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Reason Writers Around Town: Ron Bailey on Carbon Controls
At Chief
Executive magazine, Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey
reveals how environmental groups and rent-seeking companies have
formed a classic Baptist and Bootleggers coalition to push for
carbon control laws.
|10.6.08 @ 3:35PM|#
If you're gonna be a troll, couldn't you say something trollish rather than just saying you didn't read the article. It's hard to get worked up about that.
|10.6.08 @ 3:50PM|#
I wise man once explained to me, businesses don't pay taxes. Businesses collect taxes. Argue all you wish about what policy should be enacted regarding AGW, but realize this.You are going to pay for it.
fyodor|10.6.08 @ 4:10PM|#
Is the Climate Security Act really such a foregone conclusion? Is there no chance for a simpler carbon tax plan? I used to advocate a carbon tax with a corresponding reduction in other taxes, though, heh, I guess with the government kinda needing some extra bucks now, the corresponding reduction part is less likely than ever....
|10.6.08 @ 4:14PM|#
J sub D | October 6, 2008, 3:50pm | #
I wise man once explained to me, businesses don't pay taxes. Businesses collect taxes. Argue all you wish about what policy should be enacted regarding AGW, but realize this.You are going to pay for it.
Yup.
|10.6.08 @ 4:29PM|#
Guess we can all invest in innovative emission-reduction companies. All in the good conscious of losing $ first due to inflation and taxes. Yay. Get your AAA beta, whatever that means.
|10.6.08 @ 5:10PM|#
Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey reveals how
environmental groups and rent-seeking companies have formed a
classic Baptist and Bootleggers coalition to push for carbon
control laws.
Which tells me once again that all this AGW nonsense is part of a
religion-based effort to bring people towards some sort of
redention, before the eyes of... what, Gaia?
|10.6.08 @ 5:23PM|#
Carbon rationing will hike the price of fossil fuel energy,
which will push companies and consumers to conserve energy and seek
energy supplies that do not emit greenhouse gases.
Let me tell you what it will do:
a) It WILL hike the price of fossil fuel energy.
b) It will hike the price of goods. ALL goods.
c) It will impoverish people when their adjusted-for-inflation
purchasing power has diminished the same rate as those hikes.
d) Politicians (and state worshipers) will blame the free
market.
f) It will NOT stem Global Warming - it will simply make people eat
less.
Missed anything?
|10.6.08 @ 5:31PM|#
Carbon rationing hits the poorest Americans hardest. An
April 25, 2008, CBO issue summary found that a 15 percent cut in
carbon dioxide emissions would be highly regressive.
That should not bother a single environmentalist, who is not going
to be poor him or herself. Anyway, poor people should lead from the
front in "our" fight against Global Warming (a.k.a. "Climate
Change") by having less babies and more abortions... and by dying
sooner.
(Who said eugenics was dead? It's called "Environmentalism"
now...)
Chad|10.6.08 @ 8:38PM|#
Wow, this is the most political peice I have seen Ron write in a
while. I am very disappointed.
You know what Ron? It is not "rent seeking" when you are lobbying
to have your competitors' subsidies lifted. If a cap-and-trade is
instituted, and clean Dupont starts whipping dirty Dow Chemical,
GREAT! That's exactly what we should desire.
And btw, almost all credible plans for a carbon tax or
cap-and-trade involve refunding some or all of the money in the
form of an energy rebate, payroll tax reduction, etc - with the
express purpose of preventing the regressive nature of the tax you
complained about. I know you know this. Why did you leave it
out?
Textbook Econ 201: Polluters should pay.
Any conservative or libertarian who objects to this principle
doesn't even understand their own ideology.
Colonel_Angus|10.6.08 @ 8:59PM|#
Chad:
Because as we have seen lately, fucking around with tax laws as
economic manipulation is really a fantastic way to promote good
business decisions. Dipshit.
The first Chad|10.6.08 @ 11:21PM|#
Colonel_Angus | October 6, 2008, 8:59pm | #
Chad:
Because as we have seen lately, fucking around with tax laws as
economic manipulation is really a fantastic way to promote good
business decisions. Dipshit.
I have no idea what you are talking about. The current financial
mess has little if anything to do with any recent "manipulation" of
tax laws, though I would agree that the mortgage deduction and the
lack of taxes on capital gains with respect to your primary
residence contributed. Of course, these are not recent.
If you don't want to use tax laws to control polluters, what method
would you choose? Regulations? Extraordinately inefficient.
Lawsuits? OK, now I have to bring a lawsuit against everyone on
earth, and they have to do the same to me and everyone else. What's
6.5 billion lawsuits squared over two? Heaven for lawyers, hell for
us. Or would you just rather settle it with guns? If just one
molecule of your CO2 flies on my property, and I can consider you a
thief and shoot you on sight? Or should we just ignore the problem,
and choke on our own fumes?
Brilliant!
|10.7.08 @ 3:22PM|#
Obviously free market fundmentalism is not the answer. I propose a one time human sacrifice of 3 billion people. This is the sort of good that only government has the power to deliver on and I'd like to finally see leadership or some solid bi-partisian cooperation on this.
|10.7.08 @ 3:25PM|#
I am assuming that you all know that if co2 reaches 500 ppm then we'd all be nearing suffocation levels? so the kill off is already coming, I just propose it be done in a more humane and orderly fashion.
|10.7.08 @ 10:36PM|#
I wonder what was the tag price for turning libertarians into enviros ? Really, I'd like to know...
|10.8.08 @ 10:47AM|#
"I wonder what was the tag price for turning libertarians into
enviros ? Really, I'd like to know..."
well the tag price of going to Libertarian-Environmentalist (or
Environmental-Libertarian, taker yer pick) is zero. Just end
subsidies & tax breaks (and other market protections) and
include externalities (reasonably
level-regulatory-playing-field).
|10.8.08 @ 10:49AM|#
"At Chief Executive magazine, Science Correspondent Ronald
Bailey reveals how environmental groups and rent-seeking companies
have formed a classic Baptist and Bootleggers coalition to push for
carbon control laws. "
Interstingly, the Prohibition would not have been possible without
Standard Oil's help...who was seeking a means of killing Corn
Ethanol.
|10.9.08 @ 10:51PM|#
This sentence is a lie! Am I libertarian or enviro?
p.s. Trotsky, your Master Narrative belies you.
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