Comments on: Whirled Views 6.27

By: hrw

hrw — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:57:23 +0000

#55
Correct, commodification of nothing is not a capitalistic instinct but it is the application of capitalist ideology to governance. Any type of limited licensing combined with the option to sell these licenses is the application of supply/demand to solve a problem.

Instead of subsidizing farmers, Ontario has, for several decades, used this approach to create a living wage for farmers. For example, dairy farmers purchases a quota or right to produce a certain amount of milk. They are allowed to sell their quota or purchase more but there is only a limited amount of production rights. This in turns limits supply and thus allows for increased cost at the retail level. Thus consumers pay a higher price for milk products in Canada than the US but there is no gov’t subsidy (tax money) involved.

A cap and trade policy for carbon production is a similar idea. The difference is nobody is purchasing carbon only the right to pollute.

An other way to view carbon cap and trade is to see it as a fee which encourages industry to limit carbon production and as a fee to pay for the damage caused by carbon.

Report comment to moderator

By: NJLawyer

NJLawyer — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:36:51 +0000

Xion writes: “When will some brave Democrat speak wisdom to the loons?”

Aren’t Democrats and loons about the same?

Report comment to moderator

By: kBells

kBells — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:08:09 +0000

Hubby’s says that we are closer to making nuclear energy safe than we are to making green energy work and that we should use nuclear energy to give us more time to make green energy work.
He is smarter than me and very left brained so I don’t know how to defend his theory. But there it is.

Report comment to moderator

By: Victoria

Victoria — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:38:09 +0000

Rio – 57

I am a Believer in Jesus Christ as my Savior, Born Again. I agree with some of the points you make. The idea of being a Calvinist or an Arminian are sad, we are either Christian Believers or we aren’t – Identity is with Christ, not a man!

Report comment to moderator

By: arcadia

arcadia — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:32:03 +0000

chas: Your first two general points are easily rebutted.

Paper money does have value, as long as people agree that it does. And anything you can trade for paper money also has value. Including the right to “pollute” or not pollute.

And governments, all governments can ALWAYS dramatically affect markets, by taxation, regulation, whatever. That is exactly what the government is doing here. You don’t like it, but there is a lot of other stuff the governemnt does that you don’t like.

The rest is simple hysteria and ad hominem vituperation.

Michelle: I am sure there are many who disagree with your friend about the scalability and energy equations of solar. I don’t know enough, but there is not much that humans make that doesn’t get cheaper as production scales ramp up.

As for nuclear, you read my views. I think, as far as the public is concerned, it is not salable. And disposal is a huge problem. (Incidentally I also think the plants, even now, make great terrorist targets.) And if the US government were to emulate France and mandate a standard design, I can just hear all the free marketeers screaming hysterically about stifling innovation…

Report comment to moderator

By: Rio

Rio — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:44:08 +0000

Jon Rowe @ #34,
“Some words of wisdom from Dr. Gregg Frazer”
Hm…

What exactly are you trying to accomplish by posting Dr. Frazer’s thoughts on this topic? Just wondering…

I forget who, but someone on here said she didn’t think it was possible to be neither an Arminian or a Calvinist, since I consider myself either. (a Carminian, perhaps?) I believe points of both sides of this question are correct…and incorrect…
In the event that someone wants to know my beliefs on the subject, I will gladly share them, but if not, I will not trouble everyone with the details.

Report comment to moderator

By: Justus331

Justus331 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:30:13 +0000

memo to Jon Rowe in post 38:
You mention this british man a noted evangelical. Really? I really don’t know who it is, nor do I know any of his credentials. Do you??? I made a small assumption after viewing his diatribe, and have concluded this gent speaking about his own thoughts between Calvinism and Arminism is rather UNinformed. Theologically speaking, he wouldn’t know the difference between Lobster poop and shinola.

Have you any thoughts you want to share about this man, and any credentials he might have?????????????????????

Report comment to moderator

By: Chas

Chas — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:20:43 +0000

HRW, were you referring to my comment? If so, commodification of nothing at all is not a capatilist instinct. It is capatilistic to take some real commodity, iron, coal, oil, corn, gold, etc. and create a market for it.
If you take a government created commodity you:
1. Take nothing and declare that is worth something.
(Remember, paper money always reverts to it’s intrinsic value.)
2. Creates a scam in which the ruling party can increase or decrease the amount of the commodity available to friends and enemies.
3. Ruin electrical, steel, rubber, and almost all other industries.
4. Send manufacturing industry to China and India, moreso than is already happening.
5. Ruin the travel (hotel, entertatainment, etc.) industry.
6. Bankrupt the auto industry that doesn’t produce cars people don’t want by the alotment of credits.
7. Allow the likes of Al Gore to keep his swimming pool warm and his personal gym cool regardless of what you and I must do.
8. Send the president’s wife shopping in Paris no matter that it takes another plane trip to facilitate that.
9. Etc., ad infinitum.

Report comment to moderator

By: Xion

Xion — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:07:40 +0000

#43 That was a very informative post Michelle. When I was in Hawaii in 1991 there was a huge legal battle there raging with environmentalists. Hawaii is on a volcano, so duh, free energy. But the environmentalists hate, I say HATE wires. And so they battled for years about free, green energy because they don’t like wires. I see the environmentalists in CA still hate wires. If you put them underground you don’t have to see them. Still they fight. Insane.

In NH there is a big battle raging with environmentalists about our coal burning plant which powers the state. There is a bill on the table to clean up the output and burn it much more cleanly. But environmentalists are fighting it because it is coal. Same goes for nuclear. It doesn’t matter how green it is; it is nuclear.

When will some brave Democrat speak wisdom to the loons?

Report comment to moderator

By: Victoria

Victoria — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:44:33 +0000

HRW – 51

Chas wrote what you are referring to in post 44 -

Report comment to moderator