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America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

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Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#91

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

boondongle wrote: post #67
b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #14

It's so convenient that all these people waited until retirement to speak out, but they also said they weren't doing anything wrong? Zero morals by anyone in this story.

It's actually not convenient at all. Consider this: animal study to human study fail all the time. In another world, there could have been NO impact at all to human beings and PFAS could be just another random chemical the body doesn't clear but doesn't actually do anything and sits there inert. I know everyone's pissed about this but the thyroid/other connections stuff happens 10 years later as a result and these ar…

>But you could use the same logic to not make any advancement ever. No antibiotics because it will cause resistance. No chemo because it will cause damage and death.

I understand the argument you are making, and I'm no fan of govt/regulations, but you will notice that often basic testing of toxicity/side effects is missing or the system is gamed.

One example I recently came across: antidepressant drugs are tested on people for around 12 weeks and then labeled safe if there are no side effects or reversible side effects. To summarize: profits overrides and safety concerns.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#92

Post by joe_mamba »

TJSomething wrote: post #75
joe_mamba wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those who sell their souls to the devil don't get to act shocked when they wind up in hell. Which is everyone, since everyone has their pension invested in a giant pool made of of unethical companies that we can't fine, ban or let fail because it would destroy people's retirements who will then vote in an angry way to reverse this, or it will destroy some upstream national important industries that are very well re…

I feel like this supposes a better world where most people are educated, rational, and calm investors with the time, money, and energy to actively manage a diversified portfolio. Or I guess you could get there by abolishing the stock market as it exists, which seems more likely.

[flagged]

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#93

Post by braingravy »

pfdietz wrote: post #71
pessimizer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly. The fact that it is toxic makes it a concern, and the fact that it is a concern means that if you're selling it you should find out yourself about the specifics. It's like saying that you're not responsible for stealing a wallet because you didn't know exactly how much was in it.

Silly? There are plenty of substances that are toxic at high dose and innocuous, or even necessary, at low dose. Examples of the latter are vitamins A and B6. The question of responsibility is of course not what we were talking about, but rather whether the statement "PFAS were known to cause issues" was in fact true. Too often we see possibility of harm being deliberately conflated with actually causing harm. Is it…

The chemical differences between PFAS and vitamin A and B6 are beyond vast.

Comparing them betrays a complete ignorance of the molecular properties that, in combination with biological system processes, make A and B6 healthy at small doses and poisonous at large doses on one hand, and those that makes PFAS linearly poisonous at any given doses on the other. (And yes, you can be exposed to small amounts of toxins and be fine. That doesn’t change the toxicity of a given substance.)

Struggling to see how this could be anything but a bad faith argument.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#94

Post by ryandrake »

kortilla wrote: post #81
mystraline wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine are the cost of doing business... FOR COMPANIES. For individuals: arrest, jail, prison, and horrifically crippling fines are normal. An individual kills 1 person, and its 15y to life. But if youre an 'insurance company' and make policies in abeyance of insurance and arbitrarily deny 30% of claims getting many killed (Luigi says hi), thats perfectly fine. Youre a business leader making lots of money. You steal $1…

[flagged]

> Companies committing fraud do get caught and the penalties are often larger than the fraud brought in.

The problem is, we don't send companies to prison for wrongdoing. It's always just a fine, so breaking the law boils down to a cost x risk / benefit analysis.

Why is it always a fine? Let's invent a prison for companies. Revoke the corporate charter, order it to cease operations, and freeze all trading of the company's shares for N years. Maybe that would be enough for corporate leadership, the board, and shareholders to take wrongdoing seriously.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#95

Post by therealpygon »

dpkirchner wrote: post #61
therealpygon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean that because people take issue with the fact that the EU implements everything in almost the worst and most intrusive way possible? Sorry, you forgot to accept my view conversation cookie and I don’t want to be personally liable because you didn’t, so this response will be cut off in order to

Those cookie banners aren't required for conversations -- a persistent session cookie would be enough (if you don't want to make the user sign in every time). The cookie banner implementation is a burden companies choose to place on themselves (and then to burden their users).

I both agree and disagree, but the banner itself is, and isn’t really the point.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#96

Post by Spooky23 »

kortilla wrote: post #82
deaux wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is definitely different in this particular aspect. The balance of powers in "state vs corporations" is completely different from the US. And China is seeing massive benefits from this particular aspect of its country, it's closely related to their ascension vs. the decline of the US in particular. Before people turn to Reddit-style downvoting and flagging, this isn't a vouch for China as a country on the whole.…

Can you enumerate some of these benefits? They famously arrested Jack Ma for not bending to the CCP enough. I don’t think that’s really a benefit (e.g. if the equivalent in the US was Democrats arresting any CEOa politically against them).

How did Netflix do making a business decision that defied the wishes of the Ellison family? With Trump 47 there are literally pages of this sort of stuff.

Other notable non-Trumpist example is Joseph Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest. He refused to comply with a request for phone records without a warrant. The reaction was a drop in Federal business and a prosecution for insider trading.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#98

Post by Spooky23 »

joe_mamba wrote: post #92
TJSomething wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this supposes a better world where most people are educated, rational, and calm investors with the time, money, and energy to actively manage a diversified portfolio. Or I guess you could get there by abolishing the stock market as it exists, which seems more likely.

[flagged]

I served in an executive role for a non-Federal government organization. Think a senior director, not a political position.

My stock holdings had to be disclosed, and were and still are publicly viewable. They audit them and explore potential conflicts. When I was promoted, I had to justify and certify potential conflicts due to long existing stock holdings of myself and my son, which were subject to monitoring and I was not allowed to participate in certain activities without counsel approval. Even that was only permissible because I asked for specific permission due to the hardship I would face from tax liability. If I hadn’t asked for that permission I could’ve been subjected to a civil penalty or even criminal prosecution.

That’s required for public confidence. The federal rules are stricter. A Federal official can be subject to a fine for displaying a political lawn sign at their home. Their supplemental retirement plan obscures the corporate affiliations of their investments.

Unfortunately, you’re displaying the nihilist, uninformed perspective which put fascists in power. By saying the president is corrupt, but so is everybody else you’re implicitly supporting and endorsing the behavior. That’s what they want.

Choose to educate yourself with better sources.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#99

Post by ProllyInfamous »

echelon wrote: post #15

I drive through Dalton anytime I visit Chattanooga (a cool hipster city on the border of Georgia and Tennessee). The scale of manufacturing there is wild. There are so many factories. Dalton makes something like 70-80% of the carpet in the world. They've had carpet factories there since I was a kid, but they're starting to expand into lots of other industries. They've begun massively ramping up on solar panel product…

I live in Chattanooga; it's wild to me that the City of Dalton maintain$ thousands of acres of public land simply to spray above-surface "treated" [PFS-containing] effluent "water," primarily generated by their carpeters. Why doesn't (e.g.) Shaw Manufacturing do this, directly (they do all the usual tax offsetting to not just answer "they pay taxes!" IMHO).

This "treatment land" is literally adjacent to a river, which flows into Alabama... and becomes multiple other MSA's drinking supply. This interstate conflict is what first brought PFAs to national attention. Thank god it doesn't flow to my watersource, but that's naïve thinking it doesn't carryover in the winds, waters, fauna.

----

>The scale of manufacturing there is wild.

It's primarily due to two things: lack of regulations (see: PFAs), subpar compensation (our "right to work" Southern Pride). There are practically no local IT jobs (handful of poorly-compensated churners), and most of the tech-elite around here work from home (25gbps fiber, asynch, to your door).

Volkswagon has silo'd their third-shift as we brace for the inevitable economy we deserve.

Re: America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy

#100

Post by derriz »

pessimizer wrote: post #57
derriz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people extol the virtues of manufacturing, I’m always reminded of the poll where 80% of Americans say that the country would benefit from a bigger manufacturing base but only 25% are interested in actually working in manufacturing. This isn’t an American thing btw - I’ve had arguments with brits and others who argue passionately that the country has been destroyed by the relative decline in manufacturing but whe…

> I’m always reminded of the poll where 80% of Americans say that the country would benefit from a bigger manufacturing base but only 25% are interested in actually working in manufacturing. This is a silly statistic that manipulative people drag out to imply the answer that they want. If you asked people who work in factories right at this second, 75% of them would say that they didn't want to work in a factory. If…

You know nothing of my friends.

Have you ever worked in a factory? I find the people most enthusiastic about manufacturing are the ones least likely to have stood at a station in a factory performing manufacturing "work" - the vast majority of which is mind-numbingly boring and repetitive yet with minimal opportunities for passing the time with idle social interaction or chit-chat. Of all the non-professional work I've done, it was easily the least enjoyable. Even if it paid a bit less and demanded more physically, unskilled construction work was enjoyable in comparison. Even kitchen portering provided more stimulation - at least there was plenty of social interaction. This romanticization of factory work is weird.

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