynical SOB.
    I graduated from university in 1964. And I was an engineering major. I found that very funny — the whole sad-assed right wing cliche that anyone who disagrees with them is nineteen years old and has been brainwashed by some crazed, mesmerizing commie professor. You think you’re clever, but your type is soooo predictable. .
    I use my eyes and ears. I talk to people. You should try it sometime — you might learn something. Oh, by the way, committing to the “socialists or the capitalists” is a fool’s game that I’m not going to play. You have clearly “committed,” and you are a much lesser man for it. .
    ….

14. my note was not directed at rczerenko, for sure.
    he’s my man.

15. I have never understood why it is always the belief that capitalism is responsible for destruction of the environment. And if left to their own devides would rather pollute without an regard for the consequences. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    More environmental destruction took place behind the Iron Curtain, and those affect had absolutely no say in the matter. In the West, there are plenty of criminal laws in place, not to mention civil lawsuits that can be filed. There is just no incentive for a company to wantonly pollute for profits. They may get away with it for a time, but eventually the lawyers will catch up with them.
    Further more, most of the capitalism is bad for the environment has been pushed forward with Soviet era disinformation. This disinformation has not gone away and keeps coming back.
    Were there companies that polluted in the past, absolutely. Some of the pollution was caused by ignorance of the chemicals and processes being used. I worked in Tucson and the University of Arizona, the USAF, and Raytheon worked together to remove TCE’s from the ground water from WWII aircraft processing. Mind you, it was originally the USAF and Hughes Aircraft that ran the facilities, but decades later Raytheon bought the Hughes facilities in Tucson. You will find this in America, but not so much in the former Soviet Union.
    Don’t fall for the propaganda the capitalism is profits at all costs. It the enviroment is destroyed, then there are no profits.

16. you, my friend, are still a jackass socialist. when you say that the free market poisons and plunders i am sitting up on a branch looking down at your sorry ass and i know you–you went to some sorry ass college that taught you that the free market poisons and plunders. you believed what some leftist professor taught you. OK.
    you never forgot what you were taught. pathetic man.
    You know, normally I don’t pay much attention to lefties, but it was fun to your consider your dilemma. What will you do? Commit to the socialists or to the capitalists?
    Make up your mind. Hurry up. Time’s a wastin’.

17. The use of the word “multinational corporations” (who are, in fact, multinational corporations) identifies me as a socialist?. LOL What polite, obscurantist euphemism would you prefer? And you’re absolutely right, the multinationals certainly don’t “screw with the free market.” That’s the whole idea. They want the free market left alone so they can poison and plunder the environment without restraint. And they lie, mkelly. They lie and harrass and intimidate. They will do literally ANYTHING to advance their bottom line. The evidence is all around you. So if the rabid socialists adopt some of their tactics, that’s too bad. But it’s a necessary evil.
    And john1282, you want me to “condemn the complicity of the big business people with the left…” but you won’t admit that most of the big business people are complicit with the right, simply because the gullible or self-serving right will allow them to do anything they want in the interest of “freedom”? Big business is complicit with the left only to the extent they know that most politicians, including those on the left, can be bought for the right amount of money. Otherwise, why would big business get all buddy-buddy with those who would otherwise want to (gasp) regulate what they are doing? You figure it out.

18. Do they sometimes manipulate data to make a favorable case for their hypotheses? Of course they do.
    Do you find it acceptable to LIE. When they lie you lose freedom that is the bottom line.

19. My my, wrong on every count, but not in doubt. Yes my friend, the left, the enviros do have the money and you used the phrase multinational corporations like the socialist that you are. wwooooooo I am really scared of the multinationals, they have been screwing with the free market a lot, while the left has been dedicated to leaving me alone and avoiding an administrative state tyranny. Sure I would say the left is aided and abetted in their efforts by crony capitalists. If you condmen the complicity of the big busines people with the left, I would be on your side, but I think you are a socialist. You like what the left offers. If I’m wrong, say so.

20. OK, I can’t let this go. Your noble posturing here is either disingenuous or willfully ignorant. Yeah, you’re a voice crying in the wilderness, with big pharma, big agribusiness and big oil and gas peeking out behind you. ALL of them stand to lose big bucks from regulations of any kind — most of them don’t want ANY regulations. THEY want to decide what’s best for the planet and it’s citizens. Do I trust them? Not at all. Some of them would deny that there was a climate crisis even as water was lapping at the base of the Empire State building.
    To make this a Soros vs. Koch contest is silly. I don’t know who has the most money. I don’t know how many biased, cook-the-books “think tanks” can be associated with Soros specifically and how many can be associated with the Koch brothers. But I think I can say one thing without fear of rational contradiction — all the money advanced by wealthy “leftists” (which is really just a code word for environmentalists) in the interests of climate studies, air quality studies, water quality studies, pesticide and herbicide studies cannot even begin to touch the billions (yes, billions) of dollars in funding from the multi-nationals who don’t want any restrictions on their profits.
    Do environmentalists and other “leftists” sometimes fabricate evidence?. Do they sometimes manipulate data to make a favorable case for their hypotheses? Of course they do. And my feelings about that are ambivalent at best. But they think they are in a war (I do as well), and if the other side doesn’t play fair, they’re at a disadvantage if they do. It’s not a pretty situation, but it’s reality.
    So don’t talk to me about a “labor of love.” Maybe your heart is pure, but if you look behind you (and open your eyes) you’re going to see that most of the money is on your side — and most of the people throwing it around have absolutely no regard for the environment.
    ,

21. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, they feel like liberated whores with no need for shame or concealment. I wonder if junk science isn’t feeling the same kind of liberation that the “softer” science of journalism is experiencing. It comes from the same well head of convention and control. Meanwhile, the Kochs have yet to be demonstrated doing anything with money like what they are accused of doing.