The New Obama Shake Down

Wet dream for marketers of other refrigerants.

AC contractors and refer guys will benefit for sure but putting a gun to the head of your customer just doesn't work with me. I couldn't tell a store they need a couple grand of repairs on equipment that's currently on the line or you're risking mammoth fines for yourself and mother company

So, you're saying that you would just top off a leaking system and let it continue to leak???

That's what it sounds like you're saying.

Why not blame Obama for the Holocaust and the world wars, too?

In acquiring your EPA certification you should be aware of the regulations....as a professional it is your job to inform your customers of their obligations under the law to which we are all bound...

https://www.epa.gov/section608/stationary-refrigeration-leak-repair-requirements

https://www.epa.gov/section608

From your article, "it failed to promptly repair leaks".

That's what this is about.

Relax, put your head back in the sand and don't worry.

But what if the sand it HOT?

I need my air conditioner damn it!

I may need a new job soon too. I was asking a question in the maintenance tailgate this morning, and one of the maintenance operators popped off and asked if I was going to give the meeting. Apparently, they are the only one allowed to talk, ever. I got up and walked out. My boss told me I don't have that option. I think the entire meeting every morning is a POS waste of time.

You must be itchin' for a tough discussion with Catbert.... (I know the feeling.)

I actually had another, body temperature, place in mind for his head.

Never quit your job until you have another one lined up.

Most meetings are a waste of time.

I used to multiply the number of people in my meetings x 5 minutes and that would be how long the meeting lasted.

The other thing I do is always have something in the two guest chairs in my office.

A friend of mine said that when he chaired a meeting he insisted that the entire meeting be conducted standing up. He got through everything quite quickly.

A meeting Every morning?... sound more like a lot of people likes to get stroked.

i ha e found that the best meetings are the informal meeting in the plant floor.

I know of a company that has meetings at least twice a day. Never see anyone on the plant floor. The workers on the floor know more about what is going on than the people in the meetings. What is discussed in the meeting usually changes within the hour. Peter Principle at work.

Depending on the quality and quantity of the meetings. My company we had a status update of all departments once a month minimum of 2 hours.

When I was at the ship yard. a lot of the managers time was spent at multiple meetings... getting nothing done.

Plant floor you can really get a good solid idea on how the projects are coming along. And also spot and avoid some unknowns that crop up.

Yes, many meetings I see there are basically: is this machine running yet, do we have quotes for yadda-yadda yet, when will the walls be painted and what color? No reason for every department to attend every meeting. I've seen Root Cause Analysis being done behind a desk and never stepping foot on the plant floor. Same with time studies and ergonomic station changes.

The best source of information is the machine/process operator and watch the flow. Sure, you get some bull-hockey, but listening can sift through that.

ass backwards

In the meetings when it gets to the menial tasks, I don't hesitated to interject by saying, maybe you can discuss this at the end of the meeting. I get a few looks, but it works great...

450 stores doing $9+ billion per year fined $500k = slap on wrist...because the're too cheap to properly fix leaks as required by law...Good example of corporate shortsightedness and reluctance to follow the law because they think they can get away with it....

You mean it can't be saved (the planet) with duct tape and baling wire?

President Obama has nothing to do with the EPA regulations or the Clean Air Act, which was passed in 1990....This is nothing but right wing rhetoric with no basis in fact, nor does it have any place on this forum....

Actually, it has a place -- the Break Room. As you well know, since you've posted political stuff there yourself.

As for it being 'right wing rhetoric', well, Fredski's opinions about the story might be rhetoric, but no one has ever accused Yahoo News or Reuters of being 'right wing' before. It's a news story, and they reported it.

Your 'no place on the forum' comment is essentially another way of saying 'shut up'. Why do his opinions bother you so much?

His opinions don't bother me at all....The post is a violation of the rules, and trying to hold President Obama responsible for enforcing violations of the Clean Air Act is ridiculous...I might also add that as somebody that works in the refrigeration field his attitude is irresponsible in siding with the violators...and against the law...

Or it's a matter of EHS, (environment, health and safety) which it is and very well belongs here. Sure it has a political slant, when it comes to government regulatory agencies, you can't avoid it.

Open your mind and Look at it as a matter of brainstorming the issues and the reasons and cause and effects. Challenge fredsky. Or shall we just silence fredsky because he doesn't fit your profile or platform.

Because he is a traitor, dark shady mofo, and a traitor, and we hate him.

I meant, aside from those reasons.

Did Yahoo or Reuters say "Obama Shakedown"? That's where the right-wing nonsense came in.

for the record I don't have any wings

So, we have right-wing, and left-wing, but what is in the middle? Certainly wouldn't be a center-wing. Do we call these people a fuselage????

That's the problem with our political system right now - we don't have enough fuselages. We are flying with wings that are too large.

The EPA is an enforcement agency, they enforce the laws passed by congress....That doesn't change according to who happens to be the Administrator at the time...How well the're doing their job might, but that depends on the ability of the Administrator...

That's true, but with the amount of laws on the books, not all are enforced. It can get .... selective.... depending on the administration.

Don't think for one second that the current EPA enforces all the laws on the books. If all laws passed by congress are enforced. Which there are a lot. Industry would come to a halt very quickly.

Not only because of the EPA guide lines, but because laws would contradict an earlier enforce law.

Because that's how congress neutralizes/balances the administrations appointments that would select the laws to align with the current administration.

It comes to an earlier post I had of knowing what laws are actually on the books.

And that is the difference of gaining knowledge from a book and real world experience.

you get the GA

Please point out any EPA laws that are not being enforced that were enforced under the Bush administration...or vice versa...

see post #78 for the pick and choose of EPA enforcement (Where they even ignore Supreme Court Rulings) to push an administration agenda.

And your welcome.

I have actual incidents that occurred to me that involved paperwork errors, not pollution, that under the Bush admin were overlooked, but, under Obama they became major incidents. Tough to find a way to detail them, but let's say, they did not cause pollution to the environment, but did involve reporting errors / unintentional omissions, and my company paid for my mistakes. Both were about 7 years after the occurrence, and one was an on going error of rules misinterpretation. That really burns you, as they figure that by the day.

I do know for fact that the least reportable amount of waste released to the environment, that you must report on a complex "here is the exact amount" form R report, not on a simple, "we did, but no amount needs to be reported", form A, has gone down by a factor of 10 and then after Obama, back up by a factor of 10. Note that released to the environment here means any hazardous chemical that left your facility as a waste, even though it was properly treated at the destination facility. Even with no spills or releases to the air, you must report these, and there are some very detailed rules on how to calculate hazardous components of non-hazardous metal alloys. Don't ever misinterpret those reporting rules.

This is nothing but right wing rhetoric with no basis in fact, nor does it have any place on this forum....

That is false and your not living in the real world currently going on, conflict goes on all the time.

Leaders of agencies like the EPA are elected officials from the administrations, they are elected to push the current administrations agenda.

Here is just one example, there are more if you get out in the real world. It's a part of checks and balances put in place that the founding fathers realize what may happen.

And this goes in line of the problem of regulation enforcement that engineers have to face. Which regulation to follow that will be enforced.

So chirping 'right wing conspiracy' is no defense.

^{I have to highlight the above, for the ignorant in the hope they see the issue being discussed here}

Correction on the above post, this is a misprint and not correct

Leaders of agencies like the EPA are elected officials from the administrations,

This is what I had meant to say;

Leaders of agencies like the EPA are appointed officials from the administrations,

kinda harsh to mark-it off topic for this error, but thanks for pointed it out.

Did Obama appoint the head of the EPA? The Freon problem was made up by politicians who received input and big contributions from the chemical companies whose patent rights had run out on Freon.

Yes

And your statement amounts to nothing more than an opinion with out tangible facts.

And what proof do you have that I am wrong?

I'm not going to waste my time to verify or refute your opinion. Because that's all it is. You are the one that made the statement, it's is your opinion, it's up to you to reference you statement.

Just curious as to how the refrigeration systems install company and crews are not liable on this being they are the ones who are supposed to be doing the install work of said systems correctly the first time so that they don't have continual leak issues.

Warranty and liability for poor workmanship and whatnot? That sort of stuff.

It may be a matter of EPA dithering over whether to go after big fish versus small fish. This is where you do the chart of advantages/disadvantages.

Big fish: Advantage, lots of money available for fines; disadvantage, they defend harder or even bite back.
Little fish: Advantage, limited defensive ability, possible caving. Disadvantage, no blood or money from turnip.

To me, that points to the whole refrigerants control and change outs along with the majority of the 'Save the planet' movements in big government being little more than extended money/power grab scams.

They allow the installers to continually do shoddy work and repairs which leaks on businesses critical system then target the business as being at fault for having had crappy work done on their systems they know they can't run without opposed to going after the sources of the problem which is the company and persons who did their systems design and install work below standards and code.

As far as I see this it's about as logical as saying that the auto industry doesn't actually have to make their emissions systems on their vehicles they sell meet the rules and standards set forth but that the end customer who fails to pass the inspection is at fault for their vehicles not complying with said rules and when they do go to get them fixed the service shops that do that work are not actually liable for having fixed the systems either so the next time the end user gets inspected and fails they are at fault once again even though they themselves have no say or control in the actual matter of what level of quality or correctness of the install or repair work being done.

But have we proven who is at fault here? Is it poor installation and repair service, or is it just a total disregard of required maintenance? In most industrial/commercial installations, the systems owners must have a log of regular inspections that are signed and dated and a written program to do so. Do we know if that was present here? If not, then the systems owners, not the installers, are ultimately responsible. Unfortunately been there and done that. If they had a log and requested maintenance and thus received service it should be recorded and while still liable to EPA, as they expect the owner to shut it down if leaking until properly repaired, they will now have grounds to be able to bring a healthy good lawsuit against the installers/repairers. Enough records such as this, and the installers/repairers will also get that visit from Big Brother, or go bankrupt in law suits.

We are both making assumptions here. Do we know for certain what the actual problems causing the leaks are? Is it pin holes and bad joints, or is it loosening of fittings from normal wear and tear? The first supports your argument, and the latter mine. Perhaps it is both. (????)

At any rate, I know from real life dealings with environmental agencies, be it national or state, that the person owning the device causing pollution, or has pollution on its site, is ultimately responsible. Fair or not - too bad. Those agencies DO NOT attempt to find the actual guilty culprit - if you own it and it is polluting - tag - you are it. They let the legal system handle who actually ends up paying for it after wards through law suits.

Let me explain the "responsibility" issue the way EPA sees it. The company I work for paid a fine of about 5 times the disposal fee for chemicals found on a disposal site of an environmental disposal company that just shut down and left everything in place and unprotected. When the barrels were sent to this approved disposal agency, a good fee was paid to have them disposed of legally. Was the fact that EPA had to dispose of them my company's fault? No. Fair? No. The way it works? Yes. Another form of that same responsibility rule - if you have hazardous waste, it is your responsibility to see it is disposed of - not the company handling it for you. You are responsible to see to it that the disposal company truly disposes of your waste and does it legally. So the leaks of coolant gas were the responsibility of those who used the equipment emitting them, not those who installed them. EPA doesn't have time to decipher who is guilty - the courts can settle that in law suits after those fined pay up.

vibration is your enemy

Most of these leaks are in coils both evaporator and condenser, and they usually result in a system changeout or very expensive repair....business owners will put this off as long as possible....The must take action level is 35% volume leakage annually....This is regular stuff not caused by anybody just wear and tear over the years...Some leaks can be near impossible to find and complete shutdown and isolation of sections is necessary...this can take days, with no guarantee of success....It's a situation that anybody working with commercial or industrial systems knows well, and it's also no secret which chains take proactive maintenance approach and which don't...The ones that don't eventually get caught...

Yep it happens just like that. Don't want to take time even when told where problem is just keep dumping in freon until more mandates then need complete system and management doesn't know the difference

today its well over 100 degrees. if a tech goes to a store manager and says ok I have to shut off a couple of machines for a week to make your repairs, the manager asks several questions, once he knows everything he says, "top them off and keep them online, I'll take "responsibility". you can either make him happy and bill him or he calls someone else and you lose an account. that might make liberals piss their panties but its real life

No one can take responsibility for your actions outside the law...The law clearly gives time to do repairs, and extensions, and excuses, I mean they bend over backwards to give equipment owners every opportunity to do the repairs at the best time that suits the owner...and they don't just target large business owners...I've seen the EPA stop and fine a single owner/contractor for several thousand dollars...Your job as a contractor is to inform the business owner of the legal requirements he faces over leaking equipment....Then report him if he calls somebody else to skirt the law...You'll change your tune if you get caught and fined...

https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/criminal-provisions-clean-air-act

https://www.epa.gov/ozone-layer-protection/enforcement-actions-under-title-vi-clean-air-act

There are restraints put on overreach of government agency's.

worked at the shipyard we had millions dollars worth of fines from an OSHA audit. Electrical cords on the floor, ladders against the wall not secured.

at one time, these agencies drove companies out of business, not anymore. It's very bad press having the government shut down the livelyhood of a town.

Now you file a Appeal. In the ship yard case, it lowered the fines from $12,000,000.00 down to $7,500.00 with compliance.

And from personal experience - you can get a fine over looked in an appeal if you can prove you will spend an equivalent amount on a plant improvement project that can be considered as making the process more "green". Really cool when you already had the project in the budget - makes the fine = $0.00. (don't tell Big Brother)

Yes, we did corrective actions to resolve it, that's why the appeal.

they ignore mom and pop operations with even bigger leak issues, there's far more money going after Costco always follow the money

But, guess what?

Who approved R-22 or use, to start with? Who had oversight over that approval?? None other than the EPA.

Every employee of the EPA should also be fined equally for approving that NASTY refrigerant, R-22!! The EPA knew there would be refrigerant leaks by equipment of the future. They should never have given approval to use R-22 in ANY SYSTEM, ever!

And, as stated earlier, ALL manufacturers of refrigeration equipment should be heavily fined EVERY TIME A LEAK IS FOUND in ANY of their systems!! I mean, all the grocery chain EVER DID was use the equipment!! They didn't manufacture it!!

AND....Every contractor that has EVER WORKED ON A REFRIGERANT SYSTEM USING R-22 should also be heavily FINED for repairing a faulty, leaking system! Because, THEY LAID HANDS ON THE FAULTY system!!! An accomplice to a federal crime!!!

YES, PROOF THAT ENFORCEMENT IS IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER.....A VERY SELECTIVE SYSTEM, INDEED.

They already thought of that, like most public servant agencies, it would be in their charter that no employee is liable.

they made a big deal about this 20 years ago. there was an actual suggestion floating around to offer service techs a bounty for turning in "venters"( those that vent to atmosphere ). I've never heard a case of that happening but the fine at a time was 10G's. I don't know the current amounts, or care what it us.

If the repair techs turned in every ventor of refrigerant......they would be turning themselves in. Who orders R-22?......Not the users of the equipment. The repair techs do. They themselves (techs) are responsible for venting MANY tons of refrigerant. They have faulty manifolds, faulty recovery units, faulty hoses and lines, make mistakes.....AND, THE NUMBER 1 REASON TECHS DON'T TURN IN VENTORS.....SURVEY SAYS.....THEY WOULD PUT THEMSELVES OUT OF BUSINESS......!!

The whole industry is a sham. But mostly, the science behind the EPA's reason for enforcement is a sham....Junk Science. In the '90s the ozone hole was growing, leading to the earth burning up. It was being eaten up by all those SO MUCH HEAVIER THAN AIR REFRIGERANT MOLECULES!!! So the refrigerants were replaced.....(like R-12)......Now, the replacements (that saved the planet!!!!) are being replaced.....because WE MUST SAVE THE PLANET!!!

(Insert pic of embarrassed polar bear here)

I've known several managers of reefer parts houses. we all go to the same places to get our parts and supplies. about 2 years after the "no venting" rule went into effect everyone was suppose to recovering their refrigerant. I asked several of these guys how much less R22 are you ordering VS before the rule went into effect?? the answer was always the same, "NONE" they sell as much as ever. now the thing is a refrigerant called 410. its a poor excuse of a replacement for 22. its a blend of refrigerants and in a leaking situation the different refrigerants bleed at different rates, ( think of a margarita getting more watered down as the ice melts. when 410 leaks long enough you cant "top it off" as you can with 22 so guess what happens? they blow the charge ( vent) then refill itI don't like it

Well, at least the Ozone hole is in good repair! (Real science proved the ozone layer was a cyclical event...)

I know that real science will, once again, come to the rescue and prove that climate change (cycles) are a cyclical event; the earth has MANY layers of protection, and is much more robust in maintaining its own balances than scientists are willing to research and document. According to many of the bandwagon scientist today, the earth is wobbling in space, balanced on the tip of a pin, ready to destroy itself at any minute. Rain just IS; the atmosphere just IS; rivers, lakes, streams just ARE; grasses, weeds, bushes, shrubs don't COUNT; ocean life just IS; the earth's poles just ARE; NOTHING counts toward returning mans' influences on the environment back to a stable, SUSTAINABLE state.....

Because, hey....the bandwagon scientists know everything there is to know! They say the climate is changing, so I guess it is!

If I ever place a bet, I bet on a past winner, with a 4.3 billion year history with carbon I put my money on the little green plant with the blue oceans rather than Chicken Little and bogus tax schemes to save the planet that doesn't need saving

If I place a bet, it will be on whether the Earth is still there when I die. Future generations, though, will still be confronted with the fact that fossil fuels are being depleted millions of times faster than they are being laid down. Moving to fissile fuels simply shifts the burden of waste disposal to further generations still. Preserving the ozone layer still seems a good idea at this point, while we continue to observe the other balances.

Sounds like you never bet unless it is 100% certain.

I think there is a balance, but I am not one of the "consensus" scientists who simply pronounce something to be, then it magically "is", even though it "ain't".

The politicians are not better, no smarter than "is you is, or is you ain't my constituentses".

I consider it far better to let nature balance things out, than to engineer ourselves out of existence, and that is what this climate change conspiracy is - - a power grab and a way to "get rid of" the United States, so that the ultimate game of power politics (global domination warfare) can take place, having nothing to do with an ideology, only the ultimate power grab by a so-called elite few who have all the power and all the money, when that time comes to pass.

That is the point. When we engineer ourselves out of existence it will be left to nature to find a new balance.

Or we could find a balance to keep ourselves in existence.

Question - this may sound crazy, but as one who was in the "Oil Patch" in the 70's and 80's, and taught that hydrocarbon fuels were from ancient life, have we determined without a doubt that "fossil fuels" are indeed "fossil"? In the mid 1980's, with the continuing analysis of the lengthy fault that runs from WVa through western Pa into NY to near Lake Ontario, there was a theory around amongst some oil field geologists that perhaps the oil and gas we were seeing in the vicinity of that was coming from very deep, perhaps below sedimentary rock deposits and following the fault to the producing formations. USGS drilled a number of holes and ran some very expensive analysis on this fault. I got to do one very deep hole by USGS just north and east of Pittsburgh. Definitely was a fault down there, when you see the same formation at 2 depths. Ran a wild complex of analysis tools on that thing, looking for stress and cracking. I left the industry without ever hearing the outcome of the study and suspect none of us will. That fault is strangely absent on any US fault maps I can find in a Google search, or any Pa fault line maps, but I saw it in a few wells in western NY. One of the drillers I knew was severely burned in western NY when he drilled into it and got an unexpected, for the area, major flow of gas. There was an oil blow out on a well near Chautauqua Lake, totally unexpected in a depleted field and in a formation well below the oil producing zones. That was when the theory of a very deep source of oil and gas came around. Seems to have been hushed up for now.

Have heard of this argument before. Who knows how old Earth 1.0 was when the moon clobbered it, and did it have (primitive) life on it? Could that have made deep oil? I don't know. Earth 2.0 seems to have made plenty of oil on its own.

I just find it very interesting that the story we were told back then was we were nearly out of oil reserves. Jump ahead 30 years and we have a glut. And, yes, they knew the oil was in those shales and tight sands and had a very good idea how to get to it. Governments and oil companies are not telling the whole story on any of this. Now the little those of us in the field learned of this theory and this fault, is apparently gone from the records. Very interesting indeed.

There is an interesting book, "Nine Crazy Ideas (That Might Not Be So Crazy)" [or something like that]. One of the ideas is that oil production was not just a one-time age-old process, but rather is a continuous and ongoing process.

That's pretty much the basis of the theory floating around the oil and gas fields in western Pa in the mid 1980's. It has kind of disappeared from the records, as that fault is not shown on any map, and it was suspected of going well below sedimentary deposits. See my post to James Stewart.

Same here in North Dakota as well. Everyone who worked with the seismic surveying crews and systems or geological mapping says there is an extreme likelihood of there being a super formation about 7 - 8 miles below us that leaks up and creates the shallower formations we are drilling into now.

So the theory is still alive. Good. I heard that in the "oil patch", even though the parent company of the well line service I worked for was Seismic Surveys Corp. Never heard it from them. Good to know the seismic people believe it too.

Just Googled SSC - they must be gone now. Big Blue probably bought them. (for non-oilpatch folks - that's Schlumberger, not IBM) They dumped the wireline service I worked for in 1985. I then worked for Dresser Atlas, which is also gone. Haliburton bought them. Continual change in that industry.

Error alert.

I said the name out loud and then realized the company I referred to that owned Birdwell was called Seismograph Service Corp. - not what I said in the first post. And, yes, it does still exist.

Isn't that what they call "hell? Super hot oil and gas, and lots of Democrats and Rebumplicans standing on their heads in it.

Fredski, I understand that blaming Obama is only figuratively as a figurehead being part of the hangover with government over reach and involvement that goes way back.

When I how you framed your post, it reminded me of and incident that Labor Secretary Robert Reich under the Clinton administration did.

Basically of Reich's department shutting down a rubber plant in the south. And the company as well as the employee blaming government for over reach and the Clinton administration blaming the company of safety violations and that the company was going to move anyways.

Now the citations are just. because it was because of LOTO infractions causing accidents to the employees. The labor department was just surprised that the company would do this extreme action.

It taught a valuable lesson to government agencies to be more flexible.

Same sort of unexpected results happen too often. Our government can't see the whole picture. Example:

Obamacare is going to require vending machine products to ALL have nutritional labels on them. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Now, even though I could care less, I will know every calorie and every gram of cholesterol I am about to consume when I buy that bag of chips. Actually, I sort of thought we already knew that, didn't we? The bags are already labeled, but...NOT ALL vending items.

Where I work our vending machines are stocked by a small town restaurant and one machine vends restaurant cooked sandwiches, chicken, and burritos. I eat my lunch from this machine every working day, and it is better than what I would make for myself at home. They are facing fines if they don't send every one of their products, and they put out over 100 different items through the course of a year, into a lab for nutritional analysis. At a cost of $50 each, they can't afford this. When this part of Obamacare takes effect, I will now be eating potato chips, cheese curls, Twinkies and Ding Dongs instead of the far less processed and seemingly more nutritional restaurant items. Pretty much defeats what they thought they would accomplish with this law. No-one thought this thing through, or did they? Was it under the table payments by the large processed food industry???? I think I smell some rats here.

This thread was a loser from the get go, smacking of political bashing even in the title!

This political whining and blame-fest is a piece of crap and should be closed by Admin.

Why don't you all go take a nap.

<unsubscribe>

what a miserable existence, always coiled like a rattlesnake ready to strike at at anything

my work on this thread us done

As though engineering doesn't have to deal with govermental regulations.... Oh, wait.

can you please drop you political opinion in another forum, the rest of the world has no message to this shit.

Are you not having a nice visit to the post called "The New Obama Shake Down"?, or did you just stop in to say 'Hi'.

I admit that this post is badly named, still there are problems that as engineers 'in this part of the world' that has to deal with governmental regulatory conflicts that are being dealt with concerning maintenance infrastructure.

I don't believe in your part of the world, it doesn't get swept under the rug and ignored. But I could be wrong.

You of 1 0f 3 lines of action here. One is to report this and have it closed, input how you deal with it in your part of the world or move along.

This subject got resolved in the 90's.

We don't trace everything back to the one leader that due democracy is now leading but if we had the power would not be.

The rest of the world still thinks that Obama is soft in ecological legislation, we would all love him to really implement all rules the EU had adopted decades ago.

sorry, just answered to a fair question

And you are right: all rules are set through a political installed system.

But it does not mean that they are all wrong, 99% of the rules are 200% correct and required.

The reason we have so many governmental rules in place is due the fact autoregulation simply does not work.

Remember Bophal, it only happened due the rules to secure the storage were not set for that country. The company put the factory there due the lack of these rules, later on they admitted it was a wrong decision.

On the Halogenide influence on the Ozon layer: science discovered this and politics reacted, only decades later, when all science was conclusive that the discovered effects were due the chemicals.

Let me humbly submit the EU was full of "it" in the beginning, and has only gotten worse with power grabs in the name of enviro-policy by the power elite, certainly not ruled by the people.

The EU IMHO is totally on its way out.

Easy....