[Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!]

On Nov 19, 8:21 am, Clyde Slick wrote:
On 19 Noi, 04:55, "Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!"





wrote:
On Nov 18, 10:45 pm, Clyde Slick wrote:

even Romanians won't drink their tap water, but i do.
i think any changes must be due to heavy metals
leftover form Communism of course. It
wasn't aq very environmentally friendly system.
Communism causes worse pollution than that horribly
profit driven Capitalism, How about that!!!!

I am not, BTW, against capitalism. *Unrestrained* and *unregulated*
capitalism may not be any better than communism was as far as
pollution, though. Fortunately, we now regulate things like dumping
chemicals or other waste into lakes, streams and rivers, and other
environmental concerns. Industry still fights the EPA frequently,
though. I remember driving through Chicago and Ohio on a family trip
as a child. I'll never forget seeing lime-green crap being dumped from
a pipe directly into the Chicago River. It looked like radioactive
Gatorade. I also remember when the Cuyahoga River caught fire around
that same time:

"On June 23, 1969, Cleveland's oily, contaminated Cuyahoga River
caught fire. Flames climbed as high as five stories until fireboats
brought it under control. The fire was attributed to wastes dumped
into the river by the waterfront industries."

http://pratie.blogspot.com/2005/03/c...e-of-1969.html

(Yes, I know this is from a blog, but I figured that this was such a
well-known historical fact that it wouldn't matter and it popped up on
Google first...)

And Love Canal, and Times Beach, and Lake Erie, strip-mines, and
several hundred other Superfund sites:

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/index.htm

And as for business taking care of business ethically, let's also not
forget why labor unions became necessary here. I got a catalog from
The Company Store bedding company a couple of days ago and I remarked
to my girlfriend that I wouldn't have chosen to name my business after
such a dark period in American business history. Here is unrestrained,
unregulated capitalism at work:

"Most of these new West Virginians soon became part of an economic
system controlled by the coal industry. Miners worked in company mines
with company tools and equipment, which they were required to lease.
The rent for company housing and cost of items from the company store
were deducted from their pay. The stores themselves charged over-
inflated prices, since there was no alternative for purchasing goods.
To ensure that miners spent their wages at the store, coal companies
developed their own monetary system. Miners were paid by scrip, in the
form of tokens, currency, or credit, which could be used only at the
company store. Therefore, even when wages were increased, coal
companies simply increased prices at the company store to balance what
they lost in pay."

http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/minewars.html

Anyway, I wouldn't be too adamant about the differences between the
two political systems as far as pollution is concerned.

And once again history should show nob and 2pid what unrestrained and
unregulated market-driven forces are capable of. It ain't necessarily
pretty.

the pollution is Eastern Europe is far worse.
as the government ran everything, there
was no regulation at all.
nor even any testing or oversight.
they just didn't care at all.
for what its worth, here we have two deterrents
under capitalism, being
regulation and victim lawsuits.

I agree, but my point was that the regulation of contaminating water
did not occur until 1972 with the Clean Water Act. I think the Clean
Air Act was in the 1960s. Both, whatever the actual dates are, are
fairly recent.

Note, i am not in favor of
laissez faire, capitalism
needs to be regulated, a legitimate
power of government.
]i am not duh Mikey.

Which is why I didn't say, "Clyde, nob and 2pid". :-)