[Wada]

As a lady on Cross Country Checkup queried, why don't they hold these affairs on a luxury cruise ship at sea with UN security.

[CKASlacker]

Wada wrote:

As a lady on Cross Country Checkup queried, why don't they hold these affairs on a luxury cruise ship at sea with UN security.

Agreed - it's not such a crazy notion. You cordon off a 3 km radius around the ship (or whatever's appropriate), park a few warships close by with full monitoring capabilities. Fly a few choppers around with Navy Seals in them and you're done.

Heck, you could even have the conference in Toronto -- just on Lake Ontario. Then they could see the pretty skyline by night. It's far better picture than the delegates got of the city while they were there:

"It's a world-class city. Don't mind the security fences and police-state security. It's not usually like that - honest!"

Instead 1 billion CAD down the tubes.

[Psudo]

I don't think Bart was making a distinction between capitalism and prosperity. They're strongly correlated (as long as you're not using a Austrian school purist's definition of capitalism), but they're not the same thing.

He's right, though, that capitalism and environmental health are not inversely correlated; sure, BP has made an unholy mess of things, but generally speaking the capitalist countries are not facing greater environmental problems than socio-communist or backwards feudal countries. Neither are prosperity and environmental health opposing forces; China is a very wealthy polluter, and the slash-and-burn farmers near (in) the African rain forests are very impoverished polluters.

[Zipperfish]

Marcus_Ozius wrote:

Zipperfish, I think that you're simplifying what people are saying to you. BartSimpson did not endorse absolute, unregulated, Ayn Rand loving, capitalism anymore just now than I claimed all protesters were vandals earlier.
The corporations are taking the heat now. However, when the government intervenes, it bungles things probably as badly and takes the heat. It seems to be a no win situation. Any organization is going to become corrupt and incompetent if given enough time and or resources. That's just life. It's getting competing powers to fight against each other for the benefit of the people that allows for the benefit of the populace as a whole.

It is a no-win situation. In math, this would be referred to as an optimization problem--the solution is not absolute capitalism, nor is it communism. The best you can manage is to optimize the balance between the two for maximum benefit.

I disagree with you that "corporations are taking the heat." I would argue it's never been a better time to be a corporation.

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

I don't think Bart was making a distinction between capitalism and prosperity. They're strongly correlated (as long as you're not using a Austrian school purist's definition of capitalism), but they're not the same thing.

He's right, though, that capitalism and environmental health are not inversely correlated; sure, BP has made an unholy mess of things, but generally speaking the capitalist countries are not facing greater environmental problems than socio-communist or backwards feudal countries. Neither are prosperity and environmental health opposing forces; China is a very wealthy polluter, and the slash-and-burn farmers near (in) the African rain forests are very impoverished polluters.

To be clear I wasn't actually linking the two. I was pointing out that "poverty" and "environmental degradation" are two issues of concern to me that are not adequately addressed by world leaders and move me to protest (though my protests are more the "writing letters to newspapers" kind).

In my opinion, the First World actually "outsources" pollution to the third world. Our environmental standards and our labour standards became comparatively high, so it's much more profitable for corporations to have stuff made in China, where there are lax environmental standards and little protection for workers. Given that the vast majority of products they make come over to teh First World, in one sense, the pollution is just relocated.

[Crosshair]

Marcus_Ozius wrote:

However, when the government intervenes, it bungles things probably as badly and takes the heat. It seems to be a no win situation. Any organization is going to become corrupt and incompetent if given enough time and or resources. That's just life. It's getting competing powers to fight against each other for the benefit of the people that allows for the benefit of the populace as a whole.

Yup, when companies get corrupt and incompetent they get blindsided by competitors, lose market-share, and either reform or go bankrupt.

When governments get corrupt and incompetent, they simply increase taxes, needless regulation, and defect spending until the whole mess comes crashing down catastrophically. (Kinda like we are seeing in Greece and what happened in the Soviet Union.)

In the US, what we have right now is Crony Capitalism. Where the government, not the market, chooses the winners and losers. Where corrupt and incompetent companies get propped up while competent and efficient start-ups get taxed and regulated into oblivion to protect the companies that are "too big to fail".

If a company really is "too big to fail" than it is too big to exist and should be split up in bankruptcy court.

[Psudo]

Zipperfish wrote:

[...] stuff made in China, where there [is] little protection for workers.

Communists pursuing their ideals, eh?

Some amount of your "outsourcing pollution" theory is surely true, especially for small manufactured trinkets. Fundamental pollution-causers like electricity production and transportation remain largely tied to the nations they benefit, and the USA still produces a pretty large amount of energy for the amount of pollution as a national average. Call it production density, if you like.

[Zipperfish]

Crosshair wrote:

Yup, when companies get corrupt and incompetent they get blindsided by competitors, lose market-share, and either reform or go bankrupt.

Not necessarily. Corporations that are large enough can "game" the system to their advantage. Look at the financial corporations that caused the sub-prime meltdown in the US. They did not go bankrupt. On the contrary, they were deemed "too big to fail" and given a fair sum of taxpayers money to get back on their feet again.

Just today I note that US banks have been lauindering money from Mexican drug cartels and Mark Carney (Ex-Goldmann Sachs senior exectutive; GOldman Sachs is a compnay unjdergoing several probes right now) has been appointed as chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System.

Quote:

When governments get corrupt and incompetent, they simply increase taxes, needless regulation, and defect spending until the whole mess comes crashing down catastrophically. (Kinda like we are seeing in Greece and what happened in the Soviet Union.)

However, you have the option of picking another government. Granted, in the US you're in a bit of a bind, because it's difficult to tell the difference between the Democrats and Republicans a lot of the time.

Quote:

In the US, what we have right now is Crony Capitalism. Where the government, not the market, chooses the winners and losers. Where corrupt and incompetent companies get propped up while competent and efficient start-ups get taxed and regulated into oblivion to protect the companies that are "too big to fail".

I agree with the last part of this, but I'm not convince that the government chooses its corporations. I'm not a conspiracy theoriest, but I'm more inclined to believe its the other way around--the corporations choose the government. People often complain that nothing ever changes in Washington, regardless of who is oin power. Thqat speaks to my belief that it is the "powers behind the throne" that are pulling the strings.

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

Some amount of your "outsourcing pollution" theory is surely true, especially for small manufactured trinkets. Fundamental pollution-causers like electricity production and transportation remain largely tied to the nations they benefit, and the USA still produces a pretty large amount of energy for the amount of pollution as a national average. Call it production density, if you like.

Production density--I like that term!

Case in point was the watergun my wife proght home for the kids last summer. She bought it at the dollar store and it didn't work, so she tossed it.

That watergun began its life as oil, likely in some mid-east country. The oil was pumped and refined and then shipped to China where it would have been turned into plastic at a chemcial plant. From there, the plastic would go to an extrusion plant adn shaped, coloured, etc. Then there would have been the packaging (more plastic, perhaps a little cardboard). Then it's on to a container ship bound for Vancouver, and then from there trucked to some warehouse or other in North America. Then it would have ended up onj a store shelf where my wife bought it, took it home, unwrapped it and promptly tossed it into the garbage, from whence it went to a landfill where it will spend the next few hundred years biodegrading. What a truly pointless endeavour.

The good thing is that I've managed to convince my wife to avoid dollar stores!

[djakeydd]

Wada wrote:

As a lady on Cross Country Checkup queried, why don't they hold these affairs on a luxury cruise ship at sea with UN security.

I don't think the group of psychopaths who attended this last big summit could handle the lack of pomp and circumstance that being shuttled off to a cruise ship would cause. It would be a waaaaaaay to hard on their collective monstrous ego's.

Say, do you suppose they may have been discussing this topic

http://pesn.com/2010/06/28/9501664_BP-- ... ond-Ponzi/