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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (648430)	3/21/2012 12:49:02 AM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1580442

>> and businesses without federal oversight would pollute our air and water at the expense of profits....remember asbestos Translation: "I am out of arguments on the last subject so how about we change to another?" Okay, fine. What you have to understand is fundamentally a fact of life: Markets are not good at controlling pollution, that is a fact. But government is far worse. Just look at the list of government blunders in this arena. Dangerous compact florescent bulbs replace a safer alternative. Government mandates the use of fire-retardant chemicals in infant clothing, only to find several years later it is a carcinogen, requiring manufacturers to dump millions of chemically treated items. Government mandates abandonment of coal-fired electricity plants only to later demand they change back to their previous ("polluting") fuels (courtesy M. Friedman). Pollution is a problem that is difficult for markets to deal with. But it is even more difficult for government to deal with, and government is inherently bad at it. So, there you go. The markets do fail in dealing with pollution. But you do not improve the situation to have government get involved. I've intentionally left the rather obvious [recent, Obama] examples until the end. The Chevy Volt, an abject failure, and "Cash for Clunkers". Both are examples of government involving itself at the behest of the Obama admninistration, and which have ended up costing the taxpayers large sums of money with no apparent benefit, and in the case of "Cash for Clunkers", with substantial harm being done.