> Perhaps you should consider the case that the carbon tax is just another > disastrous marketplace method for dealing with global warming:
I didn't say "decent." I said half-decent. > * It won't sufficiently affect carbon emissions. can't it be increased in magnitude? > * It will fall with greatest weight on the workers and the poor. in theory, the revenues could be used to compensate them. > * It will end up being extremely complex. The way of setting the tax and > judging the carbon content, and the handling of the exceptions and special > regulations which will accompany any actual carbon tax, will be opaque, and > everything will be put into the hands of a horde of highly-paid specialists > with links to the industries. The same thing will happen here as happened to > cap and trade under Kyoto. the tax is simpler, but you're right that it's complex (especially given the political interests pushing for exemptions, etc.) > * The belief in the wonder-working effects of Pigovian taxes is just > another version of the belief in the benevolent effects of the "invisible > hand" of market forces. I don't remember using the word "wonder." > * This belief in companies doing the right thing because of the carbon tax > is a market fundamentalist fantasy to avoid dealing with the need for direct > envrionmental regulation and the need for overall planning of the > environmental impact of the economy. I didn't say that it was better than direct regulation. But the fact is, businesses do try to avoid taxes. If they can't push the costs on to others, they are forced to adapt. > * It ends up being a way to pretend to do something while actually marking > time. so says you. -- Jim Devine / "All science would be superfluous if the form of appearance of things directly coincided with their essence." -- KM _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
