WILL INDUSTRY, ON ITS OWN, DO WHAT IS RIGHT?

I just asked Lady Diane about this and she said "nobody ever agrees with George" and I said "You didn't say that when George paid for your dinner"

Have you considered the possibility that Diane's remark was made in sympathy to me, and directed at the cranky folks who so often disagree?

Besides, Diane is much nicer than you (and me).

the fact that Lady Diane likes you is only an indication that she had more wine than usual.

If that is all it takes, I'll happily accept it !

You should consider the evident fact that, even without wine, she likes you !

Irish catholics are bastards. Im a white anglo-saxon heathen and proud.

I agree with you on all points.

However, as the nuns explained to me in grade school, there are two types of humans in this world - Irish Catholics and poor, envy-ridden souls who desperately wished they were. Later, when I learned this was a slight exaggeration, I no longer gave a damn.

Not necessarily, but it does help to set up as elaborate and detailed a strawman as possible, to attempt to achieve a verisimilitude which might convince the unwary. But putting make-up on this old whore and making her out to be virginal and pure just won't work. The profit motive knows no rules which are not imposed from without. Those familiar with Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, in addition to being less likely to want to eat hot dogs, will readily understand why government regulation and oversight of industry came about, and why it is necessary. People who invest in a company, but have no hand its day-to-day operations, and especially those who don't live in areas affected by the activities of said industry, have little reason to care about the by-productions of production.

By its very nature, corporate business is a type of enterprise which will be a law unto itself if no other law constrains it, and the only law it will recognize is the bottom line. Companies which become "good corporate citizens" are engaged in a public relations effort to make them seem like nice guys to the public. So, in fact, supporting Masterpiece Theater has absolutely nothing to do with Mobile Oil's business operations, and in no way addresses how they treat wetlands and other environments in their pursuit of petroleum, but it might give a warm glow to the stockholders who enjoy British television productions and the quarterly dividends from the energy industry.

Really, O'George, do you get paid for being a shill for corporate virtue? Or are you simply a good soul who likes to do PR work for free?

I can't agree with you at all on this. There are Irish Catholics and those that wish there were none because we make everyone else look so petty and tawdry.

You haven't addressed the essential point about human nature in all activities, and instead merely repeat the original mantra. That's OK by me, but don't pretend otherwise.

I run a fairly small corporation and have an intense awareness of the profit motive and the other factors involved in corporate survival and success. I am also aware of the equivalent self-interest motivations operating on a personal basis for the leaders of non-profits, labor unions, environmental advocacy groups, government brueaucracies, and individual professionals, and of the violations of the public trust it often entails.

Self-interest is self interest whether it is cloaked in terms of profits or the retention of personal status, power, salary and position in an organization that doesn't make profits. On a human level it is all the same.

Few historians consider Upton Sinclair to have been a dispassionate, objective observer of the scene he portrayed. Despite this, there was more than enough truth to the problems he portrayed to justify his actions. However that doesn't constitute a proof that such indifference and venality is unique to business enterprises.

Moreover, I don't believe that it is at all unique to them. You are yourself very well attuned to the human folly that is so evident in the histories of nations, armies, institutions and all aspects of human life. I think you fully understand the truth of all this.

If you read the threads title, I was asking a question. Please dont try to be the"Great Summarizer". Your own input is welcomed, postive or negative

Since all the aspects of manufacture for the space industry take place primarily here on earth. Lets look at the record of the Aerojet General, Boeing etc until regulatory oversight actually caught up with them and the industries began "reluctantly" to clean up.

Most regulatory oversight has begun from a definite need to reign in the industries who are being regulated. Im still unaware of any industries that have voluntarily stepped up and made profits at being green until regulations forced them to do so. Then, the very regulations are factored in asa cost of doing business.


Im still waiting for an example . However, I think we can agree that , there hasnt been such a case absent any effective regulations .

My topic can be bifurcated into a point that recognizes (Or would like to) that, once specific industries are regulated, the previous habits or irresponsibility are just as effectively overturned and new habits are learned.
I recll doing a FOIA on a number of industries waste handling habits in the (specific metal) mining arena. I once found a series of internal memos in a state office that stated that "After Jan 1982, because of suspected health effects, we will no longer be able to mix our plant (named waste stream) wastes in with office trash for offshore disposal".
The point of the suit was that my client, the manufacturer, was being fought by their insurance carrier and was being denied coverage for the environmental cleanuo because the industry "should have known" that the wastes would cause health problems. My argument was that becuase of a test that I adopted, the industry did NOT understand , until a certain date .

OBVIOUSLY my original point questioned the implications of deregulation.

I'm not pretending anything--and you have apparently missed the essential point that the need for regulation arises out of the consequences of human nature. I'm not surprised, though. I've not contended that venality is unique to business enterprises--but this thread is only about business enterprises, and not the totality of human depravity, a subject which i suspect is dear to the hearts of all Jesuits and their minions.

Did it? If it was obvious, then why wouldn't more of us have picked up on that? I took the question as you fishing for the need for regulation of corporate behavior, yes, but not implications of deregulation.

I support deregulation of everything that hinders creativity, productivity, vision, thinking outside the box, competing in the free market, or achieving excellence.

I support regulation necessary to prevent one entity from doing violence to people/other entities or to prevent anybody from violating anybody's Constitutional, civil, legal, and/or unalienable rights with impunity.

In this support role, you will have to turn a blind eye to the very sins that Im talking of.
For example, are you aware that the tobacco industry needed a heavy prod from the Fed anmd State Govt to change ?
Yet, tobacco is doing the same business in third world countries as it had in the US. The entire business model of tobacco is to infect and infest the rest of the world while playing as the good caring corporate citizen back home.


I reject your "support of creativity and vision". For if indeed , the vision had been there, the industries would have, without imposed regulation, been able to see the future and modify their ways of doing things just because theyve "always done it that way". As far as creativity, it takes way more creativity to fdreate a non toxic paint by techniques that are similarly non toxic. Only regulation brought that into fruition.

You seem to ignore that, while you endose your need for deregulation , yet you have no sterling examples where theyve actually worked.

Perhaps you overlooked the line re what the government should regulate?

No, because I wont respond to my own question. Ive already given examples of where industries were out of control with respect to health, the environment, safety, Quality etc.

Youve mentioned that you dont want to hamper creativity by regulation. In and of itself, can you name such an endeavor that had its creativity squelched for unnecessary reasons?

I didn't ask you to respond to your own question. I agreed that all industry would not be responsible without some government regulation, and I qualified my comments of what I dont' want the government meddling with by including those regulations that I think necessary for government to do. And you ignored that with an implication that I was in favor of total deregulation.

As for example of an industry that has had its creativity squelched for unnecessary reasons, I would point to the auto industry. Government interference, to protect the unions, has prevented it from creative reorganization that could have shed its most onerous entitlement burdons. Government interference has limited it to a certain product that may or may not be attractive to the public, but certainly limits the creative possibilities left to the auto makers. Requiring catalytic converters on all vehicles and banning leaded or sulphured fuel or requiring a standard of safety is one thing. Demanding that auto makers make only vehicles conforming to government specifications is quite another.

how is that stifling their "creativity'?


They made crappy econoboxes without imagination because it was profitable, not because they were told to.

(the government had nothing to do with how badly they were run until this year)