DuPont had US$1.79 billion cash on hand as of September 2022.
If ten million people have been negatively affected by PFOS (surely an undercount) then that's a fat US$179 per person.
"Okay, so force them to pay a portion of future profits."
Ah, the Purdue Pharma solution. But is everything else that DuPont making known to be harmless? If we discover a PFOS-2 in ten years, should they be required to keep making it in order to pay off the victims of PFOS-1?
The problem with taking over a company to operate it in the national interest is that a country can be tempted to continue operating it in the national interest. In 1947, the UK nationalized all its coal mines. In 1966, a coal mining waste pile collapse and killed 116 children and 28 adults.
Nobody was ever prosecuted, and no person ever went to jail. What was the government going to do, punish itself?
If ten million people have been negatively affected by PFOS (surely an undercount) then that's a fat US$179 per person.
"Okay, so force them to pay a portion of future profits."
Ah, the Purdue Pharma solution. But is everything else that DuPont making known to be harmless? If we discover a PFOS-2 in ten years, should they be required to keep making it in order to pay off the victims of PFOS-1?
The problem with taking over a company to operate it in the national interest is that a country can be tempted to continue operating it in the national interest. In 1947, the UK nationalized all its coal mines. In 1966, a coal mining waste pile collapse and killed 116 children and 28 adults.
Nobody was ever prosecuted, and no person ever went to jail. What was the government going to do, punish itself?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster