[Terrapreta] Carbon tax

[Greg and April]

Interspaced in Blue.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Joyner" <jimstoy at dtccom.net>
To: "terra pretta group" <Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 16:35
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Carbon tax


> 
> Sure, but these costs already exist. It's just instead of you the SUV 
> driver paying for them, we hand the cost to the environment. 

What makes you think that only SUV will be paying the bill - for that matter why only SUV's?    There are plenty of places were if your not driving a SUV in winter - your not going any place - including work.


> Sometimes 
> it hard to calculate what these costs are monetarily but they are still 
> there. In fact, the over all cost of getting the original vendor 
> absorbing them is probably much less because it comes out of their 
> pockets or reduces their markets, so they have every incentive to do 
> this as efficiently as possible. 

What law are you going to pass to ensure that it's absorbed by vendors?

I don't know if you recall, but when fuel prices first started to skyrocket, anyone that delivered for a living, tacked on a fuel surcharge - heck Pizza Hut still does it, to ensure that it's drivers make a base minimum per delivery to cover fuel cost.

> I mean, if someones livelihood or 
> health (costs) is being destroyed half way round the world instead of 
> the company paying the costs for their own products, what do they care?

It's more than that, but then again that's why countries sell carbon credits right - so they can absorb the pollution cost of someone else, to build up their infrastructure?

> I think that is the wrong question. What we want is system that get the 
> best use out of any resource. The free market is the best at doing that. 
> The problem is, companies get free rides either as legal monopolies or 
> immunity from the protection the gov't should provide. That is the 
> problem now: companies don't pay the real cost of producing their products.

What is the difference between a company that is a legal monopoly and one that managed to get there by being a tougher on the street?    Nothing I can see.

> I'm NOT talking about taxing anyone. I'm talking about doing what equity 
> in law should do in the first place. If a company affects my property or 
> space, they should make it right. If they don't, I (or the unaware, 
> innocent bystander) pay the cost. I would like to see back door 
> subsidies cease.

That's not a free market system.    Come to think of it, I don't think that it qualifies as anything except perhaps as some form of the " the ideal " communist system which is never actually achievable either.

> 
> On the other hand, any form of tax credit system WILL be taxing, will be 
> manipulating/distorting the market, but in a way the taxers and 
> manipulators won't get the blame. SNIP
> 

I'm not so sure of that either.    It sounds like what you want is an idealized  society, where everyone get's just their share and not one smidgen more - no mater how hard they work, or what talent they have.    If that is so, it's not going to work - there is not enough resources on this earth to achieve it, at a level that is on par with what we believe that a civilized society should be.
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