Thank you much for your thoughtful reply, Sam. I'll try to answer in kind.
Thank you, both for the compliment and indeed replying thoughtfully.
Like people themselves, I think that there is a range of empathy on the part of companies. Some businesses are cut throat and just want to maximize profits no matter the cost. Others are more sensitive and see themselves as a part of the broader community - they want to make a profit, but are concerned about the cost to employees, customers, and yes, environment.
At first glance, the smaller the firm the more empathetic it might be you would think. However, I have worked for multinationals where the local office is concerned about local impacts. IBM is a good example of this kind of company.
I am in agreement that regulation to prevent child labor, to prevent unsafe work conditions, to prevent unsanitary equipment, to prevent long hours of work without breaks are all beneficial to the people and the companies. You included an "etc" in your list and that is where I have an issue. How much is enough?
Honestly, it depends on the industry. I don't think all industries need to be regulated equally. Some industries deserve more regulations than others. I think off-shore drilling demands more regulations than others simply because of the environmental impact of their operations affect so many other industries should an accident occur.
We need to be aware that implementing regulations also adds harm to our system. It restricts the free market. As I agreed above, for things like you listed, this harm from regulation is reasonable. My entire point is that if unchecked, this harm can be ominous and destructive to the free market.
I have no problem with that, as I am not a free market purist. This is mostly because I don't think the free market factors in all the costs of a certain market.
This was mentioned in an episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher." One of the guests there was talking about how the U.S. relies on the Middle East for cheap oil. However, if you factor in the costs the U.S. has paid to go to war in Iraq, give foreign aid to Saudi Arabia, and all the support given to Israel to maintain a U.S. presence in the Middle East, the price the United States pays for in oil skyrockets.
So there are many ancillary costs to trade and commerce that we don't factor into the costs of those goods and services. For example, if we used only a tax on petroleum products to pay for our military and diplomatic operations in the Middle East, the price of oil would be so much that nobody would be able to buy it.
A less controversial analogy would be if we paid for the U.S Navy only with tariffs on imports and exports of maritime merchant activities to keep sea routes safe from piracy. If we did that, the costs of imports and exports would be so high the U.S. would rely only on domestic goods and services.
There's also the issue of the free market favoring large businesses over small businesses anyways, so regulations that inhibit small businesses entering an industry isn't really an argument anyways.
As long as regulation is for the purpose of ensuring companies operating under safe work conditions, I don't have much of a problem, although I would expect the regulatory requirements to be efficient and not ominous.
Again, I think which particular regulations apply depends on the industry. For off-shore drilling, I think regulations that reduce their environmental impact, especially with regards to accidental spill, are necessary. This is because their environmental impact is so huge.
No. This represents business risk for those companies and they will have to weather the storm.
But those smaller businesses don't really have the means to weather the storm. BP is going to survive this, as oil is such an important energy commodity. However, the tourism industry, which is a major industry of the Gulf coast, will be decimated by the oil spill. Nobody is going to want to visit the Gulf coast beaches covered in oil. That means fewer tourist dollars going into those areas paying for hotels, restaurants, bars, and clubs. That means fewer suppliers for those major tourist support businesses. That means those businesses which supports the suppliers lose economic viability.
I don't see why we can't regulate a "tent pole" industry, such as the off-shore drilling industry, whose actions have such a high degree of impact on other industries, especially those unrelated to it, such as the tourist and fishing industries of the Gulf coast with regards to the spill. Especially when the economic impact of all those smaller markets is greater than a single individual large market.
Of course, the issue is that offshore drilling is not a well-established common place industrial operation. It is a inherently risky endeavor. No amount of regulation will remove that risk and more accidents like this will occur in the future. It does seem like BP may have been non-standard (is there a standard that is effective?) with their BOP and when they detected rising pressure they were unable to contain it. Whether some of the regulatory proposals would have effectively prevented the blowout is unknown.
I understand that we're never going to remove
all risk. What I want to do is
minimize risk. And I think that certain things, such as requiring acoustic regulators and having effective response plans ready and updated regularly, and the means to implement them rapidly, are necessary regulations for this particular industry.
What industries do you think should be nationalized? I am generally against that, but we have education, police, fire, and transportation at least regionalized if not nationalized.
Well, I really don't want to get off the topic of talking about the BP oil spill, but since you asked I'll answer. I believe in public health care, especially for children, for check-ups and prevention, for dentistry, for pre-natal and post-natal care, and for mental wellness and mental health care. I'd also like to expand public transportation as well. I don't want to get the thread off topic with that, though. I mostly mentioned that to say that while I am for to some industries operated by the government, I don't want the government to operate
every industry.
What are effective, better regulations?
Like I said, the acoustic regulator for one. For another, requiring empty tankers that are in the region to immediately respond and vacuum the oil from the ocean. Emergency response plans updated on a regular basis done jointly with the government.
Those are a few I've thought of off the top of my head, but to be honest with you, I would really have to study the regulations of other countries that allow off-shore drilling and see how they operate before I can really give an informed answer.
