For heaven's sake. The point of putting a cap or a tax on carbon emissions is to curb carbon emissions, thereby saving the planet from cooking. It is not about creating jobs. It will certainly create some, but it will destroy plenty, too.
He also links to an article at Bloomberg that explains why it's an economic shell game:
The notion is that we make ourselves better off by transferring resources from one sector, which is fairly efficient, to another, which isn’t. Such an assertion might be correct if we account for the damage done by greenhouse gases. But with regard to job creation, the argument is nonsense.
FLG pointed this out almost a year ago, and his explanation is a bit easier to understand, if he doesn't say so himself.
FLG isn't some expert in economics or policy. He just has an undergraduate degree in international economics. Even then, most of what he uses when thinking about policy is basic Intro to Micro or Macro stuff. It's not about monotonic utility functions, the Taylor rule, the Rybczynski theorem, or an exogneous growth model. Only plain, simple Econ 101. Unfortunately for our beloved republic, too many people don't bother understanding that much. Otherwise, a good many policy proposals would be laughed straight out of the discussion.
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2 comments:
Read this closely -especially all the job numbers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/05/AR2009100503870.html
Mrs. P
"I just don't know what to do for people."
That's the problem. It's about her doing stuff for people rather than just getting out of the fucking way and letting the market work.
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