saveferris

2 tahun yang laludiscuss

But, this decision didn't take those powers from Congress. It took those powers from federal agencies. Congress empowers the agencies, yes. But, Congress also deferred any technical decisioning to the agencies. Those agencies are filled with actual experts who are fully committed to their field. Now, the court just said that those experts aren't the right place to enforce anything but judges are.

saveferris

2 tahun yang laludiscuss

Today it is. While not the existential threat to the US that communism/China are or perceived to be, Japan was very much a threat to the US in the 80s/90s. All kinds of concerns not just about the car market but manufacturing in general, how much real estate Japan owned, how much treasuries Japan owned, etc,

I know a few people who lost their collective minds when a Japanese guy bought Pebble Beach. Turned out to be a terrible move on his part.

Japan was very much a threat to the US back then. Maybe more perceived than reality but a lot of the same rhetoric/narrative you see today about China, was Japan vs the US back then.

saveferris

2 tahun yang laludiscuss

I understand and generally agree with your sentiment but people are safer. Violent crime is down substantially since 2001 and even more since 1990s.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-...

Supisingly, so are motor vehicle thefts. Though, they are on the rise since the pandemic.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/191213/reported-motor-ve...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/191216/reported-motor-ve...

So, KPI wise you can make an argument that it is effective. I may not agree with that argument in that we (USA) spend a lot of money and impose a lot of restrictions on the general population to get there.

Crime has always been a "the sky is falling" kind of a thing even if it's literally one crime. We are more safe than we were in 2001 by any objective measure, whether or not that is "safe enough" is going to be different for everyone...

saveferris

2 tahun yang laludiscuss

Off the top of my head.... -How was the labor sourced for those services? -Child Labor, illegal immigrant labor? -What are the working conditions for the labor?, is it sweatshop -what inputs go into the goods/services? -what do they do with their waste? -where do the inputs come from? My country, another country, my town, a town in my state...

you may think the government plays a role to enforce some of these, and they do to a point...

You can go on in your own head about all the things behind that simple exchange of money for something. If it's a perfectly competitive market sure, that may work but there aren't many if any markets in the US that are that level of competitive.

A personal anecdote for you. My uncle owns an auto parts re-manufacturer, so they rebuild car parts and sell them. I worked there a lot growing up. The normal input is buying "cores" from service stations....your starter motor isn't working and you get a new one, that old one is sold to someone like my uncle who refurbs it.

Often we had people come by with very clearly stolen parts....should we have just exchanged money for those? This ranged from a tweaker who would show up with one part, to full scale organized theft rings with pallets of parts...

So, do we buy those since the price is much, much better? There is a an ethical decision there...

saveferris

2 tahun yang laludiscuss

You can look at it like this... They jury was concerned about the speech by the think tank. They don't want anyone else to have to suffer through it. The plaintiff though didn't have actual monetary damages from it, but you and me might have.

The jury is signaling, stronly, that this type of speech isn't allowed and should be punished. The fact that it happened to someone who wasn't monetarily harmed much by it isn't relevant but let's put a high bar out there to deter anyone else from this type of speech towards people who could be damaged.

The way the laws work it is really the only thing they could do if they believed the defendant's speech is harmful.

That's how I read into the monetary awards...

saveferris

2 tahun yang laludiscuss

So, I think you are correct. The jury messed up, wasn't explained to properly, etc. There are thresholds on how much punitive damages can be awarded and they are some multiple of the other damages...this one is more than that.

The reasons were...."....after finding that the pair made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.”

So, the jury found that they made statements that were willfully intended to harm someone - they were deliberate to inflict harm. They found that the actual harm wasn't much in monetary terms but decided to levy a large punitive award to signal to others not to do this and punish the two that did.

That makes sense. You have to prove actual damages, either the plaintff didn't try to or were unsuccessful...so $1 and then a larger amount to punish the behavior and deter others from doing it.

saveferris

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

They can be fired but if so the school is still on the hook for paying out the rest of their contract....so, maybe easy to do but painful financially.

Football coach but the same principles apply: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/12/jimbo-fisher-buyout/

saveferris

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

And it's not like it hasnt been known for a long time how dangerous silica can be. I worked in a chemical manufacturing plant as an engineering intern in the 80s, at a plant that made marine coatings. One of the products contained silica as an ingredient. The precautions that went into the production of that product were crazy, workers entering the area had to wear what amounted to space suits with full respirators. I vividly recall putting these suits on any time we had to do any work in that production area.

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