http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

-The Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) is a United States-based multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. It is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as "Roundup". Monsanto is also the leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed, holding 90% market share for various crops.

-Monsanto has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being a "potentially responsible party" for 56 contaminated sites (Superfund sites) in the United States.

-In a story on January 27, The New York Times reported that during 1969 alone Monsanto had dumped 45 tons of PCBs into Snow Creek in Anniston, Alabama, a feeder for Choccolocco Creek which supplies much of the area's drinking water. The company also buried millions of pounds of PCB in open-pit landfills located on hillsides above the plant and surrounding neighborhoods.

-In 1997, it was alleged Fox News cooperated with Monsanto in suppressing an investigative report on the health risks associated with Monsanto's bovine growth hormone product, Posilac.

-Between 1965 and 1972, Monsanto paid contractors to illegally dump thousands of tons of highly toxic waste in UK landfill sites, knowing that their chemicals were liable to contaminate wildlife and people. The Environment Agency said the chemicals were found to be polluting groundwater and the atmosphere 30 years after they were dumped.

-In January 2005, Monsanto agreed to pay a $1.5m fine for bribing an Indonesian official. Monsanto admitted a senior manager at Monsanto directed an Indonesian consulting firm to give a $50,000 bribe to a high-level official in Indonesia's environment ministry in 2002, in a bid to avoid Environmental impact assessment on its genetically modified cotton.

-Monsanto was fined $19,000 in a French court on January 26, 2007 for misleading the public about the environmental impact of its record selling herbicide Roundup.

-More than 4,500 farmers have committed suicide due largely to mounting debt caused by the poor yields, increased need for pesticides, and higher cost of seed of the BT cotton seed sold by Monsanto.

-The company spent $8,831,120 for lobbying in 2008. $1,492,000 was to outside lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists.

The free market can do nothing wrong. I suppose if we dislike this company, we can just choose not to purchase food that has been grown by most of the world's seeds.

9/8/2009 9:13:31 AM

Shorter God:

RAWR RAWR RAWR CAPITALISM BAD GOVERNMENT GOOD RAWR RAWR ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS STUPID RAWR

There, that should prevent you from having to post anymore.

9/8/2009 9:17:47 AM

Feel free to address the topic, unless you're admitting that you have nothing better to contribute than fallacies.

9/8/2009 9:19:12 AM

Why? It's not as if you're interested in an actual debate. So why maintain the pretense otherwise?

9/8/2009 9:22:02 AM

Please let me know how anything besides government intervention and regulation will stop this company's actions.

9/8/2009 9:23:54 AM

What topic? If Monsanto has done something illegal, don't bother telling us, call the police.

That said, bankrupt farmers don't buy next years cotton seed. As such, while you may have a case for false advertising, you should call a lawyer, not us.

Government Intervention? If what you say is true, their actions were already illegal. Who do you call when you find someone murdering their wife? Your Congressmen? Or the police?

[Edited on September 8, 2009 at 9:26 AM. Reason : .,.]

9/8/2009 9:24:13 AM

What would you expect the police department to do? Arrest the CEO?

9/8/2009 9:28:26 AM

Depends on the laws of the time. As I understand it, dumping large amounts of toxic waste is a felony, so if the CEO joined into a conspiracy to commit a felony, yes, he would be arrested. But as it seems even you know about it, and they were not arrested, I guess it is safe to assume no evidence of the crime exists.

9/8/2009 9:32:34 AM

http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food

9/8/2009 9:40:35 AM

Quote :

"Please let me know how anything besides government intervention and regulation will stop this company's actions."

lawsuits come to mind

9/8/2009 9:58:08 AM

It sounds like they've been sued numerous times, but they are powerful enough to pay everything off and keep on doing what they're doing.

What's next?

9/8/2009 10:06:27 AM

^^^ I watched that when it was in Time-Warner's On-demand last month. Monsanto is definitely one of those companies that's run by the evil antagonist in a James Bond movie.

9/8/2009 10:09:26 AM

There are laws on the books protecting the property rights of those harmed by Monsanto. Those laws need to be executed. If anything, it is collusion of the state with corporations which permits Monsanto to continue these activities.

But since you equate this with capitalism and the free market, what alternative system do you propose?

9/8/2009 10:58:23 AM

Quote :

"If anything, it is collusion of the state with corporations which permits Monsanto to continue these activities. But since you equate this with capitalism and the free market, what alternative system do you propose?"

Maybe not equate, but it's patently foolish to ignore the money buys looks the other way aspect of capitalism. Not that this is inherent to capitalism, but I'm having a hard time seeing how capitalism in the extreme, ie, more deregulation, would help fix this problem.

9/8/2009 11:02:18 AM

Quote :

"Please let me know how anything besides government intervention and regulation will stop this company's actions."

Once people start dying of cancer, they will trace it back to monsanto and sue them or accept a payout, and the problem won't exist anymore.

9/8/2009 11:03:49 AM

Quote :

"It sounds like they've been sued numerous times, but they are powerful enough to pay everything off and keep on doing what they're doing. What's next?"

Nothing. Life just works that way sometimes. Given how the U.S. legal system works, Monsanto is paying damages, fines, penalties, court costs, legal fees, and punitive damages. If it then chooses to do it again, that is only a boon to its victims, which turn $10 thousand in damages into a multimillion dollar settlement.

But even overseas where legal systems are not ridiculous, what about them? Well, like the neighbor which keeps backing into your parked car, you don't have the right to any more. The police write them a ticket, they pay the fine, pay to fix your car, then goes and does it again next year. Some people are just assholes. And you do not have a right to live only among angels.

As such, as long as Monsanto keeps paying above and beyond to put right all the harm it does, it should get to keep causing harm. As human beings with rights, that is their choice. You can try raising the government fine for bad behavior, but there is a socially optimal fine for any bad, and there are costs to exceeding it.

9/8/2009 11:18:38 AM

if people and farmers hate Monsanto so much then they need to get a hoe and start weeding fields by hand again...


like they did before Roundup....and Roundup-ready cotton, soybeans, etc....

[Edited on September 8, 2009 at 11:26 AM. Reason : they should probably get rid of their tractors too....mules were much safer for the environment]

9/8/2009 11:22:06 AM

I think the problem here is that people who neither purchase nor directly profit from Monsanto products are paying a direct price in the form of chemical pollution, increased health problems, etc. Their private property rights are being violated without their consent. It is the equivalent, quite frankly, of physical assault. The gray area here has to do with the fact that, according to law, a corporation is treaded an individual, but not one which can be incarcerated. Thus, fines are the only thing which can be imposed.

The decision isn't necessarily between Fuck Monsanto! and everyone living on communes.

Quote :

"Maybe not equate, but it's patently foolish to ignore the money buys looks the other way aspect of capitalism."

Not in capitalism, in government. That is definitely an issue, but it isn't one solved though communism or socialism. In both of those systems, an established party with no responsibility to the people, makes decisions without fear of economic or political consequence. The former Soviet Union is an exponentially bigger environmental disaster than anywhere in the US.

9/8/2009 11:30:33 AM

Quote :

"which turn $10 thousandmultimillion dollar in damages into a multimillion dollar settlement. "

Fixed it for ya.

9/8/2009 1:02:24 PM

Yes Monsanto is Evil, but that doesn't make GE crops evil. I just want people to realize that. GE crops could do some amazing good.

9/8/2009 1:20:15 PM

Fail Boat, I was clear that I was talking about the United States there. As such, first result from google news of "punitive damages" produced this:
"A jury in 2002 recommended Philip Morris pay a record $28 billion in punitive damages to Bullock", for someone that was arguably not damaged in any way by Philip Morris.

9/8/2009 2:54:53 PM

Quote :

"if people and farmers hate Monsanto so much then they need to get a hoe and start weeding fields by hand again... "

Except that Monsanto already owns most of the seed providers. It is nearly impossible to find conventional soybean seed in America (not sure on the rest of the crops you mentioned).

Also I dont think it has been mentioned that b/c Monsanto owns the patent for the actual DNA of the plant seeds it provides if it finds a plant on your property that you didn't pay for, they sue the pants off you. That means that farmers cant retain seeds from the previous years crop (like some have been doing for centuries) and it means that if a random plant seed blows from anothers field into your own, you will be sued (actual cases of this happening in US)

All small family farmers and Im sure even some larger agribusiness operations can afford to go toe to toe with Monsanto in a long court battle. Why would anyone wish that on farmers?

Quote :

"I just want people to realize that. GE crops could do some amazing good. "

for me, the verdict is still out, a lot of science still needs to be done. The FDA may tell us its ok. of course, most of us know about the FDA's track record. A lot of former Monsanto employees also now work for the FDA and the FDA's official policy toward GE crops is that there is no major difference between them and their conventional counterpart, which just seems like a cheap short cut. I think it should also be mentioned that Monsanto formerly tried to convince the public that PCBs and Dioxins were safe to humans, we now know that to be completely false. You also have to mention that many european countries tried or were successful at outlawing the growing or consumption of GE crops. I guess Im just not ready to trust it.





The only way, in our current system, that you would be able to make Monsanto treat farmers fairly and be open about the safety of GE crops is for consumers to demand it. For that to happen the consumer has to be educated about what is going on. I think we all realize that between propoganda/miseducation and distractions (reality TV) there is really no hope of that happening.

9/8/2009 3:29:58 PM

Quote :

"Fail Boat, I was clear that I was talking about the United States there. As such, first result from google news of "punitive damages" produced this: "A jury in 2002 recommended Philip Morris pay a record $28 billion in punitive damages to Bullock", for someone that was arguably not damaged in any way by Philip Morris."

An appeals jury canceled that reward and the most recent number is 13.8 Million. How much value are you going to put on each year of her life now gone that the daughter could have spent with her? How do you value those moments?

9/8/2009 3:49:06 PM

lol, I'm glad to see this thread.

Seriously, Monsanto is so f-ing diabolical that just thinking about them makes me smile in a dirty way. I mean, they are so bad that no non-sarcastic unconnected individual will defend them in any capacity. An OP in TSB puts something out there for people to disagree with, but that's a job cut out for the Colbert show in this case.

I mean, I have an image of their internal functions as constantly debating post-apocalyptic visions of the Earth in action-movie style. The evil villain would work for Monsanto in all modern Hollywood blockbusters if it wasn't illegal to speak bad about them publicly.

Black Water has got nothing on these guys! The name 'Monsanto' itself just sounds pitch-black evil. You can't tell me that's coincidence. All their employees must wear black suits and sunglasses, no mistake (except maybe for the mastermind behind it all, he/she wears whatever they want). Just reading the court rulings they've gotten I keep thinking to myself "holy s%^&, they're a heartbeat away from enslaving us all!" Dude, they did Agent Orange. How do you beat Agent Orange? You can't. No doubt, they get #1 for evil company. And if anyone was successfully evil-er, they'd probably buy them out and torture their corporate board for fun. They're totally that bad-A evil. Monsanto eats evil for breakfast. They eat evil for breakfast so hard they put it in everyone else's breakfast!

They are so evil that they're probably monitoring this thread right now. So let me advertise, mrfrog knows that resistance is futile. I'm an underling who knows what's best for himself

9/8/2009 4:10:31 PM

Quote :

"if it finds a plant on your property that you didn't pay for, they sue the pants off you. That means that farmers cant retain seeds from the previous years crop"

USA #1 CAPITALISM WOO!!

IMHO this type of action is anti-capitalism and anti-democracy; with a gov't supporting such actions to be borderline a plutocracy.

For one how is a non-Monsanto farmer supposed to ensure that their seed is not blowing into their field from a neighbor.
Second not being able to retain seed from one year to the next just seems wrong; espicially when one company owns the entire
industry of certain crops. I think we have a name for such corporations....

oh yeah MONOPOLY!

9/8/2009 6:26:58 PM

It would be a great day to wake up one day and find that all of Monsanto has literally burned to the ground. I hope it happens.

These pure evil bastards even went to other countries such as India, and tried to trademark their native crops and herbs.

Only the devil would even think about trying to do something like that.

9/8/2009 7:30:45 PM

Quote :

"That means that farmers cant retain seeds from the previous years crop"

This is where we as a society have taken the idea of patents too far. If Monsanto wants to patent a particular see or method of growing a particular plant, that's one thing, having a patent on making widget X doesn't mean you should get to control the things that widget X produces. If you design a product that produces more of itself, then part of the downside of selling it is that you run the risk of people not needing or wanting to purchase more of your product.

9/8/2009 8:27:36 PM

^^ trademark patent

9/8/2009 8:47:05 PM

Quote :

"This is where we as a society have taken the idea of patents too far. If Monsanto wants to patent a particular see or method of growing a particular plant, that's one thing, having a patent on making widget X doesn't mean you should get to control the things that widget X produces. If you design a product that produces more of itself, then part of the downside of selling it is that you run the risk of people not needing or wanting to purchase more of your product."

Yeah even Microsoft, once you buy the license, you can install it on any computer you buy wihtout having to "repurchase" a new license just b.c u buy a new computer.

9/8/2009 10:09:26 PM

Quote :

"As such, as long as Monsanto keeps paying above and beyond to put right all the harm it does, it should get to keep causing harm. As human beings with rights, that is their choice."

Haha are you fucking serious

9/8/2009 10:40:24 PM

Quote :

"But even overseas where legal systems are not ridiculous, what about them? Well, like the neighbor which keeps backing into your parked car, you don't have the right to any more. The police write them a ticket, they pay the fine, pay to fix your car, then goes and does it again next year. Some people are just assholes. And you do not have a right to live only among angels. As such, as long as Monsanto keeps paying above and beyond to put right all the harm it does, it should get to keep causing harm. As human beings with rights, that is their choice. You can try raising the government fine for bad behavior, but there is a socially optimal fine for any bad, and there are costs to exceeding it."

Actually, I'm pretty sure that willfully and serially committing tort actions against another person constitutes a crime. You can't just wreck your neighbor's lawn every Friday and cut them a check - at some point that actually becomes a criminal act.

The problem identified in this case is that of corporate personhood -that is, there is no one "person" to hold criminally liable for actions by a corporate entity, and it is difficult to do so.

9/8/2009 10:42:54 PM

I'm a farmer who direct markets beef, chicken, and rabbit along with selling layer pullets. A lot of my customers want non-GMO fed meat, so we planted a 19th century heirloom variety of corn for silage this year. A lot of people are getting leery of Mother Monsanto.

9/8/2009 11:16:58 PM

God, why don't you try to find evidence of a company that actually disposed of PCB properly during the sixties and seventies. Every story I've ever heard from utilites about the subcontractors that disposed of PCB during those years have been horror stories about dumping the oil at night along the sides of roads and into ponds. Besides, PCB dangers are overrated.

Quote :

"-More than 4,500 farmers have committed suicide due largely to mounting debt caused by the poor yields, increased need for pesticides, and higher cost of seed of the BT cotton seed sold by Monsanto. "

did 4,500 farmers leave suicide notes bitching at Monsanto? Did someone verify that these farmers got fucked over by the seed company instead of just being shitty farmers?

9/8/2009 11:59:08 PM

^ There was actually a pretty thorough documentary on TV about monsanto's sale of GM crops in India, and how the farmers there were putting themselves into debt through the use of sketchy loan shark types because it's the only way they have to get a loan to buy the seed that they think they need in order to keep their crops going. Basically the cycle was that you had a poor farmer with a small amount of land, then this farmer was goaded into buying Monsanto seed for some reason, then this farmer may have lucked out with slightly increased yields (but at a massive increase in cost for the seed which nixed out any real gain), so this farmer tries it again next year, and eventually the farmer gets stuck in this retarded cycle of spending money this way until he loses all his money to loans/taxes and attempts to commit suicide to prevent his family from losing the farm to the loan shark.

These guys pretty clearly aren't operating an ethical business, and their solution to the agricultural problem is not better than the solutions presented by international ag research groups. The problem they're talking about in India is largely one where the government doesn't care to step in to stop the problem and where the public in the area is too ignorant to know what steps to take in order to improve their family's lot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#In_India

As always, somebody went through the trouble of providing lots of links.

9/9/2009 1:59:47 AM

Quote :

"The problem identified in this case is that of corporate personhood -that is, there is no one "person" to hold criminally liable for actions by a corporate entity, and it is difficult to do so. "

Perhaps a solution to this problem is to create a steep punishment for continued willful disregard of the law (note however, the difference between willful disregard of the law at the time, and doing something stupid, sketchy or harmful but not illegal). If you continually and repeatedly damage your neighbors property, eventually you will be arrested for harassment. Since you can't put a company in jail, and just jailing a CEO isn't really going to stop something like this (though it could help), perhaps then the best thing to do would be to do something that severely damages the company's ability to compete, the virtual equivalent of jailing the company. In this case, I'm thinking of something like invalidating the entire patent portfolio of the company.

Of course, the problem is determining a continued pattern of willful disregard. Just because a company gets sued all the time doesn't mean they're doing something wrong, and of course the other problem is out of court settlements = no conviction. In all, there needs to be a reevaluation of corporate personhood. I like the idea of limited liability, as there's no reason the owner of McDonalds needs to have his ass sued into oblivion because some stupid manager strip searched an employee on the directions of a prank caller, but at the same time there needs to be a real risk of loss for the corporate entity, not just a monetary hit that's paid for with liability insurance.

9/9/2009 7:51:21 AM

Quote :

"More than 4,500 farmers have committed suicide due largely to mounting debt caused by the poor yields, increased need for pesticides, and higher cost of seed of the BT cotton seed sold by Monsanto."

You know, for all the fucked up shit that Monsanto does, they could have left this one out since it's next to impossible to prove Monsanto causes people to off themselves.

That's interesting about the soybeans in the States. I should start exporting conventional soybeans to America

9/9/2009 7:59:01 AM

We planted a few acres of soybeans this year for the bees to work and for forage (my cows are starting to eat them now) and we had a hell of a time getting non-roundup ready seed. We finally bought some from a guy who saved them from last year and had them cleaned and bagged.

9/9/2009 8:23:40 AM

Quote :

"Besides, PCB dangers are overrated. "

Wut? How so?


http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw000/contaminants/basicinformation/polychlorinated-biphenyls.html


The max contaminant level is .0005 mg/L in drinking water

The max contaminant level for lead is .015 mg/L

9/9/2009 9:20:35 AM

Quote :

"The problem identified in this case is that of corporate personhood -that is, there is no one "person" to hold criminally liable for actions by a corporate entity, and it is difficult to do so."

That is a lie. I have never met a corporation because they do not exist, they are a mental construct made up by a group of people in order to better organize themselves. There is no question who the person is: it is the owners and management of the company. If the managers one day walked into the boardroom and unanimously agreed to murder a hobo, there is no question who goes to prison: everyone sitting in that boardroom. Similarly, if the management decides to commit a felony by dumping toxic waste, you arrest the management and any employees that helped them commit the crime. A felony is still a felony even if your boss ordered you to do it. Murder for hire has a higher penalty than just murder for a reason.

The last thing you should do is punish the company, because the company is the property of shareholders, which I'd guess had no idea their employees had decided to enter into a criminal conspiracy. As such, the shareholders of the company were innocent of any wrong doing as they had no idea they were involved in a criminal enterprise. The same goes for the other employees that were unaware of the conspiracy but would lose their jobs if the government killed the company. We as a civilized society should not punish the innocent, even those that made the mistake of unwittingly employing or working for criminals. That is not to say shareholders are never at fault, as it is possible that they knew they were hiring managers with a propensity to kill hobos.

9/9/2009 9:27:04 AM

Quote :

"Feel free to address the topic, unless you're admitting that you have nothing better to contribute than fallacies. "

feel free to keep the four letter words (like this) out of the thread titles unless you are in chit chat

God you know this.

9/9/2009 9:32:16 AM

Quote :

"We planted a few acres of soybeans this year for the bees to work and for forage (my cows are starting to eat them now) and we had a hell of a time getting non-roundup ready seed. We finally bought some from a guy who saved them from last year and had them cleaned and bagged."

If you want some non-Monsanto soybean seeds, PM me. I can send you some.

9/9/2009 10:01:30 AM

I'll contact you in the spring.

9/9/2009 10:05:05 AM

Quote :

"That is a lie. I have never met a corporation because they do not exist, they are a mental construct made up by a group of people in order to better organize themselves. There is no question who the person is: it is the owners and management of the company."

You are either being intentionally obtuse or remarkably ignorant to the basics of how corporate law works. Regardless, unless a manger personally commits a tort, the liability generally rests on the corporation itself. It is remarkably non-trivial to hold managers criminally liable for the actions of a corporate entity itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

Quote :

"If the managers one day walked into the boardroom and unanimously agreed to murder a hobo, there is no question who goes to prison: everyone sitting in that boardroom. Similarly, if the management decides to commit a felony by dumping toxic waste, you arrest the management and any employees that helped them commit the crime. A felony is still a felony even if your boss ordered you to do it. Murder for hire has a higher penalty than just murder for a reason."

All of this is how the law would work in a better world. Alas it does not, or there would be a stronger incentive not to do such things. There are remarkable legal barriers to actually holding management of a corporate entity legally liable for criminal actions.

It's one thing to arrest the employee or subcontractor tasked with dumping toxic waste - it's another to be able to hold the board of directors who ordered it so criminally liable. Hence, the problem.

Quote :

"The last thing you should do is punish the company, because the company is the property of shareholders, which I'd guess had no idea their employees had decided to enter into a criminal conspiracy. As such, the shareholders of the company were innocent of any wrong doing as they had no idea they were involved in a criminal enterprise."

Then the shareholders have exercised poor oversight over their management. Caveat emptor.

Quote :

"The same goes for the other employees that were unaware of the conspiracy but would lose their jobs if the government killed the company. We as a civilized society should not punish the innocent, even those that made the mistake of unwittingly employing or working for criminals. That is not to say shareholders are never at fault, as it is possible that they knew they were hiring managers with a propensity to kill hobos."

If I invest in a company that is incompetently run through no fault of my own, I still lose the investment - as I should. If I work for a company that's badly run, I still lose my job. This is why the onus is on the shareholder to read and be aware of the practices of the company. Why exactly then do we allow for this in the case of incompetence but not malice?

9/9/2009 10:30:31 AM

Quote :

"Then the shareholders have exercised poor oversight over their management. Caveat emptor."

Yeah, I thought about buying some Monsanto shares, but I asked them about all the allegations against them and their corporate practices and they told me everything God put in his first post was true. I decided against buying their shares.

9/9/2009 10:57:53 AM

The question was on criminal liability. Tort or fines are free game, because through various contract theories shareholders did agree to be liable for financial debts incurred by their agents. But you specifically said "criminally liable", which is absolutely untrue. A felony is committed by anyone that carried out the crime and anyone that ordered the crime. There is no justification defense of "they told me to" or "that's my job" allowed in criminal court. That it is allowed in civil court is both true and irrelevant. You are getting your legal theories mixed up: civil and criminal are different courts and obey different rules for good reasons, particularly to avoid punishing the innocent as criminals.

If the world worked as you are suggesting, then I could set up a corporation with the express purpose of assassination, and whenever one of my workers is caught, we could all admit to the criminal conspiracy, claim corporate veil, and walk away scott-free. Bullshit. If you order someone to commit a felony, and we can prove it, your job title is irrelevant, be it CEO or mob-boss.

9/9/2009 11:01:02 AM

Quote :

"Yeah, I thought about buying some Monsanto shares, but I asked them about all the allegations against them and their corporate practices and they told me everything God put in his first post was true. I decided against buying their shares."

If only there was some way one could go and search say, a database of news and other media articles. Almost an engine if you will.

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=Monsanto+Allegations

Ah, but the fevered dreams of a madman.

9/9/2009 11:23:04 AM

Or, investors are fine with evil companies so long as it makes them money? Which is exactly why we need oversight.

I like how the hyper capitalist pretend their is nirvana at the end of the true free market tunnel.

9/9/2009 11:31:11 AM

Quote :

"Which is exactly why we need oversight."

No, it's why we need strong tort and criminal liability systems, in order to hold agents accountable when they do end up doing bad things, and to cause enough pain that it makes it unprofitable to do so. We have oversight - it still doesn't stop bad things from happening.

Quote :

"I like how the hyper capitalist pretend their is nirvana at the end of the true free market tunnel."

Nice try, but completely wrong you ignorant twat.

9/9/2009 11:42:04 AM

Quote :

"Or, investors are fine with evil companies so long as it makes them money? Which is exactly why we need oversight."

Silly question... what is wrong with that? If the only way Monsanto knows how to make money tends to harm others' property, then as long as Monsanto loses in court and pays above and beyond the damage it inflicts upon its neighbors, and then still manages to produce enough value for its customers to exceed the court costs, then I suggest that Monsanto is a good for society. It is serving its customers, compensating any victims property damage, employing lots of lawyers, and still producing enough surplus for shareholders, so what is the problem? It sounds to me like a long list of 'wins'.

The first historical example that jumps to mind were railroads and their instance on setting fire to farmers fields. For awhile there was not a technological solution available, trains just spread sparks. As such, the socially optimal solution was for the trains to keep running, and fully compensating any farmers whose fields caught fire. The customers got rail service, the farmers got compensated for the future market value of the crops (absent the risk that their crops failed), lawyers made their wages, and the railroad owners profited the leftover. Would any here really suggest society would be better off if the government shutdown the railroad?

9/9/2009 11:56:43 AM

Quote :

"then as long as Monsanto loses in court and pays above and beyond the damage it inflicts upon its neighbors"

I'm fairly certain this is exactly what we are arguing, making the rest of your drivel after that relatively pointless.

Quote :

"it's why we need strong tort and criminal liability systems, in order to hold agents accountable when they do end up doing bad things"

We ALREADY have this. Did you not see how many billions the cigarette makers had to pay out? It always has been and always will be a game of percentages (think, safety recalls). Just how much money can you make before getting caught, and just how much trouble can you kick down the road. Clearly, massive fines have no effect as the losses get socialized on unsuspecting shareholders.

Quote :

"Nice try, but completely wrong you ignorant twat."

No, but excellent rebuttal!

Quote :

"Would any here really suggest society would be better off if the government shutdown the railroad?"

Because setting fire to crops is different than putting farmers out of business, poisoning water supplies, and just generally killing people.

9/9/2009 12:16:15 PM