441–450 of 542 posts
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that nobody tries to cut granite on site with an angle grinder. It's so difficult because the material is so hard. Granite countertops are typically cut off-site with a waterjet, which creates zero dust.
I wonder why those parts are not made in the desired shape already with no need to cut or sand in place.
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Murder risk is negligible though. Especially if you aren’t directly involved in crime.
Murder risk is negligible because we do things about it. My house has never burned down, therefor firemen, smoke alarms, and extinguishers are a scam. Got it.
You conflated the two.
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Lobbying and bribery are not the same at all. Equivocating them severely downplays the seriousness of bribery. Lobbying means someone is trying to influence the government through things as simple as advertising campaigns. Those exist in AU.
Advertising is PR, not lobbying. Lobbying often involves implicit or explicit offers of campaign funding, PAC support/opposition, and gifts that skirt the edge of what is legally bribery.
Without any funding to the politician involved, a lobbyist’s job is to convince the politician of voting a particular way.
A sleazy lobbyist may try money in indirect ways for/against the politician, but a regular one will try to raise awareness through advertising and public pressure. It’s all lobbying.
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You mean up, right? Forcing demand into a product drives the price up.
Only short-term unless the supply is static.
The only exception is if producers are already selling at essentially the marginal cost of production for the whole industry. This scenario is extremely rare, especially in base materials.
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Criminal liability is not “let the market forces duke it out” in any meaningful sense.
That's exactly what it is. Criminal liability is a deterrent model with a very high bar that is usually used when other mechanisms are not scalable. The number of people determined to be criminally liable in a country like Australia for a labor offense is going to be very small and focused on the absolute worst offenders years after the offense.
Criminal liability is a massive government intervention which is the exact opposite of allowing market forces to decide.
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Makes sense, this kind of work can have an extremely “toxic” anti-ppe culture that’s impossible to mitigate against without outright burning the industry to the ground. Fines and inspections are easy to dodge when everyone involved is trying to do so. Hell I work in agronomy and it’s hard enough getting seasonal helpers to wear earplugs when riding ATVs all day. Then there was an old supervisor from a former oil chan…
I work in the construction industry. We have about 1:10 ratio of “supervision” to contractors. Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle. We kick about 1 person off site permanently, every day for something egregiously dumb. The contractor just sends them to another job. And of all the places I’ve worked, my current employer is one of the best, takes it very seriously.
My response was "No, Carl — they're sound dampeners SO I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR CONSTANT BITCHING SO MUCH."
Old journeyman immediately took me under his wing, and we were inseparable (he even would wear PPE around me). I learned much from this "kind" old curmudgeon.
Why the machismo exists in construction, I'll never know — just as many former co-workers will never understand how I was one of them, once.
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Criminal liability is not “let the market forces duke it out” in any meaningful sense.
Your comments puts cheaper kitchen tables above potential lifelong worker health issues. No amount of 'criminal liability' will bring back loved ones.
It’s a judgement about the stupid location the law was applied when it could have been applied somewhere else, achieved the same short term effect, but then would have incentivized solutions to the problem.
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Criminal liability is not “let the market forces duke it out” in any meaningful sense.
in capitalism, criminal liability is still a cost.
You’re likely thinking of civil infractions.
Dad worked for the federal government in the Canadian Coast Guard for 35 years. He worked in ship engine rooms or on barges but also had odd jobs like painting. One job was to make boiler filters. He had to use a fluffy powder to make big "patties" flat filters. The powder had asbestos in it.
The I in IPF is idiopathic as in "don't know" but I'd say it was the filter powder. So even federal level there are terrible PPE policies or lack of enforcement. I'm sure Dad was under peer pressure or pressured into not caring or toughing it out type of attitude among his co-workers.
It's very much worth reading the full reasoning within the SafeWork decision (page 56): https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/202... SafeWork's view is that the industry is too much of a non-compliant mess to recommend any other option apart from a complete ban.