"Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!" wrote in message
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Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 19:02:51 GMT

But we ALL know that business will take care of itself ethically, yes?

Most will, some won't, that's why we need strong laws and the ability to
enforce them.

You argue, therefore, for both regulating business and for not
regulating business. Please make up your mind.

Stop twisting what I say.
I said we need stong laws and the ability to enforce them, that is not
saying that we need government agencies to control mines, but that it should
be a mater of law that any company that doesn't take reasonable steps to
insure the safety of its employees, ought to be subject to punishment.

Most business people recognize the fact that when they deal fairly and
honestly, it helps them keep old customers and gain new ones.

To quote that insightful movie _Men in Black_: "A person is smart;
people are dumb."

You said you were in business for yourself, did you regularly cheat or
risk
the lives of your employees?

Nope.

Is the only thing that prevented you from
screwing your customers and endangering your empoyees, the fact that the
government would punish you?

Nope.

Or was it because you realize that it is in
yourself interest to provide good working conditions and fair dealings
with
both customers and employees?

You make an irrelevent comparison. There are huge differences between a
locally-based, small, niche business (like mine) and large
corporations. The concerns, goals, and decision processes of large
corporations are vastly different from those of a smaller business.


No they are not. They are identical. They need to deal fairly with their
customers and their employees or they will collapse.

You have argued for the value of large corporations. You have argued
that regulation is not needed and that it is counterproductive. It is
clear that many, if not most, large businesses are far more concerned
with quarterly earnings reports than with doing what is right either
for their employees (for example: see how deregulation has created what
will amount to socialized government pensions for hundreds of thousands
of employees, employees who placed their trust in the word of airlines,
automotive companies, and so on. We've just started seeing what I
believe will be a HUGE amount of pension fund defaults due to
underfunded pensions...) or the environment, or almost any other area
of concern (except profits).

Nowhere will you find me arguing in favor of defaulting on pensions.
Nowhere will you find me arguing in favor of not being able to prosecute
businesses who do so.
What I will argue against, is the need for special regulatory agencies to
deal with any particular business. I would rather have common sense law
that punishes any violation of law, and that the law be sesnible and
reasonable. If a corporation dumps toxic waste, it should be punished,
assuming there is some real damage to people or property.

As you keep pointing out, there are compaines defaluting now and there are
agencies that oversee many big businesses or in the case of mines, they were
fined but there was no enforcement, so the agency was essentially worthless.


Of course there is also the need for employees to be aware of their
obligations to themselves and not work where it is not safe.

Naive and unrealistic thinking (at best). The coal mining areas of West
Virginia are not known for their stellar economic performance. You're
arguing that a father with two kids like you should choose not to work
at what is likely the only game in town because it isn't safe.

I'm arguing that nobody is forced to work anywhere they don't want to. If
you don't think the main employer is providing a safe workplace, tehn it is
time to move.

I could
not willingly starve my kids or choose not to clothe them. Further, if
you have any idea how a market actually works, you'd know that even if
I did make that choice and quit or turned down a job at this mine (for
example), that there would be many people lined up for the spot I
turned down.

Nobody would argue thaty even in the best of conditions mining is a
particularly safe occupation.
That being said, employees still choose to work there or not. There is no
reason for a person to work at a place theydon't find safe.

Now perhaps you would choose to go on welfare (presuming
that it's still available, as you argue against the necessity of it)
and lower your (and your children's) standard of living to bare
subsistence levels. Most reasonable people would choose to work for a
higher wage and better benefits than is available elsewhere for the
good of their families.

As is their right. They should do so with the knowledge of what sort of
place they are working for.


The business, knowing that they will have however many people they want
work there, have no incentive to make the repairs or increase safety.
They'll pay the $440 fine and keep doing what they want to.

If there is going to be regulation, then at the very least it should have
more "teeth" than such a tiny fine.


One of the points this article makes is that Bushie is doing *exactly*
what you're arguing for: he has reduced criminal prosecutions for not
following regulation by 2/3, he has limited lawsuits to enforce
regulations, and so on.

How does "Bushie" do that? Where is such power given to him?

Here's one result: 12 dead people. It appears
that the mine will have to pay a small fine as a result.

This doesn't excuse the mine owners from their obligations to maintain
safe conditions,
but it does point out that all the regulations did not do anything to save
the lives of the miners. As I said most people deal fairly, not all.

What it points out is that under the republicans the regulations have
lost their teeth.

This mine was in compliance under Clinton?
The fines were different then?

Would the mine company have made the improvements if
the government had shut them down? (Uh-oh! Not in *my* private property
world!) or fined them tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (Uh-oh!
Keep your thieving hands off *my* money!). What this points out is that
what is needed is *more* regulation, with *more* teeth, not less.

Do you suppose that the mining company will not be punished mightily in
whatever civil suits will be brought against it, not to mention the criminal
cases?


"This pattern has been even more pronounced under the Bush
administration, which came into office with a promise to forge
cooperative ties between regulators and the mining industry. During the
past five years, the number of mines referred to the Justice Department
for criminal prosecution has dropped steadily, from 38 in 2000 to 12
last year."

"But agency critics, including several former MSHA officials, say
relatively light sanctions, coupled with the current administration's
more collegial approach to regulation, make it harder for inspectors to
force noncompliant companies to change."

"There was a dramatic shift in MSHA's philosophy in 2001, with a new
emphasis on cooperation by the enforcers," said J. Davitt McAteer, who
headed the agency under the Clinton administration, "and it came at a
cost of less enforcement of the statute."

It would be of interest to know what their specific violations were.

Even if I were to agree that such regulation and the agencies that oversee
them, were a neccessity, the facts very often show that there are examples
of over regulation. That is where the Republicans would be arguing. I
simply want all such agencies abolished. Did I mention I'm not a
Republican?