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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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John wrote: Excellent post, apogee. It appears, though, that those to your left don't buy it.
john
Excellent because it only makes you feel better.
Did you read my post??
Degree of blame.
Stealing candy from a store is much different than being responsible for 11 people dying, the livelihood of thousands and destroying a coastline.
At least in my book it is.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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R.B. Now that Barry has been in office for over 38% of his four-year term. Got a question ... when is Barry going to stop partying like it's 1999 and start treating the responsibilities of the office like it's 2010...
WTF??
Yeah...he has done nothing so far...health care, stimulus, jobs, fight two wars, deal with a major recession and now deal with lying sacks like BP who, Hallibuton and transoceanic.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Bob,
When a problem comes along, this administration and the majority party in congress spend most of their time trying to fix the blame elsewhere, and very little time trying to fix the problem. "It's all the Republicans' fault" may play well with the most partisan Democrats, but it's wearing thin with the rest of us. The Democrats have the White House, a huge Senate majority, and a majority in the House. Where does the buck stop?
John
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Free Market Fundamentalism has consequences John. Is that so hard to admit.
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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And the right to foul an entire coast too, apparently.
As with most of the problems with free market Fundamentalism its the externalities that are the crux.....once you've got your profits, bonuses, dividends etc..who pays to clean up the destruction that you leave behind?
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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" Yeah, maybe we all should pay for some cleanup"....and how should that payment be made Skipt?
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Dr F...you have been reading Karl Roves playbook...rj
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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I have no idea how to pay for this. This is a discussion we all could learn from. One way or the other, a question that all Americans and their governments need to honestly ask - how do we pay for all this? You can only live on credit for so long, and the dishonesty with regard to budgets, expenditures, taxes, deficits and the debt is appalling.
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Tahoe City/Talmont , CA
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At least in a fundamentally free market economy you have the right to not do business with anyone you don't want to.
Unless that anyone is Israel.
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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"I say we drill more wells (this time safely,)"........
how do we ensure..."This time safely"
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Skip and Jeremy,
The market fundamentalist approach is that BP pays for the damage. If BP made environmentally stupid decisions, the cost ends up on its shoulders. If all oil companies make the same decisions, then they, too, will incur similar costs (or the costs of insuring against such catastrophes) and the cost will be reflected in the market price of petroleum, and therefore be borne by all petroleum users.
As long as that cost gets borne by the parties responsible, the market produces the optimal amount of both petroleum and safety. If the cost gets borne by, say, taxpayers, someone is subsidizing either petroleum production or unsafe drilling, and we will have a superoptimal amount of petroleum production and a suboptimal amount of safety.
As near as I can tell, the entire history of this particular fiasco was under the current administration, which no one seriously accuses of being regulation-averse. I therefore question whether more regulation would change the outcome.
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Dr. F,
Blaming the current Gulf disaster on the Republicans shows a complete disregard borh of fact and responsibility. The Deepwater Horizon drilling on Mississippi Canyon Block 252 began in February of 2010. If regulations were too lax, the administration had over a year to fix them. There were no nasty Blue Dogs or even Republicans to stop them. It was entirely up to the administration. In fact, I'm sure the anti-petroleum lobby, that partly paid for the Democrats' victories, surely knew already what they wanted to change.
One of two things was true: either regulation was incapable of simultaneously allowing drilling and ensuring a lack of accidents, or the current administration was incapable of determining the proper regulation. Trying to blame this on Republicans won't wash (pun intended).
John
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Really?......
you don't think that a regulation that required an effective solution to deep water blowouts could have helped prevent this from happening?
Surface blowouts happen all the time, and get fixed, all the time. Might it not have been prudent to limit deepwater drilling permits until the remedial technological expertise was there?
This sort of requirement is standard all across American Industry, why not in the oil industry?
The history of action of Republicans does not support your contention, both in America and across the world. In almost all cases that I can think of Republicans push for the external costs to be absorbed by the general public. Think hard John you might be able to come up with a few very current examples.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Are you serious John? This well was drilled during the lax Bush administration regulations. Or do you actually think they established the deepest underwater well head in history in just the last 18 months? What was there, including the incompetence and the negligence, when the well blew was a result of the on going pork-fest at the Minerals Management Service (MMS) under Bush II.
What would you have had Obama do (once he learned of the gross misleading BP & Haliburton were engaged in)? Should he have immediately gone down there and personally stuffed the pipe full of Limbaugh, Palin and Beck?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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As near as I can tell, the entire history of this particular fiasco was under the current administration
The only part of the history of this fiasco on the current administration is their disappointing failure to head MMS with someone who would actually flush the toilet on the Bush era protocols, attitudes, and staff of that agency. They continued selling out our country to the oil companiers for weeks after the rig went down.
Oh, and no amount of market fundamentalism, economic philosophies of any kind, or even Adam Smith coming back from the grave to personally help with the cleanup will restore gulf marshes or corals. The whole dispassionate discussion of economics as simply a matter of human choices where consequences will be 'managed' by markets (or any other aspect of human systems) is naively detached from the devestating long term consequences for ecological and biological systems. There are [human] mistakes no market can ever 'fix'.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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John wrote: When a problem comes along, this administration and the majority party in congress spend most of their time trying to fix the blame elsewhere, and very little time trying to fix the problem.
John...I have the utmost respect for you...with that said...I called bullshit on your above statement.
How did healthcare, the stimulus, bank reform and bills get passed???
He (Obama) was left a complete sh#t hole.
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Tahoe City/Talmont , CA
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Skip,
You stated.....
"At least in a fundamentally free market economy you have the right to not do business with anyone you don't want to."
and I stated.....
"Unless that anyone is Israel."
and here is proof that I am correct.
http://www.bis.doc.gov/complianceandenforcement/antiboycottcompliance.htm
Antiboycott Compliance
The Bureau is charged with administering and enforcing the Antiboycott Laws under the Export Administration Act. Those laws discourage, and in some circumstances, prohibit U.S. companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel sponsored by the Arab League, and certain Moslem countries, including complying with certain requests for information designed to verify compliance with the boycott. Compliance with such requests may be prohibited by the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and may be reportable to the Bureau.
And here are two NGO sites that help to enforce this.
http://www.divestmentw#tch.com/
http://www.boycottw#tch.org/
Sorry Skip but the facts are there.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Skip wrote: I for one think the real thing we should be drilling for in the gulf is natural gas. This burns cheaper, cleaner, and can be set up quickly to use as an alternative to many transportation fuels.
Then we can wean ourselves away from oil with a slow steady precision that is required to steer an economy like ours.
Holy sh#t...I agree with Skip.
Rebuilt our entire energy infrastructural.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Why are those Republicans so wrong...
Because in the face of the worst environmental disaster that the greed and negligence of the free market, free for all, gravy train of the corporate welfare state could produce their drone like talking heads say stupid ass sh#t like it was the fault of environmentalists who demanded to many expensive environmental safety regulations for on shore drilling.
NO! I am not responsible for this disaster because I drive a car.
I drive a car because that is what this system has made available to me.
And to suggest that it is wrong to complain and lay blame unless you quit driving is absurd misdirection.
Give me the opportunity for clean energy and a clean car and I am there.
Stand in the way of clean cars and energy solely to protect your own corporate profit structure and I have no sympathy when you face economic ruin. Don't hold me responsible for this disaster.
Hold the corporations involved irresponsible.
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