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susano
05-29-2010, 01:31 PM
Alright, I've said this before - corporations are not free market businesses. They are chartered and regulated by gov't. Now, let's say they weren't. Lets say they just did their thing with no gov't involvement. Would we be better off one way or the other? Hell no, we wouldn't.

IMO, corporations should be abolished because they are the epitome of fascism, i.e, a gov't-business partnership. They have limited liabilty, unlike you or me, who are held responsible for our actions (as it should be). Nothing could be further from the ideals of individual responisiblity and accountablity than the coporation which was designed to escape responsibility and accountability.

We've got this catastrophic situation in the Gulf. And, isn't being stopped. Don't be fooled. We know the gov't gave BP saftey exemptions and that the MMS parties with the oil industry (sometimes, anyway). So, regulations, even in place, were of no avail. Now, imagine BP with zero regulation. Not a better scenario.

I realize that some people here think that "business" should never be interfered with. based upon the ideas of the free market. Well, corporations are outside of the free market and their track record doesn't indicate they would be better actors totally independent of gov't. Either way, the Gulf of Mexico ABOMINATION would have occurred.

What I'm saying is that we, as a species and inhabitants of planet earth, need to make a paradigm shift. The Gulf is being destroyed, and there could be consquences that many can't even begin to imagine. We can't go on like this. This is a crime against life and Nature.

Does anyone have any real ideas about what we should do? All I do is not drive much and avoid plastic. I recycle. That isn't enough. Our world runs on oil. Global corporations are the ones who extract and refine it. And, it's not just oil, It's natrual gas and coal and tar sands and the extremely dangerous nuclear power. I have never been one believe we need to live in the stone age to be in harmony with Nature. We're much smarter than that. I firmly believe that corporations have supresses alt technologies. I am very worried that the fraudsters like Al Gore are going to use this nightamre as another reason to push cap & trade - a TOTAL scam to loot wealth which will not do a dam thing to protect the environment. But, protect the environment we MUST. And, global corporations are a threat to it, natinal soveriegnty and our freedom.

Discuss....

erowe1
05-29-2010, 01:38 PM
corporations are not free market businesses. They are chartered and regulated by gov't. Now, let's say they weren't. Lets say they just did their thing with no gov't involvement. Would we be better off one way or the other? Hell no, we wouldn't.

IMO, corporations should be abolished because they are the epitome of fascism, i.e, a gov't-business partnership.

Either I missed your point, or you're contradicting yourself.

You seem to begin by proposing a hypothetical situation in which corporations are not chartered and regulated by governments to ask whether that would be a good situation.

But then you seem to say it wouldn't be good because corporations "are the epitome of fascism, i.e, a gov't-business partnership." But doesn't that contradict your premise? Once you take away the government charters and regulations, they wouldn't be a govt.-business partnership any more.

If you really do want to ask about whether corporations would be a valuable thing without the government-based privileges they now enjoy, I tend to think they absolutely would. But if I'm wrong, and it turns out they would not, then that's fine too, if they turn out to be universally unprofitable, then they just wouldn't survive in the market. We certainly wouldn't need a government intervention banning them.

susano
05-29-2010, 01:44 PM
There is no such thing as a corporation without gov't, Just as there is no fed or IRS without gov't.

I'm saying that BP, corporate or not, would be doing the same shit. This means we have to figure out NEW ways of living and doing "business". A pradigm shift is required and it's required NOW.

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html

virgil47
05-29-2010, 01:46 PM
As long as corporations are treated as individuals they are good to have around.
They allow many people to band together to make money that they could not make as an individual.

When they get special perks from the gov. their existence is no longer a good thing because they then become controlled by the gov. not the investors. When this happens they are no longer considered as individuals but as an extension of the gov.

erowe1
05-29-2010, 01:47 PM
There is no such thing as a corporation without gov't,

There isn't right now in America, at least not legally, just like there aren't legal marriages that don't involve the government by way of marriage licenses. That doesn't mean there couldn't be. In fact, of course there could and would be both corporations and marriages if the government ceased to involve itself in them.

And again, isn't that the premise of your question, when you say, "Now let's say they weren't."

susano
05-29-2010, 01:49 PM
As long as corporations are treated as individuals they are good to have around.
They allow many people to band together to make money that they could not make as an individual.

When they get special perks from the gov. their existence is no longer a good thing because they then become controlled by the gov. not the investors. When this happens they are no longer considered as individuals but as an extension of the gov.

You are mistaken. People can get together and make money without a corporate charter and limited liablity. Without gov't, THERE IS NO SUCH ANIMAL AS A CORPORATION.

Having said that, whether BP is a limited liablity entity or not, do you think this disaster would be any different?

TheFlashlight.org
05-29-2010, 01:50 PM
I agree that corporations are a giant contrivance to shift risk from those who engage in business off of themselves. Just like the big banks shift the risk of their catastrophic failures onto the public. Just like the oil companies shift the risk of their catastrophic failure onto the public.

Is it good to have such a risk shielding mechanism for BIG business? I tend to think that the corporation, pioneered by Standard Oil, is too much of a shield from the free market. The whole idea is foreign. To "incorporate", to give a body, to make a person out of a non-living, abstract entity run by people.

Of course, you couldn't do away with corporations without making many other reforms. It's too easy to frivolously sue business people and if they were held personally liable for company liabilities, many executives and entrepreneurs wouldn't want to risk being in business at all. Scumbag lawyers have created a legal system so ludicrous and complex (ensuring their own necessity), that people win millions of dollars for spilling hot coffee and tea on their own laps.

erowe1
05-29-2010, 01:54 PM
You are mistaken. People can get together and make money without a corporate charter and limited liablity. Without gov't, THERE IS NO SUCH ANIMAL AS A CORPORATION.


Why do you believe that?

If a bunch of people enter a contractually defined relationship where they each contribute certain amounts of money to be put to some purpose (perhaps for profit, perhaps not, it wouldn't matter) in which they, according to that contract, each have part ownership in that business and delegate the decision making about how that business's resources are used to some board, which the contract stipulates that they elect with votes based on the amount of their stake in that business, wouldn't that be a corporation?

I doubt that such ventures would cease to exist absent government involvement in chartering and regulating them any more than marriage would cease to exist absent government marriage licenses. But if corporations prove to be unprofitable in a free market and cease to be used, then so be it. We wouldn't need to ban them.

susano
05-29-2010, 01:54 PM
There isn't right now in America, at least not legally, just like there aren't legal marriages that don't involve the government by way of marriage licenses. That doesn't mean there couldn't be. In fact, of course there could and would be both corporations and marriages if the government ceased to involve itself in them.

And again, isn't that the premise of your question, when you say, "Now let's say they weren't."

A corporation gets limited liablity FROM gov't. Without limited liablity, there would be no corporation. You would just have a partnership where all of the share holders were 100% responsible and accountable.

There are two issues here: One is the practices of huge business. The other is our dependence upon sources of energy that put our lives, animals and NATURE in danger.

1000-points-of-fright
05-29-2010, 01:55 PM
Yeah I don't understand what your saying either. Sounds like a bunch of emotional venting. A corporation is merely an entity comprised of many individuals with a common goal. Whether corporations exist or not is beside the point.

What really matters is government subsidies and the government imposed liability cap. Without those the cost of this spill and others would bankrupt BP. If BP were actually afraid of going out of business they would have had stricter safety standards than even the government required. Self preservation and their insurance policy would have demanded it.

susano
05-29-2010, 01:58 PM
I agree that corporations are a giant contrivance to shift risk from those who engage in business off of themselves. Just like the big banks shift the risk of their catastrophic failures onto the public. Just like the oil companies shift the risk of their catastrophic failure onto the public.

Is it good to have such a risk shielding mechanism for BIG business? I tend to think that the corporation, pioneered by Standard Oil, is too much of a shield from the free market. The whole idea is foreign. To "incorporate", to give a body, to make a person out of a non-living, abstract entity run by people.

Of course, you couldn't do away with corporations without making many other reforms. It's too easy to frivolously sue business people and if they were held personally liable for company liabilities, many executives and entrepreneurs wouldn't want to risk being in business at all. Scumbag lawyers have created a legal system so ludicrous and complex (ensuring their own necessity), that people win millions of dollars for spilling hot coffee and tea on their own laps.

I saw your other thread on BP and I greatly appreciated it.

IMO, everyone needs to be PERSONALLY responsible for their actions. If that means someone gets ruined because of their practices, so be it. I agree there are frivolous lawsuits, but that's another can of worms.

TheFlashlight.org
05-29-2010, 02:01 PM
I think some of you are lax in your understanding of a corporation and its purpose, but susano gets it.

The whole point of making a golem out of a business, a fake person, to inCORPORATE, sharing the root with CORPSE, a BODY, to give a BODY to that which has no body, is to make that body limited in its liability to the assets it has. Therefore, the assets of all of the owners of the corporation are shielded from liability and limited to the amount of capital they have invested in the corporation. Government allows this, it does not exist naturally. They decide to recognize and give legitimacy to this lawyerly invention.

susano
05-29-2010, 02:01 PM
Why do you believe that?

If a bunch of people enter a contractually defined relationship where they each contribute certain amounts of money to be put to some purpose (perhaps for profit, perhaps not, it wouldn't matter) in which they, according to that contract, each have part ownership in that business and delegate the decision making about how that business's resources are used to some board, which the contract stipulates that they elect with votes based on the amount of their stake in that business, wouldn't that be a corporation?

I doubt that such ventures would cease to exist absent government involvement in chartering and regulating them any more than marriage would cease to exist absent government marriage licenses. But if corporations prove to be unprofitable in a free market and cease to be used, then so be it. We wouldn't need to ban them.

A corporation is a creature of gov't, period. It's a gov't regulated entity. It's not just a group of share holders getting together to do business. That would be something different, not defined or structured as a "corporation".

TheFlashlight.org
05-29-2010, 02:02 PM
I saw your other thread on BP and I greatly appreciated it.

IMO, everyone needs to be PERSONALLY responsible for their actions. If that means someone gets ruined because of their practices, so be it. I agree there are frivolous lawsuits, but that's another can of worms.

Thanks!

erowe1
05-29-2010, 02:02 PM
A corporation gets limited liablity FROM gov't.
It does now. But it wouldn't have to. There could still be contractually defined corporations that contractually stipulate limitations on their liabilities with those with whom they do business. Such things could and would exist without the government being involved.


Without limited liablity, there would be no corporation. You would just have a partnership where all of the share holders were 100% responsible and accountable.


No, the share holders would be responsible according to whatever the contract stipulated, most likely in proportion with their stake in the company. I would still call such a partnership a corporation, even without limited liability. But if you're including limited liability as part of the definition of the word "corporation," (which is legally the case now, but only because of the legal definition of "corporation" that only is a definition because of the involvement of the government that you're stipulating would not be there), then I think we're just having a terminological difference. Yes, obviously if you eliminate government involvement in corporations, then those benefits that corporations get from that involvement would no longer be gotten. And if you include those benefits in your definition of the word "corporation," then your initial question would, indeed be asking us to fathom a logical contradiction, as it would mean the same thing as to ask, "If corporations did not exist, then would those nonexistent corporations be bad or good?"

erowe1
05-29-2010, 02:05 PM
A corporation is ... not just a group of share holders getting together to do business. That would be something different, not defined or structured as a "corporation".

It isn't that right now, and the reason it isn't is because of government involvement in corporations. We have a legal definition of "corporation" that includes limited liability because we have laws that limit the liability of corporations. Absent those laws, it would not be the case that the word "corporation" would cease to have meaning. We had corporations before we had limited liability laws, and we would have them still if we got rid of such laws.

susano
05-29-2010, 02:05 PM
Yeah I don't understand what your saying either. Sounds like a bunch of emotional venting. A corporation is merely an entity comprised of many individuals with a common goal. Whether corporations exist or not is beside the point.

What really matters is government subsidies and the government imposed liability cap. Without those the cost of this spill and others would bankrupt BP. If BP were actually afraid of going out of business they would have had stricter safety standards than even the government required. Self preservation and their insurance policy would have demanded it.



We need a tutorial on a what a corporation is because I'm appalled how little understanding I see on this board.

No, it is NOT beside the point. They are incorparated so they can have limited liablity GRANTED BY GOVERNMENT. That is the prurpose of a corporation! Without that, you have no corporation.

Sheesh!

erowe1
05-29-2010, 02:06 PM
They are incorparated so they can have limited liablity GRANTED BY GOVERNMENT. That is the prurpose of a corporation! Without that, you have no corporation.

As I explained above, that's not true.

susano
05-29-2010, 02:11 PM
I think some of you are lax in your understanding of a corporation and its purpose, but susano gets it.

The whole point of making a golem out of a business, a fake person, to inCORPORATE, sharing the root with CORPSE, a BODY, to give a BODY to that which has no body, is to make that body limited in its liability to the assets it has. Therefore, the assets of all of the owners of the corporation are shielded from liability and limited to the amount of capital they have invested in the corporation. Government allows this, it does not exist naturally. They decide to recognize and give legitimacy to this lawyerly invention.

THANK YOU. I have gone over this other threads and to no avail! this drives me crazy. It's as though these people want to fabricate, in their minds, the definition of what they THINK a coproration is.

Fact: British Petroleum is destroying the Gulf of Mexico and it occurred because of negligence. They make BILLIONS in profits and their share holders who have profitted will not be accountable beyond whatever shares they hold - IF BP is sued into oblivian. Even then, if they go bankrupt, creditors come first. And, no amount of money can make up for the destruction of the Gulf, all of the animals, the food chain, 11 killed workers and GOD knows what else.

erowe1
05-29-2010, 02:16 PM
THANK YOU. I have gone over this other threads and to no avail!

Perhaps that's because it takes more than your simple assertion of something as true to make people believe it. You might consider actual evidence as a possible valuable tool in your rhetorical toolbox if your hope is to have greater success in convincing people that your assertions about corporations are correct.

As you are hopefully aware, the question of how and whether corporations would exist without the government is one that has been discussed by free market and anarcho-capitalist (and other) economists at length and with greater sophistication than you have offered.

susano
05-29-2010, 02:16 PM
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our
moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our
government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of
our country." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.

TheFlashlight.org
05-29-2010, 02:18 PM
As I explained above, that's not true.

I disagree. There's so much information available on the history of corporations which clarifies this. State chartered + limited liability for participants granted by the state + artificial entity recognized by the state (tax ID, name, "birth certificate" with Secretary of State) = corporation.


The word "corporation" derives from corpus, the Latin word for body, or a "body of people". Entities which carried on business and were the subjects of legal rights were found in ancient Rome, and the Maurya Empire in ancient India.[7] In medieval Europe, churches became incorporated, as did local governments, such as the Pope and the City of London Corporation. The point was that the incorporation would survive longer than the lives of any particular member, existing in perpetuity. The alleged oldest commercial corporation in the world, the Stora Kopparberg mining community in Falun, Sweden, obtained a charter from King Magnus Eriksson in 1347. Many European nations chartered corporations to lead colonial ventures, such as the Dutch East India Company or the Hudson's Bay Company, and these corporations came to play a large part in the history of corporate colonialism.

During the period of colonial expansion in the seventeenth century, the true progenitors of the modern Corporation emerged as the "chartered company". Acting under a charter sanctioned by the Dutch monarch, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), defeated Portuguese forces and established itself in the Moluccan Islands in order to profit from the European demand for spices. Investors in the VOC were issued paper certificates as proof of share ownership, and were able to trade their shares on the original Amsterdam stock exchange. Shareholders are also explicitly granted limited liability in the company's royal charter.[8] In the late eighteenth century, Stewart Kyd, the author of the first treatise on corporate law in English, defined a corporation as,

a collection of many individuals united into one body, under a special denomination, having perpetual succession under an artificial form, and vested, by policy of the law, with the capacity of acting, in several respects, as an individual, particularly of taking and granting property, of contracting obligations, and of suing and being sued, of enjoying privileges and immunities in common, and of exercising a variety of political rights, more or less extensive, according to the design of its institution, or the powers conferred upon it, either at the time of its creation, or at any subsequent period of its existence.

http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/history_corporations_us.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_corporations

A lot of leftist leaning material is good on this topic, like the movie The Corporation and Chomsky. Also, the history of Standard Oil in pioneering the modern corporation to obfuscate ownership and limit liability is critical.

sratiug
05-29-2010, 02:21 PM
Corporations are bullshit. The penalty for the corporate heads and workers should be the same as it would be for me if I poured oil into the gulf. Jail and awsuits taking everything I have.

Maybe we couldn't get all this oil without corporations. Who cares. Maybe we'd just grow some hemp instead. Maybe people would grow their food locally. Maybe people would live close to their jobs. So what.

There was no stock exchange in colonial America. There are no national or international corporations even now, only state corporations and states have the ability to refuse business licenses to any corporation.

TheFlashlight.org
05-29-2010, 02:24 PM
Corporations are bullshit. The penalty for the corporate heads and workers should be the same as it would be for me if I poured oil into the gulf. Jail and awsuits taking everything I have.

Maybe we couldn't get all this oil without corporations. Who cares. Maybe we'd just grow some hemp instead. Maybe people would grow their food locally. Maybe people would live close to their jobs. So what.

There was no stock exchange in colonial America. There are no national or international corporations even now, only state corporations and states have the ability to refuse business licenses to any corporation.

I agree. The whole history of corporations is crony capitalism. The King says to his friends, hey, you can do business with no risk, cause I say so! But you can't do away with them now without so many other reforms.

Entertaining leftist movie about corporations. You can sort out the good from the bad.
YouTube - THE CORPORATION [1/23] What is a Corporation? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pin8fbdGV9Y)

susano
05-29-2010, 02:28 PM
Perhaps that's because it takes more than your simple assertion of something as true to make people believe it. You might consider actual evidence as a possible valuable tool in your rhetorical toolbox if your hope is to have greater success in convincing people that your assertions about corporations are correct.

As you are hopefully aware, the question of how and whether corporations would exist without the government is one that has been discussed by free market and anarcho-capitalist (and other) economists at length and with greater sophistication than you have offered.

You don't know what you're talking about. I am not asserting anything. I do not assert that the Federal Reserve Bank is a corporation. IT IS ONE. I do not asert that one of the functions of a corporation is limited liabity and a legal fiction as that of a PERSON. IT IS A FACT.

Corporations are not creatures of your dream world. They are not what you wish or imagine them to be. They are created IN LAW - unlike NATURAL LIVING BEINGS who are accountable for their actions.

corporation

Definition

The most common form of business organization, and one which is chartered by a state and given many legal rights as an entity separate from its owners. This form of business is characterized by the limited liability of its owners, the issuance of shares of easily transferable stock, and existence as a going concern. The process of becoming a corporation, call incorporation, gives the company separate legal standing from its owners and protects those owners from being personally liable in the event that the company is sued (a condition known as limited liability). Incorporation also provides companies with a more flexible way to manage their ownership structure. In addition, there are different tax implications for corporations, although these can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. In these respects, corporations differ from sole proprietorships and limited partnerships.

http://www.investorwords.com/1140/corporation.html

erowe1
05-29-2010, 02:33 PM
I disagree. There's so much information available on the history of corporations which clarifies this. State chartered + limited liability for participants granted by the state + artificial entity recognized by the state (tax ID, name, "birth certificate" with Secretary of State) = corporation.



http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/history_corporations_us.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_corporations

A lot of leftist leaning material is good on this topic, like the movie The Corporation and Chomsky. Also, the history of Standard Oil in pioneering the modern corporation to obfuscate ownership and limit liability is critical.

Yes, I get that, as a matter of fact, governments and corporations tend to have relationships with one another that contradict free market principles, and that over centuries, laws have developed codifying these relationships, such that they, being part of the law regarding corporations, are presently part of the legal definition of "corporation".

None of this means that corporations would cease to exist if those laws, which are part of the current legal definition of "corporation," changed, or that the word "corporation" would cease to apply to anything.

There isn't just a lot of leftist material about this, there is also a lot of classical liberal material about it. Here's an article that looks pretty good, for example, "Defending Corporations," by Walter Block and J. H. Huebert:
http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-huebert_defending-corporations-2009.pdf

You can find a ton more on both sides (but mostly on Block and Huebert's side) at mises.org.

Anti Federalist
05-29-2010, 02:34 PM
There was no stock exchange in colonial America.

:confused:



Wall Street

In the late 18th century, there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade informally. In 1792, the traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement. This was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange.[6]

In 1789, Federal Hall and Wall Street was the scene of the United States' first presidential inauguration. George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall overlooking Wall Street on April 30, 1789. This was also the location of the passing of the Bill Of Rights.

erowe1
05-29-2010, 02:37 PM
You don't know what you're talking about. I am not asserting anything. I do not assert that the Federal Reserve Bank is a corporation. IT IS ONE. I do not asert that one of the functions of a corporation is limited liabity and a legal fiction as that of a PERSON. IT IS A FACT.

Corporations are not creatures of your dream world. They are not what you wish or imagine them to be. They are created IN LAW - unlike NATURAL LIVING BEINGS who are accountable for their actions.

corporation

Definition

The most common form of business organization, and one which is chartered by a state and given many legal rights as an entity separate from its owners. This form of business is characterized by the limited liability of its owners, the issuance of shares of easily transferable stock, and existence as a going concern. The process of becoming a corporation, call incorporation, gives the company separate legal standing from its owners and protects those owners from being personally liable in the event that the company is sued (a condition known as limited liability). Incorporation also provides companies with a more flexible way to manage their ownership structure. In addition, there are different tax implications for corporations, although these can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. In these respects, corporations differ from sole proprietorships and limited partnerships.

http://www.investorwords.com/1140/corporation.html

Law and government aren't the same thing. Absence of government doesn't mean absence of law. Nothing in that definition except for "chartered by the state" requires government involvement. Entities with those features could still be created contractually without any government using its monopoly of force to award such entities the special privileges they now enjoy, as I explained above.

Even if they weren't chartered by the state, that doesn't mean that such things wouldn't exist any more than marriages would cease to exist if they ceased to be licensed by the state. It may well be the case that the legal definition of "marriage" now includes the presence of a state issued marriage license, in recognition of laws that refuse to recognize marriages as legal without one. And it may well be the case that the legal definition of "corporation" includes the presence of a state charter, in recognition of laws that refuse to recognize corporations as legal without one. But it is those laws that are constructs of the state, not the basic institutions or marriage and corporations.

susano
05-29-2010, 02:39 PM
I agree. The whole history of corporations is crony capitalism. The King says to his friends, hey, you can do business with no risk, cause I say so! But you can't do away with them now without so many other reforms.

Entertaining leftist movie about corporations. You can sort out the good from the bad.
YouTube - THE CORPORATION [1/23] What is a Corporation? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pin8fbdGV9Y)

Thank you for posting that film. I've heard it's great and I'll watch it.

There are some things the lefties have in common with the liberty movement and stopping global, corporate, fascism is one of them. Too bad they see global gov't as the answer to that. They just don't get that it's the SAME DAMN THING!

Here's another very good source, from the left, on corporations:

WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD
http://davidkorten.org/whencorps

YumYum
05-29-2010, 02:47 PM
You are asking a "real world" question, but it is hard to get from some members on this forum a "real world" answer. Alice's "Wonderland" is fun to discuss, but it is not going to help remedy our current situation.

With regards to how Corporate BP has to be handled, James Carville put it best:

"We have to get Obama to have a criminal investigation first. Once we have that we can then sue the individuals and everybody else involved who is liable."

James Carville is pushing hard for a criminal investigation, and members on this forum who care about the Gulf should stand behind him, instead of calling him names like "douche". I respect Carville and what he is currently doing.

Also, the best thing we can do is to get mad as Hell. Fuck legal protection and lawsuits. You ever heard of a "lynch mob"? Now there's the Free Market working at its best!

erowe1
05-29-2010, 02:51 PM
You are asking a "real world" question,

You might have missed the essence of the question. It's the very opposite of a real world question.

YumYum
05-29-2010, 03:18 PM
You might have missed the essence of the question. It's the very opposite of a real world question.

She asked: "Does anyone have any real ideas about what we should do?"

I assume that a "real idea" is something that is realistic.

Anti Federalist
05-29-2010, 03:33 PM
There is a very legitimate reason for LLC status.

Let's say you are the CEO and primary shareholder of a corporation that makes courier deliveries.

You have implemented any number of safety programs and oversight to assure that your drivers are licensed, trained and operate safely.

Yet one afternoon, one of the drivers gets hammered at the local bar, jumps in the company van and proceeds to wipe out an entire family in a horrific car crash.

Now, should you, your home, your savings and your life be subject to forfeiture for that driver's actions?

Actions you had no direct control over?

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 03:38 PM
The Environmental Protection Agency is charged with protecting our environment. Without a doubt the EPA failed AGAIN! :mad: Government always = FAIL!

Corporations are not the problem IMHO. Corporations are good organizations and should allow for limited liability for the stockholders because if I owned stock in BP but had no say in the organization, why should I be held responsible for one of their oil spills?

Government is again the problem. This fascism that we are living is the culprit. :(

In laissez-faire free-market capitalism, corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and sole proprietorships are valid organizational structures.

CUnknown
05-29-2010, 03:39 PM
You are mistaken. People can get together and make money without a corporate charter and limited liablity. Without gov't, THERE IS NO SUCH ANIMAL AS A CORPORATION.

Having said that, whether BP is a limited liablity entity or not, do you think this disaster would be any different?

I totally hear you in the OP. We need to reign in corporations big time. They are destroying the planet, period.

But I think that reducing govt might help with that. If you remove the limited liability, BP might not have chosen to drill there, because the insurance would have been too expensive. Crisis solved.

erowe1
05-29-2010, 03:41 PM
She asked: "Does anyone have any real ideas about what we should do?"

I assume that a "real idea" is something that is realistic.

Not when it's tacked onto a question with a premise of something unreal.

Her question takes as its premise: "corporations are not free market businesses. They are chartered and regulated by gov't. Now, let's say they weren't. Lets say they just did their thing with no gov't involvement." So the bit at the end about what real things we should do was more along the lines of: "We find ourselves trapped in a labyrinth with a minotaur. We have a lantern, some duct tape, and a whoopie cushion. Does anybody have any real ideas about what we should do?"

sratiug
05-29-2010, 03:41 PM
:confused:

Trading government bonds, but were they trading stocks? What stocks? What corporations existed? The stock exchange started in 1817, either way, that is years after the revolution.

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 03:44 PM
I totally hear you in the OP. We need to reign in corporations big time. They are destroying the planet, period.


Fascism is destroying our economy. No one is destroying the planet... yet.

susano
05-29-2010, 03:46 PM
You are asking a "real world" question, but it is hard to get from some members on this forum a "real world" answer. Alice's "Wonderland" is fun to discuss, but it is not going to help remedy our current situation.

With regards to how Corporate BP has to be handled, James Carville put it best:

"We have to get Obama to have a criminal investigation first. Once we have that we can then sue the individuals and everybody else involved who is liable."

James Carville is pushing hard for a criminal investigation, and members on this forum who care about the Gulf should stand behind him, instead of calling him names like "douche". I respect Carville and what he is currently doing.

Also, the best thing we can do is to get mad as Hell. Fuck legal protection and lawsuits. You ever heard of a "lynch mob"? Now there's the Free Market working at its best!

I couldn't agree more. He and Mary Matalin are important voices because that is their community, they love it, and they also know the disgusting game of DC (of which they are a part, ironically).

There are a lot of young people on this board. Some are pseudo intellectuals bust jerking off to fairy tales of "you're not gonna tell me what to do!", which I understand but has NOTHING to do with the planet rapers who will kill a fair amount of us (and I include all of the precious animals and their habitat in that "us") for a buck. If this disater in the Gulf isn't stopped, FAST, we are going to witness unimaginable consequences.

Did you know that many of the plaintiffs in the suit againt Exxon just NOW got paid? I'm sure many died while being jerked around.

Again, there are two issues here. The corporations AND our consumption of these dangerous to get at resources that end up destroying the very environment that keeps alive. This is monumental problem and we HAVE to solve it.

CUnknown
05-29-2010, 03:46 PM
Fascism is destroying our economy. No one is destroying the planet... yet.

I agree with the first part as well. I don't want to argue the second part, I was just agreeing with OP.

susano
05-29-2010, 03:52 PM
The Environmental Protection Agency is charged with protecting our environment. Without a doubt the EPA failed AGAIN! :mad: Government always = FAIL!

Corporations are not the problem IMHO. Corporations are good organizations and should allow for limited liability for the stockholders because if I owned stock in BP but had no say in the organization, why should I be held responsible for one of their oil spills?

Government is again the problem. This fascism that we are living is the culprit. :(

In laissez-faire free-market capitalism, corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and sole proprietorships are valid organizational structures.

Corporations are good organizations? Are you freaking serious? Which ones? The Fed, the oil companies, big pharma, Monsanto, Halliburton, the military industrail gang, who?

Just who do think "allows" the limited liabilty? GOVERNMENT DOES. You know, the armies of lawyers who write the laws that violate our constitution every chance they get.

susano
05-29-2010, 03:54 PM
There is a very legitimate reason for LLC status.

Let's say you are the CEO and primary shareholder of a corporation that makes courier deliveries.

You have implemented any number of safety programs and oversight to assure that your drivers are licensed, trained and operate safely.

Yet one afternoon, one of the drivers gets hammered at the local bar, jumps in the company van and proceeds to wipe out an entire family in a horrific car crash.

Now, should you, your home, your savings and your life be subject to forfeiture for that driver's actions?

Actions you had no direct control over?

Yes, you should be held accountable. You make money on a venture, you also should accept the consequences.

erowe1
05-29-2010, 03:57 PM
Corporations are good organizations? Are you freaking serious? Which ones? The Fed, the oil companies, big pharma, Monsanto, Halliburton, the military industrail gang, who?


Do you think you exhausted all corporations in that list?

How about some other corporations, like countless incorporated small businesses and nonprofit organizations?

Brian4Liberty
05-29-2010, 03:58 PM
Taking on the entire subject of corporations is quite a job. Is this thread about corporations in general, or dangerous activities like offshore oil drilling?

On the subject of offshore drilling, there are a couple of solutions to make it less risky. As we have seen, a disaster related to offshore drilling is huge, and it effects many people's property and livelihoods, not to mention massive environmental damage and the lives of workers). Any business that poses that kind of risk deserves some safety requirements. There are reasonable rules that can be put into place. There are good reasons for not allowing a dynamite factory in the middle of a dense residential area.

Solutions for offshore drilling safety:

- Ban all new offshore drilling (The California solution). Onshore slant drilling to offshore oil could still be allowed.

- Enact a variety of safety measures that the Oil Lobby had successfully blocked in the US. Many have been brought up, and many are already instituted in other countries.


As for big corporations in general, they do function very similar to governments, and in some ways they are more abusive of individual rights.

Anti Federalist
05-29-2010, 03:59 PM
Nvm

susano
05-29-2010, 03:59 PM
I totally hear you in the OP. We need to reign in corporations big time. They are destroying the planet, period.

But I think that reducing govt might help with that. If you remove the limited liability, BP might not have chosen to drill there, because the insurance would have been too expensive. Crisis solved.

Okay, now that's a very good point. This is how brainstorming is done.

If it were too expesnsive to risk PERSONAL repsonsibilty, as in Tony Hayward is wiped out and put in prison, I agree they wouldn't be here. The next question arises, then: What about oil? Can we change the paradigm and not do this anymore? How do we change our ways - like immediately (and also cut creeps like Al Gore out of our future)?

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 04:00 PM
Alright, I've said this before - corporations are not free market businesses. They are chartered and regulated by gov't. Now, let's say they weren't. Lets say they just did their thing with no gov't involvement. Would we be better off one way or the other? Hell no, we wouldn't.

Private/Public partnerships = Fascism = FAIL!


IMO, corporations should be abolished because they are the epitome of fascism, i.e, a gov't-business partnership. They have limited liabilty, unlike you or me, who are held responsible for our actions (as it should be). Nothing could be further from the ideals of individual responisiblity and accountablity than the coporation which was designed to escape responsibility and accountability.

Limited liability can be quite helpful for investment purposes.


We've got this catastrophic situation in the Gulf. And, isn't being stopped. Don't be fooled. We know the gov't gave BP saftey exemptions and that the MMS parties with the oil industry (sometimes, anyway). So, regulations, even in place, were of no avail. Now, imagine BP with zero regulation. Not a better scenario.

The EPA is responsible for this catastrophic situation in the Gulf.


I realize that some people here think that "business" should never be interfered with. based upon the ideas of the free market. Well, corporations are outside of the free market and their track record doesn't indicate they would be better actors totally independent of gov't. Either way, the Gulf of Mexico ABOMINATION would have occurred.

Laissez-Faire Free-Market Capitalism in Theory holds wrongdoers responsible.


What I'm saying is that we, as a species and inhabitants of planet earth, need to make a paradigm shift. The Gulf is being destroyed, and there could be consquences that many can't even begin to imagine. We can't go on like this. This is a crime against life and Nature.


Does anyone have any real ideas about what we should do?

Turn-off your TV and radio. Educate yourself and others on the blessings of liberty, laissez-faire free-market capitalism, and the truths.


All I do is not drive much and avoid plastic. I recycle. That isn't enough. Our world runs on oil. Global corporations are the ones who extract and refine it. And, it's not just oil, It's natrual gas and coal and tar sands and the extremely dangerous nuclear power. I have never been one believe we need to live in the stone age to be in harmony with Nature. We're much smarter than that. I firmly believe that corporations have supresses alt technologies. I am very worried that the fraudsters like Al Gore are going to use this nightamre as another reason to push cap & trade - a TOTAL scam to loot wealth which will not do a dam thing to protect the environment. But, protect the environment we MUST. And, global corporations are a threat to it, natinal soveriegnty and our freedom.

Oil is not near the threat to our world as portrayed by modern day elites. Oil has actually been a blessing to humanity... and history will prove this.

Discuss....

Brian4Liberty
05-29-2010, 04:04 PM
You know, the armies of lawyers who write the laws that violate our constitution every chance they get.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" - William Shakespeare, King Henry VI

;)

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 04:05 PM
Corporations are good organizations? Are you freaking serious? Which ones? The Fed, the oil companies, big pharma, Monsanto, Halliburton, the military industrail gang, who?

Just who do think "allows" the limited liabilty? GOVERNMENT DOES. You know, the armies of lawyers who write the laws that violate our constitution every chance they get.

Again... it's not the corporate charter that is the culprit. Fascism is the enemy of the people.

Anti Federalist
05-29-2010, 04:05 PM
Yes, you should be held accountable. You make money on a venture, you also should accept the consequences.

You should be put in a government prison for something that you had no direct control over?

Wow.

I'ma outta this thread.

susano
05-29-2010, 04:08 PM
Fascism is destroying our economy. No one is destroying the planet... yet.

Oh, you are so wrong on that last part. Tell that to Louisiana. Tell it to Nigeria. The Persian Gulf is one of the most polluted waterways in the world. Mountain tops are being blown off every day, in Appalachia. All because we need energy and because of the outrageous means we will go to to get it. We've got state actors, like Iran, corporations, and consumers, all involved in the plundering of the planet. Granted, I don't think most consumers have a clue of what is in the name of getting all of the stuff, but this Gulf disaster is going to wake up a lot of people.

We are going to have to be very alert and careful, because the sleaze like Gore are waiting in the wings with and I told you and cap & trade. He will tell half truths, such as we need to change our ways and find alt energies and lifestyles, which is true, but he'll offer deception as the remedy.

susano
05-29-2010, 04:14 PM
Taking on the entire subject of corporations is quite a job. Is this thread about corporations in general, or dangerous activities like offshore oil drilling?

On the subject of offshore drilling, there are a couple of solutions to make it less risky. As we have seen, a disaster related to offshore drilling is huge, and it effects many people's property and livelihoods, not to mention massive environmental damage and the lives of workers). Any business that poses that kind of risk deserves some safety requirements. There are reasonable rules that can be put into place. There are good reasons for not allowing a dynamite factory in the middle of a dense residential area.

Solutions for offshore drilling safety:

- Ban all new offshore drilling (The California solution). Onshore slant drilling to offshore oil could still be allowed.

- Enact a variety of safety measures that the Oil Lobby had successfully blocked in the US. Many have been brought up, and many are already instituted in other countries.


As for big corporations in general, they do function very similar to governments, and in some ways they are more abusive of individual rights.

My question was about all of it. This nightmare in the Gulf forces us to examine all of these - in addition to our consumption that drives this whole thing.

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 04:16 PM
Oh, you are so wrong on that last part. Tell that to Louisiana. Tell it to Nigeria. The Persian Gulf is one of the most polluted waterways in the world. Mountain tops are being blown off every day, in Appalachia. All because we need energy and because of the outrageous means we will go to to get it. We've got state actors, like Iran, corporations, and consumers, all involved in the plundering of the planet. Granted, I don't think most consumers have a clue of what is in the name of getting all of the stuff, but this Gulf disaster is going to wake up a lot of people.

We are going to have to be very alert and careful, because the sleaze like Gore are waiting in the wings with and I told you and cap & trade. He will tell half truths, such as we need to change our ways and find alt energies and lifestyles, which is true, but he'll offer deception as the remedy.

Proof of these claims please.

While the power elite and their MSM wants you to believe this crap... sorry, I don't buy it.
For the last 50 years I've heard that we are polluting our air and our water and destroying our planet... every morning I go outside to clean air and clean water.
Now I know that some isolated places are managed horribly... and that fascist governments rape and pillage the earth and the people.
But we are not yet destroying the planet.

charrob
05-29-2010, 04:26 PM
.
..

YumYum
05-29-2010, 04:27 PM
Proof of these claims please.

While the power elite and their MSM wants you to believe this crap... sorry, I don't buy it.
For the last 50 years I've heard that we are polluting our air and our water and destroying our planet... every morning I go outside to clean air and clean water.
Now I know that some isolated places are managed horribly... and that fascist governments rape and pillage the earth and the people.
But we are not yet destroying the planet.

Dude, you need to leave Oz for awhile and visit some other places. This planet is polluted and it is fucked up due to greedy capitalist.

MelissaWV
05-29-2010, 04:29 PM
Proof of these claims please.

While the power elite and their MSM wants you to believe this crap... sorry, I don't buy it.
For the last 50 years I've heard that we are polluting our air and our water and destroying our planet... every morning I go outside to clean air and clean water.
Now I know that some isolated places are managed horribly... and that fascist governments rape and pillage the earth and the people.
But we are not yet destroying the planet.

Actually the mountaintop thing is "true." That being said, the planet's far from destroyed. Mankind, however, is pretty delicate overall. The planet will stick around, and we'd do better to figure out how we can stick around, too.

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/04_tn.jpg

idiom
05-29-2010, 04:29 PM
"What I'm saying is that we, as a species and inhabitants of planet earth, need to make a paradigm shift. The Gulf is being destroyed, and there could be consquences that many can't even begin to imagine. We can't go on like this. This is a crime against life and Nature."

The Gulf and wildlife are not property, therefore no crime is taking place.

MelissaWV
05-29-2010, 04:32 PM
"What I'm saying is that we, as a species and inhabitants of planet earth, need to make a paradigm shift. The Gulf is being destroyed, and there could be consquences that many can't even begin to imagine. We can't go on like this. This is a crime against life and Nature."

The Gulf and wildlife are not property, therefore no crime is taking place.

Not in the terms mentioned in your quote, however person and property are being damaged. People are getting sick during the cleanup effort. Fishermen are out of a job (hopefully temporarily). Beaches are closed, causing lost revenue on property that benefits from summer vacationers. Beachfront property is losing value. All of these affected persons should seek damages, but best of luck on that one; BP will likely cling to the cap on damages, and the other companies involved are hardly mentioned anymore.

idiom
05-29-2010, 04:47 PM
Not in the terms mentioned in your quote, however person and property are being damaged. People are getting sick during the cleanup effort. Fishermen are out of a job (hopefully temporarily). Beaches are closed, causing lost revenue on property that benefits from summer vacationers. Beachfront property is losing value. All of these affected persons should seek damages, but best of luck on that one; BP will likely cling to the cap on damages, and the other companies involved are hardly mentioned anymore.

Lol yeah, someone could wipe out all the fish on the planet causing millions to starve, yet because they didn't break something with somebodies name on it, nothing has been done that was in some sense a bad idea.

YumYum
05-29-2010, 04:50 PM
Law and government aren't the same thing. Absence of government doesn't mean absence of law.

How would you enforce law without government?

erowe1
05-29-2010, 05:07 PM
How would you enforce law without government?

I should have said "the state" instead of "government," since it's less clear to me what needs to exist in order for there to be government. I'm also not an anarchist, so this is a theoretical question. But anarchists believe in a variety of means of enforcing laws without the state being there to force people to be its subjects against their wills.

You don't even have to be that imaginative really, even with the state right now, we still have other regulatory bodies that exist apart from the state. Observant Jews in America, for example, don't depend on the state to make sure that what what they eat is kosher. They have organizations that they depend on to give any given brand their seal of kosher approval. Brands that want to sell to those Jews need to follow the right laws as they are enforced by those organizations, or they won't be able to sell their products. That gets me back to the clarification I made at the start of this post, since I would concede that one could call such an arrangement "government," broadly understood, though it's certainly not "the state."

susano
05-29-2010, 05:23 PM
You should be put in a government prison for something that you had no direct control over?

Wow.

I'ma outta this thread.

I'm sorry you're oughta here because these are things that need to considered, and I will answer anyway.

I would never work for own stock in, for example, General Dynamics. Why? Because I don't want to part of what they do. That becomes my karma, too. It's the same with any business. If everyone in business were held acocuntable for their actions, you can bet their would be changes in how things are done. Pehaps there would be very few businesses with remote share holders, managers and the like, because people would refuse to be accountable for what is out of their control. In what way would be a bad thing? Isn't individual repsonsibilty somethine we always talk about in this movement? What you've just said is that you only want responsibility for your choices sometimes.

susano
05-29-2010, 05:23 PM
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" - William Shakespeare, King Henry VI

;)

+ 1

susano
05-29-2010, 05:26 PM
..

Thank you! I'll read that.

susano
05-29-2010, 05:35 PM
"What I'm saying is that we, as a species and inhabitants of planet earth, need to make a paradigm shift. The Gulf is being destroyed, and there could be consquences that many can't even begin to imagine. We can't go on like this. This is a crime against life and Nature."

The Gulf and wildlife are not property, therefore no crime is taking place.

Oh, for fucksake.

"Property" by your estimation means something somone has created, conquered, or paid for, I presume? So, by that reasoning, so what, eh? No property, no crime. Well, I'm not just talking about crime in a legal sense, and there WILL be a criminal investigation, under maritime law, because 11 men died and that rig is, indeed, property and the Missippi Canyon is in US waters (conquered territory), and liviehoods are destroyed, and coastal lands. But I'm talking about something WAY bigger than the legal definition of crime. You know - as in a MORAL crime against Creation and all of those precious creatures out there suffering and dieing becuse of this.

susano
05-29-2010, 05:42 PM
Actually the mountaintop thing is "true." That being said, the planet's far from destroyed. Mankind, however, is pretty delicate overall. The planet will stick around, and we'd do better to figure out how we can stick around, too.

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/04_tn.jpg

You can see the results all too clearly from a plane at 35,000 feet. You can see them in satellite pictures too. But you won't see a tree out of place as you drive south from the gold-domed capital city of Charleston into the low-lying mountains they call, incongruously, the coalfields. The coal companies may be brutish, but they aren't stupid. They site their operations well away from the interstates, even a ridge or two away from the county roads. The unsuspecting traveler rolls down I-77 admiring the forested mountains, little imagining that the range he sees is as much an artifice as a Hollywood backdrop.



The Rape of Appalachia
Appalachia's mountains are being blasted at a rate of several ridgetops each week. Parents fear for the health of their children. And those trying to fight the devastation have found that coal baron Don Blankenship, C.E.O. of Massey Energy, is tougher than bedrock.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/05/appalachia200605

He's the same guy who owns the mines where all the guys just died.

susano
05-29-2010, 06:02 PM
http://s.ngm.com/2007/02/nigerian-oil/img/nigerian-oil-hdr-615.jpg

Curse of the Black Gold
Hope and betrayal on the Niger Delta

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/02/nigerian-oil/oneill-text

A lot of our oil comes from there

YumYum
05-29-2010, 06:23 PM
http://s.ngm.com/2007/02/nigerian-oil/img/nigerian-oil-hdr-615.jpg

Curse of the Black Gold
Hope and betrayal on the Niger Delta

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/02/nigerian-oil/oneill-text

A lot of our oil comes from there

Free Market Utopia!!:D

tangent4ronpaul
05-29-2010, 06:42 PM
YouTube - Fight Club (end) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkUaV9GZDuk)

Once upon a time, drug companies tested their products to the point where they were comfortable that they would not get sued. To bring a drug to market cost tens of thousands to a few million and too about 2 years. After the federal gvmt got involved, it now takes 700 Million to 1.2 Billion and over a decade.

Was watching the deep horizon hearings and the level of regulation is totally asinine! Think about building a house. It would be like having to fill out a stack of paperwork and ask permission every time you decided that maybe you'd like to add an extra support cross member in a wall, or an extra electrical outlet. No wonder drilling costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

How to fix this?

Get rid of the fluke known as corporate person hood
Ban lobbyists
Abolish regulatory agencies
Stop government meddling in the market, like caps on compensation.

If the company has to be careful, for fear of being sued out of business, they will be careful. If they strip mine, they will cover and replant both to avoid being sued for water runoff pollution but also to sell the logging rights down the road.

Government IS the problem! The only good reason they are involved here (with the cleanup) is that the oil is in international waters. The Coast Guard also seems to have a claim here, as the first 200 miles is their jurisdiction.

-t

virgil47
05-29-2010, 07:05 PM
Yes, you should be held accountable. You make money on a venture, you also should accept the consequences.

What you are saying is that you do not want any ventures. If someone is attempting to make money they are always directly at fault for the actions of others? I'm sorry but that somehow seems anti-capitalist.

YumYum
05-29-2010, 07:09 PM
What you are saying is that you do not want any ventures. If someone is attempting to make money they are always directly at fault for the actions of others? I'm sorry but that somehow seems anti-capitalist.

It makes total sense. It would guarantee that the capitalist hires competent people.

My advice: Don't hire people; do it yourself.

virgil47
05-29-2010, 07:39 PM
It makes total sense. It would guarantee that the capitalist hires competent people.

My advice: Don't hire people; do it yourself.

So your advice then is to just have a one man operation and never grow larger and actually hire members of your community. Hmmm, I wonder how many automobile ,tire ,computer aircraft, boat companies and such would be manufacturing goods for the population. I guess we'd all have to raise our own food and build our own homes as well. By golly we'd be right back in the 1800's. Is that what you are really advocating?

Anti Federalist
05-29-2010, 07:50 PM
It makes total sense. It would guarantee that the capitalist hires competent people.

My advice: Don't hire people; do it yourself.

I know I said I was out of this thread but...

That has to be the single most idiotic thing I've ever read here.

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 07:59 PM
Dude, you need to leave Oz for awhile and visit some other places. This planet is polluted and it is fucked up due to greedy capitalist.

This planet is polluted in a few places and it is fucked up due to fascism. :mad:

Attacking greedy capitalists is like shooting the messenger. Everybody is greedy. Capitalism is the most productive and efficient method of distribution for goods and services ever designed. As a matter of fact, it is the only way that really works.

Turn your radio & TV off... think for yourself... observe... analyze... learn and teach. Just quit believing the BS. Nobody is destroying our planet, yet.

Can you prove that our air and water is dirtier today than it was 50 years ago?

Old Ducker
05-29-2010, 08:00 PM
There is a very legitimate reason for LLC status.

Let's say you are the CEO and primary shareholder of a corporation that makes courier deliveries.

You have implemented any number of safety programs and oversight to assure that your drivers are licensed, trained and operate safely.

Yet one afternoon, one of the drivers gets hammered at the local bar, jumps in the company van and proceeds to wipe out an entire family in a horrific car crash.

Now, should you, your home, your savings and your life be subject to forfeiture for that driver's actions?

Actions you had no direct control over?

An LLC makes sense IF there are relatively few partners but rapidly becomes unwieldly if not. It's main attraction is for reasons of taxation. If you found an S Corp, any funds used to establish it are taxed as personal income by the IRS, based on the % of initial ownership.

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 08:12 PM
Actually the mountaintop thing is "true." That being said, the planet's far from destroyed. Mankind, however, is pretty delicate overall. The planet will stick around, and we'd do better to figure out how we can stick around, too.


True? It's only somewhat true. While I think we can do a lot better, the mountain top thing is extremely exaggerated! And so is the idea that we are destroying our environment.

Mankind is pretty delicate, and we need to improve ASAP. But we also need to correctly identify the culprits. Corporatism and capitalism is not the problem.

The fascist cartel... the power elite oligarchy... the tyrannical government that we have been living under since the 1860's... and is proposed to continue under U.N.'s Agenda 21 is the problem.

Liberty and laissez-faire free-market capitalism is the answer.

MelissaWV
05-29-2010, 08:16 PM
True? It's only somewhat true. While I think we can do a lot better, the mountain top thing is extremely exaggerated! And so is the idea that we are destroying our environment.

Mankind is pretty delicate, and we need to improve ASAP. But we also need to correctly identify the culprits. Corporatism and capitalism is not the problem.

The fascist cartel... the power elite oligarchy... the tyrannical government that we have been living under since the 1860's... and is proposed to continue under U.N.'s Agenda 21 is the problem.

Liberty and laissez-faire free-market capitalism is the answer.

Let's not be deliberately dense.

The original post in question was:


Oh, you are so wrong on that last part. Tell that to Louisiana. Tell it to Nigeria. The Persian Gulf is one of the most polluted waterways in the world. Mountain tops are being blown off every day, in Appalachia. All because we need energy and because of the outrageous means we will go to to get it. We've got state actors, like Iran, corporations, and consumers, all involved in the plundering of the planet. Granted, I don't think most consumers have a clue of what is in the name of getting all of the stuff, but this Gulf disaster is going to wake up a lot of people.

We are going to have to be very alert and careful, because the sleaze like Gore are waiting in the wings with and I told you and cap & trade. He will tell half truths, such as we need to change our ways and find alt energies and lifestyles, which is true, but he'll offer deception as the remedy.

...which you bolded as indicated. Then you responded with:


Proof of these claims please. ...

Mountain tops are, indeed, being blown off in Appalachia with fair frequency. To counter that it's only "somewhat true" is silly. It is highly unlikely that is going to cause the world to give up and crack to bits, as I mentioned.

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 08:41 PM
Mountain tops are, indeed, being blown off in Appalachia with fair frequency. To counter that it's only "somewhat true" is silly. It is highly unlikely that is going to cause the world to give up and crack to bits, as I mentioned.

Fair frequency... okay. But every day? Is that not an exaggeration? I do need to study that particular situation, but blowing a mountain top off every day seems extreme. I'll check into it and let you know if that is an exaggeration or not.

MelissaWV
05-29-2010, 08:49 PM
Fair frequency... okay. But every day? Is that not an exaggeration? I do need to study that particular situation, but blowing a mountain top off every day seems extreme. I'll check into it and let you know if that is an exaggeration or not.

No, not every day :rolleyes: but I would not have taken that so literally. It's not literally "blown off," either. It's also sometimes not the top of the mountain. It's also sometimes a rather small mountain, which some might debate could be a hill or a foothill.

The tops don't need to be blown up every single day because the same one is worked on, expanded, and used for a given time. It's frequent enough that there are plenty of warnings along the road about it, including signs telling you to shut off your cellphones lest you set off an explosion. I've never shut mine off, though, and have yet to blow anyone up.

YumYum
05-29-2010, 08:54 PM
So your advice then is to just have a one man operation and never grow larger and actually hire members of your community. Hmmm, I wonder how many automobile ,tire ,computer aircraft, boat companies and such would be manufacturing goods for the population. I guess we'd all have to raise our own food and build our own homes as well. By golly we'd be right back in the 1800's. Is that what you are really advocating?

My point is that employers should be fully responsible for the actions of their employees. Isn't that why employers carry liability insurance?

As far as the 1800's, where we are heading will make the 1800's look like the Space Age. We will be in the Stone Age.

YumYum
05-29-2010, 08:56 PM
I know I said I was out of this thread but...

That has to be the single most idiotic thing I've ever read here.

You've made some pretty stupid statements yourself. Come out of your bomb shelter.

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 09:06 PM
No, not every day :rolleyes: but I would not have taken that so literally. It's not literally "blown off," either. It's also sometimes not the top of the mountain. It's also sometimes a rather small mountain, which some might debate could be a hill or a foothill.

The tops don't need to be blown up every single day because the same one is worked on, expanded, and used for a given time. It's frequent enough that there are plenty of warnings along the road about it, including signs telling you to shut off your cellphones lest you set off an explosion. I've never shut mine off, though, and have yet to blow anyone up.

That's what I meant too... about extremely exaggerated. :cool:

Most people do not understand how coal helps them, but they love to rally around exaggerated claims to scare people into believing that we are destroying our planet. Coal, oil and gas have been really good for mankind to date, but people claim that we are destroying our air and water using petroleum... and I no longer buy that argument. There may be better fuels that are just as efficient. I hope going forward that we can find and utilize them.

The worst air I remember in the last 50 years was when Mt. Saint Helens blew up. I lived in Denver at the time... 1300 miles away! For a week the air was thick and dirty. My car had a film on it that was tough to remove. But 50 years of scared stiff memes that my car was destroying the planet... and to date... no proof. I go outside every morning... clean air! :)

We can do better. We can do much better. But we cannot do better unless we address the culprits that are responsible for the true destruction. IMO it's the fascist cartels.

Old Ducker
05-29-2010, 09:07 PM
We've got state actors, like Iran, corporations, and consumers, all involved in the plundering of the planet.

Iran is plundering the planet? Who knew. :rolleyes:

YumYum
05-29-2010, 09:08 PM
This planet is polluted in a few places and it is fucked up due to fascism. :mad:

The Nazis are all dead. Only a few places???? Have you checked out the dead zone in the Pacific Ocean that's the size of Texas?


Attacking greedy capitalists is like shooting the messenger. Everybody is greedy. Capitalism is the most productive and efficient method of distribution for goods and services ever designed. As a matter of fact, it is the only way that really works.

But you're missing the whole point. In the Free Market Utopia there are no greedy capitalist. Everybody loves one another and helps one another. But until the Savior comes and takes us to the Land of the Free Market Utopia, we have to deal with greedy capitalist.


Turn your radio & TV off... think for yourself... observe... analyze... learn and teach. Just quit believing the BS. Nobody is destroying our planet, yet.

Yet???? Are you expecting it to happen? Are you wanting it to happen?



Can you prove that our air and water is dirtier today than it was 50 years ago?

Yes, I have a 700ft well on my property, and it is so loaded with nitrates from the chicken manure spread by the local farmers, that it is not drinkable.

As far as the air we breathe, you need to come out of your bunker and visit Los Angeles this summer and take some deep breaths.

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 09:16 PM
As far as the air we breathe, you need to come out of your bunker and visit Los Angeles this summer and take some deep breaths.

Yes, if I wanted dirty air, I would live in Los Angeles. It's kind of crazy to live in a city that destroys plant life to pave the land with concrete, pack the streets with internal combustion engines and then complain that the air is dirty. Sheesh. I will not be visiting anytime soon.

Where I live... the air is fresh and clean. :D

Travlyr
05-29-2010, 09:33 PM
The Nazis are all dead. Only a few places???? Have you checked out the dead zone in the Pacific Ocean that's the size of Texas?

Huh? A dead zone in the Pacific Ocean equates to destruction of the planet?


But you're missing the whole point. In the Free Market Utopia there are no greedy capitalist. Everybody loves one another and helps one another. But until the Savior comes and takes us to the Land of the Free Market Utopia, we have to deal with greedy capitalist.

Laissez-faire free-market capitalism is prosperous for everyone.


Yes, I have a 700ft well on my property, and it is so loaded with nitrates from the chicken manure spread by the local farmers, that it is not drinkable.

That's your proof! My air and water is clean. It's too bad that you live in such a horrible area.

susano
05-29-2010, 10:53 PM
What you are saying is that you do not want any ventures. If someone is attempting to make money they are always directly at fault for the actions of others? I'm sorry but that somehow seems anti-capitalist.

It's called pro personal responsibility

susano
05-29-2010, 11:00 PM
Iran is plundering the planet? Who knew. :rolleyes:

The Persian Gulf is one of the most polluted waterways in the world, due to their oil industry.

tremendoustie
05-29-2010, 11:02 PM
Alright, I've said this before - corporations are not free market businesses. They are chartered and regulated by gov't. Now, let's say they weren't. Lets say they just did their thing with no gov't involvement. Would we be better off one way or the other? Hell no, we wouldn't.

IMO, corporations should be abolished because they are the epitome of fascism, i.e, a gov't-business partnership. They have limited liabilty, unlike you or me, who are held responsible for our actions (as it should be). Nothing could be further from the ideals of individual responisiblity and accountablity than the coporation which was designed to escape responsibility and accountability.

We've got this catastrophic situation in the Gulf. And, isn't being stopped. Don't be fooled. We know the gov't gave BP saftey exemptions and that the MMS parties with the oil industry (sometimes, anyway). So, regulations, even in place, were of no avail. Now, imagine BP with zero regulation. Not a better scenario.

I realize that some people here think that "business" should never be interfered with. based upon the ideas of the free market. Well, corporations are outside of the free market and their track record doesn't indicate they would be better actors totally independent of gov't. Either way, the Gulf of Mexico ABOMINATION would have occurred.

What I'm saying is that we, as a species and inhabitants of planet earth, need to make a paradigm shift. The Gulf is being destroyed, and there could be consquences that many can't even begin to imagine. We can't go on like this. This is a crime against life and Nature.

Does anyone have any real ideas about what we should do? All I do is not drive much and avoid plastic. I recycle. That isn't enough. Our world runs on oil. Global corporations are the ones who extract and refine it. And, it's not just oil, It's natrual gas and coal and tar sands and the extremely dangerous nuclear power. I have never been one believe we need to live in the stone age to be in harmony with Nature. We're much smarter than that. I firmly believe that corporations have supresses alt technologies. I am very worried that the fraudsters like Al Gore are going to use this nightamre as another reason to push cap & trade - a TOTAL scam to loot wealth which will not do a dam thing to protect the environment. But, protect the environment we MUST. And, global corporations are a threat to it, natinal soveriegnty and our freedom.

Discuss....


Well, of course, BP should be held fully liable for all damages, which would probably send them out of business. They won't be. This actually is the lie most people buy into -- that government protects them from big corporations, when in reality, they protect the corporations, and they've been doing it since the industrial revolution. Nobody has a right to pollute their neighbor's property.

This problem isn't going to be fixed without a real shift in the way we handle justice. I don't know if this can be accomplished in our current political predicament.

Apart from that ... yeah, boycotts for bad actors, and fund good alternatives.

susano
05-29-2010, 11:11 PM
That's what I meant too... about extremely exaggerated. :cool:

Most people do not understand how coal helps them, but they love to rally around exaggerated claims to scare people into believing that we are destroying our planet. Coal, oil and gas have been really good for mankind to date, but people claim that we are destroying our air and water using petroleum... and I no longer buy that argument. There may be better fuels that are just as efficient. I hope going forward that we can find and utilize them.

The worst air I remember in the last 50 years was when Mt. Saint Helens blew up. I lived in Denver at the time... 1300 miles away! For a week the air was thick and dirty. My car had a film on it that was tough to remove. But 50 years of scared stiff memes that my car was destroying the planet... and to date... no proof. I go outside every morning... clean air! :)

We can do better. We can do much better. But we cannot do better unless we address the culprits that are responsible for the true destruction. IMO it's the fascist cartels.

Appalachia's mountains are being blasted at a rate of several ridgetops each week. Parents fear for the health of their children. And those trying to fight the devastation have found that coal baron Don Blankenship, C.E.O. of Massey Energy, is tougher than bedrock.


http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/05/appalachia200605

One of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in American history is underway just southwest of our nation's capital. In the coalfields of Appalachia, individuals, families and entire communities are being driven off their land by flooding, landslides and blasting resulting from mountaintop removal coal mining.

Mountaintop removal is a relatively new type of coal mining that began in Appalachia in the 1970s as an extension of conventional strip mining techniques. Primarily, mountaintop removal is occurring in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. Coal companies in Appalachia are increasingly using this method because it allows for almost complete recovery of coal seams while reducing the number of workers required to a fraction of what conventional methods require.

Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 600 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams. While the environmental devastation caused by this practice is obvious, families and communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day. Families and communities near mining sites may also suffer from airborne dust and debris, contamination of their drinking water supplies, and flooding from broken slurry impoundments such as the Buffalo Creek disaster which left more than 100 dead and thousands homeless.

http://www.appvoices.org/images/galleries/mtr/WV-MTR-dragline-Southwings2_med.jpg

http://www.appvoices.org/images/galleries/mtr/VA-KY-MTRSouthwings_med.jpg

http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/gallery/image_med/28/

http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/


Your arrogance combine with your ignorance is frightening.

CUnknown
05-29-2010, 11:15 PM
Well, of course, BP should be held fully liable for all damages, which would probably send them out of business. They won't be. This actually is the lie most people buy into -- that government protects them from big corporations, when in reality, they protect the corporations, and they've been doing it since the industrial revolution. Nobody has a right to pollute their neighbor's property.

This problem isn't going to be fixed without a real shift in the way we handle justice. I don't know if this can be accomplished in our current political predicament.

Apart from that ... yeah, boycotts for bad actors, and fund good alternatives.

I like free market ideology as long as you agree, as you do, that corporations who pollute should pay for the full extent of their damages, even if it sends them out of business. I actually think that this ideology, if properly and consistently applied, would be greener than cap&trade / carbon tax / what have you. It's pretty damn radical if you think about it.

susano
05-29-2010, 11:23 PM
Well, of course, BP should be held fully liable for all damages, which would probably send them out of business. They won't be. This actually is the lie most people buy into -- that government protects them from big corporations, when in reality, they protect the corporations, and they've been doing it since the industrial revolution. Nobody has a right to pollute their neighbor's property.

This problem isn't going to be fixed without a real shift in the way we handle justice. I don't know if this can be accomplished in our current political predicament.

Apart from that ... yeah, boycotts for bad actors, and fund good alternatives.

Yup. Gov't & corporations are a hand in glove operation. It is amazing to see the meatheads here go on about government is bad, corporations are great, when they are the same damn beast! For whose benefit do these morons think global government is being implimented? I wonder if they have EVER taken the time to read about the SPP, the various economic unions, and the trade treaties. It's appalling to see such stupidity.

If BP is bankrupt by this mega disaster, the big shareholders will just re-group, like Arthur Anderson becoming Accenture. However, unless that VOLCANO of oil is not stopped, we might not be around anyway. If we are, there will be no amount of compensation for the massive loss of life, both human and animal.

susano
05-29-2010, 11:27 PM
I like free market ideology as long as you agree, as you do, that corporations who pollute should pay for the full extent of their damages, even if it sends them out of business. I actually think that this ideology, if properly and consistently applied, would be greener than cap&trade / carbon tax / what have you. It's pretty damn radical if you think about it.

There is nothing "green" about cap & trade. It's a fraud.

It's critical that you understand there is NO WAY to compensate for the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, or the loss of the Appalacian mountains, and so much more. You cannot put a price on CREATION.

tremendoustie
05-30-2010, 12:10 AM
Yup. Gov't & corporations are a hand in glove operation. It is amazing to see the meatheads here go on about government is bad, corporations are great, when they are the same damn beast! For whose benefit do these morons think global government is being implimented? I wonder if they have EVER taken the time to read about the SPP, the various economic unions, and the trade treaties. It's appalling to see such stupidity.

If BP is bankrupt by this mega disaster, the big shareholders will just re-group, like Arthur Anderson becoming Accenture. However, unless that VOLCANO of oil is not stopped, we might not be around anyway. If we are, there will be no amount of compensation for the massive loss of life, both human and animal.

Yep. I don't think you understood me fully though. I don't believe in corporate personhood -- the shareholders should be liable as well.

susano
05-30-2010, 12:34 AM
Yep. I don't think you understood me fully though. I don't believe in corporate personhood -- the shareholders should be liable as well.

yes, that's how I understood you

tremendoustie
05-30-2010, 12:50 AM
yes, that's how I understood you

Ah, gotcha, you were just describing what would happen in the current context. ;)

Yeah, I doubt BP is even going to go out of business. They'll be protected from liability.

I think the points you make are important, to attract people on the left side of the political spectrum to liberty. They're right to recognize corporations as abusive, and we need to point out that liberty and respect for property rights would benefit the environment hugely, and end huge amounts of corporate and governmental damage.

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 04:18 AM
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/05/appalachia200605



Vanity Fair? Really? You get your news from Vanity Fair? Okay. In this article the author describes the fascist cartel that I have been referring to in previous posts.


Why had Sago been allowed to operate after all these infractions? Because in West Virginia, coal is king. Inspectors can write all the citations they please. Coal-industry lawyers will just pay them as a cost of doing business. Governors and senators can call for reform, but King Coal underwrites their campaigns.

The article indicates that there is a monopoly in that coal mining area. The King Coal/Government fascist cartel monopoly. Wouldn't a lot of problems be solved if there was plenty of competition?

I don't particularly like having to take huge chunks of mountaintops from the Earth. But it hardly classifies as wholesale destruction of our environment. Without coal, many people will freeze in the dark. What better alternative do we currently have?

The article also insinuated that mountaintop mining may be a safer alternative than miners going down into the mines. Is that so bad? Can we do better? IMO, laissez-faire free-market solutions would solve many issues.

However, claiming that all corporations are bad is silly and unproductive. The corporate charter can be a very good organizational technique if it is not corrupted by public/private partnerships.

And no, I am not responsible for BP's accident just because I happen to have one of their shares of stock in my mutual fund. That is nonsense.

My claim is that corporate organization is not the culprit. The fascist cartel of government public/private partnerships as described above is the culprit.

idiom
05-30-2010, 04:29 AM
Nobody has a right to pollute their neighbor's property.

Well, the Gulf wasn't anybodies property. From that point of view, maybe BP was just homesteading the gulf? The only way to tell which water is theirs was to mark it with oil?

idiom
05-30-2010, 04:30 AM
And no, I am not responsible for BP's accident just because I happen to have one of their shares of stock in my mutual fund.

Yes you are. You own the company that caused the spill, how can you not be responsible? Are you just taking their profit and not caring where the money came from?

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 04:42 AM
And no, I am not responsible for BP's accident just because I happen to have one of their shares of stock in my mutual fund. That is nonsense.



Yes you are. You own the company that caused the spill, how can you not be responsible? Are you just taking their profit and not caring where the money came from?

No. I am not responsible for BP's actions. I am protected by law. That is what limited liability means. And yes, I am taking their profit and not caring where the money came from.

idiom
05-30-2010, 04:46 AM
No. I am not responsible for BP's actions. I am protected by law. That is what limited liability means. And yes, I am taking their profit and not caring where the money came from.

Limited Liability means you can't be punished beyond the seizure of your shares, not that you are not in charge of BP.

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 04:55 AM
Limited Liability means you can't be punished beyond the seizure of your shares, not that you are not in charge of BP.

I am fine with that. The only responsibility I have for actions over which I have no control is losing my shares.

BTW... In my humble opinion... the EPA is fully responsible for the Gulf oil disaster.

YumYum
05-30-2010, 05:01 AM
I am fine with that. The only responsibility I have for actions over which I have no control is losing my shares.

BTW... In my humble opinion... the EPA is fully responsible for the Gulf oil disaster.

How is that?

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 05:06 AM
How is that?


Because the EPA must be in bed with BP. If the Environmental Protection Agency is not protecting the environment, what good are they? The EPA fails again and should be abolished along with all the other public/private partnerships that are raping the people and the world.

YumYum
05-30-2010, 05:08 AM
Because the EPA must be in bed with BP. If the Environmental Protection Agency is not protecting the environment, what good are they? The EPA fails again and should be abolished along with all the other public/private partnerships that are raping the people and the world.

So, if there was no EPA, the BP oil leak would have never happened?

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 05:18 AM
So, if there was no EPA, the BP oil leak would have never happened?

I don't know about that, but if laissez-faire free-market capitalism was allowed, then we would have small oil corporations competing all over the world drilling on land that would be much more responsible for their actions and much less disasters because they would be held responsible.

YumYum
05-30-2010, 05:30 AM
I don't know about that, but if laissez-faire free-market capitalism was allowed, then we would have small oil corporations competing all over the world drilling on land that would be much more responsible for their actions and much less disasters because they would be held responsible.

I worked one summer in West Texas on two different oil rigs. There was no EPA around; there was no one around. But we fucked up the environment like nobody's business. Do you know how you clean the oil rig and its diesel engines? With diesel fuel. You take diesel fuel and you slosh it on everything and it runs into the ground and pollutes the environment. When we would move the rig we left pools of oil everywhere, and we left the Kelly pool polluted; we didn't even take time to drain it properly. I know first hand what small, competitive drilling companies do, and if what they do is "laissez-faire", I want no part of it.

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 05:48 AM
I worked one summer in West Texas on two different oil rigs. There was no EPA around; there was no one around. But we fucked up the environment like nobody's business. Do you know how you clean the oil rig and its diesel engines? With diesel fuel. You take diesel fuel and you slosh on everything and it runs into the ground and pollutes the ground. When we would move the rig we left pools of oil everywhere, we left the Kelly pool polluted; we didn't even take time to drain it properly. I know first hand what small, competitive drilling companies do, and if what they do is "laissez-faire", I want no part of it.

Proving my point that the EPA fails! The public/private partnership fascist cartels that we have now are failing us and destroying property.

No. That is not laissez-faire free-market capitalism at work. In laissez-faire free-market capitalism anyone could report this pollution to a grand jury which would then hold the workers, the company owners, and managers responsible. Those found responsible, by the grand jury, for destruction of the environment and property could be facing jail time and fines. Companies allowed to operate under laissez-faire free-market capitalism would be much more responsible than they are under the current system.

susano
05-30-2010, 11:11 AM
http://www.proxywhore.com/invboard/style_emoticons/default/popcorn.gif

susano
05-30-2010, 11:13 AM
YouTube] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4v79wKaQLs) - Spill the Truth from Food & Water Watch


BP’s Atlantis: Another Catastrophic Accident Waiting to Happen?



The Gulf of Mexico is currently reeling from the human and environmental tragedy unfolding after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oil platform. The Horizon, operated by BP, exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers, injuring many others and spilling millions of gallons of oil into the ocean.

While the cause of the Horizon explosion is being investigated, it is important to note that BP has a devastating history of accidents and evading government oversight. Worse yet, an even bigger tragedy in the Gulf could be looming. An internal BP email admits that a “catastrophic” accident is possible at another one of its platforms, the BP Atlantis. An accident at this platform could result in a spill that is many times larger than the one currently unfolding from the Deepwater Horizon.

BP Atlantis poses a serious, immediate and potentially irreparable threat to the Gulf of Mexico’s marine environment, oil workers and communities. BP’s Atlantis platform became active during the Bush administration in October of 2007. Located in “Hurricane Alley,” more than 150 miles from New Orleans at a water depth of more than 7,000 feet, it is one of the deepest moored semisubmersible oil and gas platforms in the world. In August of 2008, a BP contractor made a startling discovery about Atlantis: The company was operating the massive Atlantis platform without proper up-to-date and engineer-approved documentation. Some of the problems included:

More than 6,000 critical documents — including those for pipelines, flowlines, wellheads and other important systems — did not have the required engineering documentation.
Over 85 percent of the project’s subsea piping and instrument diagrams, critical documents for operating the platform, were not approved by engineers.
Many of its safety shutdown system logic diagrams were not up to date.
Over 95 percent of its subsea welding documents had no final engineering approval, calling into question the safety of the welds.

Workers clean oil from the Horizon spill from a beach in South Pass, Louisiana. Photo by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Atlantis is no small threat. An internal BP email characterized the situation as having the potential for “catastrophic operator errors.” Worse yet, Atlantis is operating in deeper water than the Deepwater Horizon. A worst-case scenario oil spill from Atlantis would exceed the Exxon Valdez spill in only two days, and be many times larger than the spill from the Horizon explosion.

BP’s Big Oil Profits
The BP group is the largest oil and gas producer and one of the largest gasoline retailers in the United States, and in 2008 was the fourth-biggest company in the world. In 2009, BP was the largest producer in the Gulf of Mexico and had pre-tax profits of $25.1 billion.

BP Evades Compliance and the Federal Government Fails to Take Action
Despite questions from Food & Water Watch and Members of Congress, BP has chosen to deny the problems at Atlantis. The company went so far as to send a letter to Congress saying that it only learned of the allegations recently and claimed they were unsubstantiated. However, BP’s own documents show that BP has known about these problems for years.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), the primary federal agency responsible for ensuring that all aspects of oil, gas, leasing, exploration, development and production activities are conducted safely, hasn’t been doing its job. The agency did almost nothing when the whistleblower and Food & Water Watch first reported the problems at BP Atlantis and alerted members of Congress.


It was only after 19 members of Congress requested an investigation that MMS said it would conduct an investigation starting in March 2010. By May 2010, however, according to an agency response to a Food & Water Watch Freedom of Information Act request, the agency admitted that it had not and would not take any steps to investigate.

Take Action to Shut Down BP Atlantis
Tell President Obama to shut down Atlantis. Given the seriousness of the situation, production at the Atlantis platform must be immediately suspended until it can be proven safe.

In addition, President Obama needs to order a review of all deepwater platforms in operation and overhaul offshore drilling regulations to reflect public interests, not private profits.

http://www.spillthetruth.org/take-action/

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 12:17 PM
BP’s Atlantis: Another Catastrophic Accident Waiting to Happen?

Their request to petition President Obama to fix this problem is more of the same ole' bullshit. :mad: Government oversight fails so what we need is more government oversight! :mad:

End the madness! Promote real solutions. Promote liberty and laissez-faire free-market capitalism! :cool:

susano
05-30-2010, 12:57 PM
Their request to petition President Obama to fix this problem is more of the same ole' bullshit. :mad: Government oversight fails so what we need is more government oversight! :mad:

End the madness! Promote real solutions. Promote liberty and laissez-faire free-market capitalism! :cool:

Just who do think has the power to shut that rig down?

tremendoustie
05-30-2010, 02:03 PM
No. I am not responsible for BP's actions. I am protected by law. That is what limited liability means. And yes, I am taking their profit and not caring where the money came from.

The law is wrong in this case. People should need to be careful about where their money comes from, and should be responsible for the actions taken by companies they own.

One share wouldn't be a huge amount of liability of course ...

idiom
05-30-2010, 02:10 PM
Proving my point that the EPA fails! The public/private partnership fascist cartels that we have now are failing us and destroying property.

No. That is not laissez-faire free-market capitalism at work. In laissez-faire free-market capitalism anyone could report this pollution to a grand jury which would then hold the workers, the company owners, and managers responsible. Those found responsible, by the grand jury, for destruction of the environment and property could be facing jail time and fines. Companies allowed to operate under laissez-faire free-market capitalism would be much more responsible than they are under the current system.

For what crime? They only destroyed the environment in the example, not property. And you are a company owner.


So we'll re-state Ben's comment:

Look, I'm a stockholder owner of BP through mutual funds. You are, I'm sure, too. I'm sure most of your viewers are in their retirement fund. Why should we the owners be punished? Why shouldn't it be people who actually were there on the watch and made the mistake be put in prison if they did it criminally negligently?

erowe1
05-30-2010, 02:12 PM
Sorry for popping back in with this random non sequitur comment.

But when I look at those pictures of the oil plume and the mountain with its top removed, I seriously think that if those things came about naturally somehow without being man made, we'd consider them awesome displays of nature's wonder, we'd marvel at their beauty, and we'd never give a second thought to animals and plants getting killed by those natural causes. But then when we change the situation and they are man made, suddenly we're supposed to think they're ugly and destructive, and we're supposed to worry about dying plants and animals that nobody would have ever seen anyway. I don't really get it. The loss of human life and property is definitely an issue, and responsible parties should be fully accountable to pay for actual damages in those things. Interventions by the state that prevent them from having that accountability that they would have in a free market are wrong. But this other stuff about somehow the planet being destroyed (whatever that's supposed to mean--I seriously have no idea), just strikes me as a dramatic overreaction by people yearning to be involved in solving some problem that's bigger than themselves.

tremendoustie
05-30-2010, 02:15 PM
Well, the Gulf wasn't anybodies property. From that point of view, maybe BP was just homesteading the gulf? The only way to tell which water is theirs was to mark it with oil?

Dumping oil is certainly not homesteading, nor is homesteading about "marking" things. Ocean property should be owned -- unfortunately, since it's not, we have the tragedy of the commons. That said, I think they should make restitution to those who use the gulf, as well as perhaps to taxpayers. Even from a homesteading perspective, if a person fishes in a certain area for a years, they could be considered to have a claim on it.

Also, the beaches and beach front properties certainly are owned, and the owners deserve compensation.

idiom
05-30-2010, 02:29 PM
Dumping oil is certainly not homesteading, nor is homesteading about "marking" things. Ocean property should be owned -- unfortunately, since it's not, we have the tragedy of the commons. That said, I think they should make restitution to those who use the gulf, as well as perhaps to taxpayers. Even from a homesteading perspective, if a person fishes in a certain area for a years, they could be considered to have a claim on it.

Also, the beaches and beach front properties certainly are owned, and the owners deserve compensation.

Are you sure about that?


We cannot fully explain the natural laws of property and of violence
without expanding our discussion to cover tangible property. For men
are not floating wraiths; they are beings who can only survive by grappling
with and transforming material objects. Let us return to our island
of Crusoe and Friday. Crusoe, isolated at first, has used his free will and
self-ownership to learn about his wants and values, and how to satisfy them
by transforming nature-given resources through "mixing" them with his
labor. He has thereby produced and created property. Now suppose that
Friday lands in another part of this island. He confronts two possible courses
of action: he may, like Crusoe, become a producer, transform unused soil
by his labor, and most likely exchange his product for that of the other
man. In short, he may engage in production and exchange, in also creating
property. Or, he may decide upon another course: he may spare himself
the effort of production and exchange, and go over and seize by violence
the fruits of Crusoe's labor. He may aggress against the producer.
If Friday chooses the course of labor and production, then he in natural
fact, as in the case of Crusoe, will own the land area which he clears
and uses, as well as the fruits of its product. But, as we have noted above,
suppose that Crusoe decides to claim more than his natural degree of
ownership, and asserts that, by virtue of merely landing first on the island,
he "really" owns the entire island, even though he had made no previous
use of it. If he does so, then he is, in our view, illegitimately pressing his
property claim beyond its homesteading-natural law boundaries, and if
he uses that claim to try to eject Friday by force, then he is illegitimately
aggressing against the person and property of the second homesteader.

Here we recognize traditional fishing rights and uses of the ocean, they are recognized and protected by courts. You simply need to show a community using the area continuously since before 1840, the founding of the national government when your community would have signed the founding treaty protecting its traditional rights. However no part of the foreshore is private property. The entire national foreshore is held in public trust and it works pretty well so far.

YumYum
05-30-2010, 02:32 PM
Sorry for popping back in with this random non sequitur comment.

But when I look at those pictures of the oil plume and the mountain with its top removed, I seriously think that if those things came about naturally somehow without being man made, we'd consider them awesome displays of nature's wonder, we'd marvel at their beauty, and we'd never give a second thought to animals and plants getting killed by those natural causes. But then when we change the situation and they are man made, suddenly we're supposed to think they're ugly and destructive, and we're supposed to worry about dying plants and animals that nobody would have ever seen anyway. I don't really get it. The loss of human life and property is definitely an issue, and responsible parties should be fully accountable to pay for actual damages in those things. Interventions by the state that prevent them from having that accountability that they would have in a free market are wrong. But this other stuff about somehow the planet being destroyed (whatever that's supposed to mean--I seriously have no idea), just strikes me as a dramatic overreaction by people yearning to be involved in solving some problem that's bigger than themselves.

If the 37 square mile cauldron in Yellowstone were to blow, it would surely be an awe-inspiring event to watch. But I don't think that anyone would view it as a "display of nature's wonder", or "marvel at its beauty", since an estimated 1 million people will be instantly killed when it blows.

Man is ruining our planet, and I have lived and traveled in enough areas to see this for myself. Just look at the heaps of rubber tires that we don't know what to do with, and yet man keeps making more tires. If nothing else, plastics will be the death of man and animals. Plastics are here with us forever and has ruined an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean, and yet we keep making more plastic.

Did you ever see photos of Lake Erie in the late 1960's? It was so polluted you could literally walk across portions of it. Yet it took "environmental wackos" who got involved into something that they believed to be bigger than themselves to clean the Lake up. Today, you can fish and swim in Lake Erie without getting sick.

This shows that man can undo the damage he creates. The Earth can, and has, repaired itself. But I do believe we are at a crossroads, and with continual disregard for this planet, we will not be able to undue the destruction we are engaged in.

erowe1
05-30-2010, 02:38 PM
If the 37 square mile cauldron in Yellowstone were to blow, it would surely be an awe-inspiring event to watch. But I don't think that anyone would view it as a "display of nature's wonder", or "marvel at its beauty", since an estimated 1 million people will be instantly killed when it blows.

Again, as I said, the human loss is a genuine tragedy. My objection is to those who want to create some kind of additional tragedy out of the other aspects that don't involve human loss.


Man is ruining our planet, and I have lived and traveled in enough areas to see this for myself. Just look at the heaps of rubber tires that we don't know what to do with, and yet man keeps making more tires. If nothing else, plastics will be the death of man and animals. Plastics are here with us forever and has ruined an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean, and yet we keep making more plastic.

Did you ever see photos of Lake Erie in the late 1960's? It was so polluted you could literally walk across portions of it. Yet it took "environmental wackos" who got involved into something that they believed to be bigger than themselves to clean the Lake up. Today, you can fish and swim in Lake Erie without getting sick.

This shows that man can undo the damage he creates. The Earth can, and has, repaired itself. But I do believe we are at a crossroads, and with continual disregard for this planet, we will not be able to undue the destruction we are engaged in.
I still can't fathom the notion that anything mankind has done or ever could do is ruining or destroying the planet. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I don't get how you can say that "Plastic... has ruined an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean." What does "ruined" even mean in that sentence? If the same thing happened somewhere on Neptune, would it be considered "ruining" Neptune?

How is it that leaving all those hydrocarbons unused and buried is necessarily the way things ought to be, while doing good things with them that make our lives better in all the ways that plastics do is ruining something. To me, the act of wastefulness would be letting that resource go unused rather than enjoying its benefits.

Anti Federalist
05-30-2010, 02:45 PM
If the 37 square mile cauldron in Yellowstone were to blow, it would surely be an awe-inspiring event to watch. But I don't think that anyone would view it as a "display of nature's wonder", or "marvel at its beauty", since an estimated 1 million people will be instantly killed when it blows.

Man is ruining our planet, and I have lived and traveled in enough areas to see this for myself. Just look at the heaps of rubber tires that we don't know what to do with, and yet man keeps making more tires. If nothing else, plastics will be the death of man and animals. Plastics are here with us forever and has ruined an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean, and yet we keep making more plastic.

Did you ever see photos of Lake Erie in the late 1960's? It was so polluted you could literally walk across portions of it. Yet it took "environmental wackos" who got involved into something that they believed to be bigger than themselves to clean the Lake up. Today, you can fish and swim in Lake Erie without getting sick.

This shows that man can undo the damage he creates. The Earth can, and has, repaired itself. But I do believe we are at a crossroads, and with continual disregard for this planet, we will not be able to undue the destruction we are engaged in.

Don't fret, the real environmental nightmare will happen soon enough, a plague of epic proportions, enabled by our tomfuckery of the genetic sequence of life itself.

Either accidental or deliberate, a release of a 99% mortality rate virus or genetic "bug" will solve all these Malthusian problems overnight.

That would appear to be your only solution since man is destroying the planet, then ipso facto, we must reduce the number of people.

It's either that or resign ourselves to life in a gilded cage, with every action heavily regulated, monitored and controlled for sake of the environment.

Clearly, there isn't any room left for enterprise, risk or reward.

Or any room for freedom, can't risk it anymore, right?

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 02:52 PM
The law is wrong in this case. People should need to be careful about where their money comes from, and should be responsible for the actions taken by companies they own.

One share wouldn't be a huge amount of liability of course ...

I disagree. The limited liability aspect of the corporation allows for the ability to raise capital in order to tackle large projects. If however, the corporation destroys the environment or property, then if convicted, they should pay restitution and go out of business if necessary. Even though I owned part of the corporation, I have no control over their actions and should have limited liability. I loose my investment and settle in knowing that I made a bad investment. Therefore, unlike today, in a laissez-faire free-market, it would be wise for my investment portfolio for me to know what the companies that I am invested in are doing.

If you have a better idea, what alternative do you propose to manage large projects?

heavenlyboy34
05-30-2010, 02:55 PM
There is no such thing as a corporation without gov't, Just as there is no fed or IRS without gov't.

I'm saying that BP, corporate or not, would be doing the same shit. This means we have to figure out NEW ways of living and doing "business". A pradigm shift is required and it's required NOW.

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html


I disagree. Corporations can easily be chartered without the State. All that's required is the businessmen and investors (shareholders). Austrians, as I understand them, generally agree that in the absence of a stock market, pure socialism would take root. :p

Travlyr
05-30-2010, 02:57 PM
Just who do think has the power to shut that rig down?

You are implying that President Obama, who took plenty of campaign funds from BP, would shut them down if he only knew what was going on? I mean really... this is the public/private fascist cartel that I have been referring to in this thread. Don't hold your breath.

YumYum
05-30-2010, 03:11 PM
Again, as I said, the human loss is a genuine tragedy. My objection is to those who want to create some kind of additional tragedy out of the other aspects that don't involve human loss.


I still can't fathom the notion that anything mankind has done or ever could do is ruining or destroying the planet. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I don't get how you can say that "Plastic... has ruined an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean." What does "ruined" even mean in that sentence? If the same thing happened somewhere on Neptune, would it be considered "ruining" Neptune?

How is it that leaving all those hydrocarbons unused and buried is necessarily the way things ought to be, while doing good things with them that make our lives better in all the ways that plastics do is ruining something. To me, the act of wastefulness would be letting that resource go unused rather than enjoying its benefits.

I know you believe in the account of the Garden of Eden. That is fine; I don't want to debate whether the account is true or not, but I want to ask you a question. It says in Genesis 2:15 "The Lord G-d took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it". Adam was to take care of the Garden that G-d created. What would G-d have said or done had Adam started hauling in used tires and garbage, and started drilling for oil, causing pollution that would have killed the plant life and animals that G-d had just created? Would G-d have just ignored it? I don't think so. The Garden was a garden, and supposedly a paradise. Would turning it into a landfill been within the parameters of G-d's purpose? Would you have polluted the Garden if you were Adam, even if it meant making your life style more comfortable and easier?

And if G-d objected to your activities, what would you say to Him?

idiom
05-30-2010, 03:15 PM
I still can't fathom the notion that anything mankind has done or ever could do is ruining or destroying the planet. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I don't get how you can say that "Plastic... has ruined an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean." What does "ruined" even mean in that sentence? If the same thing happened somewhere on Neptune, would it be considered "ruining" Neptune?

Neptune is currently unable to support life. When the Earth is unable to support life it will be ruined. Large chunks of the planet that once hosted huge bio-diversity are now lifeless.


That would appear to be your only solution since man is destroying the planet, then ipso facto, we must reduce the number of people.

It's either that or resign ourselves to life in a gilded cage, with every action heavily regulated, monitored and controlled for sake of the environment.

Clearly, there isn't any room left for enterprise, risk or reward.

Or any room for freedom, can't risk it anymore, right?

A tiny wee bit of forethought would go a long way on the planet. Meanwhile if you want to risk huge amounts of capital for insane rewards, the rest of the solar system awaits. Its already dead, you can't mess it up :)

heavenlyboy34
05-30-2010, 03:18 PM
I know you believe in the account of the Garden of Eden. That is fine; I don't want to debate whether the account is true or not, but I want to ask you a question. It says in Genesis 2:15 "The Lord G-d took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it". Adam was to take care of the Garden that G-d created. What would G-d have said or done had Adam started hauling in used tires and garbage, and started drilling for oil, causing pollution that would have killed the plant life and animals that G-d had just created? Would G-d have just ignored it? I don't think so. The Garden was a garden, and supposedly a paradise. Would turning it into a landfill been within the parameters of G-d's purpose? Would you have polluted the Garden if you were Adam, even if it meant making your life style more comfortable and easier?

And if G-d objected to your activities, what would you say to Him?

I suspect a Christian would answer than man was banned from the garden when he ate of the forbidden fruit. JMHO.

heavenlyboy34
05-30-2010, 03:19 PM
Neptune is currently unable to support life. When the Earth is unable to support life it will be ruined. Large chunks of the planet that once hosted huge bio-diversity are now lifeless.



At the same time, large chunks of land that were once frozen now support life. ;)

YumYum
05-30-2010, 03:20 PM
Don't fret, the real environmental nightmare will happen soon enough, a plague of epic proportions, enabled by our tomfuckery of the genetic sequence of life itself.

Either accidental or deliberate, a release of a 99% mortality rate virus or genetic "bug" will solve all these Malthusian problems overnight.

That would appear to be your only solution since man is destroying the planet, then ipso facto, we must reduce the number of people.

It's either that or resign ourselves to life in a gilded cage, with every action heavily regulated, monitored and controlled for sake of the environment.

Clearly, there isn't any room left for enterprise, risk or reward.

Or any room for freedom, can't risk it anymore, right?

I am for rules and regulations, but not necessarily imposed by the government.

Like James Carville said about the oil spill: "This isn't about Democrat verses Republican, this isn't about politics, this is about people dying. We are dying down here."

I'm sorry that you haven't ventured outside to see what man is doing to this planet.

idiom
05-30-2010, 03:32 PM
I am for rules and regulations, but not necessarily imposed by the government.

Like James Carville said about the oil spill: "This isn't about Democrat verses Republican, this isn't about politics, this is about people dying. We are dying down here."

I'm sorry that you haven't ventured outside to see what man is doing to this planet.

What is the point of rules if they are not imposed? They must be imposed either by states or markets or owners. If you can opt out then whats the point?

The market has a very hard time imposing regulation on fungible resources.

I don't see any DRO's dealing with it either.

Anti Federalist
05-30-2010, 03:35 PM
I'm sorry that you haven't ventured outside to see what man is doing to this planet.

*sigh*

Wish I could live blog about what I'm up to, right this second.

erowe1
05-30-2010, 04:27 PM
I know you believe in the account of the Garden of Eden. That is fine; I don't want to debate whether the account is true or not, but I want to ask you a question. It says in Genesis 2:15 "The Lord G-d took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it". Adam was to take care of the Garden that G-d created. What would G-d have said or done had Adam started hauling in used tires and garbage, and started drilling for oil, causing pollution that would have killed the plant life and animals that G-d had just created? Would G-d have just ignored it? I don't think so. The Garden was a garden, and supposedly a paradise. Would turning it into a landfill been within the parameters of G-d's purpose? Would you have polluted the Garden if you were Adam, even if it meant making your life style more comfortable and easier?

And if G-d objected to your activities, what would you say to Him?

Jesus addressed this issue of stewardship. As he explained it, it's the people who leave the resources God has entrusted them buried in the ground who are bad stewards, and it's the ones who use them to make a profit who are good stewards.

I don't believe God wants us to let all that petroleum, coal, natural gases, and any other resources God has entrusted us go to waste unused buried in the ground, when we could be using them to improve the lives of human beings made in his image. I believe he wants us to extract them from the ground and put them to good use.

constituent
05-30-2010, 04:34 PM
I've never shut mine off, though, and have yet to blow anyone up.

that you know of. :D

idiom
05-30-2010, 04:50 PM
Jesus addressed this issue of stewardship. As he explained it, it's the people who leave the resources God has entrusted them buried in the ground who are bad stewards, and it's the ones who use them to make a profit who are good stewards.

I don't believe God wants us to let all that petroleum, coal, natural gases, and any other resources God has entrusted us go to waste unused buried in the ground, when we could be using them to improve the lives of human beings made in his image. I believe he wants us to extract them from the ground and put them to good use.

And spilling it everywhere because of carelessness is good stewardship?

tremendoustie
05-30-2010, 04:54 PM
Are you sure about that?
I'm not sure what you're trying to say by this quote.



Here we recognize traditional fishing rights and uses of the ocean, they are recognized and protected by courts. You simply need to show a community using the area continuously since before 1840, the founding of the national government


I don't see why it'd have to be since 1840 ...


when your community would have signed the founding treaty protecting its traditional rights.


Communities don't sign things, people do.



However no part of the foreshore is private property. The entire national foreshore is held in public trust and it works pretty well so far.

The fact that they declare that they own it doesn't mean they do, any more than if I were to declare I own the moon.

MelissaWV
05-30-2010, 05:07 PM
that you know of. :D

Nah... they were working right alongside the road. You are literally driving right next to blast sites. I'm fairly oblivious at times, but I would have noticed the gigantic kaboom ;)

idiom
05-30-2010, 05:08 PM
The fact that they declare that they own it doesn't mean they do, any more than if I were to declare I own the moon.

How would Ocean property or resources be owned except by declaration? If you haven't marked it with labour, the roth-cap definition of property, then what is you alternate definition?

You just declared that communities can't own things, only people can. Evidence? They pretty successfully own things here.

idiom
05-30-2010, 05:10 PM
I don't see why it'd have to be since 1840 ...

Because if you start utilizing something in New Zealand after 1840 you acknowledge the right to govern of the current unitary state. If you were using it before that time your exclusion from governance is acknowledged.

susano
05-30-2010, 06:20 PM
Again, as I said, the human loss is a genuine tragedy. My objection is to those who want to create some kind of additional tragedy out of the other aspects that don't involve human loss.


I still can't fathom the notion that anything mankind has done or ever could do is ruining or destroying the planet. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I don't get how you can say that "Plastic... has ruined an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean." What does "ruined" even mean in that sentence? If the same thing happened somewhere on Neptune, would it be considered "ruining" Neptune?

How is it that leaving all those hydrocarbons unused and buried is necessarily the way things ought to be, while doing good things with them that make our lives better in all the ways that plastics do is ruining something. To me, the act of wastefulness would be letting that resource go unused rather than enjoying its benefits.

I diagnose you a SOCIOPATH!

erowe1
05-30-2010, 06:24 PM
And spilling it everywhere because of carelessness is good stewardship?

No. But it's not as bad as not getting it at all.

susano
05-30-2010, 06:24 PM
Don't fret, the real environmental nightmare will happen soon enough, a plague of epic proportions, enabled by our tomfuckery of the genetic sequence of life itself.

Either accidental or deliberate, a release of a 99% mortality rate virus or genetic "bug" will solve all these Malthusian problems overnight.

That would appear to be your only solution since man is destroying the planet, then ipso facto, we must reduce the number of people.

It's either that or resign ourselves to life in a gilded cage, with every action heavily regulated, monitored and controlled for sake of the environment.

Clearly, there isn't any room left for enterprise, risk or reward.

Or any room for freedom, can't risk it anymore, right?

That's a huge leap you just took. The poster you spoke to didn't say anything about killing anyone off. He addressed our self destructive ways.

What is it that makes you think that human beings aren't creative enough to live in harmony with Nature and have an even better quality of life?

susano
05-30-2010, 06:33 PM
Jesus addressed this issue of stewardship. As he explained it, it's the people who leave the resources God has entrusted them buried in the ground who are bad stewards, and it's the ones who use them to make a profit who are good stewards.

.

link?


lol

erowe1
05-30-2010, 06:42 PM
link?


lol

Sorry, I didn't provide the reference. It's a well-known passage to Christians, and I figured nonchristians wouldn't care.

Matthew 25:14-30

14 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. 15 And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. 16 Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. 17 And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. 18 But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money. 19 After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.
20 “So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ 21 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ 22 He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ 23 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’
24 “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25 And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’
26 “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. 27 So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.
29 ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

YumYum
05-30-2010, 06:44 PM
Jesus addressed this issue of stewardship. As he explained it, it's the people who leave the resources God has entrusted them buried in the ground who are bad stewards, and it's the ones who use them to make a profit who are good stewards.

I don't believe God wants us to let all that petroleum, coal, natural gases, and any other resources God has entrusted us go to waste unused buried in the ground, when we could be using them to improve the lives of human beings made in his image. I believe he wants us to extract them from the ground and put them to good use.

I am not sure what you are referencing, but if it has to do with the silver talents, that illustration could be applied to a servant who is entrusted with spiritual riches. If he is a good servant, he will take those spiritual riches and make them grow, if he doesn't, he has sinned.

I'm not talking about nicely and kindly removing natural resources from the Earth under G-d's direction, I'm talking about Adam doing to the Garden the same thing man is doing to the Earth, which is destroying it.

Please re-read my question. If Adam, who was commissioned by G-d to take care of the garden of Eden, had polluted the Garden, even if it was for the purpose of extracting the natural resources to improve the quality of his life, would have G-d objected? Would He have allowed Adam to pollute His Garden of Eden? I didn't ask if G-d would allow him to take natural resources.

Did not the Garden of Eden belong to G-d? Does not the Earth belong to G-d?

Edit: I was right, you were referencing the silver talents. I don't mean to be critical, but Matthew 25: 14-30 doesn't apply here.

erowe1
05-30-2010, 06:51 PM
I'm not talking about nicely and kindly removing natural resources from the Earth under G-d's direction, I'm talking about Adam doing to the Garden the same thing man is doing to the Earth, which is destroying it.

Again, I can't fathom what you mean by this. In what sense is anyone "destroying" the earth?

If we want to make use of the petroleum and other resources that God gave us and do all the wonderful things with it that we are capable of doing thanks to his beneficent design of hydrocarbons to be amenable to such usages, then that means we have to accept other costs, such as having plastic trash, and emitting CO2 into the air, and enduring the consequences of drilling and mining these things. If these costs are greater than the benefits, such that using these resources in such ways is not profitable, then so be it, it would no longer be good stewardship to use those things unprofitably, but as long as it is profitable to do so, and the benefits outweigh the costs, we shouldn't prohibit ourselves from using these resources to improve the lives of human beings made in God's image. To do that would be bad stewardship.

erowe1
05-30-2010, 06:55 PM
I don't mean to be critical, but Matthew 25: 14-30 doesn't apply here.

I don't see why not. You're the one who tried to bring the Bible into this. If we're going to do that, I'd rather base my view on something that's actually in the Bible, rather than a made up hypothetical situation involving the Garden of Eden that's not in the Bible, and then having written that made up story using my own imagination pretend that I ought to bow to that invention of my own mind as though it came from God.

In that parable, the good steward was the one who used what God had entrusted him to make a profit, and the bad one was the one who left it in the ground. Yet the modern environmentalist religion wants to turn that around and say that we're stewards of the planet, and that to be good stewards we need to leave the resources God has entrusted us buried in the ground, and the ones who use those resources to make a profit are bad stewards.

tjeffersonsghost
05-30-2010, 07:01 PM
Excellent thread and I agree with the OP. Our founding fathers fully understood the power of corporations, especially Thomas Jefferson. This is why corporate charters took an act of god for the first 100 years of our nations existence. The only way a corporate charter was allowed is if the charter was for the overall good of the country. It had to be approved by congress. Corporations, like governments, can exploit free men and rob them of their wealth and belongings. We are in the Gilded Age all over again.

erowe1
05-30-2010, 07:05 PM
We are in the Gilded Age all over again.

We're not. But if we were it would be a good thing. All things considered, that period was about as close to laissez faire as America has ever been.

susano
05-30-2010, 07:09 PM
Again, I can't fathom what you mean by this. In what sense is anyone "destroying" the earth?

If we want to make use of the petroleum and other resources that God gave us and do all the wonderful things with it that we are capable of doing thanks to his beneficent design of hydrocarbons to be amenable to such usages, then that means we have to accept other costs, such as having plastic trash, and emitting CO2 into the air, and enduring the consequences of drilling and mining these things. If these costs are greater than the benefits, such that using these resources in such ways is not profitable, then so be it, it would no longer be good stewardship to use those things unprofitably, but as long as it is profitable to do so, and the benefits outweigh the costs, we shouldn't prohibit ourselves from using these resources to improve the lives of human beings made in God's image. To do that would be bad stewardship.

Tell me; wood is valuable and prized. Especially beautiful wood that has desirable charateristics such as being naturally weatherproof. One such wood comes from the Sequoia or Coast Redwood. If you could own some vast swaths of Coast Redwood forest, and make a ton of money on it, because there are people who would buy it, would you cut those trees down? And, I mean the really old ones that would bring LOTS of money.

awake
05-30-2010, 07:14 PM
Tell me; wood is valuable and prized. Especially beautiful wood that has desirable charateristics such as being naturally weatherproof. One such wood comes from the Sequoia or Coast Redwood. If you could own some vast swaths of Coast Redwood forest, and make a ton of money on it, because there are people who would buy it, would you cut those trees down? And, I mean the really old ones that would bring LOTS of money.

People who wanted to protect it could buy it and do nothing with it. Ain't private property great?

susano
05-30-2010, 07:15 PM
I don't see why not. You're the one who tried to bring the Bible into this. If we're going to do that, I'd rather base my view on something that's actually in the Bible, rather than a made up hypothetical situation involving the Garden of Eden that's not in the Bible, and then having written that made up story using my own imagination pretend that I ought to bow to that invention of my own mind as though it came from God.

In that parable, the good steward was the one who used what God had entrusted him to make a profit, and the bad one was the one who left it in the ground. Yet the modern environmentalist religion wants to turn that around and say that we're stewards of the planet, and that to be good stewards we need to leave the resources God has entrusted us buried in the ground, and the ones who use those resources to make a profit are bad stewards.


There is spiritual profit and there is material and monetary profit.

Jesus threw the money changers out on their asses.

Brian4Liberty
05-30-2010, 07:16 PM
YouTube - Goldman Sachs Doing God's Work (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ9AGMRXDSw)

susano
05-30-2010, 07:17 PM
People who wanted to protect it could buy it and do nothing with it. Ain't private property great?

That wasn't my question.

susano
05-30-2010, 07:18 PM
YouTube - Goldman Sachs Doing God's Work (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ9AGMRXDSw)

:D

free1
05-30-2010, 07:23 PM
"What to do about global corporations and oil?"

Bend over and take it.

Or else!

erowe1
05-30-2010, 07:52 PM
There is spiritual profit and there is material and monetary profit.

Jesus threw the money changers out on their asses.

He did that because they were defiling the Temple, not because they were making a profit.

erowe1
05-30-2010, 07:56 PM
Tell me; wood is valuable and prized. Especially beautiful wood that has desirable charateristics such as being naturally weatherproof. One such wood comes from the Sequoia or Coast Redwood. If you could own some vast swaths of Coast Redwood forest, and make a ton of money on it, because there are people who would buy it, would you cut those trees down? And, I mean the really old ones that would bring LOTS of money.

I'm not in a position to say what I would do with that resource. I would have to base that decision on a cost benefit analysis of the choice between harvesting the wood and profiting from its secondary use versus keeping it in situ and benefiting from it in the form of giant trees. That would involve both monetary considerations and personal ones about what I would like my property to be like and what it would be worth to me to have it be like that. Since I haven't gone through such an analysis, and am not inclined to do so merely for the sake of a hypothetical question, I don't know what my conclusion would be.

But I can at least say that if any person did own that land and did determine that it would be best to cut down those trees and sell that valuable wood, I certainly couldn't fault them for it. I'd have to say more power to them. They would be doing a wonderful service to those buyers who value that wood so much to be willing to offer so much money for it, and they would be rewarded greatly for that service, and deservedly so. I would hope that they put those profits to other similarly good uses.

idiom
05-30-2010, 08:01 PM
If its forest, then you are not a steward over just trees, but over everything that the trees sustain, the soils and everything you will interrupt by removing the trees.

There are wise and unwise ways to go about tree felling.

With a little bit of care the forest will produce huge amounts of wood, fur, food and other items. Poor stewardship will leave you with a small amount of lumber and a wasteland.

erowe1
05-30-2010, 08:36 PM
With a little bit of care the forest will produce huge amounts of wood, fur, food and other items. Poor stewardship will leave you with a small amount of lumber and a wasteland.

And one way to tell the difference between the poor stewardship and the good stewardship is by the way you would make more profit with the good than the poor.

Anti Federalist
05-30-2010, 08:52 PM
That's a huge leap you just took. The poster you spoke to didn't say anything about killing anyone off. He addressed our self destructive ways.

What is it that makes you think that human beings aren't creative enough to live in harmony with Nature and have an even better quality of life?

Because these are the same Malthusian arguments that have been made in this thread have been being made for hundreds of years now.

An organic, whole earth puppy farm makes an impact.

3 billion Chinese and Indians want our quality of life.

Right now that takes enormous amounts of energy and will, into the foreseeable future.

Much as everybody would like to run around with their hair on fire over this situation, it's not the end of the world. It happened before, 31 years ago, and it wasn't the end of the world. It will happen again in the future, unless you're willing to resign a third or more of the earth's population to poverty and early death.

YumYum
05-30-2010, 09:31 PM
Because these are the same Malthusian arguments that have been made in this thread have been being made for hundreds of years now.

According to wiki: "In the Marxist tradition, Lenin sharply criticized Malthusian theory and its neo-Malthusian version, calling it a "reactionary doctrine" and "an attempt on the part of bourgeois ideologists to exonerate capitalism and to prove the inevitability of privation and misery for the working class under any social system".


An organic, whole earth puppy farm makes an impact.

Organic douche makes an even greater impact.


3 billion Chinese and Indians want our quality of life.

Really? Have you talked to them?


Right now that takes enormous amounts of energy and will, into the foreseeable future.

No it doesn't. People don't need lots of energy. Just ask the people who lived in concentration camps.


Much as everybody would like to run around with their hair on fire over this situation, it's not the end of the world.

Never said it was. Tell that to the people living on the Gulf.



It happened before, 31 years ago, and it wasn't the end of the world. It will happen again in the future, unless you're willing to resign a third or more of the earth's population to poverty and early death.

The Bubonic Plague was the best thing that every happened for the Free Market. Those pesky little fleas created the Middle Class in Europe.

freshjiva
05-31-2010, 12:36 AM
So I read through this entire thread. At first I was heavily critical of the ideas put forth by susano, but as I understood him further, I think I can come to terms with some of them.

I know those who call for an abolition of Corporations believe so because limited liability creates moral hazard, which increases the chances of things like the current BP fiasco. In this case, limited liability is a lot like the Fed's discount window -- it distorts the free market through moral hazard with the presence of government-enforced protection.

I realize limited liability is a major issue because it does potentially introduce moral hazard, thereby compromising the free market, but you have to understand that it isn't harmful all the time, because not all corporations are out to rape and pillage the Earth and steal your money. The ones that do are the ones that you hear about because they are so few, and they're the ones that get crushed anyway (i.e. WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, Enron, etc). You'd also have to consider that if limited liability were taken away, there would likely be a sharp increase in frivolous lawsuits against individuals and businesses. Multinationals might be able to survive this, but small corporations would get slammed. Prices and unemployment would rise.

Nonetheless, I believe you have a point here when you say limited liability, which by definition is granted by government, violates the free market and encourages inorganic risky behavior.

But honestly, to me, an abolition of Corporatism is a far greater task and would attack a far greater problem. By corporatism, I mean the cozy relationship Corporate lobbyists have with slut politicians whose vote goes up for sale. Ending subsidies, repealing our foreign adventurism that props up defense companies, repealing government-run healthcare that will eventually make certain health insurers rich, ending the Fed's discount window and their magic wands that are the Fed Funds Rate and their money printing press which they use to prop up banks and real estate markets and monetize debt....

You can go on and on. Everything that government does that props up private sectors and industries need to end. THAT is how you address this problem of out of control Corporations by requiring them to make their profits through hard work and innovation in a competitive environment where the Market is the ultimate judge rather than through government programs.

Here's my solution (highly simplified):
1) Market traded interest rates
2) Commodities-backed currency

These two items would solve 90% of all problems brought up in this thread, because it would:
a) Force Congress to balance the budget because they'd be unable to run a debt-and-inflation financed Corporatist system, and
b) Render the Fed unable to prop up the economy with below-market cheap credit

Monetary policy is so integral to everything.

tremendoustie
05-31-2010, 12:58 AM
So I read through this entire thread. At first I was heavily critical of the ideas put forth by susano, but as I understood him further, I think I can come to terms with some of them.

I know those who call for an abolition of Corporations believe so because limited liability creates moral hazard, which increases the chances of things like the current BP fiasco. In this case, limited liability is a lot like the Fed's discount window -- it distorts the free market through moral hazard with the presence of government-enforced protection.

I realize limited liability is a major issue because it does potentially introduce moral hazard, thereby compromising the free market, but you have to understand that it isn't harmful all the time, because not all corporations are out to rape and pillage the Earth and steal your money. The ones that do are the ones that you hear about because they are so few, and they're the ones that get crushed anyway (i.e. WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, Enron, etc). You'd also have to consider that if limited liability were taken away, there would likely be a sharp increase in frivolous lawsuits against individuals and businesses. Multinationals might be able to survive this, but small corporations would get slammed. Prices and unemployment would rise.

Nonetheless, I believe you have a point here when you say limited liability, which by definition is granted by government, violates the free market and encourages inorganic risky behavior.

But honestly, to me, an abolition of Corporatism is a far greater task and would attack a far greater problem. By corporatism, I mean the cozy relationship Corporate lobbyists have with slut politicians whose vote goes up for sale. Ending subsidies, repealing our foreign adventurism that props up defense companies, repealing government-run healthcare that will eventually make certain health insurers rich, ending the Fed's discount window and their magic wands that are the Fed Funds Rate and their money printing press which they use to prop up banks and real estate markets and monetize debt....

You can go on and on. Everything that government does that props up private sectors and industries need to end. THAT is how you address this problem of out of control Corporations by requiring them to make their profits through hard work and innovation in a competitive environment where the Market is the ultimate judge rather than through government programs.

Here's my solution (highly simplified):
1) Market traded interest rates
2) Commodities-backed currency

These two items would solve 90% of all problems brought up in this thread, because it would:
a) Force Congress to balance the budget because they'd be unable to run a debt-and-inflation financed Corporatist system, and
b) Render the Fed unable to prop up the economy with below-market cheap credit

Monetary policy is so integral to everything.

These are good points.

Of course, along with removal of limited liability, we'll need reform of the judicial system, to avoid frivolous suits -- and be much more oriented toward justice, rather than legal minutia.

tremendoustie
05-31-2010, 01:04 AM
Again, I can't fathom what you mean by this. In what sense is anyone "destroying" the earth?

If we want to make use of the petroleum and other resources that God gave us and do all the wonderful things with it that we are capable of doing thanks to his beneficent design of hydrocarbons to be amenable to such usages, then that means we have to accept other costs, such as having plastic trash, and emitting CO2 into the air, and enduring the consequences of drilling and mining these things. If these costs are greater than the benefits, such that using these resources in such ways is not profitable, then so be it, it would no longer be good stewardship to use those things unprofitably, but as long as it is profitable to do so, and the benefits outweigh the costs, we shouldn't prohibit ourselves from using these resources to improve the lives of human beings made in God's image. To do that would be bad stewardship.


It's only true that "the benefits outweigh the costs" is an equivalent statement to "it's profitable", when there is full liability for damages.

As it is, certain corporations are not liable for a large portion of the damages they cause. This causes the market to discount these damages in the cost/benefit analysis.

In order for a market cost/benefit analysis to be accurate, ALL costs must be represented.

reardenstone
05-31-2010, 06:31 AM
There is no such thing as a corporation without gov't, Just as there is no fed or IRS without gov't.

I'm saying that BP, corporate or not, would be doing the same shit. This means we have to figure out NEW ways of living and doing "business". A pradigm shift is required and it's required NOW.

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html



There are a lot of what Kevin Carson calls "vulgar libertarians" about who are corporate apologists. I understand where you are coming from and feel that oil would have failed a long time ago had government not gotten involved through mercantilism and imperialism.

Corporations are government legal inventions. We need to end them and all proxy bank mechanisms that give super citizen persons privilege over individuals and family business.

BP in particular began as an imperialist act. Oil has received subsidies both direct ad indirect since it was first used in automobiles and the petrol models were favored early over the steam and electric models which were being made nearly 90 years ago.


We should, if serious about really free markets, end corporate personhood and end corporate tort immunity.

erowe1
05-31-2010, 06:48 AM
It's only true that "the benefits outweigh the costs" is an equivalent statement to "it's profitable", when there is full liability for damages.


I agree with that 100%, and have said so previously in this discussion.

Travlyr
05-31-2010, 07:15 AM
Corporations are government legal inventions. We need to end them and all proxy bank mechanisms that give super citizen persons privilege over individuals and family business.

We should, if serious about really free markets, end corporate personhood and end corporate tort immunity.

Incorporations limit liability for actions taken by persons of corporations. This charter allows for several people to invest in large projects that are out of the scope of individuals.
A problem with incorporations is that they become corrupt by becoming public/private partnerships with government. i.e. passing laws that restrict competition.

If incorporations did not exist, then how would large projects be completed?

Carole
05-31-2010, 08:36 AM
I generally agree with that.

Then I also believe that company must then pursue accountablity from the employee who had the accident because that employee failed to abide by company rules, training, and safety standards.

The employee must not be penalty free.

Travlyr
05-31-2010, 09:15 AM
Incorporations limit liability for actions taken by persons of corporations. This charter allows for several people to invest in large projects that are out of the scope of individuals.
A problem with incorporations is that they become corrupt by becoming public/private partnerships with government. i.e. passing laws that restrict competition.

If incorporations did not exist, then how would large projects be completed?

Anybody?

YumYum
05-31-2010, 09:45 AM
They just announced that the hole most likely won't be plugged until August. Those of you who think that man doesn't pollute our environment should be jumping up and down right now with delight.

Travlyr
05-31-2010, 10:00 AM
They just announced that the hole most likely won't be plugged until August. Those of you who think that man doesn't pollute our environment should be jumping up and down right now with delight.

Nobody thinks that man doesn't pollute the environment. Sheesh. We have a natural right to pollute. Most people understand that we should not pollute more than necessary, but it is very hard to destroy the Earth and currently nobody is destroying the Earth by polluting it. There are major disasters going on and conscience people are concerned. But your attempt to continually portray educated concerned people as environmental haters is both disingenuous and tiresome.

Again today... even after 50 years of dire warnings from environmental maniacs that we are destroying our environment... what do you know... I step outside... clean air and clean water! Wow. :cool:

Travlyr
05-31-2010, 10:47 AM
Incorporations limit liability for actions taken by persons of corporations. This charter allows for several people to invest in large projects that are out of the scope of individuals.
A problem with incorporations is that they become corrupt by becoming public/private partnerships with government. i.e. passing laws that restrict competition.

If incorporations did not exist, then how would large projects be completed?

Many in this thread have called to an end to corporations. What is your proposed alternative?

susano
05-31-2010, 11:53 AM
There are a lot of what Kevin Carson calls "vulgar libertarians" about who are corporate apologists. I understand where you are coming from and feel that oil would have failed a long time ago had government not gotten involved through mercantilism and imperialism.

Corporations are government legal inventions. We need to end them and all proxy bank mechanisms that give super citizen persons privilege over individuals and family business.

BP in particular began as an imperialist act. Oil has received subsidies both direct ad indirect since it was first used in automobiles and the petrol models were favored early over the steam and electric models which were being made nearly 90 years ago.


We should, if serious about really free markets, end corporate personhood and end corporate tort immunity.

Thnks for that. "Vulgar Libertarians" give us all a bad name (though I'm not a Libertarian but a constitutionalist).

awake
05-31-2010, 12:04 PM
"vulgar libertarians"... PLEASE!

There are many warped market processes thanks to state privilege and government force and coercion. But the feeling I get when people talk about corporations, other than group of individuals working together to achieve consumer wants, is that we somehow need to write more laws to deal with evil corporations. The truth of the matter is that you need to start thinking how to de-engineer...undo the privileges, not the productive effort.

Travlyr
05-31-2010, 12:59 PM
Incorporations limit liability for actions taken by persons of corporations. This charter allows for several people to invest in large projects that are out of the scope of individuals.
A problem with incorporations is that they become corrupt by becoming public/private partnerships with government. i.e. passing laws that restrict competition.

If incorporations did not exist, then how would large projects be completed?

Come on corporation bashers. There are several posts on this thread claiming an end to the corporate structure of limited liability is the answer. You are not advocating eliminating evil corporations without a plan, are you? What do you do... just limit the size of projects to whatever partnerships accepting full liability are willing to tackle?

susano
05-31-2010, 01:32 PM
We have a natural right to pollute.

~ The Vulgar Libertarian, Volume 1

susano
05-31-2010, 01:33 PM
Many in this thread have called to an end to corporations. What is your proposed alternative?

Get a bunch of investors together and start the project. All owners have 100% liability.

susano
05-31-2010, 01:47 PM
"vulgar libertarians"... PLEASE!

There are many warped market processes thanks to state privilege and government force and coercion. But the feeling I get when people talk about corporations, other than group of individuals working together to achieve consumer wants, is that we somehow need to write more laws to deal with evil corporations. The truth of the matter is that you need to start thinking how to de-engineer...undo the privileges, not the productive effort.

The privileges are the PURPOSE of the corporation.

I cannot understand what it is that people here don't get. This arguing on behalf of the corproration, saying we could have corporations that are somehow free of gov't, is absurd. A corporation can be no more free of gov't than a fetus can be free of it's mother. One gives birth to the other.

You hypocrites who argue for limited liabilty are completely at odds with a movement that demands personal repsonsibility. You want it both ways: you don't want anyone interfering with your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (and property) yet you want to be free of accountability when you violate the rights of others.

You need to watch The Philosophy of Liberty, again.

YouTube - The Philosophy of Liberty HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQqvDtPzY0)

bluemarkets
05-31-2010, 02:48 PM
Get a bunch of investors together and start the project. All owners have 100% liability.

Not going to happen ... incorporating allows the gov to CONTROL, REGULATE, & TAX

It could easily work though, without corporations, the market when then shift the liability to 'private insurance' companies for business whatever the industry.

In regards to the oil spill ... I think you also have to look at how we got so 'dependent' on OIL in the first place. I don't think BP would even be in the Gulf if it wasn't for gov.

Oil's deep pockets to lobby and laws that favor them by the govt. have kept us stuck with Oil for a long time.

I believe if the gov. hadn't gotten involved with energy, we would have had a viable alternative solution to oil decades ago.

But laws, regulations, & restrictions have kept competition out and Big O at the forefront ... this just encourages them to take more & more risks knowing we 'NEED' oil.

In my eyes gov. is still the enabler here ... BP is just taking advantage of the broken system

oil + gov intervention --> demand
BP --> supply

Stop consumers using oil and we wont have these problems anymore

Travlyr
05-31-2010, 03:02 PM
Get a bunch of investors together and start the project. All owners have 100% liability.

If an investor could insure against the actions of others... that might work. But there is no way I would accept liability for the actions of others... been there... done that... and it sucks.

tremendoustie
05-31-2010, 03:07 PM
If an investor could insure against the actions of others... that might work. But there is no way I would accept liability for the actions of others... been there... done that... and it sucks.

Insurance could be an option.

tremendoustie
05-31-2010, 03:09 PM
I agree with that 100%, and have said so previously in this discussion.

Cool :). I admit I haven't read every post.

Anti Federalist
05-31-2010, 03:15 PM
You hypocrites who argue for limited liabilty are completely at odds with a movement that demands personal repsonsibility. You want it both ways: you don't want anyone interfering with your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (and property) yet you want to be free of accountability when you violate the rights of others.


Personal responsibility means just that, personal responsibility for your actions, not other people's actions.

I've already explained this, but it bears repeating, you cannot expect that any economic activity would ever take place if you were held criminally and civilly liable for the actions of people within your business, especially after you left specific and explicit instruction to NOT do what is wrong and to take every step to stop it if you did see something going wrong.

You want to flail BP's CEO alive, be my guest, but you're being just as hypocritical.

tremendoustie
05-31-2010, 03:26 PM
Personal responsibility means just that, personal responsibility for your actions, not other people's actions.

I've already explained this, but it bears repeating, you cannot expect that any economic activity would ever take place if you were held criminally and civilly liable for the actions of people within your business, especially after you left specific and explicit instruction to NOT do what is wrong and to take every step to stop it if you did see something going wrong.

You want to flail BP's CEO alive, be my guest, but you're being just as hypocritical.

That's a fair point. I guess the question is, to what extent were the owners aware of the behavior, or should have been aware? Did they condone the behavior? Of course, any profits derived from the behavior should be used for restitution.

The question of when and to what extent a business in general is responsible for the behavior of its employees is not cut and dried ... it probably needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

If I hire a hitman, he's not the only one who should be brought up on murder charges, and if I endorse, tolerate, or ignore potentially risky behavior of my employees, I should be liable if it all goes south. I think you recognize this.

erowe1
05-31-2010, 03:42 PM
There are a lot of what Kevin Carson calls "vulgar libertarians"

Yes there are. Examples, according to Kevin Carson himself, include Thomas Woods and Ludwig von Mises.
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/01/vulgar-libertarianism-watch-part-1.html

You can almost certainly include Ron Paul in the list (if Carson would even count him as any kind of a libertarian at all). And there's no point even mentioning Rand or Schiff in his book.

I'm not sure if vulgar libertarian really even means anything. And reading his explanation doesn't make me any more sure. It looks like a way for left libertarians who identify more with Chomsky than with Hayek to dismiss with a wave of their hand those of us (probably most Ron Paul supporters) who think a coalition of libertarians and conservatives still makes political sense.

Anti Federalist
05-31-2010, 03:43 PM
BP's safety policies are so top heavy with restrictions on doing anything "unsafe", to the point of operational constipation.

First hand accounts are that a number of highly placed people surmised that the operation was going badly hours before hand, they all had the right to shut the job down and stop it.

The BP company man is emerging as the bad guy in all of this, as an individual, who, if first hand accounts are to be believed, violated any number of written BP safety polices.


That's a fair point. I guess the question is, to what extent were the owners aware of the behavior, or should have been aware? Did they condone the behavior? Of course, any profits derived from the behavior should be used for restitution.

The question of when and to what extent a business in general is responsible for the behavior of its employees is not cut and dried ... it probably needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

If I hire a hitman, he's not the only one who should be brought up on murder charges, and if I endorse, tolerate, or ignore potentially risky behavior of my employees, I should be liable if it all goes south. I think you recognize this.

idiom
06-01-2010, 01:37 AM
The biggest problem is people who own shares in these companies, or have them tucked in mutual funds or something, and don't care what the companies get up to.

If the Owners of the corporation don't care what it is up to or how it is run as long as it spits out a dividend then of course its operations are going to go to hell.

erowe1
06-01-2010, 07:37 AM
The biggest problem is people who own shares in these companies, or have them tucked in mutual funds or something, and don't care what the companies get up to.

If the Owners of the corporation don't care what it is up to or how it is run as long as it spits out a dividend then of course its operations are going to go to hell.

This chart doesn't seem to support your premise.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=BP+Interactive#chart2:symbol=bp;range=3m ;compare=cvx+xom;indicator=volume;charttype=line;c rosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefi ned

Since the time of the oil spill BP's share price has dropped enough to decrease the company's market value by something in the order of $50 Billion I think, probably far more than its actual losses from the spill. And this drop is far more precipitous than more modest decreases in the prices of Exxon and Chevron over the same period. So it looks like share holders do care. They might ever care too much. This could be a buying opportunity.

tremendoustie
06-01-2010, 10:51 AM
The biggest problem is people who own shares in these companies, or have them tucked in mutual funds or something, and don't care what the companies get up to.

If the Owners of the corporation don't care what it is up to or how it is run as long as it spits out a dividend then of course its operations are going to go to hell.

I agree.

While I wouldn't say owners of a company should be responsible for every act any employee of theirs takes, in every circumstance -- turning a blind eye towards malfeasance and accepting the proceeds thereof is not acceptable.

You can't gamble and accept the winnings, but not the losses. I think if owners were more liable for damages their businesses cause, rather than just reaping the rewards, companies would behave much more responsibly.

But then, of course, there are cases where the owners genuinely desire good practices, but some individual or group of individuals act on their own, causing damages. I think in order for owners, or higher managers, to be considered complicit in an act, there probably needs to be awareness of it, or intentional (or gross) negligence.

Brian4Liberty
06-01-2010, 11:59 AM
The biggest problem is people who own shares in these companies, or have them tucked in mutual funds or something, and don't care what the companies get up to.

If the Owners of the corporation don't care what it is up to or how it is run as long as it spits out a dividend then of course its operations are going to go to hell.

Good point. Big public corporations are like government. The "owners" are just like taxpayers: a source of money. The "owners" don't have any say or oversight.

Of course this doesn't apply to companies where a founder is still running it, and has a majority of the outstanding shares.

reardenstone
06-09-2010, 03:38 PM
"vulgar libertarians"... PLEASE!

There are many warped market processes thanks to state privilege and government force and coercion. But the feeling I get when people talk about corporations, other than group of individuals working together to achieve consumer wants, is that we somehow need to write more laws to deal with evil corporations. The truth of the matter is that you need to start thinking how to de-engineer...undo the privileges, not the productive effort.

I agree. Undo the special privileges that corporations have over regular large groups of people. Anyone should be free to form large cooperatives to team up on large projects, but in the post-manufacturing world and in the new time of "Just In Time" manufacturing, we may need less and less large scale groups and rely more in local and small global groups.

I am not for more laws; just end corporate personhood and immunity. We could also reduce crony actions by ending lobby actions so businesses can't buy their way into political decisions.


Trvlr - please... Come to my state and I will show you plenty of filth. Maybe you should go diving in the gulf and tell me how you like those apples.

reardenstone
06-09-2010, 03:40 PM
not going to happen ... Incorporating allows the gov to control, regulate, & tax

it could easily work though, without corporations, the market when then shift the liability to 'private insurance' companies for business whatever the industry.

In regards to the oil spill ... I think you also have to look at how we got so 'dependent' on oil in the first place. I don't think bp would even be in the gulf if it wasn't for gov.

Oil's deep pockets to lobby and laws that favor them by the govt. Have kept us stuck with oil for a long time.

I believe if the gov. Hadn't gotten involved with energy, we would have had a viable alternative solution to oil decades ago.

But laws, regulations, & restrictions have kept competition out and big o at the forefront ... This just encourages them to take more & more risks knowing we 'need' oil.

In my eyes gov. Is still the enabler here ... Bp is just taking advantage of the broken system

oil + gov intervention --> demand
bp --> supply

stop consumers using oil and we wont have these problems anymore


+500 !!

reardenstone
06-09-2010, 03:52 PM
Personal responsibility means just that, personal responsibility for your actions, not other people's actions.

I've already explained this, but it bears repeating, you cannot expect that any economic activity would ever take place if you were held criminally and civilly liable for the actions of people within your business, especially after you left specific and explicit instruction to NOT do what is wrong and to take every step to stop it if you did see something going wrong.

You want to flail BP's CEO alive, be my guest, but you're being just as hypocritical.


Make it so only identified human beings can be held immune to another person's actions; not whole companies in name en toto. Corporations cannot and should not be entitled to be an individual and a group at the same time.


Try this and join if you agree:
http://movetoamend.org/


Corporations and the subsidy of History:
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econn/econn112.htm


+1000 then to Kevin Carson

Travlyr
06-09-2010, 05:23 PM
Trvlr - please... Come to my state and I will show you plenty of filth. Maybe you should go diving in the gulf and tell me how you like those apples.

Thanks, but I don't swim. :rolleyes:

No where in any post on this entire forum have I ever claimed that we do not pollute excessively, and that I am not concerned about it. I am in favor of sustainable fuels that emit zero, or close to zero pollution. The sooner the better. Society is not there yet, but we are working towards that goal. You are being disingenuous. I know that we can do better, but alarmist people who "believe" that we can control the temperature of the earth are not thinking critically. Sheesh! To believe that is both ignorant and arrogant. It is a fact that we do not possess that much power. We have a responsibility to pollute as little as possible, but there is nothing wrong with staying warm and enjoying life.

We are not destroying the earth as the power elite want us to fear, and I am sorry if the truth offends you.

Oil, gas & coal have been more of a plus to humanity than a negative even with the problem of pollution. Petroleum keep us from freezing in the dark. Have you ever been cold? I mean really really cold! Have you ever woken up with snow on your bed because you did not have heat? I have, and that gives you a different perspective on fuel. After 50 years of propaganda from environmental groups that the air is not fit to breathe, I went outside again this morning... what do you know... clean air! If you live in a place that is too filthy, then vote with your feet. But examine the facts before you believe the bullshit memes of the power elite and go telling people that their SUV is destroying the enviroment.

susano
06-09-2010, 08:14 PM
Personal responsibility means just that, personal responsibility for your actions, not other people's actions.

I've already explained this, but it bears repeating, you cannot expect that any economic activity would ever take place if you were held criminally and civilly liable for the actions of people within your business, especially after you left specific and explicit instruction to NOT do what is wrong and to take every step to stop it if you did see something going wrong.

You want to flail BP's CEO alive, be my guest, but you're being just as hypocritical.

I'm not a shareholder in any corporation. I am not being hypocritical. The corporation is a COLLECTIVE and I don't do collectives.