Yeah, you can apologize for the profits of Corporations all you like. It doesn't change anything.
If a corporation cannot run their business cleanly, then they don't deserve to run the business. Period. Will it potentially cost some jobs? Sure. It cost jobs and industry when we shut down slavery. It costs jobs to make employers actually pay health care. It costs jobs any time you decide to hold businesses to a real standard.
You state
Quote: Higher water quality standards sound great, but what if achieving the new goal costs so much that property taxes have to be raised to the point where fewer working-class families in that area can afford to buy a home? That's just one simple example of the balance we're trying to find here, and it has nothing to do with protecting corporations, it has to do with protecting people from their own competing interests.
Yes, it does have to do with protecting people.
First of all, you may notice that I never mentioned the Kyoto treaty. I, while being an environmentalist, do not support the Kyoto treaty for the simple fact that it was written in a pretty biased manner to cost the Eurpoeans practically nothing. I have never made the argument that we should have signed the thing.
This does not remove us from the responsibility of legislating businesses' behavior. The problem with Corporations, which you seem to believe is 'simple,' is that they have no morality whatsoever, no over-arcing principle except to
make money. This environment is a breeding ground of pollution. In many cases, the leaders of a public company don't even have a choice in the matter due to Due Dilligence; if they choose to use less-polluting methods that cost the company profits, they can be ousted from office. THIS is why we need pollution laws.
You also have a basic misunderstanding of the way prices work in our financial market. It is unreasonable, as in your assumption, to assume that ALL rises in cost are passed along to the consumer. This is not true. In many cases, when
competition comes into play, costs are absorbed by the profits of the companies themselves.
You claim that Coke, for example, would raise it's prices as costs go up directly. But there is little reason to believe this happens. Because it is crazy to think that ONLY Coca-Cola would have their business restricted so that costs go up. So would Pepsi, Dr. Pepper and a whole bunch of related drinks.
But the market is so competitive that the vendor/producer who decides to keep his prices low could EASILY make up for the lost monies in volume sales, and severly hurt his competition at the same time through transferrence of customer loyalty.
And it is also disingenuous to act as if Corporations aren't
responsible for the environmental damage they cause! If it costs them more money to produce cleanly, and that even gets passed on to the consumers,
so what? It is a moral responsiblity of us all to ensure that our environment is clean. Yet most of us cannot look beyond our own backyard when it comes to accepting this responsibility. We would rather have low prices, because people are basically greedy animals.
We have environmental laws in place JUST FOR this reason. It has been conclusively shown that without restrictions put in place by govt's that Corporations and people will NOT act in their own best interests when it comes to environmental quality. If we decide to tighten these restrictions and it raises the cost of doing business, fine! I know many Republicans march under the banner of 'can't restrict business, can't raise the cost of doing business' but I certainly don't.
You say
Quote:How many jobs do you think would be lost in the recession Kyoto would cause? How many children would be thrust into poverty, because you don't think the costs are important?
But here you are merely Appealing to Extremes. You haven't shown in any way that Kyoto (which as I stated earlier, I purposefully didn't make part of my argument) would
cost jobs at all. All it is going to cost is some short-term profits. In the long run, the environment will be better for everyone. In fact, I would argue that there is a whole industry waiting to spring up concerning conservation, on-site recycling using advanced waste management techniques, and clean production of energy.
Your arguments that we should ignore the problems of our environment and pollution in order to protect our businesses (and, conversely, our citizens through some sort of 'trickle-down' effect) are short-sighted. While we may endure some limited troubles due to the strain of ramping up the restrictions, the reduced environmental damage over time will save us and our descendants incalculable amounts of monies. It has also been conclusively proven that many health defects and problems are the cause of man-made pollution; but you don't really seem to care about them, do ya?
I stand by the position that you are merely being an apologist for business. But may I say that this is one of the best conversations I've had on the topic in a long time.
Cheers
Cycloptichorn
