384 Socialized Liability

[Speaker to Animals]

Example:

Whenever a coalfire plant is built, everybody living within about ten miles or so of the plant now faces a significantly increased risk of dying early from a horrific lung cancer. The power company does not pay those people a dime. There is some paltry fund I think that they pay into that doesn't really even pay all the medical expenses.

If you want to imagine what these companies would pay if they paid the negative externalities they inflict upon society, then imagine if we passed a law that dictated the power company has to negotiate with the residents to pay them a monthly risk fee in order to live there. By negotiate, I don't mean some bullshit negotiation like you see in organized labor. I mean they have to figure out what it's worth to those residents and pay that. Most people have a price.

I doubt it would be easy to site a coalfire plant after that because now the true costs of the fucking thing are baked into the operating costs. The more people who live around the site, the more they have to pay, the less profitable the venture becomes. That's the cost that they do NOT pay right now.

Now.. if you had a socialized liability program, that could easily be factored into their premium. The premium wouldn't have to be nearly as much as if they had to negotiate with every last resident to figure out their price because it would pool all the risk of all the plants everywhere and spread that risk out over the entire nation.

It's an idea worth considering.

[brewster]

StA, everything you say is perfectly reasonable, except the practice. Currently most efforts to limit corporations from externalizing costs are called "regulations" and are considered the bane of the conservative world. I cannot see how the same forces that work to deregulate environmental and workplace rules wouldn't work to limit the liability of companies under this proposed system.

To speak of the ultimate externality, can you imagine trying to place the liability cost for carbon emissions on the Koch's? Good luck with that!

[DBTrek]

Sure, government is useful for *regulating* externalities like pollution caused by industries whose costs is bore by others (residents, the environment, etc).

But we're talking about personal liability here, not some damaging outside byproduct created by the profit-seeking activities of a third party. I agree the idea is worth discussing. My part of that discussion is to point out that people with assets already have a system of addressing liability in place. Creating a new government bureaucracy to address people injured by those without assets (which are who - orphans? homeless people?), and funding them through taxes is going to be considerably more expensive than the paltry sums the government hands out to the relatively few people eligible for recompense.

It's an idea that can work - but in working it will prove to be another cash vortex that devours far more human productivity than it ever returns to people.

[Martin Hash]

First, what DO you do with people who have no assets that are dying due to their own incompetence? (I know what Libertarians do.)

Second, as I've repeatedly stated (me and Dick Cheney): deficits don't matter, print some more goddamn money to cover the pool.

[DBTrek]

Printing currency to cover deficits is how you get inflation that leads to the collapse of your currency - that's a terrible idea.

How does "people dying of their own incompetence" fall under the purview of government, rather than that of their families, friends, and community?

I disagree that government exists to save everyone from everything, at prices no one can afford.

/shrug

[Martin Hash]

Printing currency to cover deficits is how you get inflation that leads to the collapse of your currency - that's a terrible idea.

How does "people dying of their own incompetence" fall under the purview of government, rather than that of their families, friends, and community?

I disagree that government exists to save everyone from everything, at prices no one can afford.

/shrug

Got it. Well, I have nothing more to say on the issue. It won't work for Libertarians, monetarists, or you.

[Fife]

It's not rocket science, except maybe for the Marxists among us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninsured_motorist_clause

Maybe we should "socialize" the grocery stores also, comrades? What's the difference?

[DBTrek]

Got it. Well, I have nothing more to say on the issue. It won't work for Libertarians, monetarists, or you.

Good news tho, I’m in the minority. So it will probably work well in your campaign. In fact, political “solutions” that address actual problems are highly popular, especially since the economic impacts of these solutions often take years to manifest - and by then voters are too far removed from the policy to connect the dots.

Bad economics, great politics.

[Martin Hash]

It's not rocket science, except maybe for the Marxists among us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninsured_motorist_clause

Maybe we should "socialize" the grocery stores also, comrades? What's the difference?

??? That’s for insured people.

Libertarians have a “let them eat cake” solution for every problem.

[DBTrek]

It may be because countries with “provide everyone cake” approaches often come with lower quality of life, high corruption, fewer human rights, and policies that cripple productivity.

America wasn’t founded on the idea that government is intended to regulate away the trials of life and provide a comfy security blanket to everyone born upon (or otherwise touching) our shores.

That’s not it’s role. Rather, that wasn’t it’s role until the recent generational infantilization of our populace.