they're killing my beloved middle class!!

Originally posted by scottishinnz
More likely, the government passes an environmental standard. Government or private company inspectors come in and monitor the plant. They show the executive which parts of the plant which are failing, and help devise an action plan to bring the plant up to standard. The company then hires a local construction business, or businesses, because of the cal rivers or the air to become polluted. Government legislation is the way that is enacted.]

This is known as "The broken window fallacy". Henry Hazlitt blows this out of the water in his book "Economics in One Lesson"

There's plenty on the net if you prowl around, here's one link of hundreds:

http://economics.about.com/cs/issues/l/aa032003b.htm

Better just to buy the book.

Originally posted by Wajoma
This is known as "The broken window fallacy". Henry Hazlitt blows this out of the water in his book "Economics in One Lesson"

There's plenty on the net if you prowl around, here's one link of hundreds:

http://economics.about.com/cs/issues/l/aa032003b.htm

Better just to buy the book.

So, what you are saying is that companies have the right to pollute the environment that I have to live in, and are accountable to no-one?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
So, what you are saying is that companies have the [b]right to pollute the environment that I have to live in, and are accountable to no-one?[/b]

This is reference to the fallacy that the gummint is creating jobs.

Originally posted by Wajoma
This is reference to the fallacy that the gummint is creating jobs.

I never said that the affected business wouldn't lose some money. However, the economy changes over time anyway, so you can probably assume that it'll deal with the changes in legislation.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
I never said that the affected business wouldn't lose some money. However, the economy changes over time anyway, so you can probably assume that it'll deal with the changes in legislation.

"Thus, jobs have been created in the construction industry, in the scientific analysis industry, in the manufacturing industries which supply them."

Are you drunk tonight?

Originally posted by rubberjaw30

the debate:
should americans get the opportunity to elect these EPA officials, or at least have a larger say in the acts the Agency wants to employ?
I believe yes
any other thoughts?

Surely if the EPA officials are elected then the same can of worms that happens with your federal elections, will just keep on reoccurring with the environment and nothing of any real value for anyone will actually ever happen.

Without the power to enact legislation free of interference from special interest groups and the corruption that goes hand in hand with well organised corporate lobbies, every issue will become a political football, and instead of ever enacting anything it will become a seasaw of one popular opinion against the other.

Its like you are diagnosed with a brain tumor requiring surgery and you want to have your treatment schedule decided by a popularity contest. Not only will it decide who you will have as your surgeon, while you are in recovery you then have the real possibility of your treating surgeon being replaced by a health professional who may not share their view on how best to treat your health problem. And so over the next few years instead of having a clear mapped out pathway and a direction for your treatment to travel along, you have to cope with the possibility of your treatment being radically altered at each election and you may end up being permanently impaired because of a conflict in the ideologies between your treatment specialists.

Even if a program is slightly flawed, having one direction and the stamina to see all of it through to completion would be a much better scenario than a three or four yearly flip flop on what would rapidly become a polarised paradigm.

Originally posted by kmax87
Surely if the EPA officials are elected then the same can of worms that happens with your federal elections, will just keep on reoccurring with the environment and nothing of any real value for anyone will actually ever happen.

Without the power to enact legislation free of interference from special interest groups and the corruption that goes hand in han ...[text shortened]... cenario than a three or four yearly flip flop on what would rapidly become a polarised paradigm.

The flaw in your analogy is that it is for you yourself to decide which specialists to trust and then act on that information, if you then choose to jump around here and there after that so be it, that's on your head, heh heh.

In the other example you've got one group trying to dictate to another group.

Originally posted by Wajoma
"Thus, jobs have been created in the construction industry, in the scientific analysis industry, in the manufacturing industries which supply them."

Are you drunk tonight?

Nope. Not drunk.

Those jobs would be created in those industries. Probably the government would pick up some part of the bill, but perhaps not.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Nope. Not drunk.

Those jobs would be created in those industries. Probably the government would pick up some part of the bill, but perhaps not.

In other words: Didn't read anything about the broken window fallacy.

Originally posted by Wajoma
In other words: Didn't read anything about the broken window fallacy.

I've heard it before. Your ignoring reality doesn't make it not so.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
I've heard it before. Your ignoring reality doesn't make it not so.

Here's an excerpt for the true reality denier:

"The faulty logic of the Broken Window Fallacy occurs all the time with arguments supporting government programs. A politician will claim that his new government program to provide winter coats to poor families has been a roaring success, because he can point to all the people who have coats who didn't have them before. It's likely that there will be several new stories on the coat program, and pictures of people wearing the coats will be on the 6 o'clock news. Since we see the benefits of the program, the politician will convince the public that his program was a huge success. Of course, what we do not see is the school lunch proposal that was never implemented to implement the coat program, or the decline in economic activity from the added taxes needed to pay for the coats. "

Again I recommend the book, because Hazlitt makes it so blindingly obvious you're going to need shade 10's to read it.

Originally posted by Bad wolf
We could create thousands of new jobs by relining all of our schools with asbestos, but that wouldn't make it okay.
Now use this idea and work backwards, those jobs are doing bad in the long term...

How do you figure? Coal is a cheap and abundant source of energy. What is the alternative? The environmentalists won't allow us to spoil their view by putting up wind turbines, nor will they allow nuclear power plants to generate the power. So I ask again: What is the alternative?

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
How do you figure? Coal is a cheap and abundant source of energy. What is the alternative? The environmentalists won't allow us to spoil their view by putting up wind turbines, nor will they allow nuclear power plants to generate the power. So I ask again: What is the alternative?

Nuclear. At least in the short term.

James Lovelock certainly seems to think so, and for once, I agree with him.

http://www.ecolo.org/media/articles/articles.in.english/love-indep-24-05-04.htm

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
How do you figure? Coal is a cheap and abundant source of energy. What is the alternative? The environmentalists won't allow us to spoil their view by putting up wind turbines, nor will they allow nuclear power plants to generate the power. So I ask again: What is the alternative?

I am quite happy using carbon capture technologies, capturing the CO2 before it is released into the atmosphere, then storing it in rocks underground (usually under the ocean) later.

Nuclear is fine as I'm concerned as well.