What a well-written piece. She sounds exactly like a person who "...finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything"
Developing economies purchase a lot from the west. Germany and Japan have export-oriented stances because their local markets are developed to the point that local growth is slow...
I was just reading a book called "The First Indians" by Tony Joseph in which they were discussing an ultra-conserved word "tul" which means "to push" in literally all Dravidian languages.
It took on the meaning "to write" in Mesopotamia, because writing cuneiform required "pushing" the stylus into the soft clay.
They use this difference in meaning (along with genetic and archeological research) to date the separation of cultures.
They are under no obligation to disclose 100% of the composition of their products. Under REACH and ECHA, they might be required to disclose if (IIRC) they export > 1 tonne of the product into the EU. Typical formulations look something like
PFOA was used in the PTFE mfg. process, so we asked for equivalent PTFE formulations that were not mfg. with PFOA. The revenue they get from medical devices was trivial compared to non-medical (waterproofing) applications and accounted for 90% of Regulatory risks, so they often met requests with a "take it or leave it" response.
Given the sclerotic pace at which government agencies move to approve changes of magnitude, and given the MASSIVE testing burden required, this effectively meant "take it".
The manufacturers would not disclose it to us beyond it was "not-PFOA", but they did agree to disclose it to the FDA upon request.
The application requires a small, inert molecule, which PFOA was, in spades. They simply made a slightly different small molecule that was almost as inert.
Small is a problem because it becomes mobile. Inert is a problem because it doesn't easily break down. Now, instead of having one "forever chemical" we have a host of them in the environment.
Not sure what the right answer is and whether we are actually better off as a result of all that work.
I spent 7 years getting rid of the PFOA-derived chemical across all our product lines. they are super useful, but they cross the placental barrier and have a half-life of 6.5 years or so. They were replaced by not-PFOA chemicals that had similar chemical properties so not sure that it did a whole lot of good in the long run.
At a fundamental level, we seem to have lost our sense of what Democracy means.
The rules are "I can think you are crass, wrong, bigoted, geriatric, etc., but if a majority of my countrymen think otherwise, we accept we are not successful in the battle of ideas, and fight another battle of ideas in 4 years". Unless this is a lone, unstable individual, it is more evidence that our system needs more balance.
Here is a link to the opinion so you can read the rationale behind the decision. I have not made it through the whole document yet, but here're some of the points I noted.
From the opinion: The President has duties of “unrivaled gravity and breadth.” ... His authority to act necessarily “stem[s] either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.” ... When the President exercises such authority, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions.
A little later, they go on to say: "As for a President’s unofficial acts, there is no immunity. Although Presidential immunity is required for official actions to ensure that the President’s decision making is not distorted by the threat of future litigation stemming from those actions, that concern does not support immunity for unofficial conduct"
They have sent the case back down to lower courts to determine whether the acts were official (in which case he has immunity) or not (in which case, the prosecution must prove that the acts were not official).
Great rhetorical question, but do consider these points:
1. we ask everyone to do their individual jobs. In a soldier's case, loss of life is a job hazard. In the President's case, making tough decisions that could kill soldiers and civilians is a job hazard
2. The assassination rate for US Presidents is 8.7% (4/46 Presidents were assassinated).
3. There were 1,922 US combat deaths in Afghanistan (ref 1) and at the peak of the war, there were 100,000 troops there (ref 2). If you ignore all the other years of deployment, a US soldier's death risk in Afghanistan was 1.9%
Numbers are hard when they go against our intuition, but every US President is taking a comparable risk to being a soldier according to these numbers.
Obama took the risk of being a President while Black
Trump took the risk of being a President while Orange
I take your point, but quick action is occasionally necessary. Presidents knowing that their actions could be second guessed are more likely to use the minimum force needed to achieve an objective.
I don't know that I agree with your first line (in which case all hiring managers would end up with essentially indistinguishable outcomes), but I want to address the next 2 paragraphs.
"Best" being a subset of "good" is not some obscure fallacy; but well recognized by HR departments. For the purposes of most jobs one hires for, they are well aware that Persons A and B are likely fungible quantities (and, also, why the impersonal word "resources" is in their very job function). We hire for demonstrated work ethic, ambition, the ability to deal with adversity, and work track record, rather than skin tone, genitalia, sexuality, handicaps, etc. Foreseeably, we end up matching (more or less) the demographics of the population we source from.
Being fallible humans, we absolutely do have blind spots in our hiring process; something we fight hard to correct for. I concede it is entirely possible that some experience a diverse person has had might some day become useful, but I am skeptical that similar experiences don't exist in most candidate slates. I am obviously overstating this for effect, but we have never done a lessons learned session and said "damn, if only we had hired a black lesbian quadriplegic, instead of John Smith, we would have succeeded at our task".
We hire those we perceive to be the best match from our slate of candidates. Some of these people are women, some are old, some are variously pigmented, but all of them can do the job they were hired for.
As with most things, it can be more nuanced than your comment suggests.
At the time this chemical was introduced, the hazards were not known to science. Over the decades, scientists began outlining the effects of this chemical on humans and the environment.
Once industry was able to study those findings and convince ourselves that this was a real problem, we adapted our operations to mitigate those harms.
Most industries in the US work pretty hard to keep our employees and environments safe, for self preservation, if for nothing else. I breathe the same air as my employees do, after all.
Most regulatory agencies are aware that dangerous chemicals have legitimate uses. The problem statement is how to balance those uses against the known hazards. They (mostly) find a sensible balance, but sometimes, they get taken over by leaders who push it too far in one direction or another. Overturning Chevron allows adjudication to reset the balance and that should be seen as a good thing.
It is even more important to note that the relationship between Companies and Regulators is not always confrontational. Our interests align more often than not (anecdote below). However, regulators occasionally overstep, and this decision allows Companies to challenge such oversteps.
I once ran a chemical plant and we partnered with the state to reduce emissions to single-digit parts per billion levels (from parts per million). They were completely aware that this was a difficult problem to solve, expensive, and technically challenging. They worked with us to get this done in a space of a couple of years, and we quickly reached a point where we could proudly state that we made a difference to my employees and our surrounding community.
When you don't have to pay for something it is easy to ask for more, and an agency led by a partisan could easily do so. Having the ability to challenge this allows us to push back in a structured way.