Thursday, December 18, 2008

Ralph Nader's Gotta Be Pissed!



Although Bush has turned into less of an ideologue over the economy - where he never truly was a fiscal conservative or anti-big government anyway (just for all those little people) - he is still doing a number to our country and those of us who have to live in it. When Keith Olbermann posed his question, he was discussing Bush's last minute environmental policies. But I think this sort of thing applies to the "doing as much damage to the country" thing as well. Call me crazy, but I would like my roof to not collapse on me in the event my car rolled over; and if my roof happened to, I would want the company responsible for such shoddy construction and design to have to pay - big time. Aside from my on-going intellectual crush on Chris Hayes, I do think he has a point in that one needs regulation or litigation in order to maintain a balance of power between corporations and citizens. I tend to like a mixture of both, but having neither is less than acceptable. Ralph Nader must be furious right about now.

8 comments:

John said...

Boy howdy, I know exactly what I'm going to do as soon as I get the chance to travel through time and space. I'm going to stop the judges of Santa Clara V. Southern Pacific Railroad from making such easily-misinterpreted comments regarding their decision, thereby stopping the trend of rampant corporate immunity before it starts!

As for the here and now, however, there is very little I can do. I only hope that the new administration overturns these changes. I'm a big proponent of government regulation as a tool to keep businesses in line, and support it more than these lawsuits that arguably accomplish the same goal. After all, not every American can afford to hire a tenacious lawyer (or team of lawyers) to force these companies to answer for their crimes.

mikhailbakunin said...

I actually don't agree with Chris Hayes (I know, big surprise). I think we need some degree of corporate regulation, but we also need tort reform - so that taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for outrageous or costly litigation.

According to Hayes, we have to have either judicial or administrative oversight over EVERY aspect of our lives.

By his logic, the government has to either regulate the size of paper clips to make sure that your kids can't ingest them or allow you to sue if your child DOES choke on a paper clip?

(I'm using "you" in the generic sense. I realize that YOU don't actually have any children. And I'm sure that if you did, they would be well-behaved and probably wouldn't be eating paper clips.)

petpluto said...

Hey, leave Chris Hayes alone! He's my intellectual crush!

Anyway, I don't think he's arguing for government oversight in every aspect of our lives. But he is arguing that we do have the right to sue over things like our car roofs failing to protect us in the event our car rolls over - or if a company makes a product that does harm its consumers or even those in the environment in which it is produced. We do live in an incredibly sue-happy society; hell, my Dr. Pepper (when I was still unknowingly drinking soda products to counteract my sleepiness) informed me to point the bottle away from my face while opening in order to protect themselves from unnecessary and foolish litigation. And I'm not arguing that such litigation can be foolish and can waste money - like the McDonald's coffee incident. But to limit regulation and the right to sue is a recipe for disaster of The Jungle variety.

And I do feel that if my hypothetical child ingested a paper clip, I should have the right to sue the company - though society would have the right to shun me for all eternity and make me into a laughing stock, and I would have no right to win. But unless we're going to have laws decreeing what we can and cannot sue over, I want to be able to sue over stupid stuff like paper clip ingestion in case my child is given a toy that was made improperly and ends up choking on a part that should not have come off in the first place.

mikhailbakunin said...

And I do feel that if my hypothetical child ingested a paper clip, I should have the right to sue the company - though society would have the right to shun me for all eternity and make me into a laughing stock, and I would have no right to win.

But your frivolous lawsuit costs society. It costs taxpayers directly and it costs consumers indirectly - because companies often decide to settle rather than risk a protracted and expensive litigation, and those settlement costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, lower-quality goods, etc.

I see what you're saying, but I think that at this point the real priority is controlling legal costs - and that means limiting people's ability to sue. I agree that there are many legitimate lawsuits out there, but there are also outrageous lawsuits . . . and you have to draw the line somewhere.

I think that, as a society, we just need to get to the point where we acknowledge that there is some inherent risk in life - and we're not ENTITLED to damages simply because we're injured.

If I want to commute to work in a Smart Car, that's fine. But I should realize that I'm taking a risk and that the car isn't exactly safe to drive on the highway.

petpluto said...

I see what you're saying, but I think that at this point the real priority is controlling legal costs - and that means limiting people's ability to sue. I agree that there are many legitimate lawsuits out there, but there are also outrageous lawsuits . . . and you have to draw the line somewhere.

The problem is the Bush administration isn't drawing the line at paper clips or McDonalds coffee mugs; it is drawing the line to protect corporations that have proven to be negligent in the past about really big ticket items. If they were saying that we should all be so intelligent as to not place a cup full of coffee between our legs as we drove our vehicle or that our kids should have to deal with swallowing paper clips, I'd be right there with them. But they are protecting industries that really do need some sort of check - and if we have less regulations then we need something. That's what I think Chris Hayes was saying: that the really important things shouldn't be the ones we put all of the protections in place for.

mikhailbakunin said...

Well, I agree with you. We can definitely quibble over the details (and I'll probably agree with you more often than not), but that's a pragmatic argument.

My real problem with Olbermann (and, by extension, Hayes) is that he's always creating these outrageous moral dichotomies. Limiting people's ability to sue is always WRONG if you're not going to regulate the industry! His moralizing is so exhausting.

I just want some acknowledgement that Olbermann DOESN'T have a consistent moral system. He just has an ideological knee-jerk reaction to EVERYTHING the Bush administration does.

And that's a silly because tort reform is a REAL necessity. But Olbermann could never admit that he has a problem with the specifics of what Bush is doing - it has to be an evil, demoic act.

petpluto said...

Well, I disagree with your assessment of Chris Hayes - and also Keith Olbermann, a little bit.

Chris Hayes is progressive, but he doesn't automatically or completely hate everything the Bush administration has done - and he is generally even-handed and calm when discussing what is going on. He's definitely had moments where he's tried to talk Keith down as well. But (a) he's an infrequent contributor to The Countdown, and (b) he generally comes on when something really is quite ridiculous.

Secondly, I think you tend to make general pronouncements - like, "You need one or the other to keep corporate power in check" into a huge moral pronouncement instead of the pragmatic spirit in which it seemed to be intended. Afterall, they aren't discussing paper clips or faulty soda bottles or coffee cups, but the roofs of automobiles.

And perhaps Keith Olbermann would be less palatable to me if Bush were actually doing some good in this regard (or several others) instead of what he is doing - which is to really fuck the American citizen over in favor of buoying up the major corporation.

mikhailbakunin said...

Well, I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye on economic issues. But I'm always up for a good debate. : )

I'm generally in favor of deregulation. Like I've said before, I think that tougher regulations often create barriers to progress that hurt consumers in the long-run. The FDA is wonderful when it's exposing the risks associated with thalidomide, but it sucks when it's denying terminal patients access to potentially life-saving treatments because they're not "proven."

Deregulation can be fabulously helpful, too. The Financial Services Modernization Act (that Bill Clinton signed into law) allowed stand-alone investment banks to merge with commercial banks. That saved a lot of jobs during the height of the financial crisis.

In regard to Olbermann, I guess we just have different perceptions of the dude. I see him as a total ideologue. I used to watch his show during the campaign and think to myself, "What's the purpose of this? I can predict everything this guy's going to say." And I always got the impression that he was making sweeping moral pronouncements.