How much control should the nanny state have on our business visionaries?

[basilio]

Now we are in Trump time with the expectations that business in the US will be cut free of the shackles of the nanny state,

So what could such a light handed approach look like in a few years time ? Perhaps we should consider the China approach of a light touch on industry as a case study.

Shanghai water supply hit by 100-tonne wave of garbage
Ships are suspected of dumping waste upstream on China’s Yangtze river before it floats into a key city reservoir



A tourist surrounded by rubbish on a beach in China. The country has struggled to contain environmental pollution during its long economic boom. Photograph: Feature China / Barcroft Media
Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong

Friday 23 December 2016 06.46 GMT Last modified on Friday 23 December 2016 06.48 GMT


Medical waste, broken bottles and household trash are some of the items found in more than 100 tonnes of garbage salvaged near a drinking water reservoir in Shanghai.

The suspected culprits are two ships that have been dumping waste upstream in the Yangtze river. It has then flowed downstream to the reservoir on Shanghai’s Chongming island which is also home to 700,000 people.

The reservoir at the mouth of the river is one of the four main sources of drinking water for the country’s largest city, according to local media.

China has struggled with air, soil and water pollution for years during its economic boom, with officials often protecting industry and silencing citizens that complain. China’s cities are often blanketed in toxic smog, while earlier this year more than 80% of water wells used by farms, factories and rural households was found to be unsafe for drinking because of pollution.

...
Earlier this year more than 500 students developed nosebleeds, rashes and illnesses, some as severe as leukaemia, in what local media linked to illegal toxic dumping by chemical factories.


Although parents complained for months, local officials ignored their claims and disputed any connection despite levels of chlorobenzene, a highly toxic solvent that causes damage to the liver, kidney and nervous system, nearly 100,000 times above the safe limit.


The country’s air pollution has been shown to contribute to more than 1 million deaths a year, linked to about a third of deaths in China’s major cities.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/23/shanghai-water-supply-hit-by-100-tonne-wave-of-garbage

 

[basilio]

And while we are at it perhaps another view of how China is coping with the effects of a business first policy.

Smog refugees flee Chinese cities as 'airpocalypse' blights half a billion
Thousands head to pollution-free regions as haze descends on the country’s northern industrial heartland

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Severe toxic smog blankets Beijing and China’s industrial heartland
Tom Phillips in Beijing

Wednesday 21 December 2016 10.05 GMT First published on Wednesday 21 December 2016 04.19 GMT


Tens of thousands of “smog refugees” have reportedly fled China’s pollution-stricken north after the country was hit by its latest “airpocalyse” forcing almost half a billion people to live under a blanket of toxic fumes.

Huge swaths of north and central China have been living under a pollution “red alert” since last Friday when a dangerous cocktail of pollutants transformed the skies into a yellow and charcoal-tinted haze.

Greenpeace claimed the calamity had affected a population equivalent to those of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined with some 460m people having to breathe either hazardous pollution or heavy levels of smog in recent days.

A picture from Henan province, showing more than 400 students sitting an exam on a football pitch after their school was forced to close, was widely circulated on social media:

Lauri Myllyvirta, a Beijing-based Greenpeace activist who has been chronicling the red alert on Twitter, said that in an attempt to shield his lungs he was avoiding going outside and using two air purifiers and an industrial grade dust mask “that makes me look like Darth Vader”.

“You just try to insulate yourself from the air as much as possible,” said Myllyvirta, a coal and air pollution expert.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...cities-as-airpocalypse-blights-half-a-billion

( I can't seem to find the quote function on the new keys ? What symbol is it please ?)

 

[moXJO]

Communist China has a lack of state control
No they have an overabundance of corrupt officials.

 

[wayneL]

Bas we might have much more in common than you might think, outside of the politicized climate issue.

It is a shame that purportedly "anthropogenic climate change" detracts so much from this issue you mention, inter alia.

 

[SirRumpole]

More regulation -> Less risk takers -> less services -> more expensive services.

Less regulation -> more services -> cheaper services -> more competition -> more cost cutting -> exploitation of workforce -> exploitation of consumers -> environmental damage.

Take your pick of what is important to society/government and adjust the regulation accordingly.

 

[Tisme]

More regulation -> Less risk takers -> less services -> more expensive services.

Less regulation -> more services -> cheaper services -> more competition -> more cost cutting -> exploitation of workforce -> exploitation of consumers -> environmental damage.

Take your pick of what is important to society/government and adjust the regulation accordingly.

Make some things sacrosanct; power utilities, roads, railways, wages and penalty rates, year 12 education moving to higher education, non pagan christian ethics in school, .... old Australia extrapolated from 1996, before it got hijacked by hate politics.


but, knock out the public service hands in pockets and look busy doing nothing productive grind that tends to go with state operated assets.

 

[SirRumpole]

Make some things sacrosanct; power utilities, roads, railways, wages and penalty rates, year 12 education moving to higher education, non pagan christian ethics in school, .... old Australia extrapolated from 1996, before it got hijacked by hate politics.

And bring back State run trade schools, TAFE as the private sector has made a pigs arse out of it.

but, knock out the public service hands in pockets and look busy doing nothing productive grind that tends to go with state operated assets.

It's time that public service jobs were not a sinecure for life. Do the job or get out, but if the job is done well there should be good rewards. State assets can be run as monopolies but there can be still elements of risk/reward for employees.

 

[luutzu]

More regulation -> Less risk takers -> less services -> more expensive services.

Less regulation -> more services -> cheaper services -> more competition -> more cost cutting -> exploitation of workforce -> exploitation of consumers -> environmental damage.

Take your pick of what is important to society/government and adjust the regulation accordingly.

From the consequences that flow from either option, there is a whole lot more costs when we opt for less regulation.

Cost cutting (job losses, cutting corners on safety/quality...), workers exploitation, environmental damage... those are all costs and they're spread to all of society. Well, to the poorer parts on the wrong side of the track.

And I'm not too sure about cheaper or more variety or greater innovation either.