
Michigan's Ex-Gov. Snyder Knew About Flint's Toxic Water – and Lied About It - AndrewBissell
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bdp9/michigans-ex-gov-rick-snyder-knew-about-flints-toxic-waterand-lied-about-it
======
AngryData
Of course he was, the only way this was possible in the first place was by
falsifying water test results. You don't just not notice that your city water
supply is testing multiple points below the required pH level. And the only
people who gain anything at all by falsifying water test results is the state
government who forcefully took control of the Flint government via Emergency
Manager in order to cut the budget. If they failed to cut the budget they
would be called out because both the state and local populous voted against
emergency manager takeover, so they forced a way to cut the budget, thinking
they wouldn't ever get caught. But they were too stupid to realize managing
the water's pH level is what prevents the entire water system from corroding
away.

Where it not for the leaded joints spiking lead levels in people, they
probably would have gotten away without anybody noticing. Nobody would have
noticed anything was off until years later when the water system is leaking
like a sieve with nobody to blame for it.

~~~
tehjoker
The Gov. is an ex-COO from Gateway. I guess this is what they mean by making
government run like a business.

EDIT: Sorry, I had the wrong company down as Dell and CEO before. Don't post
from memory folks.

~~~
blihp
It's worse than that: he was the ex-COO from Gateway (not Dell). They were
essentially a Dell wannabe that was even more poorly run.

~~~
paypalcust83
Gateway 2000 -1998 name change-> Gateway -2007 acquisition-> Acer

eMachines -2004 acquisition-> Gateway

Wikipedia is wrong: not Gateway in 2000, but 1997 saw several sub-$1k
computers, and possibly the first was the Compaq Presario powered by the Cyrix
MediaGX. I recall taking some community college computer course in
sophomore(10)/junior(11) year of high school about 1994 and the lecturer
predicting the sub-$1k computer.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/the-secret-history-of-the-
sub-1000...](https://www.cnet.com/news/the-secret-history-of-the-
sub-1000-computer)

------
brummm
And he won't suffer any severe consequences because of it...

~~~
donclark
We wish. I just had a similar political discussion with a close friend. Why is
there no accountability in politics/government? How could we go about changing
that?

~~~
Agustus
You can’t. The political machines of these areas need to have significant
political issues (think bankruptcy and stewardship to a larger organization
Detroit being taken over by the state for example) to cause a change.

Places like Illinois are financially insolvent and are cutting back on all
sorts of things.

