You on Tangier Island, Rockstar?
God bless you, man.
I mean it.

Yep. My wife and I are "come heres" arrived last year. Somehow we found ourselves running the Tangier History Museum and Interpretive Cultural Center. We are hoping to bring public attention to the situation here and get something done. We would like to buy a home here but if we can't get a seawall we might find ourselves living on the Eastern Shore.

May Yehovah Elohim Bless you too!

It seems we share some opinions. Just replace "funding" with "executives" and you pretty much have one of the points of my argument against regulating corporate salaries.:DL


However, this EPA funding business is not just politics, though they indubitably play a large part. What GR was trying to say and that probably didn't come across clearly was that the EPA often grossly misuses the funds allocated to them and their regulations are often unnecessary and/or damaging to the economy. I can understand his obvious frustration; he is trying to run a business in a system where it seems like the government is out to control everything you do, charges you for doing so, and then penalizes you if you fail to follow rules so complicated that no human could possibly comprehend all of them. That's in addition to the normal penalties for profitability and creating employment opportunities, if you ever get that far.

Notwithstanding the fact that the EPA's budget for FY2011 is over 10 billion dollars in capital that could be used to do something productive but is instead largely wasted (I'll cover that in a moment), you're not taking into account the unintended consequences that accompany such regulation. As I said, the rules are so complicated that nobody understands them, including the EPA, which is why they sometimes have regulations that are mutually exclusive or otherwise conflict each other. I'll spare you the lengthy description of the three big ones in the railroad industry unless someone really wants to hear them. But think about it - even one incidence of conflicting regs in one industry is an obvious sign that the rules are overly complex. Now think about it from the perspective of a small business owner. You've put everything you have into your venture, and assumed a comparitively large amount of debt in doing so. Now you have to hire a specialist (read: expensive)just to avoid being fined out of existence or jailed outright, and even then you are not immune because the regs are changing or some agent decides to enforce some obscure one your specialist missed or misinterpreted.

Though most of this post is intended to address everyone, I want the people who are quick to assume that the state is inherently good or moral or at least better than big business to consider the above and what I am about to say carefully. In a system that is so complex that specialists are needed to navigate it and failure to comply results in hefty penalties, who do you think is going to consistently come out on top, or even endure? I'll give you a hint: It's not the small businesses we all love because it's politically "A-OK":up:. They're practically DOA, even if they arrive to begin with. Many more prospective small businesspeople just say "to hell with it" and don't even bother trying. Don't believe me? Try filing an environmental impact statement sometime if you can come up with the capital. Call me back in a few years when you get the results and let me know how it worked out.

I doubt anyone here needs the point to be spelled out for them but I'll do it anyway for the sake of completeness. Those greedy big businesses you love to hate and the rich investors that back them - you eliminated a major part of their problems, namely competition from small business. And should you decide to change the regulations to reign them in, they'll simply lobby to have the regulations changed to exclude more prospective competitors, or they'll go somewhere else. Pretty much everything the left has to complain about when it comes to big business is their own damn fault for thinking that the government was an effective agency for implementing their desired results.

Alright, that part I asked some to carefully consider is now over, but it segues nicely into my next point, which is the effectiveness of the EPA itself. The only parts of the moniker "Environmental Protection Agency" that are true is that it is indeed and agency and it has something to do with the environment.

I can understand why people would think that they need some kind of protection from the ravages of brutal corporate exploitation of the environment. I, too, was raised on a public school diet with a healthy serving of environmental awareness. For years I thought that the EPA and the active efforts of young people like myself were necessary to combat the grevious harms inflicted on our planet by soulless corporations that cared only about profit. Ironically, I discovered that it is the fact that corporations care only about profit that makes them good for the environment. Sure, they'll try to cut corners where they can, but they also have to sell a product. If they cause some major disaster or are caught engaging in practices that are actively destructive, they have a PR nightmare on their hands, not to mention the catastrophic results their activities have on sales and investment. In a world where quarterly results can mean the difference between employment and unemployment, you can be damn sure that corporations are keeping a close eye on anything that might negatively affect their image. Yes, from time to time they screw up, but they pay for it when they do, and are forced to adopt new practices. Sometimes, they pay for it so heavily that they cease to exist. Problem solved.

The EPA, on the other hand, does not pay for its mistakes. On the contrary, it requests more funding to prevent such incidents from occuring in the future. I can't make the point that the EPA hasn't ever actually prevented a disaster because we'd never know about it if they did, (though given their record I'm sure they would trumpet it in the media) but I can certainly make the point that they have allowed entirely too many environmental disasters to occur for the price we are paying. I could also make the point that the environmental impact of industries capable of making an impact has simply shifted elsewhere, but why bother when we can boil it down further?

The EPA is a reactive entity, as is any government agency. It only exists because people got pissed off enough about the environment to make the issue political, and even then, it took years to effect. It is not driven by profit and it is not accountable for its failures because the political motivation to keep it around remains. It lives and dies on the effectiveness of its cause, not results. Business, on the other hand, has to be proactive if it is to survive, save where it gets the opportunity to co-opt the state to mandate its existence, directly or indirectly.

If you really look at what the EPA is, and the system it is built upon, the mountains of regulations and non-corresponding number of environmental accidents that were not prevented should be telling. To be fair, EPA initiatives have probably helped increase environmental awareness to the point where the private sector must acknowledge that they are going to have to deal with it if they want to sell products and avoid negative attention. Credit where credit is due. But do we really need to spend ten billion dollars per year on an agency whose primary goal has largely been accomplished? Not unless they can convince you that they still have an essential role to play.

Im not disagreeing with Platapus.

Im only stating the fact that both parties are releasing these insanely small budget cut figures.

What we are basically illustrating right here in this very thread is that Americans in general really want to cut the budget, trim the fat and try to "right the ship" economically speaking

BUT...

nobody wants to be the one to cinch that belt up. Nobody wants their little baby pet project to be the one getting cut or getting the axe altogether. They want everyone else to be the ones to suffer.

the left and the right both have their different ideas of what to cut and none of it is enough. and even if it were the right number they cannot agree on ANYTHING.

and Joe American is reading the morning news saying to himself "WOW!!! they can really cut $50B from the budget? thats great news!!" but only because they are too stupid to realize that $50B is CHUMP CHANGE... with the numbers we are talking about that is "walkin' around money."

WE are our own worst enemy. None of us can agree on ANYTHING and in the meantime the ship continues to sink.:nope:

and next on the congressional agenda? this useless waste of space... This pile of stinking trash that is our United States Congress... whats next for them? ---- to pass whatever budget bill they can to avoid a shut down of the government* no matter how crappy or nonsensical the budget might be they will pass it in there at the last second just for the sake of passing something - On saint Patricks day - while you're not looking!. and this is the process that is going to break the back of this country.

Bicker

Argue

fuss

complain

reach the deadline and pass something because something is theoretically better than nothing.

rinse, wash, repeat - the same cycle next year... until the federal deficit becomes a number so large that it has to be expressed in scientific notation :stare:

The reason there are so many disagreements on fundamental policy issues is that the Government has too many irons in the fire... they have their hands on SO MANY private issues that it cant be kept up with. the budget is stretched so thin to so many different directions and there are so many special interests tied up in this whole mess that these politicians are trying to make everyone happy and THEY CANT!

The problem is proper regulation. Running a paint contracting business, I'm set up as a small quanity generator of haz. waste. The cost, paperwork, visits and fines for writing a label wrong is amazing. I refused to dump 1000's of gallons of chemical on the ground, so guess who the EPA only checks on...guys like me that signed up to do it right. Meanwhile, 100's of illegal mexicans dump tons of chemicals on the ground, backyards, dumpsters, sinks, etc....never bother them.

With government it's either too much or too little.

Read a story not long ago in Alaska where the water cleaning plant is, they applied for federal funds like all. They needed to reline or something. The problem was their water wasn't dirty enough by standards. In order to get the funds they were required to lessen standards to make the water dirty.
They did and were approved.

I believe that this is where theoretical libertarianism fails in the face of the real world. How can your market based solution act in the face of untracable pollution? How do consumers know what percentage of smog is due to which oil refinery or petrochemical plant?

Let's take a look at some scenes from China, where environmental regulations are lax to non-existant:

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-cont.../pollution.jpg

http://www.icis.com/blogs/asian-chem...ions/image.jpg

http://samhoffmann.files.wordpress.c...6/deadfish.jpg

I can't argue with that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxp7f...eature=related

Point made, sure the GOP would lax some standards, but were not talking this. Course it's places like this our corporations go to to make big money.

Proving that if given the chance, they'll put profits above all else. Their shareholders demand nothing less.

I don't want to hold the EPA up as a model bureaucracy, because a lot of what they do is red tape and BS, but to say that means that the goal of imposing regulations to protect our environment is foolish is wrong.

i dont think anyone would say regulating the care for our environment is foolish.

i would think that a fair amount of the regulation is "trivial" though

edit:

what i mean by trivial and by my previous comments is simple:

obviously you dont want a construction company storing gasoline in one of these

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zmOodflj2G...rusty-drum.gif
but im talking about shutting down the construction of a school for an entire day because they had these

http://www.trekhouston.org/Portals/0...ign/gasCan.gif
instead of these

http://www.blitzusa.com/products/fue...iro-FloGas.jpg





trivial

Indeed. They should be worrying about major air and water polluters instead of Joe Sixpack filling up his lawnmower. I will agree with you there.

praise the lord and pass the ammunition. thats exactly right. Regulate the companies that produce tons of chemicals per week... but leave joe sixpack alone... we are in dire straits when joe cannot go to the corner store and buy a gas can that doesnt require a 3 page instruction manual.

mookie, run for congress with me, we might be able to get this country through the storm. :har:

Heh, I can see it now.. the future of America, as dictated by the corporate purchased Grand Ole Party.

Pesky EPA obviously needs to go if it cuts into the bottom line. Not making enough profit. Big Corporate need MORE!!!! :shifty:

I have a sneaky suspicion that when China finally catch's up with modern enviromental standards (if ever), the corporate fat cats won't outsource there so much.

The pictures are terrible. Too bad the Chinese government can't regulate its state-managed corporations as well as it does the Internet and Google.

Sweet jeebus, the world really is coming to an end. Mookie must be playing with GB gold coins again.:haha:

@Golden rivet
So I was not quite correct, it isn't your lack of ability which causes you to spill gas, it was you making a deliberate choice to remove the spout from the can which caused spills.
Sorry, but you are in fantasy land, the old style cans also had the governments hands all over them.
So you think companies shouldn't have any regulation when it comes to the storage of dangerous chemicals.
That isn't a very sensible idea is it, it fact it would be best described as a really dumb idea.
Yes, its really bad that the government regulates safety standards for petrol cans, petrol is nice and can in no way be dangerous. It is really bad that they should even go to such a wasteful process of having two sets of regulations for petrol cans, that is realy silly, can't they see that commercial and domestic are really the same and petrol is the same so there should only be one rule concerning storage of the chemical and any old can will do as when it comes down to it as petrol is a liquid just like water .

ugh - putting the troll food away now

Face it GR your points don't stand up at all.
Its funny that you should make a lame attempt at flaming when your arguements have no merit.
Come to think of it that is simply you acting like a troll isn't it:yeah:

this has become - repeatedly on your end - less about the merits of a discussion and more about personally attacking others - and i wont continue such a childish debate anymore.

repeatedly for this very reason, of abusive - off topic personal attacks - i have added you to my ignore list.

and repeatedly, at the fault of my willingness to give you the benefit of the doubt - i have removed you from that ignore list after the passage of a period of time.

i think that anyone here would agree with me that you have twice now in this very thread - dodged legitimate discussion of the issue at hand in favor of striking at me personally.

i stated my opinion that - the EPA - while a critical part of our ability to protect our environment - DOES have some pretty trivial and nonsensical regulations.

I simply used the gas can argument to illustrate the point that when we are down to regulating the style of pour spouts on a 2 - 5 gallon gas can for filling up boat motors, weed eaters and lawn mowers that things have gotten out of hand, and i think most reasonable people would agree with that statement.

YOU on the other hand have ignored all other segments of the discussion and went directly onto the offensive in blaming my "ability" to pour gasoline or my "decision" to remove the cheap POS filler neck in order to facilitate easier pouring rather than use the leaky, slow flow, cheaply constructed filler neck that comes with the thing.

I will offer you no more back and forth over this as you cannot discuss it without striking at the person posting the comments.

one day Tribesman you might live in a world where your opinion is the only one... but until then, grow the **** up

Couldn't have said it better and I tried about 10 times and then gave up.