Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 83 posts

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#31

Post by nate_meurer »

bluedays wrote: post #24
mensetmanusman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PFAS technology was top secret WW2 research output. Then the military discovered that they had amazing properties to fight extremely dangerous fires in missile warehouses and were eventually required to use them to maximize safety decades ago. Prozac, Lipitor, Flonase and about 30% of upcoming new pharmaceutical drugs are PFAS, so they aren't going away completely, because society has determined that they are valuabl…

PFAS is not used in pharmaceutical drugs.

They absolutely are. My favorite antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac) is unambiguously a PFAS.

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#32

Post by politician »

wmeredith wrote: post #26
PaulKeeble wrote: post #15

The cost for anything like this should always be the cost of cleaning up the entire mess it created and compensating the humans harmed by it and covering their lifetime medical bills. $1billion sounds a tad low for doing any of that given the world wide impact. Its a bad deal.

Justice served would be jail time for execs or a corporate death penalty. Levying a fine means it's just a cost of doing business. And a billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket for these massive multinational corporations that have been in business for decades.

> a corporate death penalty

So, no more Kevlar for police protection? The problem with the idea of a corporate death penalty is that it would shutter the corporation, shock the supply chain for critical materials, terminate the employment of thousands of people, and devastate their communities (e.g. because employees have families and those families consume food and stuff from the local economy which, in turn, supports other families).

It's obvious why we haven't adopted it as a viable punishment.

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#33

Post by hospitalJail »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #15

The cost for anything like this should always be the cost of cleaning up the entire mess it created and compensating the humans harmed by it and covering their lifetime medical bills. $1billion sounds a tad low for doing any of that given the world wide impact. Its a bad deal.

Back when I was 19 and an anarchist, I was always critical of LLC laws. I probably still am.

I believe the judicial system does do the fine as you mentioned, but the prosecutors have to be realistic and settle out of court at the risk a skeptical judge/jury.

Without LLC laws, you could go after personal ownership too. Privately owned company means there is a few billionaires to have their wealth confiscated. Publicly, our 401ks empty + risk of losing our homes.

Isn't that insane to think about? What would a world look like if that was the case. Would companies be incredibly responsible? Would investors be incredibly responsible?

I don't claim to say this is the best economic system, but it might solve our climate crisis by forcing people to be liable for themselves and what they own.

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#34

Post by briantakita »

wmeredith wrote: post #26
PaulKeeble wrote: post #15

The cost for anything like this should always be the cost of cleaning up the entire mess it created and compensating the humans harmed by it and covering their lifetime medical bills. $1billion sounds a tad low for doing any of that given the world wide impact. Its a bad deal.

Justice served would be jail time for execs or a corporate death penalty. Levying a fine means it's just a cost of doing business. And a billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket for these massive multinational corporations that have been in business for decades.

Perhaps the death penalty for the execs would cause some real reform. Japanese culture had the concept to Seppuku when someone brought shame to their position. They seem to take their jobs seriously.

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#35

Post by agilob »

rqtwteye wrote: post #23
Zetice wrote: post #4

When a payout like this occurs, does it mean the problem is resolved? In other words, are these companies no longer putting out toxic chemicals, or are they buying the ability to continue to do that without fear of further lawsuits?

The problem has been “resolved” in the sense that the companies and government don’t have to deal with it anymore. That’s the goal.

I'll pay you $1B to shut up

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#36

Post by Ekaros »

hospitalJail wrote: post #33
PaulKeeble wrote: post #15

The cost for anything like this should always be the cost of cleaning up the entire mess it created and compensating the humans harmed by it and covering their lifetime medical bills. $1billion sounds a tad low for doing any of that given the world wide impact. Its a bad deal.

Back when I was 19 and an anarchist, I was always critical of LLC laws. I probably still am. I believe the judicial system does do the fine as you mentioned, but the prosecutors have to be realistic and settle out of court at the risk a skeptical judge/jury. Without LLC laws, you could go after personal ownership too. Privately owned company means there is a few billionaires to have their wealth confiscated. Publicly…

I wonder if we could have fractional death penalty. Some lifetime counter on your responsibility of deaths by companies you own. When certain threshold let's say 0.5 is reached, it will be carried out when ever you are apprehended.

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#37

Post by saiya-jin »

politician wrote: post #32
wmeredith wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Justice served would be jail time for execs or a corporate death penalty. Levying a fine means it's just a cost of doing business. And a billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket for these massive multinational corporations that have been in business for decades.

> a corporate death penalty So, no more Kevlar for police protection? The problem with the idea of a corporate death penalty is that it would shutter the corporation, shock the supply chain for critical materials, terminate the employment of thousands of people, and devastate their communities (e.g. because employees have families and those families consume food and stuff from the local economy which, in turn, suppor…

There are tons of Kevlar alternatives, on cca same level of performance these days. Just because some company made a good product once or twice will make them invincible against the law with all the rest they ever did?

You forgot 'think about the children' part, but in this case, it actually goes against that fucked up corporations. We may have to see half of our kids infertile in a decade or two and shitload of birth defects that can bankrupt any health services (in case of US rather half of population), no amount of thinking about Kevlar or Goretex (for which there are tons of great alternatives too and I stopped using their stuff in mountains long time ago) is going to fix that

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#38

Post by saiya-jin »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #12
CommanderData wrote: post #5

Pocket change. This is not accountability for infecting the worlds population with these nasty chemicals.

PFAS technology was top secret WW2 research output. Then the military discovered that they had amazing properties to fight extremely dangerous fires in missile warehouses and were eventually required to use them to maximize safety decades ago. Prozac, Lipitor, Flonase and about 30% of upcoming new pharmaceutical drugs are PFAS, so they aren't going away completely, because society has determined that they are valuabl…

What about we first find out how much of it is actually toxic (which seems rather 1/1000th of current official numbers) and then start using them in processes which actually respects that? It still doesn't cover accumulation in bodies over time though.

You don't gain any longterm competitive advantage by poisoning half of your population, giving them wonderful cancers, infertility, massive amount of birth defects etc. You just destroy society and bankrupt medical insurance.

This isn't some economics and plying with abstract numbers, these are people out there and messing this up badly will have massive negative impacts for many generations.

Re: Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims

#39

Post by phkahler »

politician wrote: post #32
wmeredith wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Justice served would be jail time for execs or a corporate death penalty. Levying a fine means it's just a cost of doing business. And a billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket for these massive multinational corporations that have been in business for decades.

> a corporate death penalty So, no more Kevlar for police protection? The problem with the idea of a corporate death penalty is that it would shutter the corporation, shock the supply chain for critical materials, terminate the employment of thousands of people, and devastate their communities (e.g. because employees have families and those families consume food and stuff from the local economy which, in turn, suppor…

Nah, the assets would be auctioned off. The shareholders would be screwed. But the employees would largely stick around and do stuff under new ownership. It would still be a shock, but after a few of these you'd see investors not willing to allow that kind of thing to happen because it's a huge financial risk to them. Not a great solution, but also not as ruinous as you might think. Companies shouldn't be "too big to fail" and most aren't.
Post reply on HN