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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."
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)
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.
"Fracking is Safe In Theory But Often Not In Practice"
The solution is obvious. Only do theoretical fracking.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
There is nothing intrinsically unsafe about it in most cases, but if you frack a stranger without a condom, you can get cooties.
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!
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.
I live in one of the most geologically stable places on the planet. And we still have earthquakes here. It's called the Canadian shield. But hey, you know if you frack properly, you don't get any problems. And I'm sure you're also going on about that BS movie where people were lighting their taps on fire, but guess what, people were doing that before. Hell there's places around me where that's possible from naturally occurring methane in the water. Mostly well water, and you need to back pressure it in your well.
Really though, next I'm sure you'll go on a rant about how the tar sands are evil. But gloss over the fact that oil has been leeching into the rivers in Canada for thousands of years. Hell, there's enough oil leeching naturally that people used to(and still do) patch their boats with it.
Om, nomnomnom...
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. **Attributed to Yogi B and others.
... 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.
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
How many people have died producing solar?
I don't know, but if/when there is even a single death from a construction accident, its death per megawatt will suddenly be worse than coal...
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
It is just you as he clearly states that a simple regulation is achievable.
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.
If it isn't implemented safely, then it isn't safe.
Communism works great in theory.
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
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.
In practice, even factoring in Fukushima, nuclear power plants turn out to be the safest thing. (It helps if you don't build it in a tsunami zone and ignore a safety report for 5+ years, of course.)
New designs being developed now are even safer and more efficient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4
http://nuclearpoweryesplease.org/
"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!
> 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.
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
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."
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?
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.
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.....
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?
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).
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
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.
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
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.
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?
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.