Why would anybody support Cap and Trade

[Archangel M]

The president himself said that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket" under his plan, thus causing the price of everything from a loaf of bread to a gallon of gas to skyrocket. Most estimates are an %80+ increase in electrical costs and an immediate jump to $6 a gallon gas.

How can these politicians even consider this crap, especially with the economy in its current state?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Because the government (read taxpayers) would subsidize everything. That gas won't really cost you $6/gallon. You can pay it out of pocket the apply for your "gas tax credit" in April and get $1.5/ back upto x provided you tell them what car you drive, where you went, and how long you were there. Duh.

The Rich (everyone making more than 50k) will help cover the costs as they sneak the tax rate to 100%.

 

[Empty Hands]

Because the situation is, as always, a tradeoff. Global warming will make your loaf of bread, not to mention your cooling bill, that much more expensive with time. It's trying to head off a future disaster.

 

[CoryKS]

The president himself said that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket" under his plan, thus causing the price of everything from a loaf of bread to a gallon of gas to skyrocket. Most estimates are an %80+ increase in electrical costs and an immediate jump to $6 a gallon gas.

How can these politicians even consider this crap, especially with the economy in its current state?

I think the skyrocketing prices is, for a certain mindset, an anticipated result. If you can't make people stop using oil, you make it so expensive that they start economizing their usage.

 

[Balrog]

Cap and trade is pure bulldookey. It's simply socialists trying to extend more governmental control over us. It's based on a totally false premise: humans affect global warming. We don't - the sun does.

It's all based on the nonsensical concept of carbon emissions. Well, consider this: in a typical evening in my school, we produce a helluva lot of CO2 from all the hard breathing. If cap and trade goes in, how long will it be before the government decides to tax my school for excess carbon emissions?

 

[Empty Hands]

Well, consider this: in a typical evening in my school, we produce a helluva lot of CO2 from all the hard breathing. If cap and trade goes in, how long will it be before the government decides to tax my school for excess carbon emissions?

 

[chaos1551]

End petrol subsidies NOW. Or yesterday, even.

The way I understand it, cap and trade is a baby step toward the ending of petrol subsidies along with being a way to decrease the amount of petrol we burn. Makes sense to me, but we'd have to gradually develop substitutes for the energy we get from petrol.

Seems cap and trade is a way to force the money down the path of more renewable resources so we're not caught with our thumbs up our arses when oil runs out.

 

[Deaf Smith]

The president himself said that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket" under his plan, thus causing the price of everything from a loaf of bread to a gallon of gas to skyrocket. Most estimates are an %80+ increase in electrical costs and an immediate jump to $6 a gallon gas.

How can these politicians even consider this crap, especially with the economy in its current state?

Archangel,

It's cause we all LOVE to pay TAXES!

Yes here my wife and I show our bills to each other and, by golly, we smile when we see how much sales tax they take out.

We are giddy when we see the PROPERY TAX BILL GO UP!

And yes, we are PROUD to see our Social Security Taxes skyrocket and Medicare/Medicaid shoot upward.

And who could not be busten with pride with our annual car registration fees!

Plus we are so ecstatic with the increase in our health care cost with Obamacare!

So they want to jack up the gas prices! Whoopeee!!!

Poverty here we come, right back where we started from.

A depression a day keeps the Obama's away!

They're coming to take me away, HA HA

They're coming to take me away, HO HO HEE HEE HA HA

Deaf

 

[Makalakumu]

Because the situation is, as always, a tradeoff. Global warming will make your loaf of bread, not to mention your cooling bill, that much more expensive with time. It's trying to head off a future disaster.

Assuming that global warming is going to play out like the folks who push cap and trade and carbon taxes propagandize, cap and trade does nothing to curb global warming. It essentially plays a shell game with pollution. All cap and trade REALLY amounts to is another Wall Street derivatives scam. The carbon credits will be securitized and bundled and then swapped for items of real value. When the scam unwinds, all of the poor suckers on pensions will be fleeced out of everything. The people who push cap and trade through will be sitting on the board of Goldman Sachs as soon as they leave office.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

Not to mention things already stated, it is going to bankrupt the U.S. economy.

Unless every country is going to sign onto some type of cap and trade legislation, it won't have any effect on global warming (even if I did believe in an anthropogenic global warming). It will only cripple U.S. businesses in competition with those of other nations who don't have such restrictions.

And that will cause the downfall of the U.S. economy, make the U.S. a Third World nation, and cause us to try to start businesses without any concern for pollution, just where the next meal will come from.

 

[Empty Hands]

Assuming that global warming is going to play out like the folks who push cap and trade and carbon taxes propagandize, cap and trade does nothing to curb global warming.

Of course it does. It encourages industry to reduce emissions, because emissions will cost them. You could just buy lots of credits, but the incentive will be there to reduce emissions so you don't have to buy credits. Plus, other industries will have the incentive to lower their emissions so they can sell their credits to businesses who do not want to lower theirs.

It is a market based solution to the problem, although of course not a perfect one. I find it interesting that those who usually have so much faith in the market, have none in this market based solution.

 

[CoryKS]

Of course it does. It encourages industry to reduce emissions, because emissions will cost them. You could just buy lots of credits, but the incentive will be there to reduce emissions so you don't have to buy credits. Plus, other industries will have the incentive to lower their emissions so they can sell their credits to businesses who do not want to lower theirs.

It is a market based solution to the problem, although of course not a perfect one. I find it interesting that those who usually have so much faith in the market, have none in this market based solution.

What a dishonest use of the term "market-based solution". It isn't a response to a need that previously existed, the market was artificially created by the regulation. It's like saying that the Mafia's protection-selling racket was a market-based solution.

 

[Makalakumu]

Of course it does. It encourages industry to reduce emissions, because emissions will cost them. You could just buy lots of credits, but the incentive will be there to reduce emissions so you don't have to buy credits. Plus, other industries will have the incentive to lower their emissions so they can sell their credits to businesses who do not want to lower theirs.

It is a market based solution to the problem, although of course not a perfect one. I find it interesting that those who usually have so much faith in the market, have none in this market based solution.

It won't work because corporations who produce lots of carbon are also running the scam derivative companies. They will buy credits from "green" companies, securitize them in futures contracts and then sell them to themselves. When these future's contracts start to unwind, they will be offloaded via multinational banks into the 401k and mutual funds to self destruct. So, yeah, it's a shell game and a scam.

 

[Empty Hands]

What a dishonest use of the term "market-based solution". It isn't a response to a need that previously existed, the market was artificially created by the regulation. It's like saying that the Mafia's protection-selling racket was a market-based solution.

"Emissions trading (also known as cap and trade) is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants."



Right from Wikipedia. It's a market based solution in the government sets the basic conditions and incentives and lets the market react to them. The approach has a successful track record, it's been successfully used to combat acid rain among other pollutants.

 

[Empty Hands]

It won't work because corporations who produce lots of carbon are also running the scam derivative companies. They will buy credits from "green" companies, securitize them in futures contracts and then sell them to themselves. When these future's contracts start to unwind, they will be offloaded via multinational banks into the 401k and mutual funds to self destruct. So, yeah, it's a shell game and a scam.

Derivatives are mostly a financial product. Heavy carbon emissions are mostly associated with heavy industry. I don't think there's a lot of cross-ownership there. Even if true though, that's an argument for better regulation - not an argument for not trying. Inaction has a cost as well.

Again however, these very same setups have worked before for acid rain. I don't see why they can't work again.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

"Emissions trading (also known as cap and trade) is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants."



Right from Wikipedia. It's a market based solution in the government sets the basic conditions and incentives and lets the market react to them. The approach has a successful track record, it's been successfully used to combat acid rain among other pollutants.

It may be "market-based", in that the buying and selling of carbon credits is done between businesses, but it is hardly free market.

The only reason this is being done is due to government intrusion in the market place.

And still won't solve the problem. It's not U.S.A. warming, it's GLOBAL warming. All this will do is help kill U.S. businesses.

 

[Archangel M]

Thankfully by all accounts neither side of the House or Senate supports it...

 

[Makalakumu]

Derivatives are mostly a financial product.

Well, yes, they are financial products, but then again, the whole carbon trading scheme is a financial product, so what is your point? A derivative is essentially a bet that the price in the future will go up or down. When they are securitized, it means that they are covered with insurance and rated like all other financial products.

Carbon credits are already being turned into derivatives where this scheme has become law and it is completely scandalous. Essentially, a company promises to deliver on "green" promises and sells credits that it owns in the future. These bets are securitized and sold as real carbon credits to other divisions within multinational corporations so they can pollute as much as they want.

When these bets pay off, the derivatives are redrawn and resecuratized and resold and the losses are shunted around to countries where the corporate income can be offset, creating tax havens. When they go bad, the derivatives are rated by captured rating agencies and marketed to retirement funds where they explode and destroy the value of those accounts. Meanwhile the creator reaps in the insurance policy on the product and then demands a bailout from the government to bailout the insurence division of the multinational corporation.

It's a win win win win for the corporations that issue them. That's why Al Gore and BP are trying to get in to the business and get the market for these products going. This is why all of the major oil companies want this legislation. Meanwhile, cap and trade derivatives are a total loss for the small investor, the saver, and the taxpayer.

A big difference between carbon derivatives and other forms of pollution is that carbon is so ubiquitous that the amount of futures that could be sold is essentially limitless. Other forms of pollution are far more limited and the futures contracts aren't able to explode beyond a certain level. Otherwise, futures contracts on other forms of capped and traded pollution certainly do exist.

The biggest difference between other forms of capped and traded pollution and carbon credits is that the whole scheme is designed to produce cap and trade paper. The regulators are capture by industry and are writing the laws to produce these products. The "financial greenies" that bankroll the UN programs on climate change and global warming propaganda could give a hoot about the environment, they are looking to create this scheme for the financial benefit.

The goal of this is to combine carbon credits with a carbon tax and create a new economy and currency that is based off of energy and controlled by a few powerful financial elite who set the carbon taxes and issue the carbon credits, controlling the price on everything. Under this scheme, the real value of all currencies in countries who participate is transferred to an artificial and controllable paradigm.

Ultimately, the system is a predatory scam designed by white collar theives who are convinced that they are "doing gods work" and managing the untermensch.

 

[dancingalone]

Ultimately, the system is a predatory scam designed by white collar theives who are convinced that they are "doing gods work" and managing the untermensch.

Check out Al Gore's bank account. He's become very rich championing this cause through speaking engagements and board memberships. He'll probably make a huge amount of money from corporate stock too if cap and trade ever passes.

Meanwhile the guy's carbon footprint is anything but small with his huge mansion and jet set travel.