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Study Says Fracking is Safe In Theory But Often Not In Practice
First time accepted submitter chadenright writes "A university study asserts that the problems caused by the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' arise because drilling operations aren't doing it right. The process itself isn't to blame, according to the study, released today by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin."
Medical expert Doc. Cottle agrees.
So, who payed for it? Are there any ties with the oil-industry? Via-via-ties do count. I ask this because every other investigation I have seen all have the same thing in common: Putting about 3000 different chemicals (mostly very toxic) into the ground is a mayor threat to drinkingwater and should never ever be repeated again. Except in Texas apparently. Only that is reason enough to just not continue this. The cost don't weight up to the benefits. (Not even on an economical scale)
nuclear power plants are also safe.
In all seriousness, though, "safe in theory but not necessarily in practice" suggests that maybe the theory is wrong...
I only work as an MWD Engineer in the industry, so take my comment with a grain of salt. As far as I can tell the problem is likely due to improper cementing in 99.99% of cases. They almost always rush it, and drill ASAP afterwards, if not sooner. I wouldn't doubt they are fracking their cement job, leaving a nice path to the surface water table.
There is nothing intrinsically unsafe about it in most cases, but if you frack a stranger without a condom, you can get cooties.
This is going to be a pretty strong opinion without a lot of facts (but a lot of feelings towards humanity, morality and nature) but why, as a nation, are we even letting 'fracking' exist to fatten pockets of Oil companies and politicians to piggy bag loop holes onto ? I don't need to be a 'fracking' expert to know a handful of things:
A) Pumping unknown chemicals into the ground that pollute water sources is a bad idea, B) Causing earthquakes in the mid-west where should not be feel-able earthquakes is not a good thing at all, what-so-ever, C) The uncanny health deterioration and after-effects of water pollution on animals and humans, not to mention 'poisoning the well' with natural gas so you can start potable and stream water on fire is (there's a theme here) not good at all, period. D) Contamination from fracking water just being dumped out on the land and seeps back into our habitats, bad. E) The pollutants from the refining process that has makes places in Wyoming have worse air pollution than L.A., horrible. May the list go on...
Why do we all need a 'study' to come out to tell this is bad? I'm ashamed of the greed that our country has consumed itself in that we'll destroy anything, for what? The Almighty Dollar.
In all seriousness, though, "safe in theory but not necessarily in practice" suggests that maybe the theory is wrong...
Or, horror of horrors, government isn't stepping up to the plate. This sort of thing is the poster child for why pure Libertarianism don't work. Over at the Oil Drum there are many discussions on fracking - and from the couple of folks actually doing it, they would agree with TFA - it can be done safely, but often isn't.
Apparently Texas, who has been regulating fracking since the 1950's does a reasonable job of it. Significant fines for dumping wastewater, regulators that know what they're looking for. It shouldn't be rocket science to hire a couple of oil field guys (or some ex - Texas regulators) and come up with a best practices document.
Hell, the EPA might even be able to do it. But this is what really frosts me about the current state of affairs. Even if industry and government should have similar goals (keeping the screw ups and cheaters out of the game), they can't seem to get together and put up some fairly simple regulatory frameworks.
Maybe this is what Tainter means by too much complexity causing our eventual downfall. Humans are just too stupid sometimes.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article stated that one of the main problems was bad cementing jobs, but from what I've gathered from reading and talking is that it is really hard to get a good cement job. There are things you can do to screw it up, but even if you do everything by the book, you can still end up with an imperfect seal. According to the US U.S. Minerals Management Service, cementing problems were associated with 18 of 39 blowouts between 1992 and 2006.
So, if doing fraking "right" requires you to have perfect cement jobs everytime, then it isn't possible to do fraking right.
Good to know fraking is safe. Any news on frelling?
I had a great time fraking all through 1984! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frak!
think that this article was going to be about sex, from the rss feed title?
Groat said the report was based on a review of previously published data rather than fresh field observations. "We did not go out and measure things," he acknowledged.
Well, your result are only as good as your sources.
It is really disturbing to me that you seem to know who Tainter is, and to agree somewhat with what he's said. But you seem to be claiming that regulatory frameworks are somehow in need of expansion. One would think that you might be more concerned with stemming the tide of ever increasing government bureaucracy rather than expanding it. Perhaps it may be better to ask why the existing framework isn't accomplishing what it's supposed to, and looking for ways to improve it, rather than simply saying "lets draft yet another document and add it to our already absurd collection of government documents." But that's just me.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. **Attributed to Yogi B and others.
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not
We run into this ALL the time here at work. Since we're working with cutting edge software that even the developers don't entirely understand we can often say "It'll take an hour" and then it winds up taking 2 days. Or we'll say it'll take 2 days and we're done in an hour. Until something has been done for decades and experience is developed you find yourself constantly solving problems you didn't even know could exist.
If Plan A always worked perfectly everything would be done 8x faster. It's only through years of mistakes that I've learned to readjust my pride from "how long it would take if I made no 'mistakes'" to how long it'll take in the real world. I imagine without regulation there is a lot of that in the drilling industry. Pride or economic incentive pushes people to be optimistic about how perfectly any plan can be executed and then in order to meet their plan mistakes go uncorrected.
... funded by Big Oil comes out with what is basically pro-fracking study that basically says, "We're doing it in a dangerous manner; it's the process, not what we're doing, even though everyone is doing it wrong."
And peer review? Nope. But it was reviewed by the pro-corporation sham of an environmental watch-group, the Environmental Defense Fund:
In addition to university faculty, the Environmental Defense Fund was actively involved in developing the scope of work and methodology for this study, and reviewed final work products.
(source)
Not buyin' it.
Check your premises.
In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are not.
You can do everything right and still get a bad seal. If you rush the job and ignore warning signs, you are pretty much guaranteed to get a bad seal. Which do you suppose causes more problems?
You could say the same of any drilling. If you don't have a good seal, you haven't done it right. It is possible to check this kind of thing afterwards. Maybe they should.
This sort of thing is the poster child for why pure Libertarianism don't work.
Pure libertarianism: somebody owns that underground water. Somebody else starts fracking and chemicals get into the water. The owner of the water then sues the fracker and 0wns him in court. (Possibly literally; if the damages are high enough, the fracker might wind up indentured to the party he wronged.)
Alternative scenario. The fracker and the water owner are the same person. Now he can eat the cost of the fracking (can't sell the water anymore; it's polluted); or he can keep selling the water to his customers, in which case his customers sue him for selling tainted water, and they 0wn him in court.
Now, if you are talking about not just a libertarian society but an anarchocapitalist one, then yeah I think you have found an example that probably won't work in practice. I'm told that even with no government to force people to go to court, that they will voluntarily show up for arbitrations and there is no need for government. I doubt you buy that; I don't either.
The role of government here is supposed to be that government imposes regulations, the industry follows the regulations, and then nobody sues anybody as long as everyone was following the regulations. Or if you are really a believer in big government, you might think that government inspectors prevent accidents. That works until it doesn't; BP leaked a bunch of oil into the gulf, and government inspectors didn't prevent it.
The libertarian alternative is you can do whatever you want, without permission, but as soon as you harm someone you are in big trouble. (Government currently provides lots of ways to diffuse the trouble; you don't hear of a CEO being held personally responsible for the company he/she heads, due to limited liability of corporation.)
Maybe you meant to say "anarchy" instead of "Libertarianism"?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
For those who my have missed the joke and modded this down for some reason, the quote could be better written:
Which is not only certainly true (most people will do whatever they can to avoid using a condom), it also seems strangely appropriate and on-topic in this instance. Especially if you've ever known any drillers.
I know you can't be bothered to read the article because you've already made up your mind, but it says:
So, just in case your question was not rhetorical (and I'm pretty sure it was) there's your answer.
... I can tell you that's spot on. I mean it seems great, everyone feels good - no great - but then there's the heat, moisture (either sticky or slimy) and runoff ... sometimes exhaustion from all the activity and close proximity, but you go on - drill baby drill, right?. Then... oh, wait - "fracking"? Never mind.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"according to the study, released today by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin."
In related news, Eskimo University says Ice is the new health food!
You can say that about lots of things. Communism is great in theory. Agile is great in theory. Unfortunately those people with contaminated well water don't care that it's say in theory.
How does someone "own ground water" in a libertarian society? I thought you had to improve land with labour to stake a claim to it.
Pure libertarianism: a rancher, town, or some other small business or public organization owns that underground water. A large corporation starts fracking and chemicals get into the water. The owner of the water then sues the fracker and gets outspent 100-1 in court. (Possibly, if the damage is bad enough and there's significant public interest, the fracker might wind actually paying the party he wronged a small fraction of his profits a decade or two later.) Alternative scenario. The fracker and the water owner are the same corporation. Now it can hide the cost of the fracking (unless it actually does cause earthquakes; they're harder to hide than pollution); or he can keep letting the water contaminate to his neighbors, in which case his customers sue him for selling tainted water, and get outspent 100-1 in court. Maybe there will actually be some sort of state payout to those damaged a generation or two later. FIFY
im a sysadmin with no social life, so i cant remember the last time i fracked.
although i keep condoms just in the event.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Fracking is one of the most idiot, hair brained schemes I have ever come across. When the CSG option was raised I thought it might be a good thing. A means of cheap energy freeing up oil for manufacturing - so long as there is carbon-capture good practice ramping up also - to tide us all over until we get to zero carbon power sources across the board.
Then I read how they were planning to do it. Only a corrupt government could have accepted this scheme, ONLY a corrupt government.
So, if doing fraking "right" requires you to have perfect cement jobs everytime, then it isn't possible to do fraking right.
That's a pretty big "if". You could also say that the vast majority of gas wells are done perfectly, and a few had problems which needed to be fixed
Keep in mind that natural gas in water wells is very common throughout the Appalachians
In Oregon they want to frack VOLCANOS! http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/15/1253233/pouring-water-into-a-volcano-to-generate-power
I see plenty of the Energy Industry, a drilling company, Big Oil, and even an Investment Professional on the Advisory Board
I couldn't quickly find where the bulk of the department's funding comes from. But I bet it's no surprise.
They sure seem to be good friends to fracking.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
We run into this ALL the time here at work. Since we're working with cutting edge software that even the developers don't entirely understand we can often say "It'll take an hour" and then it winds up taking 2 days. Or we'll say it'll take 2 days and we're done in an hour.
These problems are typical of software development and just about any other job I have had that didn't involve rote repetition.
I don't think this is the problem with fracking. They have dropped thousands of these wells, so the process is not "cutting edge". Granted, they are dealing with highly variable conditions, but again, there is plenty of history to go on.
The problems with fracking (two of them, anyway) are a) doing things incompetently that could theoretically be done in a safe manor and b) doing things that are so difficult that likely to result in failure even when done competently.
goood goods ilike its My Blog
It is just you as he clearly states that a simple regulation is achievable.
Nah, we are not stupid.
We are greedy. Pure and simple, selfish greedy.
The ones in control are happy as long as they can privatize the gains and socialize the loss.
A handsome profit, and a mess, is made in the fracking process.
One wants the profit, but wants to leave the mess to the other.
The four boxes of liberty are dusted off for use.
Nah, not stupidity. Greed.
Its been going on longer than we have recorded history.
Its in our nature.
The Bible is full of it.
I am not proud of it. But its in all of us. Me included.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
- Albert Einstein -
Water contamination and geological instability is thought to be an artifact of pumping the waste water back in the ground after the fraking is complete. Which doesn't have to happen, but is expensive to treat.
Even if industry and government should have similar goals (keeping the screw ups and cheaters out of the game), they can't seem to get together and put up some fairly simple regulatory frameworks.
You're somewhat confused about what the "similar goals" are between industry and government actually are. It has nothing to do with stupidity and much more to do with corruption and money. Industry (including and particularly cheaters) pay people in government through campaign contributions plus the age old promise of high paying jobs in industry once their political career is over to produce a "favorable" business climate. This can mean passing favorable legislation or removing regulatory pressure. If that isn't possible the regulators can simply be de-funded, the options are endless. The politicians love it, they get campaign contributions, connections to powerful people in industry and maybe even a cushy jobs on the Board of Directors when they are done. Where I'm living (Alabama) this sadly explains the majority of political practice here, from both parties.
Maybe this is what Tainter means by too much complexity causing our eventual downfall. Humans are just too stupid sometimes.
One possibility is that politicians are too stupid to establish a functional regulatory framework. However they somehow manage to construct a complicated taxation framework to collect trillions in taxes, build a massively complicated military and defense structure... I think a more reasonable explanation is that many (not all) politicians have no interest in building such a structure. The constituents are too diffuse and disorganized to make it worth their while except during election time, when they are at least give it lip service.
Lawsuits are too late when people have been poisoned.
Is this any real surprise? Many companies will take shortcuts if it can save them some money. Even fining them will not work if taking shortcuts to save money will save them more money than compliance (or the fines for non-compliance). To make any regulation meaningful, you have to make the penalty severe enough that those companies will do it right. Not enough companies do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. The good companies should not fear regulation if they are doing things right.
If it isn't implemented safely, then it isn't safe.
Communism works great in theory.
Lawsuits are too late when people have been poisoned.
Current system: big company poisons people, lawyers wage a class-action lawsuit, company goes out of business, executives of company move on to new jobs.
Libertarian system: big company poisons people, executives are held personally liable and all their possessions are confiscated as part of the settlement.
Pure libertarianism may have problems (pure anything is likely to have problems) but I think the executives would be more careful in such a system than in the limited liability corporation system.
More accurately when people don't adhere to the theory exactly including all the assumptions like how one contains and disposes of fluids the conclusions of the theory don't hold. Safe in theory not in practice most likely means the execution of the theory is flawed not the theory itself. Of course a flawed theory is a possibility if when executed properly and in accordance with all the assumptions the conclusions don't hold true of if the assumptions can not be satisfied in a practical real world environment. But again the more likely scenario is a flawed execution.
The role of government here is supposed to be that government imposes regulations, the industry follows the regulations, and then nobody sues anybody as long as everyone was following the regulations.
Wrong. Regulations exist to try and minimize harm, not indemnify the regulated.
Following regulations is never a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Or if you are really a believer in big government, you might think that government inspectors prevent accidents.
I can't think of any historical examples where we've ever had enough Government inspectors to really provide a baseline.
historically, we've had no inspections, but never really gone to the other extreme of full inspections.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Regulations exist to try and minimize harm, not indemnify the regulated.
Following regulations is never a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Hmm, I think that's fair. I overstated the case and I stand corrected.
I can't think of any historical examples where we've ever had enough Government inspectors to really provide a baseline.
That's an interesting perspective, and not the one I usually get when I discuss libertarian issues with people. A common complaint I get is that without all the government inspectors, people will come to harm in a libertarian society. If we don't have government restaurant inspectors, restaurants will serve poisonous food; if we don't have government elevator inspectors, elevators will never be maintained and will be ramshackle and dangerous; etc. etc.
I do actually believe that a fully libertarian society could sort out the issues of restaurant food safety and elevator safety. And, fracking safety. But many people I talk to have tremendous faith in the power of government, and only government, to keep us safe.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Even believers in big goverment must acknowledge that regulatory inspection can never achieve 100% coverage. The presence of regulation also provides a framework for punishment after a failure. Search for "BP gross negligence" to see this in action (I don't want to link to any one particular article, there are many).
How does someone "own ground water" in a libertarian society? I thought you had to improve land with labour to stake a claim to it.
Having never lived in a fully libertarian society, I cannot speak from first-hand experience.
I'll give you a two-fold answer:
0) In a settled society, like modern America, you buy the water rights from whomever currently is holding them.
1) In a pioneer society, you get the water rights along with the land, and you get the land by improving it or something.
I have read libertarian fiction where somebody walked the boundaries of a plot of land, updating signs there, writing the date and time and writing "I am renewing my claim to this land."
In a minarchist society, like I advocate, I guess you just file a claim with the government land office, as was done in the pioneer days in America.
The word "libertarian" means certain principles, but there is widespread disagreement among libertarians over just how much government is needed to secure those principles. The anarchocapitalists say no government at all is needed; other libertarians say we need government to do certain things for us that we can't really do for ourselves. One of those things, IMHO, is to run the police and courts; I don't really believe that everyone will voluntarily walk into arbitration anytime it is needed. Some people are just evil, and it is proper for government to protect us from them.
I'm guessing that the theory is probably right. We've seen this kind of problem in poorly implementing good theory before.
The most obvious example I am aware of is the nuclear power industry. In theory, we should be able to build and operate plants that use fission power in an entirely safe manner. In practice, we have found that the human beings involved in any such endeavor are seriously flawed and will screw it up. For instance, we now have about half a century of experience with this, and we still do not have any permanent safe process for storing the waste; the best we have come up with are better efficiencies in stacking the caskets that remain in temporary storage.
Fracking might well be like this: safe in theory, but you need a better breed of human to ensure that the actual process is done in good accord with the theory. Fat chance that you are going to be able to get any of the theoreticians to do the daily management of the drilling rigs.
Will
"The bad guy can outspend the victims 100:1 in court, but how can he change the facts? If the facts are that he put poison in the water, how does outspending by 100:1 save him?"
Facts are irrelevant. Testimony matters.
"Libertarian system: big company poisons people, executives are held personally liable and all their possessions are confiscated as part of the settlement.
Pure libertarianism may have problems (pure anything is likely to have problems) but I think the executives would be more careful in such a system than in the limited liability corporation system."
Correct. They would act deceptively through anonymous proxies and not be identifiable for prosecution.
So what sort of legal framework is there that gives the libertarian water-rights owner the right to sue the fracker? "Suing" is a legal construct, and requires "legal basis" for the suit to be brought. Aka, the fracker has violated some sort of law. So in this libertarian world, we have laws about water discharge chemical levels? I thought that was the sort of stuff that libertarians hated -- laws that say what they can't dump into the land, what they can't dump into the water, what they can't dump into the air, etc.
Windmills do not work that way!
"Fracking is Safe In Theory But Often Not In Practice"
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is much difference between theory and practice.
Nevermind the horrible sludge that has become the water supply for some people. Even if there was a safe method, it seems incredibly easy to mess up, with all the collateral damage that has been inflicted. So, even if they're right, they're wrong.
Oh yeah, funded by big oil.
> Hell, the EPA might even be able to do it. But this is what really frosts me about the current state of affairs. Even if industry and government should have similar goals (keeping the screw ups and cheaters out of the game), they can't seem to get together and put up some fairly simple regulatory frameworks.
As I understand, a large part of the problem is that regulatory bodies are often underfunded to the point of dysfunction. It is done intentionally, under the heading of "starving/shrinking the government", arguing that the government would be (is) inefficient anyway. The second related major issue is that nominees heading agencies are often cannot be confirmed due to (even) a single senator holding up the vote.
Where's the court? Isn't the Government too small to be able to provide it because it's not getting any taxes from those Libertarians?
While some are undoubtedly anarchists wrapped in a flag as camoflage others are far worse. Consider what removing the authority of government and instead having a nation led purely by the wealthy and their descendants does after a generation or two. If you have trouble imagining it then consider what Washington fought against. Of course "Libertarian" really is nothing but a meaningless self applied title for those that don't want to be labelled for what they really are, no matter what portion of the political spectrum they sit on. That means any criticism hits the "real Scotsman" problem, where for instance a criticism of Koch and his latest astroturf games results in cries that he not a "real" libertarian.
So yes, since it's such a broad target the above poster is correct in saying libertarian equals anarchist for many libertatians, just as I would be correct in saying many want to be aristocrats that are part of a new royalty, and just as you may be correct if you say you vehemently oppose both viewpoints.
It's a very wide range of people sitting under a sign and wrapped up in a flag to hide what they really are. Of course people are going to react to the loudest noises coming from under that sign.
It isn't anything inherent in government that people are trusting; it's that they wouldn't have a conflict of interest. If the restaurant finds out that they poisoned people (we assume it was accidental) then the best thing for them to do is fix the problem silently and say nothing. If you have a society where the restaurant polices itself, those people stay sick and don't know why. If you have a society where the restaurant pays a third party, it is still in the third party's interest that the restaurant stay in business. But if the government gets involved, their livelihood isn't on the line, so they can be expected to expose the poisoning and the patrons seek treatment. You never want to depend on people to choose to act against their own self-interest, which is what most proposed implementations of Libertarianism would require.
I thought that was the sort of stuff that libertarians hated -- laws that say what they can't dump into the land, what they can't dump into the water, what they can't dump into the air, etc.
Most libertarians, when discussing pollution, bring up the Tragedy of the Commons. If nobody owns a resource, everyone feels they can dump stuff on it or into it.
If someone owns the water rights, and I dump poison into their water, they can sue me for putting poison in their water. If we are living on a river, and he's downstream of me, his river water rights probably give him standing to sue me for dumping junk in the water.
The other tine of the fork is the option to sue for harm. If I sell tainted water, my customers can sue me for the potential or actual harm suffered.
But actually, you might have noticed that I never said that I personally believe that the pure libertarian society is perfect and likely to be problem-free. I just was bothered by the conflating of "libertarianism" with "desire for total anarchy".
I personally have conservative tendencies. If something has never actually been tried, I'm suspicious of it; that's one reason I don't really believe in anarchocapitalism. And I do not believe that the pure libertarian model can really solve everything; for example, I'm not sure that private roads are really as practical as government-owned roads. I do see a role for government in enforcing air quality standards; I am not a pure enough libertarian to think that somebody should own the air, or that people will always voluntarily do the right thing. ("People will shun you if you pollute" or whatever. Eh, ask an anarchocapitalist how that would work; since I don't believe in it, it isn't fair for me to try to explain it.)
An example I like to bring up: 19th-century technology proved sufficient for hunting some species of whales to extinction. 20th-century technology is sufficient for overfishing some species of fish to extinction. I personally believe government should regulate fishing to prevent this, and I am suspicious of libertarian daydreams that say the free market can solve that problem. (And if we just agree that Bill Gates owns all the oceans or something, he might prevent the overfishing but I'm not sure we would be better off.)
The government of the USA used to be a whole lot smaller and do a whole lot less. I personally believe that we could drastically slash the size and scope of government and net be better off, but I don't believe we can do away with government completely.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
"A university study asserts that the problems caused by the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' arise because drilling operations aren't doing it right. ---- Same is true about abstinence.
The real problem is that we have seen a number of examples of little or un- regulated markets, and nearly every time they cause some problem or another. The most recent example is the banking industry which put is in the current recession. The reason the invisible hand is invisible is because it doesn't exist.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Except Texas and Oklahoma oilmen don't know shit about drilling in the mountains. Just look at the well they blew up a few miles from my house.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/06/natural_gas_well_explosion_bur.html
Oh shit, there's an abandoned coal mine there. Oh shit it's full of methane. Oh shit we just lit it, and now 7 men are burned.
There are unique challenges here, and they should be looking to local miner/geologists instead of bringing in out of state companies who don't know WTF they are doing.
Aka, the fracker has violated some sort of law. So in this libertarian world, we have laws about water discharge chemical levels?
It sounds like you are probably trolling, but I'll bite anyway.
Civil law != criminal law, even in a Libertarian Utopia. Civil law allows for people harmed by the negligence of others to attempt to have their grievances made right. Criminal law allows for government to arrest people who are suitably dangerous to society. In my understanding of Libertarianism, the idea is that laws should not be overly restrictive -- that is, there should be just enough legal framework to take action when necessary to keep people from violating each others' freedoms, but neither civil nor criminal law should punish "victimless crimes" because to a Libertarian, there is no such thing. If there's no victim, then how could there possibly be a crime?
As applied to fracking: if you own the mineral rights, then you get to do what you want with the minerals... UNTIL what you are doing with the minerals causes harm to someone else. If you can get oil out of your property by fracking, more power to you. However, if by doing so, you are polluting your neighbors' drinking water, then you've gotta stop, because at that point, you are causing harm to your neighbors.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Of course not, have you seen the frontline lunkheads who are actually employed in the mining industry?
Sounds like libertarianism is a lawyers paradise and if you can't afford one then you drink tainted water.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Are Libertarian courts going to magically work differently than other courts? You get hauled into court for poisoning your neighbor's water supply, you hire kick-ass legal team and sufficient "researchers" to con a judge and/or jury into believing your neighbor is a whining asshole, and regardless of whether it's a Libertarian state or not, you win. Your neighbor's water is still poisoned, he has insufficient resources to continue the battle, and the tiny, impotent state is utterly incapable of evening the playing field even a little bit. In other words, he's just fucked, you make lots of money, which allows you to build even more kick-ass legal teams and hire even more "researchers".
At least with regulations there is some sort of baseline, as opposed to putting your faith utterly and completely in a political ideology that no more seems to be able to stop abuse of process than existing political systems. Things always sound lovely in theory. In theory Communism creates a wonderfully fair system that sees much more even distribution of wealth. In reality it's been a failure, and I suspect a pure Libertarian state would do no better. At the end of the day, you have to have a certain degree of flexibility and pragmatism in your political and economic system, otherwise you will end up riding your ideology into the gutter sooner or later.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Check, fine. How 'bout fix?
Who ever modded me -1 , Rememeber your spitfull moderation when your family at home goes -1 from drinking contaminated water.
You really are on of the top retards.
I'll bet if you had to choose between slavery/police state vs restoring the constitution and arresting these banksters and their enablers, you'd choose to be a fuckin slave in the police state.
In the end you will get what you wish for. Godspeed you fascist piece of shit.
Nuclear power generation.
Oil drilling.
Protected sex with prostitutes.
Going on a Carnival ship cruise.
Travelling to Mexico.
Eating peanut M&Ms manufactured in China. (thanks a lot Mars... jerks)
Making a minor change to the production config file.
Voting.
Current system: regulators are supposed to catch violations before they occur, so people don't get poisoned and saving the company from it's own greed.
Current regulatory capture: regulators come from the same industries they are supposed to regulate, so they do industry favors so they'll get cushy jobs when they go back to the private sector. See: Robert Rubin, Clinton's Treasury Secretary that went straight to CitiGroup.
Libertarian system: oligarchs avoid any and all responsibility using middle management and mules. Company policies are such that sacrificial lambs, I mean employees, must cut corners if they want to keep their jobs. When the shit hits the fan, the company points to their other (unenforced) policies to cover their own asses, leaving the mules to take the fall.
Case in point: how Wal-Mart gets sued every few years when one of their stores is caught forcing employees to work off the clock. Wal-Mart promptly points to their written policy that hourly employees must be paid for all hours worked. Nevermind that other policy on how all work must be completed without paying any overtime. So a middle manager decides to cheat on payroll to keep his own job.....
Libertarian system: big company poisons people, executives are held personally liable and all their possessions are confiscated as part of the settlement.
It just happens to be each executive is a dumb fuck with a quite fat paycheck (fat for the fact that he doesn't have to do anything, just sign the orders his realy rich "advisors" give him). Firing him will only force the "advisors" to get a new executive. Confiscate all his posessions is not such a big deal.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Here's your sign: the Cigarette Company Defense. For decades, the smoking industry never lost a liability lawsuit. How do you know your Uncle Joe got cancer from smoking two packs a day when it could have been genetics, or asbestos?
So, how do you know that your contaminated ground water came from Shell, and not that Exxon operation in the next county? Or that BP well on the far side of the aquifer?
Just how many communities, much less individuals, could afford years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, paid studies and expert testimony to prove that yes, it was indeed Shell that poisoned your water?
Third is Regulatory Capture, aka "the revolving door", where government officials retire to work for the very industries they were in charge of regulating, and sometimes back to public service for another round.
And what's going to make for a more lucrative career: serving the public, or serving monied interests that can make you a millionaire your first year out of office?
This sort of thing is the poster child for why pure Libertarianism don't work.
Except it's not an example of pure Libertarianism. You have heavy regulation and a legal system ("complex" in the sense of Tainter, I might add), both which are far from Libertarian.
The poster child for why pure libertarianism doesn't work are countries where criminal gangs took over (such as supposedly happened in parts of the former Eastern Bloc). Pure libertarianism requires a population that will fight, often proactively, threats to liberty. When that doesn't happen and it usually doesn't, then you can't have libertarianism.
As to Joseph Tainter's theories, I don't see anything about political and economic parasitism in the form of rent-seeking. Complexity in itself doesn't damn a society. What it does do is conceal conflicts of interest between the society and the groups controlling that society as well as subsequent acts of rent-seeking.
For example, the well-known example of the Roman Empire had two well known examples of this. First, the consolidation of land ownership (the primary means for investing wealth prior to the Industrial Revolution) in the hands of wealthy families and second, the devolving of the Praetorian Guard from elite defenders of Rome to selfish kingmakers who helped hasten the demise of the western part of the Roman Empire.
Finally, one shouldn't confuse stupidity with conflict of interest. A collapse of society might indeed serve my interests. Even in cases where stupidity is a factor, it's usually a case of someone pursuing a strategy to further their interests, but they just don't realize in time that their actions are counterproductive (such as brinksmanship against another player using the very same strategy).
I will pose this theory just thinking out loud....
If you take a balloon and fill it, then press on it, it will bounce back into shape... Now dip paper in glue and wrap the balloon, this gives it a rigid quality, press onto it again and it does not give much. Pop the balloon and press onto it yet again and the paper will give but not bounce back to it original shape.
Is the ground in and around the gas pockets under pressure, or the trapped gas is acting like air in a balloon keeping the rock around it from buckling?
Anyway you know they use about 3000 different chemicals in which they refuse to disclose, what types, and the mixes of these chemicals, claiming stupid bullshit like "well we want to keep it classified its our----secret---- fracking recipe" The current way of doing it seems to work opening miles of locked up gas pockets. The problems that have continued to arise ---gas leaking from the surrounding ground--- as well as gas and chemicals leaking into the water chain--- not to mention we are unsure the amount of damage the chemicals will cause down to the environment down the road..
Keep in mind the "miles" of locked up gas, that is getting unlocked... With the balloon theory.. Again just thinking out loud, but there has to be something to this.
I also understand scientist are measuring earthquake activity far beyond the stereo type hot spots of old so reports of earthquakes in the idiot media can and have come from all over the US.
It sort of depends upon what's meant by a "bad cement job". Yes, it isn't possible to get it perfect every time, just like any other engineering situation. There's always a defect rate. But if you're smart and care about the outcome of the process, you do quality testing and make sure those bad products don't go out the door of the factory. Same for cement jobs. There are tests. The regulations should require (and do require) that those tests are done, and that if any of them fail, you either re-do the cement job to address the problem or in the worst case (no fixable) plug and abandon the well and try again. But as we all know, even with quality control an engineering process isn't infallible. Worse, if you didn't care, or if money was the issue, you could scrimp on the tests and the followup repairs if something was amiss. The only thing preventing that kind of irresponsible behaviour is strict regulations and enforcement.
In principle, flying an aircraft is never 100% safe. Neither is fracking. Things can fail in a mechanical sense or in a human system sense. The question is, should the existence of some level of risk prevent you from doing it at all? That all depends on what the level of risk is, and what the implications are when the system fails. Despite the risk, most people still fly because the industry is very safety concious and has invested enormous amounts of money and effort into it. Petroleum companies need to do the same thing for drilling and fracking. There are areas that can be improved.
People could always decide not to do it at all, but if the choice is between doing without natural gas eventually (as conventional supplies dwindle) or accepting a modest amount of carefully-regulated and managed risk, I think most people would say that we should simply make regulations, enforcement, and financial incentives as tough as possible to ensure that if it is done at all, it is done safely. And if anything does go wrong, companies should financially bear all the costs, and put up a bond or some other financial instrument to ensure that even if the company doesn't exist anymore, there will be compensation if a problem is detected years later.
Most probably it wasn't the content but the wording of the message. Harsh language is one of the signals for trolling. While you bring up a valid point, the cursing is degenartory to your point.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Well I can tell you a friend was hired to make models for the wildcatters and what he learned and showed me was quite disturbing. he was handed pretty much all the data on the area so he could make his models of the geology they would be working with and when he laid a copy of the map the local college had of earthquakes and the map he got from the wildcatters he could overlay them and it was a perfect match, one for one with the wells. Also this is an area with tons of bedrock, and the highest quake measure by the local college since they started setting up stations and taking readings right after WWII was in the 1.9 range with one 3 every twenty years or so, after the wildcatters it was tons of 3s and some 4s and the machines are registering tons of hits so this fracking is really causing some slippage down below.
The final problem which my friend was bit in the ass by and which is REALLY SCARY is that these groups have already set up a way to avoid paying damages if they cause an environmental disaster which means not only do they have ZERO reason to give a fuck about environmental safety but that they are already expecting shit to go bad and are prepped for it. How did they pull this off you ask? Simple they have set up shell corps that own ALL the assets, from the mineral rights and drilling equipment down to the office furniture and then the drilling "company" which is just a front leases the equipment from the shell. As my friend found out when this bunch ran up a couple of bills and people starting trying to sue they simply burn the front company and are back in business the next day with a new front company!
Mark my words at best we are looking at future superfund sites that We, The People will get stuck with while the money men laugh their asses off while walking away counting the cash and at worst we are gonna have our very own Bhopal when these guys set off a major quake or poison all the water for an entire area for decades to come. Thanks to the far right gutting regulations left and right and dodges like the above there simply is NO incentive for them to give a flying fuck. I'm all for increasing domestic production but I don't want us to become another China, with land poisoned and water that you can light on fire. We HAVE to have the regulations in place to make those that drill responsible for any messes they make WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS or they will simply not give a fuck.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm sorry, but your argument does not logically lead to your conclusion. Your argument is basically, "Why do you think that people would be any less corrupt in a Libertarian society than they are in our society? See, government intervention protects you better than the libertarian theory would." You grant that in the current system those with more financial resources are able to use those resources to avoid suffering the consequences for thies actions. Then you postulate (reasonably) that courts in a libertarian society would be just as corrupt (using the word loosely). Finally you conclude that our current system is better. You start by postulating that a flaw that exists in our current system would also exist in a libertarian system (a reasonable postulate), but then you conclude that our current system is better because of this flaw that would exist in the libertarian system.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The real problem is that we have seen a number of examples of little or un- regulated markets, and nearly every time they cause some problem or another. The most recent example is the banking industry which put is in the current recession. The reason the invisible hand is invisible is because it doesn't exist.
Except that your "most recent example" is no such thing. The banking industry is a highly regulated industry and was during the time leading up to the crash. As a matter of fact, those regulations were one of the factors that led to the crash.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It may be difficult to achieve a perfect cement job in a High-Pressure/High-Temperature environment and in horizontal wellbores in hydrocarbon-bearing zones, but it isn't all that hard to get a good cement job in vertical boreholes at shallow depths (where our freshwater aquifers are). Many state regulatory agencies are the most strict about the "surface casing" that protects freshwater aquifers, such as requiring cement all the way back up to surface (and topped off if necessary), specific cement mechanical properties, and pressure testing the casing shoe after the cement is allowed to set prior to proceeding with drilling.
By the time the production casing is set and cemented, there are usually around 3 layers of casing lining the wellbore at the shallow depths. Deep offshore wells have many more layers than this (due to the complexity of the pore pressure and fracture pressure gradient profiles), and the hazards that results from blowouts from bad cement jobs are a hazard to the surface (crew, environment, etc.) but do not pose a danger to any rock layers behind the casing layers in previous intervals.
Checking and fixing are both routinely done.
Checking is known as a Cement Bond Log. It's required in every state where I've worked, and a copy must be sumitted to the state regulatory agency.
Fixing is known as a Squeeze Job. The casing is perforated in the interval with the bad cement, and new cement is pumped in under moderate pressure to fill the gaps.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
fscking is safe in theory
but not often in practice
It's simply the the "ceteris paribus" principle. So the burden of proof that a libertarian legal system would be less corrupt lies on the libertarians.
However, the OP's argument is that a libertarian legal system would be worse than the current system because it is not less corrupt. The libertarian argument is that there are fewer opportunities for corruption in a libertarian system, therefore the negative impact of corruption would be reduced. Whether or not the libertarian argument is valid is an argument that the OP never made.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
1. "Boffins say fracking is safe if done properly. So let's make hard regulations and have gov agencies make sure it's done properly".
2. (After the country is taken by a million fracking wells) "Regulations impair industry! EPA kills jobs! Let's overturn these stupid laws!"
3. Profit!
**Attributed to Yogi B and others.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. - Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut
You can probably see why it's so difficult to get the attribution right.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
The article stated that one of the main problems was bad cementing jobs, but from what I've gathered from reading and talking is that it is really hard to get a good cement job. There are things you can do to screw it up, but even if you do everything by the book, you can still end up with an imperfect seal. According to the US U.S. Minerals Management Service, cementing problems were associated with 18 of 39 blowouts between 1992 and 2006.
So, if doing fraking "right" requires you to have perfect cement jobs everytime, then it isn't possible to do fraking right.
To do the process right, you test the cement job when it is done, and if it doesn't pass, you seal the well and start over. This is expensive, and companies are loathe to do it. Thats how we got the deepwater horizon mess. The regulation needs to be in place. The person who makes the decision to go ahead with a well needs to be in a position of having little to gain from letting a well go ahead, but everything to loose form approving an imperfect well.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
In theory, we should be able to build and operate plants that use fission power in an entirely safe manner.
Actually, no. In theory, it is impossible to reduce all nuclear accidents to zero. Theory states quite simply that it is a game of chance, and that we can alter the odds, but cannot render them all the way to zero. We simply have to pay our money and make our bet.
Competently done, engineering will always improve the odds, making things safer, but perfect safety is theoretically impossible.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Pure libertarianism: somebody owns that underground water. Somebody else starts fracking and chemicals get into the water. The owner of the water then sues the fracker and 0wns him in court. (Possibly literally; if the damages are high enough, the fracker might wind up indentured to the party he wronged.)
Alternative scenario. The fracker and the water owner are the same person. Now he can eat the cost of the fracking (can't sell the water anymore; it's polluted); or he can keep selling the water to his customers, in which case his customers sue him for selling tainted water, and they 0wn him in court.
This sounds okay, except for one thing: Where does one get the resources to sue, and what if the offending fracker has $Texas. We have seen many instances of deep pocketed corporations winning cases by attrition. I don't mind the idea of everyone being free until someone sues. But we would have to level the field somehow or the richest would usually win, just like now.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
because everyone knows that Heroin(tm) use is a safe and reliable way to treat those nagging back pains.
Just like undersea drilling doesn't necessarily lead to massive oil spills in the gulf, but it's still something we should expect to happen and know what to do when it does.
no such proof is needed.
our current system is going away.
overlaying the changes that are coming, will be the choice for more centralization, or less centralization.
centralization is showing a hard wall of diminishing returns.
thus it is the current system, and it's push for more centralization, the blend moving decidedly toward less libertarianism, which is embraced by the batshit crazy segments that makeup the majority of both the democratic and republican parties, that is ultimately going to drive the current model into the ground.
self correcting.
i need not sell you any ideas.
i already live mine.
people like me, are not elite, we fly under the radar, we have no debt, modest but real resources, highly adaptable, and mobile.
we'll leave this fucking country in a heartbeat.
and you and the rest of the suckers can stay, a country of middle management, and paper pushers.
leave you to support tens of millions of adults on the government dole.
Point me to regulations for derivatives like Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that existed between 2000 and 2008.
Point me to regulations for Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) that existed between 2000 and 2008.
Hell, point me at any regulation that led to the crash. Any regulation at all. And by the way, I'm going to pre-empt your "Community Reinvestment Act" bullshit because the 30 year old law had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis.
I know I can point at some that were missing which could have reduced the impact of the crash. Glass-Steagall, for instance. Or the SEC decision in 2004 that exempted the banks from regulations regarding reserves so that they could stack up even more debt (without which Bear Stearns wouldn't have been able to implode)
:(){
"We're pretty sure that there are some safe ways of doing it, but we haven't bothered to teach our workers to do it that way, because it's too expensive."
We in the computer biz are pretty familiar with this sort of euphemistic safety claim. But if the "users" can't get it right, it mostly says a lot about the UI that you've handed them. If the users can't figure out how to do it right, either it's been made too difficult, or they don't have good training/documentation -- or they're being "encouraged" to do it wrong by their bosses. Usually all of the above.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
That's a fair question, and a reasonable point -- no, courts in a Libertarian society probably won't any better than the courts we have now. The difference, IMHO, is that while we will still face all of the problems with corruption and the unfair advantage of power that comes with wealth, we will at least not have a government built on the ideal that grown adults are children who need a mommy and daddy to take care of them. And you are totally right that "you have to have a certain degree of flexibility and pragmatism..."
;)
You can look at it this way: suppose FOSS was Libertarianism. There are those in the Libertarian community who are hard-core, all or nothing, like RMS is about FOSS. And there are those who take a more pragmatic, "here's the ideal, but we might have to tweak it a bit to make it really workable" view of Libertarianism, like Linus' view of FOSS. I'm a Linus
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Never mind the story on /., you are arguing that the banking industry was not regulated and that is what caused the recession? (Depression at this point).
And you get +5 something for this nonsense?
Banking is some of the most regulated industry in the world, there are tens of thousands of regulations in banking. Banking hasn't been a 'free market' ever since 1913 and especially since FDIC and then the money was destroyed in 1971 so there was no competition either in money, nor in money prices (interest rates) no in actual banking (thanks FDIC).
The reason why people were able to PREDICT the crisis was because they saw how banking became perverted with government regulations to take more and more risk that banks would not have taken otherwise and market wouldn't have let them.
From Fed and FDIC to default on the money in 1971 and fixing of money prices (interest rates) to all of the "affordable housing" nonsense, F&F and now FHA (Freddie and Fannie are only insuring 5% of mortgages now, it's FHA that will cause the next housing market collapse, they "insure" over 1Trillion USD of mortgages with only 5Billion collateral) have caused the recessions and current depression.
The next big implosion will be the US dollar and bond debt, all of it is pending the wars that USA can still use to delay the inevitable, but with ever new conflict the amount of government intervention that it takes to stave off the final outcome is growing, becoming bigger and amount of 'stimulus' (fake money) that it takes to prevent a total economic collapse of USA is getting bigger, the economy is developing tolerance to this stimulus and bailout money.
Eventually there will be a sharp fall for the dollar denominated papers, the interest rates will hit the ceiling and that will be that.
You can't handle the truth.
As I pointed out, in the situation where Evil Oil Company fouls up your water supply, you won't have a state that can do anything for you at all. It will be so small, so minimal, so absolutely useless because it is forbidden in any substantative or qualitative way the actions of Evil Oil Company on its own land, and with courts no better than current courts, the screwed citizen has absolutely nowhere to go. He can't go plead to his representatives in his legislature, because, well, even if they were sympathetic, you now have state that is basically forbidden from acting.
Libertarianism would deliver any jurisdiction being run by it into the hands of the uber-wealthy more quickly than probably any other political system ever developed. It's underlying philosophy is state non-interference, so even if you have a legislature that sees Evil Oil Company fouling water, because a court has been convinced that it isn't happening due to the ever-present vulnerabilities of legal systems, their hands are tied.
Keep your Libertarian state. It's as unreasonable, unworkable and would be ultimate as repugnant as a Communist state. There are lesser evils and greater evils, and the current system, while no doubt flawed and at times even outright malicious, is a lesser evil compared to a Libertarian state which would have absolutely no capacity to protect citizens from this sort of abuse of process.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Our system is better because at least there is some other safety valve; the legislative branch, which can, even if it is often a broad brush and ends up like a bull in a china shop, impose some sort of legislative solution. A pure Libertarian state would have an impotent legislature, specifically banned from getting involved in such disputes.
It's not that our system is any damned good. It's just that a Libertarian system would be orders of a magnitude worse.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No, that's not my argument at all. My argument is that it would likely be the same, but you would no longer have any other branch of government with the power to step in. Once the neighbor had lost his court case against the big evil oil company that was poisoning his well, where exactly does he go? He can't plead with his elected representatives, because even if they wanted to help him, well, it's a private property dispute and the legislature has no business in that.
The problem with Libertarianism isn't the courts, the problem is that every other check and balance against such abuses has been removed.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
As I understand it, each hydraulic fracturing well requires several million gallons of water. In areas out west at least, water is a scarce commodity.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
Of course, the legislature is, also, a place where the big corporation can buy laws that tell the courts that they should side with the corporation. Or laws that say that no one is to be held accountable if the corporation poisons his well.
In a libertarian system, if the guy loses his court case because of shenanigans, he can turn to the legislature to fix the shenanigans. In our system, if the legislature passes a law saying that the corporation can poison your water, where do you turn?
You seem to be comparing what you expect the "real world" of the libertarian system to the ideal implementation of our system. I do not believe that the libertarian system would be better. However, the U.S. was originally conceived as being a compromise between that and a government that has the power to do whatever it thinks necessary. I think we have moved to far towards the powerful government and would be best served by moving back towards the libertarian model. I would like to see this be a somewhat gradual move, although with very large jumps at the federal level and, perhaps, a slight loosening of what the state governments can legislate (especially in areas where the federal government is pulling back).
One of the original strengths of the U.S. was that the states were able to try varied approaches to most types of government intervention and people could not only vote in the voting booth, but with their feet and their wallets.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Pure libertarianism: somebody owns that underground water. Somebody else starts fracking and chemicals get into the water. The owner of the water then sues the fracker and 0wns him in court. (Possibly literally; if the damages are high enough, the fracker might wind up indentured to the party he wronged.)
No, I'm sorry, but there's nothing backing this up whatsoever. Odds are those doing the frakking have better lawyers, and it's very, very hard to prove such things in court.
Alternative scenario. The fracker and the water owner are the same person. Now he can eat the cost of the fracking (can't sell the water anymore; it's polluted); or he can keep selling the water to his customers, in which case his customers sue him for selling tainted water, and they 0wn him in court.
Again, you're making assumptions. You're assuming that those being wronged can actually afford decent legal representation; that the frakker doesn't have better representation, and that the harm from the poison can be directly proven.
Or if you are really a believer in big government, you might think that government inspectors prevent accidents. That works until it doesn't; BP leaked a bunch of oil into the gulf, and government inspectors didn't prevent it.
Ahh yes, blame government for something that BP themselves did.
The libertarian alternative is you can do whatever you want, without permission, but as soon as you harm someone you are in big trouble.
Or in no trouble at all. Or the harm you caused is able to get you more profit than the costs of litigation.
The parent poster DEFINITELY meant libertarianism.
No, he concludes that the current system is better because the current system has better controls to limit the corruption. Libertarian society would have none.
And in any means, you've just said that libertarian society would be no better. So why switch?
we will at least not have a government built on the ideal that grown adults are children who need a mommy and daddy to take care of them
Oh goodie! Not only will we have nothing better to redress the causing of harm, but we're now going to have even less because "adults aren't children, and therefore don't need to be told how much toxic chemicals need to be spewed in the river!" Next you're gonna tell me, "Adults aren't children, and therefore don't need to be told how much safety they need to exercise when coal mining!"
The libertarian argument is that there are fewer opportunities for corruption in a libertarian system
Such an argument has never been proven, by the way.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, do you?
Sadly, the bad guys being able to outspend 100:1 means they can hire "experts" to testify on their behalf that the plaintiff is wrong, and therefore muddying the waters enough to where the jury isn't sure, and therefore needs to vote for the defendant.
And how is a legislature under a Libertarian system going to be able to fix shenanigans of this kind? Since it would largely be blocked from involving itself in private property disputes, about the only thing it could do is to seek the removal of the judge in question. If a court has decided that Evil Oil Company did not poison groundwater, that's pretty much the end of the show (disregarding an appellate process, of course).
I get the feeling that you're probably a bit of a pragmatist and you don't see a pure Libertarian state at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I do actually believe that a fully libertarian society could sort out the issues of restaurant food safety and elevator safety. And, fracking safety. But many people I talk to have tremendous faith in the power of government, and only government, to keep us safe.
As opposed to your faith that the "free market" will keep us safe. That the private sector will have their own inspectors, and private inspectors will take over the role of government inspectors, and everything will be peachy.
Except it won't. Take the recent case of mortgage backed securities. All of the ratings agencies were giving these pieces of shit obscenely high ratings, up until well after it was discovered they were toxic. And why were they doing that? Because of the free market rating system. If the ratings agencies didn't give them inflated ratings, the bond holders would simply take their business to someone who would. You can see the same thing with Orange County debt and one of the ratings agencies. After Orange County declared bankruptcy, and the bonds (which were rated very high) were discharged, people sued the ratings agency. The ratings agency was found not to be liable simply because they "offer advice".
Are you honestly going to tell me that the exact same fucking thing won't happen when private inspectors take over safety? Or food?
WRONG. You forget that the banking industry had many of their regulations relaxed, and it was the relaxing of those regulations that caused the crash. Not any of their regulations that were still in force.
I think that's the general idea behind getting rid of the EPA, or indeed any kind of publicly funded monitoring and research. That Libertarian ideals of the perfect state always seem to line up so well with the wet dreams of big polluters is sheer coincidence, of course.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Being "heavily regulated" has absolutely nothing to do with it if the needed regulations aren't in place. There was absolutely no regulations in place that caused the crisis, and those that would have prevented it were relaxed or repealed several years prior.
The slaves certainly enjoyed the benefits of states rights.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I understand the point you are making, and I'm old enough and cynical enough to suspect that there is more than just a grain of truth in your argument. Like I said above, I tend to be idealistic although I recognize that when actually putting something in place, it is rare indeed when you can actually implement an ideal -- you've got to be pragmatic and realistic enough to allow for how things work in the real world, so I agree that a pure Libertarian state would probably not work out real well. We are going to need some level of government interference to make a workable society.
However, I disagree that a reasonably Libertarian society is unworkable. What we have NOW is unworkable. Those with money and power already trample the rights of everyone else. Regulation isn't a cure-all in our current situation because those with money and power already buy off the regulators (go look up how Merck, IIRC, lobbied the FDA to fast-track the HPV vaccine for a good example of that) and out-spend the little guy in court.
My view of a Libertarian ideal is pretty simple, really. A friend and coworker expressed it best: "Democrats want to be your mommy. Republicans want to be your daddy. I just want them all to treat me like an adult." This same guy forwarded a YouTube video that explains it in a little more detail: The Philosophy of Liberty. In other words, enough government to create a stable society and no more. I'm not arguing for anarchy, and I'm not saying that the government should never interfere, but I am saying that the level of government interference should be orders of magnitude less than what it is now, particularly on social issues like drug usage, same-sex marriage, polygamy, etc. despite the fact that I am strictly monogamous, straight and have never used any recreational drug stronger than alcohol (sparingly) or caffeine (not so sparingly).
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
It rather succinctly summarizes the entire oil industry.
For the record I have worked in industry almost my entire professional career. Everything from exploration to production to refining to distribution.
-
Overreact much? By reading comments here, you would almost think that /. selects for commenters who fail in critical thinking and analysis or are just incapable of arguing a point without going for other-the-top sensationalism (sigh). </rant>
;) My view of how Libertarian government should work is this: enough regulation to provide for the common good, and no more. If you aren't hurting anyone, then government should leave you the **** alone. However, if you are hurting someone, then yes, perhaps there is a need for government to step in.
Okay, here goes...you are confusing Libertarianism with anarchy. They are not the same thing. There may very well be some overlap between people who claim a Libertarian philosophy of government and those who dream about anarchy, but IMHO, those people are idiots
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I'm not arguing for lots of state intrusion into our lives. What I'm saying is that a pure Libertarian society would be as horrific as a purely Communistic or Anarchist society. There's this whole notion, put forward by Ron Paul's supporters in particular, that the baby needs to be thrown out with the bathwater. Look at notions like getting rid of NOAA or the USGS. Do you think being an adult means you can predict when the next hurricane is coming, or gives you some ability to monitor fault lines or volcanic activity?
As to the topic at hand, we know that a Libertarian court system is going to be as vulnerable as any other court system (would it in fact be the least bit different than what exists now?) to well-funded legal attacks. Since the average landowner is likely to have resources far far less than a company doing fracking, thinking that the civil courts alone will have the capacity to deliver justice, while cutting the legislative and executive branches off at the knees means you're basically delivering things even moreso into the hands of the wealthier interests.
Regulation isn't all bad, even if it often enters the realm of unintended consequences.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Wrong. Regulations exist to try and minimize harm, not indemnify the regulated.
Following regulations is never a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Legal precedent says otherwise. There are many many cases where following the regulations indemnifies you. For example, a pontoon boat overturned in Baltimore harbor a few years ago, while ferrying a few dozen passengers. A nearby coast guard boat responded immediately but several people died. They sued the captain, who sued the taxi company, who sued the coast guard. Final result: since the boat was carrying the proper number of passengers and was current in its coast guard inspection, the coast guard was not liable. And the stack unwinds: the taxi company was this not liable, and the captain was thus not liable, and the defendents were innocent.
This same thing happens to pharma companies all the time. If the drug was unsafe, but it was shown to be safe in the FDA trials, the only way the company will be liable for damages is if you can prove that either the FDA knew it was unsafe, or the phramaceutical company lied or withheld information in their FDA filing.
This also happens with EPA regulations and there was a recent case that was on Slashdot about it. The company did damage the waterway, but it was okay because it was within EPA regs. Oh yeah! And another case like this involving a recycling plant that had some enormously bad outputs - the problem was that the plant was too big. But the ratio of nasty outputs to inputs was within the specs, so the soot-covered town lost their case. I heard this one on NPR but I forget what kind of recycling it was. Not like paper/plastic - something industrial like they produced concrete from other companies waste.
How is a legislature going to fix it in our system? Unless you are going to allow them to write retroactive laws? In our system what recourse do you have if a court has decided that Evil Oil Company did not poison groundwater? How is that not just as much the end of the show in our current system (disregarding the appellate process)?
The legislative process has no more real ability to change things in our system once the courts have ruled against you than they would in the Libertarian system. I believe there are flaws in the libertarian system, but they are no greater than those that exist in our current system. Now, are the flaws in the libertarian system greater than the system that ours was originally designed to be? I believe the answer to that is yes. However, in order to get back to that system we need to move towards the libertarian system. In particular, we need to tighten the limits on government power.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I pretty much agree with everything you say here. I tend towards a Libertarian philosophy -- small government, minimal intrusion, "that government governs best which governs least" and all that -- but that doesn't mean I want NO government and NO regulation. There is the ideal, and there is practical reality. Understanding that the pure ideal probably won't work (for all the reasons that you've pointed out above), the trick is to find a way to balance the ideals with real life so that you have a government that is minimally intrusive, yet still stable and workable.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
That is a specious argument, since when the country was founded slavery was legal in the majority of states. If our current system had been in place then, it would have been legal in every state because the slave states had sufficient power to get such federal laws enacted. It was exactly what I was talking about that led to the eradication of slavery. The fact of the matter is that the slave states seceeded in part because they knew that in order for slavery to continue as a viable economic system it needed to expand into new geographic areas. If the Civil War had not occurred and the abolitionists had continued to be able to severely limit the ability of slave owners to expand the areas that permitted slavery, it is probable that slavery would have died out as an institution by the 1880s anyway. If it was not for Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, slavery would have died out before the Civil War.
Yes, slaves did allow the benefits of states rights because when they fled their "masters" to free states, they were free (until the federal government started interfering to require free states to allow the capture and return of escaped slaves). States rights did not permit the rise of slavery, states rights permitted a movement to arise which led to the abolition of slavery..
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
If you have a society where the restaurant pays a third party, it is still in the third party's interest that the restaurant stay in business.
No.
It is in the third party's interest that the people continue to trust that third party to review restaurants. "Hey let's eat at Acme Restaurant." "No way, their sticker is from XYZ Ratings, and I just read on Huffington Post that XYZ Ratings takes kickbacks from dirty restaurants." If this happened, what restaurants would pay XYZ Ratings for the inspection service? An endorsement by XYZ would be valueless and XYZ would go out of business. Of course, during the time when XYZ starts taking kickbacks and before they get exposed, there is a chance for people to get sick, thus proving that no system is perfect. (Unless you want to claim that nobody ever gets sick eating at a restaurant in the USA today, thanks to the government inspections?)
But why am I confident that this could work?
Did you know that there is no USA federal agency that tests the safety of small electric appliances? It's handled by a third party organization called Underwriters Laboratories. It is a quirk of history that in the USA, the government tests restaurants for food safety but doesn't test electrical appliances. I personally believe that the UL model could work for evaluating food safety in restaurants. And if history had gone differently, maybe we would have "Food Labs" evaluating restaurants and a government agency rating the safety of toasters and such.
Plus, just as in the USA today, if you give food poisoning to customers they are likely to tell people about it.
But if the government gets involved, their livelihood isn't on the line, so they can be expected to expose the poisoning and the patrons seek treatment.
Now here's a question for you. When I was in high school there was a scandal where a fast-food restaurant chain served some hamburgers made with tainted meat. Several customers got really sick and I think about two people actually died. My question: How many government food inspectors were fired for approving that meat? I'm pretty sure the correct answer is: zero. Maybe they had a stern note put in their personnel files or something.
The fact that government is disinterested has negatives as well as positives. I'd rather have two or three independent "Food Labs" sort of places in operation rather than one government inspection infrastructure.
One last question for you: do you think that turning airport safety inspections into a government agency (the TSA) improved our safety in any meaningful way?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Where's the court? Isn't the Government too small to be able to provide it because it's not getting any taxes from those Libertarians?
In the days before the Income Tax was passed into law, I believe that the US government got most of its revenue from import duties from international shipping. They had enough money to hire judges.
Some libertarians claim no government is needed at all. Others want a government, just a smaller one. So take it up with the former group to find out how society will function with no courts at all; I think that's a fantasy, personally.
Consider what removing the authority of government and instead having a nation led purely by the wealthy and their descendants does after a generation or two.
Okay, I considered it. Now you consider that your little scenario has nothing to do with libertarianism, which does not mean "rule by the wealthy". Perhaps it is your opinion that the one will lead to the other, but it is not a self-evident fact you can just assume.
Of course "Libertarian" really is nothing but a meaningless self applied title for those that don't want to be labelled for what they really are, no matter what portion of the political spectrum they sit on.
I don't even see any evidence that you actually know what the word means. Seems like you are painting all libertarians with a pretty broad brush here.
If you would like to know what libertarianism is actually all about, here's a short intro:
Key Concepts of Libertarianism by David Boaz
And if you are willing to read something long and detailed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
That means any criticism hits the "real Scotsman" problem
Tell you what, you read the links I provided, figure out what "libertarian" actually means, and then you can decide for yourself whether someone is really a libertarian or is just a selfish person wrapping himself in some sort of metaphorical flag.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Libertarians believe that everything can be worked out with backroom deals and lawsuits. In reality, a system described above would lead to the rich guy poisoning the little guys water, who would be forced to take it. There would be no upward mobility, because the wealthy would have no check on anything they do. Generations of children would live and die in poverty and ignorance.
OR, someone would string the water poisoner up while the community cheered and society would degrade to rule by force (instead of wealth).
Either way, I like regulations that (in theory) treat everyone the same.
Cheap storage VM.
Absolutely true.
Only the statement that you made is absolutely true but not for the reasons that you imply - you imply that government is able and willing and in principle can do this type of regulations, and that is absolutely false.
The only real regulation that is sustainable in the long run is sound money.
There is no risky loans when it's sound money, when it's your money, when it's your savings on the line.
There are risky loans when it's fake money, when it's not your money and when it's nobody's savings, but instead counterfeit currency compounded by the 'do-gooders' that pass sounding good legislation to create risky loans in the first place.
The government didn't "fail" to create regulations that would have prevented the crisis, the government actively caused the crisis by its actions and whether it was intended consequence or unintended one matters little, the only thing that matters is that it is what happened regardless of anybody's "intentions".
The only real regulation is what government was set on destroying all these years - real actual money, real actual savings, real actual interest rates, real actual economy.
You can't handle the truth.
The conclusion is that if there is a regulatory framework in place that sets allowable levels of specific contaminants there's a lot less wiggle room for the judge and the expensive lawyers to work against the neighbor.
It's bizarre to me that libertarians believe that courtrooms full of dueling lawyers will cure all ills. How is substituting herds of lawyers in place of elected representatives and scientists going to improve the situation? I really don't get it. We'll have to convert every office in the land currently occupied with bureaucrats into courtrooms occupied by judges. In what way is this an improvement?
At least today if Al's Drycleaning dumps waste chemicals out the back door there is a framework in place that says "No one is allowed to contaminate ground water above X-many parts per million." Over the allowable limit? A fine and you pay for cleanup, end of story. Under Libertarianism if Judge Joe grew up sucking down malathion spray on the cherry farm he may well conclude that as long as the water's the right color it's still safe, while Judge Fred's mom died of cancer from BPA exposure and may think that any measurable residue at all should entitle the plaintiff to massive damages. Soon you'd have every polluter trying to steer cases to Judge Joe, and every plaintiff lining up for Judge Fred. This is somehow supposed to be an improvement?
It's not hard to see why people call it "Libertardianism".
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Right, because we've never seen a situation where the regulations are written so that if Al's Dry Cleaning dumps waste chemicals out the back door the allowable limit is X ppm, but if Uncle Bob's* Dry Cleaning does the the allowable limit is 10x ppm (*where that's the regulator's Uncle Bob). Or where it turns out that the inspectors who determine if a corporation is in compliance used to work for that corporation AND it seems that after working as inspectors for 5 years they go back to work for the corporation at a much higher salary. I'm sorry, I don't see how the libertarian system you postulate is any worse than the one we have.
I am not a libertarian, but our current system is broken and the fix is to move in the direction of libertarianism.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It seemed pretty safe in Battlestar Galatica
Okay, here goes...you are confusing Libertarianism with anarchy.
No, I'm not. The idea behind libertarianism is that there isn't the needed government oversight.
My view of how Libertarian government should work is this: enough regulation to provide for the common good, and no more. If you aren't hurting anyone, then government should leave you the **** alone. However, if you are hurting someone, then yes, perhaps there is a need for government to step in.
And just about all Libertarians would disagree with you.
you imply that government is able and willing and in principle can do this type of regulations, and that is absolutely false.
No, it's not. Further, you imply that the private sector is willing to provide these regulations, which is even more false.
The only real regulation is what government was set on destroying all these years - real actual money, real actual savings, real actual interest rates, real actual economy.
Maybe you should loosen your tinfoil hat up a bit. It's cutting off circulation to your brain.
No, it's not. Further, you imply that the private sector is willing to provide these regulations, which is even more false.
- it doesn't matter what private sector is willing or unwilling to do, it's not something it has a choice over if there is no government force with guns overpowering the market with its own idea on what money is.
Private sector cannot force private individuals to accept valueless money, only government can do it long enough to cause economic disaster.
Maybe you should loosen your tinfoil hat up a bit. It's cutting off circulation to your brain.
- that's the gist of your argument - when presented with a fact, attack the messenger.
If it's your money, your savings and your risk, would you be taking it irresponsibly as if there was government standing behind you with a printing press? If government wasn't giving you the means, the motive and the opportunity to use fake money and give out extremely bad loans as long as you made your bonuses, would you pass on that opportunity?
Well, you could do it without government, but you'd be out of business - that's free market regulation, banks like that would go bankrupt (that's why they weren't doing it before they got gov't to print money and remove risk with gov't "insurance"), something government prevents from happening but by doing so it eventually destroys the entire economy.
I don't have a tin foil hat, but you don't have any blood in your head at all.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm working at an active frac site right now (well testing), and we're seeing pressure show up at a DIFFERENT well almost 1/2 mile away from the perforation zone after starting to pump a stage. The fluid most certainly does not stay contained 100%, and I don't care what anybody says about water wells being too shallow to be affected. Anything is possible when you pump water down hole at 10,000psi.
My family's water well has mild contamination from drilling mud, and the nearest gas well is almost a mile away. Bromide isn't "deadly," but it wasn't detectable in our water well 3 years ago. Don't even get me started on the VOC (volatile organic compounds) released during flowback and production after the frac-- it's a nasty business.
I'm employed by the frac boom, yet I'm strongly opposed to it.
If you remove the majority of government control what do you think moves in to take that control? You must be very young or not pay much attention to the world if you missed what happened in Eastern Europe not very long ago. While overall it is a far better place than under communism there are a lot of lessons to be learnt there about stopping organised crime and others with a lot of wealth controlling vast portions of society - that's a consequence of a loss of government no matter what sort of government was there before.
My entire point above is that a very wide group of people put themselves under that banner!
Yes, those links provide what you think it the definition is but there's a hell of a lot of loud voices that shout for something completely different, so that's as irrelevant as claiming that "gay" only means being happy. It's at the point where the label is contradictory.
So, that leaves nothing but what you've written above, and the "indentured servitude" bit really shows what sort of person you are. "Liberty" for some and slavery for others? How 17th century aristocratic of you, and I'll bet you have the audacity to claim you are some sort of heir to Washington instead of the sort of person he fought against.
As I wrote above, people wrapped up in a flag to hide what they truly are.
Actually I think that the reason that it's broken **IS** the move towards libertarianism and decentralization. Uncle Bob's Dry Cleaning is likely to get the advantage in decentralized situations, where manipulation can be personal. It's an order of magnitude cheaper to buy an entire county board of directors than it is to purchase a single senator, this is why the mega-corps LOVE the "state's rights" groups. If they only have to control the local governments where they operate rather than the entire Federal infrastructure they're practically home free. A properly-corrupted county commissioner will agree to the damnedest things, things that would embarrass even a state senator into resignation. Besides, why would a corporation want to have to buy off the congressment from Alaska or Arizona when they only operate on the East Coast?
I agree that we're doing it wrong now, but I don't think that the answer is to do it even more extremely wrong.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Mega corps much prefer the Federal structure because they only have to buy 100 Senators to cover the entire country. Rather than negotiate terms with members of every one of 50 state legislatures, some of whom may have terms that are harder to figure out. Remember it is not as simple as outright buying a politician in most cases. You have to figure out what they want and how to make giving you what you want at least seem like it satisfies their desire for what they want. It is much easier to only have to deal with one set of rules makers than it is to deal with 50 sets. Remember mega corps do business in most, if not all, of the states.
As the federal government has become more powerful relative to the states, corporations have gotten bigger and small companies have found it more difficult to get started.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
At least one professor was fired for publishing research that suggested that fracking is unsafe. Given that, I'm going to assume that most of these studies paint fracking in a better light than it deserves to be.
Whatever it safe or not the end result is that we pump more of that black shit out and burn it in the atmosphere. Clean and safe Oil is a lie being propagated by those who would lose the most if we just got off that 20th century addiction. Our modern civilisation is more addicted to Oil than most crack addict. Going cold turkey will be a bitch!
The process is *theoretically* safe, but alas, we don't live in a theoretical world.
And studies of a process that don't examine the consequences of a worst-case scenario should *not* be used to justify allowing that process in the real world.
The entire point of this whole thread is that "libertarian" != "anarchy". But I guess you aren't paying attention or don't care.
The anarchocapitalists would tell you that even in a pure anarchy, all these problems would be solved. You disagree, but I haven't seen even one anarchocaptialist arguing in this thread, so you can give it a rest already.
Other libertarians would say we still need a government. So, if we still need a government, there would still be controls to limit the corruption, in which case your assertion is wasting our time.
And in any means, you've just said that libertarian society would be no better. So why switch?
Disingenuous much?
libertarians can believe that their principles are good and correct without necessarily believing that a libertarian government is better in every single detail. This thread wasn't started on the idea that a libertarian government is better at solving pollution; it was started to refute the idea that a libertarian government has no ability to solve pollution because libertarian == anarchy. But yeah, a libertarian society would be significantly better in numerous ways than our current society. (It wouldn't be perfect. Nothing is perfect. But it would be better.)
"libertarian" basically means "respecting the rights of the individual as much as possible". It is possible to have a representative republic that is libertarian in nature.
And to flog that dead horse one last time, the anarchocapitalists claim that if we abolish government completely that the free market will solve all our problems. Nobody here has spoken up in support of this position. And anyway, while all anarchocapitalists are libertarians, not all libertarians are anarchists so give it a rest.
The idea behind libertarianism is that there isn't the needed government oversight.
No, see, you are confusing "libertarianism" with "no-government-oversight-ism". It's a common mistake, and lots of idiots can read an entire thread about the idea that "libertarian" != "anarchy" and still be 100% confident that "libertarian" == "anarchy", so you aren't alone.
If anyone reading this is actually interested in what libertarianism actually is or isn't, the Wikipedia page is pretty good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchocapitalism
And just about all Libertarians would disagree with you.
And yet once again, you are pushing this idea that "libertarian" == "anarchist". You aren't paying attention, you're an idiot, or you are dishonest.
See the Wikipedia page to see what "libertarianism" is really all about, and be sure to pay attention to the parts where it discusses how not all libertarians agree on how much government is needed.
Eventually there will be a sharp fall for the dollar denominated papers, the interest rates will hit the ceiling and that will be that.
Fuck no - it is very much the definition of the opposite. Entrenched aristocracy is what Washington was fighting against.
Think back to the example of your post above of things getting sorted out between the owner of the land and the owner of the water - give it a generation or two and that's an argument between aristocrats hopefully considering the welfare of their tenants/serfs/slaves who have zero political power becuase there is no government to consider their interests. It's a horrible system where the middle class vanishes, the upper class contracts until it doesn't even hold all the descendants of the previous generation and the vast lower class are considered worthless. With a gold standard it gets even worse because that concentrates wealth in the hands of those that already have it and makes it very hard for anyone to become wealthy with any sort of new effort. I see this as a widespread failure of education that there can be such a reversal akin to a devout Catholic nation producing large cults of devil worshipers that pretend that Jesus was calling for worship of Satan. This medieval aristocratic bullshit is very much opposed to the idea of democracy (the form of government not the party) and the basis of a republic (once again not the party). For something like this to grow out of the USA and pretend that it in any form relates to what was proposed at independance is mindboggling, and shows ignorance, hypocracy and audacity.
OK, so that did not go over too well.
.
I was kicking back up something an old professor told me... about people's primary motivations being fear and greed.
Marketing will either play to your fear ( especially insurance companies, and religions selling "fire insurance" ) or greed ( especially investment advisors and real estate brokers )
I indicated it was in me too. Yes, I invested a lot of my resources in oil a couple of years ago, as I was convinced "peak oil" was here, and I thought few other people were aware of it. I felt with my understanding of M. King Hubbert's work with the Logistic equation and the stints I served in the oil patch where I had observed depleting oilfields first hand, I felt I had a better understanding of the gravity of the situation. I am very aware of the Logistic Equation and its implications. The exponential rate of our reproduction... 6.5 billion of us now... and energy demand now exceeding 500 exajoules/year , most coming from ancient sunlight stored in fossil fuels.
I honestly thought there was hell to pay. Soon. and I would be able to profit from it.
That's not what happened. I lost my investments in solar power and alternative energy research. Now the talking heads are saying we have more oil than we know what to do with, we are going to become a net exporter, go buy your big car, and the party is going to go on. While everything inside of me says this is just marketing lies similar to those in the oilpatch by some to sell a well which struck a gas pocket to ignorant investors.
Meanwhile, I have family back in farming areas who tell me their wells no longer give good water. They tell me their water reeks of oil.
Now, in my limited knowledge of subsurface structures, I can just imagine fracturing the barriers that have been in place for eons separating water and oil-bearing strata. I can see some getting rich. Others having their water messed up.
How many drops of oil in the water tank make the whole tank undrinkable?
We studied this phenomena in economics..... its called "Tragedy of the Commons".
I was watching this in action last weekend as the local education board was meeting again trying to get more taxes passed as the ruptured economy caused by Bernake's hiking the federal funds rate after the government had put all sorts of incentives in place for poor people to invest their life savings in debt ( aka "Community Reinvestment Act - which forced banks to make subprime loans - then allowed banks to pawn off these toxic financial instruments onto investors ).
They just haven't got the message yet. A lot of us are losing their homes. A lot of us can no longer afford restaurant meals. A lot of us can no longer afford people in the school system which are not actively teaching a class. We can't solve this with yet more taxes. Yet, I see these people given their government-given power to lay and collect tax insulating them from the burden their wastefulness places on everyone else.
I wish we were all innocent artists - like the children the Bible refers to. But it doesn't quite work that way. Many make a fine living from gaming the system. And others work very hard to survive.
I did not think the Fed would hike rates after "helping" all those low income people get into homes with subprime adjustable rate mortgages, making all those people they had "helped" lose not only their homes, their life savings, and what little credit rating they had. They did.
I am watching the way this whole affair plays out and it makes me sick.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
it is very much the definition of the opposite.
Wow... a desire for individual liberty is the "very definition of the opposite" of the principles upon which the USA was founded. Not only that, you are saying that you know what I believe, and you know with 100% certainty that my beliefs lead to disaster. And it is so obvious that you are right and I am wrong that it is "mindboggling", "hypocracy", etc.
It is clear that attempting to have a conversation with you is just a waste of my time.
Have a nice life.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Generally, when a below-requirement cement job is detected (normally by performing "functional" tests such as the Leak-Off Test or Formation Integrity Test between drilling phases), additional cement will be pumped into the sub-standard areas before continuing with the well. Similarly, if I mis-cut some woodwork while decorating my house, I don't burn the building to the ground and start digging new foundations, but I repair the problem until has adequate strength to do the job required of it.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
when presented with a fact
You don't have any facts, period. You have this incredibly religious faith that somehow the private sector will actually make life better for us. It won't. Your rants against "fake money" are not legitimate in the least. And the term "Free market regulation" is an oxymoron: there is no such thing, and therefore absolutely nothing stopping someone from selling you tainted meat, and if you're like most people, you're not going to have the means to do anything about it.