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Posted on 09/02/2010 1:27:05 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
I feel like I keep stating the obvious. A carbon tax is bad because it’s unnecessary and nobody wastes money better than big government, but a carbon trading scheme is worse. The latter is a fake market that feeds corruption and creates it’s own vested industry of financial brokers who profit no matter what the price and no matter who buys or sells (they just need a government mandated scheme that forces businesses to buy and sell), and no matter whether anything useful happens to the environment. Once the financial houses are set (and they are already well advanced) how could this policy ever be unwound?
Carbon Tax = bad
Carbon Trade = sew raw steaks to your shirt and swim with sharks
…
So everyone has a handy pocket list as a reference:
The trading scheme needs brokers, auditors, assessors, marketers, lawyers, insurers and accountants, not to mention speculators, derivative traders, ratings agencies, specialist software, and a fleet of sales reps. A carbon tax needs none of these, just application at a few crucial points of sale of oil, coal etc like the current petrol tax.
Both the trading scheme and a tax would need technicians (to get that aerial fertilizer stuffed in a hole underground) and an entirely new source of global industrial and domestic energy. Once all these people are trained, employed, committed, and have their superannuation at risk, we have the Golden Gravy Express Train from Hell. Fifty million people to yell, scream and wail should the train slow down. It’s a massive industrial dead-end, all based on computer models that assumed things that have been shown to be wrong.
The harm? Every dollar we spend on a fake problem is a dollar we can’t spend on a real one. Worse, it’s a dollar that might be giving power and strength to frauds and parasites. Honest conscientious souls won’t screw the rules to their advantage, but unscrupulous overlords will be happy to push the envelope and use their extra power to crush a few more peasants. In a third world country, who will protect those victims?
Markets and currencies are powerful tools which have transformed civilization. But any tool can be used like a weapon.
Please go forth and spread that message, and let’s start with Bob Brown, Leader of the Australian Greens, whose understanding of economics appears not to extend to realizing that a price and a tax are two different things. Watch how he melds the two concepts into one vague “price” (such is the dismal state of debate in Australia):
…you do need a carbon price, whether it comes through a trading scheme or a tax on polluters. You do need a carbon price if you’re going to be able to bring down the pollution of the atmosphere
Mr Brown puhlease: a price is set by markets. Government do the taxing thing, and they are not the same.
Step aside for a moment and admire the irony of the Greens, great believers in community based action that they are, effectively arguing that all the volunteer work planting trees or going solar can never amount to anything. Only money makes for real action.
Now the alternative here was to go with Tony Abbott who said there’ll never, ever be a carbon price.
In other words we’ll never ever get real action on climate change.
It’s no coincidence that the only people who argue for a free market solution are those who profit from it, or those who don’t know what a free market is.
The only good thing about the new Greens alliance with The Labor Party is that they were bought off cheaply. The ALP didn’t have to promise much more than a stacked committee. The Greens couldn’t ask much because they couldn’t convince anyone they’d ever vote for the conservatives. Bob Brown, bless his soul, doesn’t know how to negotiate.
*PS: Lest anyone think I have something against bank workers and managers, let’s be clear — they’re just doing their jobs. Indeed, even most banking executives are only taking up opportunities we give them on a solid platinum platter. If we offer them another 10% of everything we earn so they can have even more power and control over us, who could blame them for saying “Yes Please”?
For a serious analysis the Centre for Independent Studies published a monograph Exploring a Carbon Tax in late 2007.
Even James Hansen recognises the dark side of Carbon Trading.
“In my testimony I noted that a “Cap” raises the price of energy, just as does a simple honest carbon tax on oil, gas and coal at the first sale at the mine or port of entry. “Cap” is a pseudonym, disguising the fact that it is a tax, assuming that the public is a bunch of dummies, who will never catch on. With all its hooks and eyes, Cap&Trade will allow a lot of funny business. At least we would get a few Wall Street millionaires back in business, via speculation and gaming the Cap&Trade system (funded by John Q. Public, of course).”
Climate money: Bigger money moves in
Carbon credits: another corrupt currency?
The carbon casino caught with its pants down (again)
Corruption for dinner anyone: The Carbon Market Scandal (HFC -23)
Carbon market chaos strikes again
Deutsche Bank “really” want us to trade Carbon
Bankers, lawyers, investors disappointed: shucks
Please send a message to newspaper editors, The Greens and the three Independents -( The Banker Shark might make an eye catching image). We need to lift the level of debate in this country. People need to know that Carbon Trading is a hidden tax, a fake market, prone to corruption and that it’s no coincidence that Bankers really want us to Trade Carbon but aren’t pushing for a tax even half heartedly.
ping .
Someday someone will confess to the Global Warming hoax,just as the H1N1 vaccine hoax has come to light. Of course, it will be after hundreds of billions of tax dollars will have been wasted and put into the pockets of the phony “Greenies” through their tax-free foundations.
CARBON TRAITORS
Well, the bankers don’t want the greenies to have the money either., they prefer to have it for themselves.
1.Carbon trading is NOT a free market. (In a free market, no one would pay for an atmospheric nullity they can’t use. A carbon trading market is one where the government compels some parties to buy, so it is not free.) [ Misunderstanding of the markets
2.It feeds the financial sharks. (Think “ENRON” x 100). Nonsense of a demagogue. You can say the same about roofers and lumbers.
3.Its a magnet for corruption. What isn't? More nonsense that is supposed to make you angry rather than pursuade.
4.Its permanent. So is the market for apples --- how is that a detriment?
Consider that the state mandates that you have car insurance. That makes you, as a citizen less than fully free. But that does NOT make the insurance market --- your interactions with the insurer --- less than free.
More disturbingly, this false detour into "free-market" demagoguery detracts from the real culprit that enslaves us --- the carbon regulation.
Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Credits, have no intrinsic value. They have no worth in any market. They are not assets by any sense of the definition of the word.
Interestingly enough, without the threat of government coercion, you don't even have a plausible reason for the existence of these non-assets. Without government coercion, you will never see a carbon trading market.
Think I will bookmark this post for future sharing with some. Thanks E.
I am sorry too, but this does not make sense (or at least I could not make out any). The question of whether markets are free has nothing to do with the "intrinsic value" (it was Marx, by the way, who thought that things and services have intrinsic value --- there is no such thing).
More specifically, no public good has value in the sense you are using this word: it is rational for any person to pay zero for street lighting, police protections, public roads, etc. Markets do not provide public goods, and it is the coercive power of government that is needed for that. Your intuition misleads you because you do not differentiate public and private goods.
In addition, revisit the insurance example I gave. A particular person may have value $0 (zero) for insurance, and yet she is compelled to buy it by the government. That does not make her interactions with insurer less than fully free: you confuse the compulsion by the government (her relationship with the government) and purchase of insurance (her relationship with the insurer, a different entity).
" Without government coercion, you will never see a carbon trading market."
Correct. Nor will you see street lighting, police, etc. That is the essence of public goods. Revisit your economics text under "public goods" and "free-rider problem."
Are you seriously going to lobby the merits of Cap and Trade her on Free Republic?
Carbon credits have about the same value as toxic mortgages. Zero.
“Correct. Nor will you see street lighting, police, etc. That is the essence of public goods. Revisit your economics text under “public goods” and “free-rider problem.”
Yes, but these are things people actually want and benefit from. Nobody but those with their hands are out for profit (and corruption) wants, or even understands, this new fiat currency.
You must be a banker.
Thanks Ernest,
I read another article today that carbon trading is falling fast.
It is silly, but as a writer said nearly a year ago, it is a sham to keep the masses distracted.
One guide in Alaska called it the continuing propaganda of the US government.
Thanks for the ping.
Paul
Clean air is a public good, which benefits all people.
You once again confuse the issues of wanting something, benefiting from it, and willing to pay for it. Why don't you take a good advice and first think and study the issue a bit before you speak?
You must be a banker.
Congratulations on holding Marxist views while fancying yourself a conservative.
It was Marx who first advanced the idea that one's economic position in society determines his views. You faithfully follow him: since I disagree with your position (obviously correct, you think), the disagreement can be explained by my personal gain --- I must be a banker!. Previously , you defamed other people -- those same bankers -- without a shred of undestanding, and now you turned on me. You must've not even heard of Ten Commandments and serving as false witness, Mr. "Conservative."
It is because so-called conservatives ignorantly repeat the Leftist mantra, no longer know how their country functions, and no longer abide by Judeo-Christian morality that we have a Marxist in the White House.
Enjoy the presidency of your fellow Marxist, Nipfan.
You appear unable either to read or to think today. The issue was not the merits of Cap and Trade. You made a seriously erroneous remark about the freedom of the corresponding market, and that was to which I replied. Having nothing to say in response, you now switch the topic. And cannot resist to add another nonsense that you think sounds intellectual: "Carbon credits have about the same value as toxic mortgages. Zero."
I not going to respond to this, as having the last word is what you appear to value most. Do stay with this brilliant statement of yours.
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