Yoram Bauman calls himself the World’s First and Only Stand-Up Economist. I’ve seen a sample of him on YouTube and can’t really vouch for the comedy aspect of his act. And after reading a mass email I received (not spam; I actually subscribed), I thoroughly doubt his claim to be an economist.
Troublemaking: I’m part of a group in Washington State that is planning a 2010 ballot measure to repeal the state property tax and replace it with a carbon tax. If you’ve got friends here in Washington, tell them to email me to volunteer or find out more, and FYI our proposal is similar to the award-winning carbon tax currently in effect in British Columbia.
A closer inspection of his site reveals that he is an economist in the same way that Paul Krugman is an economist. What that means is he is a central planner at heart and economic reality will always take a back seat to personal ambition with a bent toward outcome-based, macroeconomic control via government force. Look for more of these “economists” jumping onboard Al Gore’s Cap and Trade gravy train.
Do you really think a carbon tax shift is “fascist”? For heaven’s sake, why?
yoram
Does it not give government a way to directly influence business? How can it not be fascist? Just as business regulations influence business, a carbon tax simply steers a portion of a company’s efforts away from delivering a product or service to its customers and directs it toward complying with the edicts of a bureaucrat. In essence – no, actuality – it is the takeover of a portion of that company by the government – the definition of fascism. If I own a business but I can’t run it as I see fit, do I really own it?
If business is doing something harmful to any person or his property, then we have laws and courts already in place for that. Is there a problem with them that we need to do an end-run around them?
“If business is doing something harmful to any person or his property, then we have laws and courts already in place for that.”
You mean I can sue companies for emitting carbon? I didn’t know that. Please show me the “laws and courts” that make that possible.
You can sue in so far as you can prove that the emitter caused damage to your person or property. Simply emitting isn’t a crime. If it were, allowing them to emit through your carbon-trading scheme would be no less a crime.
Cap-And-Trade or carbon taxes are THE most fascist ways you can reduce carbon dioxide emissions should you somehow find justification for doing that. It automatically privileges the very worst emitters, and penalizes smaller entities right out of business.
I have articulated before that there ARE harmful compounds (e.g., mercury) LEGALLY emitted from power plants that this wealth-transfer scheme won’t touch. And, conversely, if you prosecuted the trespass by pollution, you’d likely drive the worst carbon emitters out of business too, again, if you could somehow justify doing that, which you can’t.
Seen this way, cap-and-trade and carbon taxes are simply corporatization schemes coupled with wealth redistribution.
Oh! CAP and trade! I though we were dicussing CRAP and trade. I assumed the problem was with my butt!
And think for a minute about what imposing a carbon tax will actually do. First, it will reduce demand for say, electricity by at least an equal amount, not accounting for second- or third-order effects. The electric utilities, which are government-chartered monopolies, will simply raise their prices. This will in turn cause reductons in consumption, and so on, until the price of electricity is prohibitively expensive for many, many marginal users.
Then, it gets interesting. Either the state PUC will cap rates, causing producers to shut down capacity that has become uneconomic, or they will subsidize consumption. In the first instance, they will idle newer plants that cost more to operate. In the second instance, there will be a huge transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the power companies, followed quickly by scenario 1, see California under their “deregulation” plan.
A carbon tax is like responding to a building’s need for fresh air by taking a bulldozer to it. It will be an economic calamity, completely unproductive (because energy production will move to unregulated areas along with the productivity it serves, again, see California), and completely unnecessary.
I didn’t even get into the economic fallacy part of the proposal but at very least, the opportunity cost is incalculable (as it always is). It doesn’t matter whether it is a carbon cap or any other government program. At its root is shifts capital away from the rightful owners and toward the government. Proponents of government solutions usually ignore this. And while I don’t pretend to be able to quantify this opportunity cost (and I’m not a utilitarian), I’ll go out on a limb and say that the amount that gets siphoned away to Washington will not be used as productively as if it were to be allocated in the free market.
And please don’t make me get into all the reasons why the entire global climate scare is half-baked and not worthy of being referred to as definitive in any way.