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No easy answers we're all farked
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9287

PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The epa has definitely effected my business. I no longer invest in an entire class of businesses. I have a friend who opened a large surfboard manufacturing facility in Santa Monica, with not 1 permit (in the 60's). By the 90's he shut it all down because of the epa.

Now this would be good for our lungs, except for 1 thing. They are making the same boards in Asia for less, and polluting even more than we did when we did it here. Those same fumes and pollutants are recycling in our atmosphere today, but we aren't manufacturing here because of the regulations.

China is an environmental nightmare. Can't we find a way to make a simpler easier path to production here? If we could produce 75% more and pollute 75% less than China, wouldn't the world be better off?
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17736
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bard--your brief spell with rational thinking seems to have ended. Think about what you said:

Quote:
I have a friend who opened a large surfboard manufacturing facility in Santa Monica, with not 1 permit (in the 60's). By the 90's he shut it all down because of the epa.


There is a name for people like your friend--cheaters. He was cheating everyone who obeys the rules. The idea that he has the right to expose nearby neighbors and his workers to toxic fumes because he is undercutting the regulations is just plain nuts. Each of those regulations exists to protect health--but cheating allows him to make more money. You think this is a good thing?

This is why Thurston and crew lost--American's actually like their environment. Some of them even windsurf in it.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 10:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like the title of the this thread points out, there are no easy answers. That's particularly true today with everything getting more complex, and arguably tougher to do. Unfortunately, we can't go back to simpler times and ignore what we know today about heatlh, pollution, and the environment, and that's only part of the story. Also, we must recognize that many of the manufacturing jobs that went overseas aren't coming back. The American jobs of tomorrow aren't going to be much like those the I knew during my career. To do well in the future, you better have a good education and the right focus.
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9287

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My point was that we are breathing in China's pollution here in California. Wouldn't it be better to bring the same manufacturing here, with 50% less pollution? C'mon, broaden your perspective. Our eco system circulates the filth worldwide.

BTW, do you think Hewlett Packard had permits when they were working in their garage? Bill Gates? Texas Instruments? There used to be a short term advantage for innovators. Now they have to raise millions to function. Haven't we killed some of the old spirit?
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wynsurfer



Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 940

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 6:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I see the old spirit very much alive. Millions of poeple are self employed, working from their homes, garages and offices. The nature of the business have changed. Two people can start a corporation here in Connecticut with little money.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 8:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
My point was that we are breathing in China's pollution here in California. Wouldn't it be better to bring the same manufacturing here, with 50% less pollution? C'mon, broaden your perspective. Our eco system circulates the filth worldwide.

BTW, do you think Hewlett Packard had permits when they were working in their garage? Bill Gates? Texas Instruments? There used to be a short term advantage for innovators. Now they have to raise millions to function. Haven't we killed some of the old spirit?


A neighbor of mine started building sleds in his garage. Permit was $150. It was successful small business. Now, he contracts to have the sleds built in China to be shipped back to the US to be sold. A large cheap labor force.,..plain and simple.

If we want to level the playing field, we should have regulations that require all goods that are consumed in the US are produced in other countries under international environmental and labor standards. The average US consumer would be outraged, however, as the costs increase at the local Walmart.

Bard, I live in a small, historic, mining town high in the Rockies. Mining pretty much stopped here by the 1970's. Lots of mining in the hayday with no regulations. I have watched the small creek that runs by my house change from very murky to almost clear as the mining waste has been cleaned up at HUGE expense to the taxpayers and the mining companies that are stuck with the liability of the environmental free for all of the past.

The locals complain that the regs have made it so mining will never be economical again here. Fine with me and the thousands of visitors that have created a new economy based on recreation. See...a clean environment sells also!
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

But there's far more to red tape than clean air and water. Many businesses have shut down due to much less sane regulations, which surely must comprise hundreds of the thousands of new regs this administration has imposed behind the scenes. And look what's coming now that both Obama and the EPA have dictatorial control over ANYthing even remotely characterizable as being related to AGW, with or without proof.

Be careful what you wish for, lest you get too much of it. Just look at the huge, almost unanimous blowback on Obamacare as its true nature is exposed, with most physicians and many Democratic congressman recoiling in fear of its impacts.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 9:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The ACA does not have physicians trembling in their scrubs. The future of Medicare and Medicaid do however. These programs have been a mess for decades. They have been tweaked so many times over the years that provider payment for services within these programs has always been a crap shoot. Whether one blames the problems on Ocare or Bush or Clinton or Bush or Reagan....is really just where one's political views lie.
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chinas pathway to industrial strength is not so different to the West and very much like Japan.
England was so polluted in the good old days that your face would be black from soot just from a short stroll in London.
The people got weary of it and made laws some folks find annoying today.
The rising Chinese educated class doesn't care for low paying jobs in polluted factory cites.As China succeeds they want better living conditions, just like that board companies neighbors who were being poisoned slowly.
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 9:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I had some experience with a world in which there are few regulations on small business.
In Belize like much of the third world we do what we want. The fiberglass boat builders in the city just work in open sided buildings with only a roof. The grinding noise carries for block, the glass dust at least a half block, the toxic fumes for miles.
People have lung problems on those blocks and itching has been a way of life for generations of children.
At first small boats, then bigger and bigger production with no rules at all. Lately that whole area of town has been clearing out, with normal families driven out of their homes and the homeless taking over.
Some street people have died from allergic reactions.
Why don't we bring some of this home to Cailfonia and just have half as much in Belize?
One short stroll past the boat factory and your interest in having an uncontrolled fiberglass factory in your neighborhood will evaporate.
Or even a half controlled factory.
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