AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Foxfyre wrote:

No doubt Thomas. But then I don't recall any time that you have found something to commend re the USA except that we finally elected someone to your liking as President and you so far seem to approve everything he is doing.

I respectfully submit that this says more about your memory and your reading comprehension than it says about my posts. But this is not an argument I have much time for. I'll just leave it to the readers of our posts to judge this matter by themselves.

Soros loathes the United States which I believe is why he supports so many organizations who are negative to any of the values that once helped make us a nation to emulate instead of despise. You dont' find his name associated with anything that is positive or helpful in the USA.
[..] I think George Soros is no friend to the United States.

He must be doing something right.

I'd thought, you would be honest enough to name Raymond L. Richman as author of an article where he used those quotes. (At least he noted that those quotes are from two different sources.)

Foxfyre wrote:

Soros loathes the United States which I believe is why he supports so many organizations who are negative to any of the values that once helped make us a nation to emulate instead of despise. You dont' find his name associated with anything that is positive or helpful in the USA.
[..] I think George Soros is no friend to the United States.

The funny thing of course is that the many nationalists and communists in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union who hate George Soros will contend that he is an agent of US and Western interests, out to expand the West's political and cultural hegemony. The whole Jewish "cosmopolitan" angle that's used against him fits in with that.

By these people, the organisations he created and funds are seen as a conspirative force to allow American power into the former Soviet Union and weaken Russia and/or [fill in nation of choice].

So we have American righties in a snit about Soros as dangerous lefty anti-American, and the East-European commies and nationalists in a snit about Soros as dangerous Western imperialist.

He must be doing something right.

What of the argument that justifies income and gas taxes where the citizenry gets something in return? Applying this argument as a rationale for a carbon tax we are at a loss to find a general good in exchange for taxpayer monies collected by government.

Lomborg campaigns for an unconventional position on climate change: he opposes the Kyoto Protocol and other measures to cut carbon emissions in the short-term, and argues that we should instead adapt to short-term temperature rises as they are inevitable, and spend money on research and development for longer-term environmental solutions, and on other important world problems such as AIDS, malaria and malnutrition.

I am guessing you don't have and have never read Soros' book.

"At the end of the day," says Lomborg, "this is about saying, Yes, global warming is real. It's often massively exaggerated, which is why we need smarter solutions... "

TAX VS CAP & TRADE

CTC regards carbon taxes as superior to carbon cap-and-trade systems for six fundamental reasons:

1. Carbon taxes will lend predictability to energy prices, whereas cap-and-trade systems will aggravate the price volatility that historically has discouraged investments in less carbon-intensive electricity generation, carbon-reducing energy efficiency and carbon-replacing renewable energy.

2. Carbon taxes can be implemented much sooner than complex cap-and-trade systems. Because of the urgency of the climate crisis, we do not have the luxury of waiting while the myriad details of a cap-and-trade system are resolved through lengthy negotiations.

3. Carbon taxes are transparent and easily understandable, making them more likely to elicit the necessary public support than an opaque and difficult to understand cap-and-trade system.

4. Carbon taxes can be implemented with far less opportunity for manipulation by special interests, while a cap-and-trade system’s complexity opens it to exploitation by special interests and perverse incentives that can undermine public confidence and undercut its effectiveness.

5. Carbon taxes address emissions of carbon from every sector, whereas some cap-and-trade systems discussed to date have only targeted the electricity industry, which accounts for less than 40% of emissions.

6. Carbon tax revenues would most likely be returned to the public through dividends or progressive tax-shifting, while the costs of cap-and-trade systems are likely to become a hidden tax as dollars flow to market participants, lawyers and consultants.

Who gets the money?
Think of cap-and-trade as a giant Monopoly game about to get under way, with the government holding a stack of carbon permits instead of Monopoly money. To get the permits into the market, the government has a choice: it can either give them away for free, or force companies to buy them at auction. An auction could raise money for tax cuts, which would help ease the burden on ordinary Americans. But power companies want free permits and they’re lobbying fiercely for them.

What about the rest of the world?
Reducing global emissions without help from India and China is essentially impossible. But if we don’t start to rein in our carbon emissions, we can’t very well expect them to do so.

How can the clever monkeys on Wall Street screw it up?

If you’ve never heard of “carbon derivatives,” consider yourself informed. They’re out there. In places deep, where dark things sleep, eager MBAs are already busy ginning up fancy new hedging mechanisms for gaming the post-carbon economy. Given how asleep-at-the-wheel regulators contributed to our current mess, the Feds might want to keep an eye on that.

Lissa Harris in the Pasedena Weekly

:"But the tax payers are getting something in return. They are getting a reduction in damage caused by global warming. And if the carbon tax matches the damage done by increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the taxpayers are getting back more from it than they paid. Granted, you can argue about the climatology of reducing global warming. But economics 101 is clear on the welfare effects of taxing externalties like global warming: There is a sound economic case for a carbon tax of some form if CO2 contributes to global warming at all, and if global warming harms the general welfare at all. "

The more I read about Cap & Trade, the scarier it gets. Robert Shapiro, chair and cofounder of the U.S. Climate Task Force sees real opportunity for mischief and much prefers a direct, head on carbon tax:

America must be a good role model

Americans and Europeans share a common goal " to build an enduring peace based on freedom. Our democracies today are strong and vibrant. Together we can tackle the diverse challenges we face, whether radical religious fanatics who use terror as their weapon of choice, the disturbing turn towards autocracy in Russia or the looming threats of climate change and the degradation of our planet.

But the key word is “together”. We need to renew and revitalise our democratic solidarity. We need to strengthen our transatlantic alliance as the core of a new global compact " a League of Democracies " that can harness the great power of the more than 100 democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.

At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. We Americans recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we must pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.

We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe that international action is necessary, whether military, economic or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must also be willing to be persuaded by them.

[...]

International responsibility also means preserving our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders. Americans and Europeans need to get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand over a much-diminished world to our grandchildren. We need to reinvigorate the US-European partnership on climate change where we have so many common interests at stake. The US and Europe must lead together to encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India.

I have introduced legislation that would require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but that is just a start. We need a successor to Kyoto, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. New technologies hold great promise. We need to unleash the power and innovation of the marketplace in order to meet our environmental challenges.

[...]

Even with this assumption of such American economic self flagellation, a carbon tax would be pointless without similar efforst by China and India.

What is this economics 101 that presents “a sound economic case for a carbon tax of some form "?

Please post the relative data and source that shows damage estimation, for without this none of my economics courses would have any basis for a determination on a final cost analysis that might negate global damage on which an honest and fair tax on Americans could be based.