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U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

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Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#241

Post by SoftTalker »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #68
SoftTalker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why would they want to fund a group that calls them out for taking deadly shortcuts to save money?

How does a massive chemical accident, or explosion that destroys a manufacturing facility, creating huge civil liability, "save money?" Or why they wouldn't want to learn from the mishaps of others to avoid massively costly accidents themselves.

TFA says the chemical industry supports the mission and role of the CSB. It's trivially cheap in the scope of the whole industry, so they could just support it themselves.

The CSB isn't a regulator. They don't write rules or impose fines. They investigate accidents, identify causes, and things that could have been done to prevent the accidents.

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#242

Post by CSMastermind »

c0nducktr wrote: post #116
CSMastermind wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's simply no balancing the budget without both raising taxes and cutting social services. We should, of course, be efficient with our money. Any dollar we can save is a good thing but until I hear someone talk about raising taxes and cutting social spending I'm not going to take serious the idea that we're trying to balance the budget.

What social spending do you want to cut?

Social security, Medicare, and Medicaid are ~60% of the federal budget.

Interest payments are another ~15% and there's no way to reduce those.

You could cut literally every penny of the rest of the budget, including all of defense, all of transportation, all of education, and every single program being discussed here. We'd still have a deficit.

So unless a politician is going to propose a way to spend less on those three programs, then they're not talking seriously about reducing our deficit.

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#243

Post by esbranson »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #225

Hot take: The United states of america MAGA movement wants to compete with taliban in turning their countries 500 or even 900 years back. Who will win? Not really sure. Its a touch and go situation and it can turn any either way and emerge as the winner

We're getting reset to modern Europe: there is no equivalent to the US CSB in any major European country. France's BEA-RI is not independent, and the CSB is not EPA or OSHA. I'm always amazed how little commenters know about the US, and deeply saddened by how much less they know about others.

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#244

Post by andrewflnr »

fallingknife wrote: post #143
andrewflnr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock market tracks short term profits; most stock buyers are also short-termers. Profits that could have been had but were not, due to shortsighted decisions, are hard to measure and don't usually make the news. Similar for companies that slowly hollow out, or get killed by newer companies still in their market-building phases before they start turning the screws.

It's not just hard to measure, it's unfalsifiable nonsense.

You can just watch it happen. Companies cut quality and ruin their reputation, or shrink from new markets due to fear of cannibalizing themselves, among other ways to sacrifice long term profit. There's a reasonable debate about how predominant it is in the economy, but not about whether it happens.

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#245

Post by monkeyelite »

bravesoul2 wrote: post #159
monkeyelite wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying this thing is here so it must be important is not governance or wisdom. Just say why it’s a good idea.

That is not the lesson of chestertons fence. What you describe is cargo cult. Chesterton fence says "stop! think". What doge and Trump are doing is destroying stuff they don't understand.

How do you know that?

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#246

Post by immibis »

Jensson wrote: post #205
throw0101c wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what's stopping the American people from voting smart people with engineering degrees to power instead of lying loud mouth conmen? The fact that people vote at all. Running for office is a risky endeavour: you have to take time off from your job to actually run, with a decent chance of not winning. How many employers would be willing to give you a leave of absence to do this? Further, if you happen to lose your…

> Law is probably one field where one can hop in and out easily, so it's why we have so many lawyers go into politics Only in USA, the rest of the world doesn't see lawyers flock to politics. It seems more like there is some corruption that makes lawyers mingle so much with politicians and they scratch each others backs, otherwise why would it be so much more lawyers in politics in USA than any other country? People…

It's not lawyers that flock to politics but most politicians have law backgrounds because that's what you need to know to become a politician

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#247

Post by monkeyelite »

garte wrote: post #183
monkeyelite wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is just metaphysics I would call it having a baseline understanding of organizations and media. > Can you find examples of a biased reports on CSB's youtube channel? Yes? Can you not? The top video in this thread, “safety pays off“ highlights their successes and does not discuss their failures or costs. So yes that video was designed to make their organization appear in the best light possible.

So you would subtract their failures from their successes and make some sort of calculation about its usefulness from that? The world doesn't work like that. Objectively, it doesn't.

No. If I heard a proposal to remove them I would want to hear the reasons why or why not rather than assuming that they are an absolute good for society.

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#248

Post by monkeyelite »

ordu wrote: post #212
monkeyelite wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is just metaphysics I would call it having a baseline understanding of organizations and media. > Can you find examples of a biased reports on CSB's youtube channel? Yes? Can you not? The top video in this thread, “safety pays off“ highlights their successes and does not discuss their failures or costs. So yes that video was designed to make their organization appear in the best light possible.

> The top video in this thread, “safety pays off“ highlights their successes and does not discuss their failures or costs. So yes that video was designed to make their organization appear in the best light possible. Oh, yes, you are right, it is a bias. But this bias tells us nothing about objectivity of CSB investigations and recommendations. It tells us nothing about the objectivity you had objected to.

Is your position that they create unbiased reports? Just straight up truth making machine?

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#249

Post by sorcerer-mar »

no_wizard wrote: post #61
lumost wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every organization is dysfunctional, the only question is whether its more functional than the alternative. This applies to private enterprises (metaverse anyone?) as well as the government. After 50+ years of budget cuts, what makes us think that the solution is more budget cuts?

The US political establishment, particularly at rhetoric federal level, has become a “whims of the in charge” bureaucracy that can’t fulfill itself to the point that every day Americans feel their impact - positive or negative.

Or, like good design, a decent bureaucracy is invisible.

Re: U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

#250

Post by gottorf »

lumost wrote: post #39
gottorf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> public institutions of enormous importance A case of the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater, I suppose. And make no mistake: there was enough dirty bathwater to go around.

Every organization is dysfunctional, the only question is whether its more functional than the alternative. This applies to private enterprises (metaverse anyone?) as well as the government. After 50+ years of budget cuts, what makes us think that the solution is more budget cuts?

> After 50+ years of budget cuts, what makes us think that the solution is more budget cuts?

What 50+ years of budget cuts? US federal expenditure per capita has been steadily rising for decades, with a gargantuan explosion during Covid and steeply climbing thereafter.

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