831–840 of 894 posts
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You're not really describing fast fashion, aren't you?
No I am describing "modern closing", as in GP post.
and the ones usually making it outside of the EU are tied to large European corps.
"I eat apples grown down the street, so EU apple law is bad"
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Man, I really can't see your point. And so...?
Try opening your eyes.
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> include and involve the military, insurance giants, large food security/supply chain companies like Cargill, reactor companies, big enterprise customers that want rapid energy growth, and all the other major sectors that take climate change and energy expansion seriously and will get value out of a more stable world, with better energy technology in practical terms. The people that CEOs respect Oh yeah let the corp…
I am talking about getting support for regulations or even law that constrain damage. Maybe you didn’t read what I wrote? Thats not more market “freedom”. To make big changes, good changes, you do need both widespread grassroots support, and the cooperation and competencies of big players. The military has labeled climate change a global destabilizer for years. Insurance companies and farmers are dealing with the fal…
This is the part I strongly doubt. Well, not the competence exactly. But the motives. These people don't make their own decisions, they do what the board and shareholders want. And all they want is money. It's the only thing that counts for them. So the only solution is making these externalities have a cost. Business won't collaborate on that because it's only a negative for them.
I don't believe in public/private collaboration anymore. In Holland that was tried way too long.
> The military has labeled climate change a global destabilizer for years. Insurance companies and farmers are dealing with the fallout already.
Yet they continue to run full steam to meddle in oil-producing countries. I doubt they will keep this climate change classification up anyway as it is directly in contradiction to the dogmas of the current administration.
Makes sense. It’s already illegal to even attempt to commit suicide here, so compared to that, this is just another small way the state micromanages your entire life. Sarcasm aside, I wonder if they calculated how much we save by not trashing these items, versus the cost in time, bureaucracy, and administration this will demand. There is an episode of Freconomics that covered this. Managing and getting rid of free st…
You're confusing being sarcastic with sardonic. It's also a grossly dishonest comparison. > Managing and getting rid of free stuff is very expensive and hard. But that someone else's problem. While I think we deeply disagree with what "hard" means, it does feel like its the kind of cost a reasonable organization would willingly take on. I compare it to the chefs, or restauranteers who after they're done cooking for t…
The general thrust of the underlying messagr is not dishonest just because you say so. The general pattern is that there are degrees of governmental control over people's lives at the core. I don’t think it’s dishonest because my point is that bureaucracy has no limit on what it tries to control given enough time, even though my framing is vulgar.
and should we do stuff to reduce waist and help the environmen? Absolutely!! should we do this? if this worked, it would be a good thing. But if you just want to virtue signal without caring about reality, I think we disagree on more than just definitions.
My reference to "Freakonomics" is a collection of real contradictions to your theory. Since you didn't consider it, here are the expanded findings:
Most of the "recycled" material collected under these new laws is being "downcycled" into insulation, mattress stuffing, or industrial rags—markets that are already saturated and low-value. Reports show these organizations were overwhelmed with low-quality fast fashion that they could not sell. Instead of companies paying to burn it, the charities now had to pay to store or manage it.
The fines are real. France has set fines of up to €15,000 per infraction for companies caught destroying unsold goods. This is why companies are dumping the stock on charities rather than risking the fine. I’m giving how you speak about corporation. I’m guessing you have absolutely no empathy for people who run small single person or small team business and our overwhelmed by all the regulatory traps they can fall into at any point in time.
Then The Freakonomics data (Sanford, Maine case study) showed that when you charge people for trash, they generate less trash, but illegal dumping often spikes, forcing the city to spend more on cleanup patrols.
To pay for this new collection and sorting system, brands pay an "Extended Producer Responsibility" (EPR) fee. In 2025, this fee for textiles in systems like France/Netherlands ranged roughly from €0.12 to €0.50 per kilogram of clothing put on the market. In other words, the cost ultimately falls back on consumers.
So in general, no, I don’t agree at all. I think you are discounting the massive cost to not just corporations but also individuals when it comes to micromanagement. On a second layer, I’m not even against micromanagement, just bad micromanagement, especially micromanagement that is at best naïve regarding effectiveness, and at worst purely virtue signaling.
In short, we should focus on what works, not what you feel is righteously good.
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we are not talking about banning the import of regular products, but about donated or second hand items that are sold for next to nothing, half of which is useless junk. the point is to not allow these inferior imports to undercut local products, not to make any imports more expensive than local ones. the latter happens too, and it's stupid, but just because that is bad, and we should be allowed to sell our products,…
there are people in developing countries where this is a treasure. Trust me, I've been to such countries.
Makes sense. It’s already illegal to even attempt to commit suicide here, so compared to that, this is just another small way the state micromanages your entire life. Sarcasm aside, I wonder if they calculated how much we save by not trashing these items, versus the cost in time, bureaucracy, and administration this will demand. There is an episode of Freconomics that covered this. Managing and getting rid of free st…
Where? According to Wikipedia, suicide is no longer illegal anywhere in Europe.
Cypress was the last placed in Europe to remove laws against suicide in 2021 it seems.
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Do you honestly believe this? Where did you study economics? This regulation is not about scarcity. It is about over abundance. Overproduction is a failure mode in capitalist systems. The market can’t correct for this because negative externalities do not feed back into supply or demand.
Actors in a capitalist system have an incentive to maximize profit. How is it profit-maximizing to pay to produce an item and throw it away unsold? > negative externalities do not feed back into supply or demand. What is the unaccounted externality? Clothing makers pay for material inputs and labor inputs. They pay for transportation. If they discard goods, they pay for more transportation and for the landfill. What…
This may be profit maximizing because it maintains the exclusivity of the brand.
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I am talking about getting support for regulations or even law that constrain damage. Maybe you didn’t read what I wrote? Thats not more market “freedom”. To make big changes, good changes, you do need both widespread grassroots support, and the cooperation and competencies of big players. The military has labeled climate change a global destabilizer for years. Insurance companies and farmers are dealing with the fal…
> Despite growing corruption, there are still competent people in these organizations to work with. This is the part I strongly doubt. Well, not the competence exactly. But the motives. These people don't make their own decisions, they do what the board and shareholders want. And all they want is money. It's the only thing that counts for them. So the only solution is making these externalities have a cost. Business…
That isn't military strategy. That is the politicians choosing oil over alternatives and delegating action accordingly.
The military can warn about the threat of climate change or China's growing technical, manufacturing, scientific and potential AI dominance. But it can't (and shouldn't) set the elected leaders' agenda, or refuse to implement it.
A non-governing military is an anti-corruption firewall.
> This is the part I strongly doubt. Well, not the competence exactly. But the motives
There have been streams of people in power resigning as their particular role gets pinched between corruption or resisting. When that stops, maybe there won't be anyone competent with good motives left. But many people are quietly doing the best they can in the meantime, and hoping for a turnaround in the future.
> And all they want is money.
Yes, for those directly profiting from damage, we are going to have to address that directly if we want to acheive change.
But large segments of the economy are being financially hurt by that damage. So there are many natural allies.
For social media, I think we need some hard laws, to give regulators some teeth. For energy, where the damagers are also value producers (we can't just cut off fossil fuels instantly), whatever financials it takes to straighten that out will result in a net benefit.
People on the right often want companies to be able to do whatever they want, ignoring the damage. People on the left often want to eliminate damage, without any cost. Neither of those viewpoints leads us anywhere but off a cliff.
Boldness here is our friend. The sirens of making little changes, or imagining a big change won't take tremendous coordination or cost something, are mirages.
> I don't believe in public/private collaboration anymore. In Holland that was tried way too long.
That leaves a coupe, which isn't going to produce any improvement. "Tear it down" rarely morphs into building anything. "MAGA" as a soft coupe (democratically elected, undemocratic policies) is a mild example.
It's easy to shoot down the potential for change. But that isn't a plan, a step, or a mindset that has any chance of achieving anything.
Although I 1000% relate to the many reasons we have for cynicism and apathy.
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> you can try to reason with the people who post comments like the one you're responding to, but the truth is they are just there waiting for anything a regulator does to desparage it, defend corporate and capital, and change nothing about the status quo. The worst part is that they do it thinking they are so edgy for knowing exactly why just another piece of regulation will clearly not work. Funnily enough, the EU t…
> These are political disagreements with decades (sometimes centuries) of history, and unless you're fifteen years old, there's a better explanation for the fact that others disagree with you The better explanation is that they have acquired their political tastes mindlessly and are now defending them in an equal manner. The presumption of good faith is wasted on them. > The vast majority of people want what's best f…
That's just assholery masquerading as enlightenment.
> That's incorrect. Just take a look at the housing situation in the US: what's best for society is to build, but a majority of the people (the current owners) are blocking that because it suits them.
Maybe if you call the majority stupid some more, that's famously convincing in a democracy. You'll definitely build sustainable coalitions for the policies you want this way.
Capital loves this kind of left wing politics. Off-putting and impotent.
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By definition externality is not priced in by the market.
Why should I believe an externality exists in this situation? What is the evidence?
Why would you assume it doesn’t based on price when externality by definition is not accounted for in price?