When places like the west get into mega drought conditions a lot of businesses will be affected, I do think that you are even wrong on the market, they will even pressure government to get into the act.
:rolleyes:
That makes no sense, the opposition of the Tea Party is a reckless one, even Republicans in the past noticed that cap-and-trade and some taxation does include the market forces to make the change a more efficient one, the tea party of today denies even that (even regulations). And once again, my point is not specifically opposed to the pipeline.
Just out of curiosity, what tools does “the market” have that would be used to add the environmental cost to the price which it sets, and how would “the market” go about calculating and adding that environmental cost?
This presumes that your chief objective is to deny “the government” a role in the process.
The market can’t price externalities. The government can’t either, but it can try. I don’t actually oppose a revenue neutral carbon tax, but I also recognize that there are two ways it can work: First, it could reduce carbon emissions a lot, or, it could not, and raise a lot of revenue.
So, no support for a carbon tax unless you get a guarantee of lower emissions? Sounds eminently reasonable, if you ask – no, wait, it’s the other thing.
No, my condition for supporting a carbon tax is that it be revenue neutral. That’s it. As far as I’m concerned, either result is fine: higher revenues or reduced carbon usage.
Revenue neutral as scored by the CBO. If it reduces demand less than forecast, that would mean higher revenues, and that’s an okay result. If it reduces demand more than forecast, that would mean lower revenues, and that’s okay too.
The government doesn’t need money, and a carbon tax would be regressive. So you’d want to cut payroll taxes to compensate. Otherwise you’re giving people giant energy bills on top of their tax burden.
A carbon tax (ideally) represents the cost imposed by the industry on all of us for that industry’s consumption of our resources (fresh air, which is “consumed,” as economists say, by taking it and converting it to polluted air). It’s the cost of people dying early, and of treating disease, etc. Currently, polluters get to consume air that belongs to all of us for free.
I agree with that, but it’s not a market cost. The market doesn’t price externalities well.
One reason a few conservatives love carbon taxes is that you shift the tax burden away from work, something we want more of, in favor of consumption of greenhouse gases. So you should see more work and less driving.
Part of the reason is that the Tea Party is pumped by the factually challenged Fox News. Fox News in turn has a 50% profit margin, despite an elderly demographic that advertisers tend to eschew (because the young buy stuff) and ratings below that of any of the 3 networks. They do it with One Weird Trick.
Sixty percent of Fox News’ revenue ($1 billion, about the same as their profits) comes from payments by cable companies for the privilege of airing Fox News. Relative to their ratings this is high. Roger Ailes has a strong negotiating position with the cable companies because he knows there will be a veritable shitstorm if Comcast or Time Warner drop Fox News: some customers will stop paying cable fees under such circumstances. The key aspect is that Fox News seeks to mold an audience that is intense and fanatical. Think Bill O’Reilly and his phony outrage stories.
From Steve Coll’s review of a Roger Ailes bio by Gabriel Sherman:
Here lies the problem in the alliance between Fox News and the Republican Party that Ailes has constructed. Fox owes its degree of profitability in part to its most passionate, even extremist, audience segment. To win national elections, the Grand Old Party, on the other hand, must win over moderate, racially diverse, and independent voters. By their very diversity and middling views, swing voters are not easy to target on television. The sort of news-talk programming most likely to attract a broad and moderate audience—hard news, weather news, crime news, sports, and perhaps a smattering of left–right debate formats—is essentially the CNN formula, which Fox has already rejected triumphantly.
According to Sherman and to an earlier book, based on interviews with Murdoch, by Michael Wolff, Murdoch, Ailes’s boss, has been embarrassed at times by Fox News’s more demagogic talk show hosts.* Yet Fox News is such a cash spigot that Murdoch has been unwilling to impose his reported qualms on Ailes, and has instead extended his contract through 2016. As the chief of Fox News, his compensation runs into the tens of millions of dollars. Karl Rove can yell at Ailes all he wants; Fox News’s profitability and the value it creates for News Corporation is a force distinct from electoral politics. Fox News and talk radio feed off of a jizzed up audience of credulous rubes. Unlike most television which pursues a wide base of warm bodies and the lowest common denominator, Fox subsists on committed fanatics. This is electorally problematic. Normal people roll their eyes at dubious claims. If the US stays out of recession bogus Bengazi obsessions produce real problems for the Republicans during Presidential elections. But during off-year elections… well, less so.
More at the article, including 4 ways Ailes outmaneuvered CNN. The author buried his lead though, the good stuff is in the 2nd half of it.
“… don’t actually oppose …” If that’s code for “enthusiastically support” I’d ask for more clarity in future. I realize GOP incumbents who hint at carbon tax are booted out of their seats by the Tea Party, but you’re among sane people here. I assume “adaher” is an alias and you won’t need to defend your admissions among your own kind.
Is this the new GOP marketing campaign:
Vote for us! Faced with five opportunities to cripple the American economy or drive down its credit rating we only took advantage of four of them!
The “revenue neutral” stuff just shows how unseriously many modern conservatives treat the deficit and debt. The deficit/debt is a mantra (to them), but not something that actually needs to be addressed with a realistic solution.
Very true. If only advocates of a bubble economy like Krugman and Summers would stop pretending they are for the poor and middle class, and admit they are for putting propping up the rich through “wealth effects” and hoping it trickles down.
Got any evidence that these guys advocate a bubble economy? Or did you just pull some words out of thin air, decide they sound bad, so they must apply to people you don’t like?
This makes sense because why else would Krugman have famously called for a housing bubble?
Do you follow economics at all or do you just assume that since you are supposed to like Krugman he must not advocate things that are obviously bad to anyone with common sense.
