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3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

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Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#91

Post by pizlonator »

bravoetch wrote: post #46
bcrosby95 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty shitty response to an actual problem. Companies don't need to prove the safety of things like this. Look at bpa free. Most people don't even know that bpa free plastic tends to be just as bad, or potentially worse than bpa. The press doesn't give a shit I guess. Society went through its giant bpa panic and now it's tired of dealing with this so let's just ignore it and move onto the next thing. Ignora…

You're okay with companies not being responsible, but you want the press to help you out here? I feel the opposite. Companies should be responsible for poisoning us, and the press has zero to do with it.

I don’t think that the problem some posters are alluding to is the kind where we should be placing blame.

The problem is:

- Humans invent something useful and cool.

- Humans discover that the cool and useful thing is toxic as fuck, but only after years go by. It takes years for the awareness of the toxicity to become widespread enough for everyone to concur it’s a problem. Often, we only find out about the toxicity as a result of the cool chemical becoming hella widespread.

- Humans invent alternatives that are different enough to obviously not have the same exact problem.

But: what toxic nonsense or buttcancer risks will we discover about the alternatives? No way to know immediately since it takes years to find out. And it’s only when the alternatives become widespread that we can even do the science to figure out what’s up. And by the time they become widespread, some folks got buttcancer.

That’s the problem: just because there’s an alternative that is different from the thing we found out to be toxic doesn’t meant that the alternative isn’t toxic. And we find out it’s toxic because people get hurt.

It’s not that the press is bad… it’s just a fundamental problem in science and engineering. You need scale to discover the really bad issues.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#92

Post by FollowingTheDao »

ok_dad wrote: post #67
pcurve wrote: post #9

The chemicals in question are of type PFAS and believe it or not, they're still legal to use today, though they're being phased out and banned in a few years. The problem is 3M scientists have know toxicity to human and have withheld the information to the public and regulators. Since 1970s.

Oh boy, this PFAS stuff makes me feel bad because I recall using aqueous film forming foam as deck washing liquid in the Navy. AFFF contains a lot of PFAS, I found out a while ago. We just thought it was a good cleaner. I wonder if I’ll have any personal medical issues from dealing with that stuff in my youth?

I would get frequent colonoscopies...

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#93

Post by sneak »

pcurve wrote: post #9

The chemicals in question are of type PFAS and believe it or not, they're still legal to use today, though they're being phased out and banned in a few years. The problem is 3M scientists have know toxicity to human and have withheld the information to the public and regulators. Since 1970s.

I still walk into high end restaurants that put water resistant cardboard straws covered in PFAs into my drink.

Sometimes I send them back and ask for another; always I remove the straw quickly.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#94

Post by Ekaros »

hgsgm wrote: post #69
CameronNemo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shareholders shouldn't just get zeroed. There should be a clawback of profits made by 3M since the 1970s. Raid my 401k -- someone has to pay.

Taking the L out of Limited Liability Corporation. If you paid $100 for a share after the damage was done, who should pay? You, or the shareholder who sold to you?

Both?

Just track everyone who has ever owned a share and confiscate their whole property.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#95

Post by tclancy »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #42
rob-olmos wrote: post #21

3M is also in another lawsuit for defective earplugs supplied to the US military: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/3m-ea... Additional info: https://www.millerandzois.com/products-liability/3m-combat-a...

The difference in harm between these two transgressions is a few orders of magnitude at least.

I think the idea is suggesting a problem at the corporate culture level.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#96

Post by dylan604 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #64
dylan604 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely though. Nobody would want to buy the company whole as that would include all of this liability. Selling of the individual parts to raise funds for paying the debts of the unsold parts of the business entering bankruptcy seems like the only way to go

Breaking it up doesn't change the liability post bankruptcy.

I didn't say it removed the liability of the company. It just means that the company that is left after selling off its profitable assets has the burden of the liability but with nothing but literal toxic assets. They can use the proceeds of the sales to start paying down the debts.

The assets sold would obviously not be the toxic assets.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#97

Post by s1artibartfast »

dylan604 wrote: post #96
s1artibartfast wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking it up doesn't change the liability post bankruptcy.

I didn't say it removed the liability of the company. It just means that the company that is left after selling off its profitable assets has the burden of the liability but with nothing but literal toxic assets. They can use the proceeds of the sales to start paying down the debts. The assets sold would obviously not be the toxic assets.

See my response to the sibling post for Clarity on what I mean.

The nature of the liability depends on what is being sold off and the terms of the bankruptcy settlement

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#98

Post by missedthecue »

jeff-davis wrote: post #88

If the chemicals are bad, and everywhere, we need a reaction time faster than 50 years. For new inventions (not well-known issues), it would be far better to be fast-reacting and no-fault rather than slow-reacting with vengeance. Run studies as the use of the chemicals scales up and start raising warnings early so the company has time to collect more information and adapt formulas or applications. As the costs become…

Sometimes it's not possible to get fast reaction times. If I were the first person to invent asbestos, I could use it for the next 20 or 30 years and not get any symptoms. But of course we know in hindsight it is highly carcinogenic.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#99

Post by sneak »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #68
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always amazed that in cases like this nobody gets crazy and try to get justice themselves. There are so many guns in the US, and we hear about rogue snipers and school shooters, but never about one guy that decided a CEO should pay for his bad deeds in blood. Maybe it shows that the average human being is quite stable and peaceful?

Vigilante justice died down with the phase out of leaded gasoline. One of the effects of people not being so violent and impulsive anymore is that people are not so violent and impulsive anymore

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#100

Post by youreincorrect »

NickC25 wrote: post #47
gwright wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because nationalized industries/companies have a wonderful track record of environmental concern and practices? I'm not sure what the solution is to these problems (or this particular problem) but "nationalizing" producers certainly isn't one of them. Destroying 3M isn't one either. I don't understand the approach to difficult problems that starts with thinking "the government" is effectively a magic wand.

I'm not saying nationalized companies are great. I'm saying that if a company engages in such deceptive practices with materials that they know are toxic, and they fail to disclose that to the relevant parties (the government, and the people), they have no business being in business, as they are effectively externalizing the risk their products put on the rest of us. Destroying the company is not the best idea, but t…

> Destroying the company is not the best idea, but there has to be a line society has to draw and be vigilant about defending it.

Why is it not the best idea? It's a great idea. Fine them more money and let them go bankrupt. Let companies that did not go under for such awful practices pick up the pieces. Why is bankruptcy acceptable for Kmart but not 3M? Be specific, no nonsense about how they are the only company in existence ever capable of creating some mysterious chemical yet also only have a $50B market capitalization (if their chemicals were so rare, impossible to produce, and highly sought after, market cap would be higher).

> The taxpayer CAN NOT be the one to be on the hook for corporate misdeeds time and time again.

I don't understand. You think the taxpayer cannot be on the hook, yet you also think we are obligated to bail out the business by nationalizing it? What do you think nationalizing a business entails? It would literally place the taxpayer on the hook for that business. Nationalizing it would not imply any guarantee the business remains profitable, and future losses would be owned by the public.

I do agree that execs should be punished more severely though. We are absolutely on the same page there. And I don't care if the current execs are not the original execs responsible. As far as I can tell, they've allowed the problem to continue if not get worse.

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