This should be the last political post for a while. I just think there needs to be more awareness of what is going on and so I am doing my small part here.
If you don’t know what is going on with the cap and trade legislation you better wake up. Cap and trade is an attempt to put a cap on how much emissions can be put into the environment by companies in the U.S. A company is allowed by the government via permit to produce X-amount of pollution. If they go over that amount they have to buy more credits from companies that have excess credits. So those companies that are more environmentally friendly will make a profit off the polluters. That sounds pretty good, right? The problem is, this has far ranging implications. For instance, how are companies going to pay for these additional credits? They will charge more for their services, which will then be passed on to you. It is estimated that the average American household will pay an additional $1,600 to $3,200 each year. This is indirectly a tax that we will all be paying. This will also result in a much higher cost of energy including the gas you put in your car. What is more, it will cost American jobs as the cost of energy will almost certainly go through the roof.
You need to know what is happening. If this passes the Senate you need to adjust your family budget to expense out at roughly $2000 toward your power bill, gas/auto budget, etc to make sure you have enough put away to cover the coming increase in costs.
Emissions trading – wikipedia (read opening paragraph to get a better idea of how this works)
Also have a look at this post from Shane for more links along with this video of Warren Buffet on Cap and Trade that he shared.
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And with the way the market works, companies that aren’t as environmentally friendly will lose business to the companies that leave less of a carbon footprint. Consumers will adjust. Necessity for cheaper, more environmentally-friendly energy options will drive ingenuity. Engineering & Industry adjust.
Short term pain. Long term gain.
This bill is far bigger than just getting companies to be more environmentally friendly. It even has provisions to have federally regulated housing codes that will trump state and local building codes. Then in 2-3 years the codes get even stricter. This bill trumps the interstate commerce act. It is just one more way for the government to get bigger and have more control over private enterprise. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but that is what this bill is all about. Global warming isn’t a proven fact and yet we bend over backwards and shoot ourselves in the foot economically to make this happen.
By the way, I love the goose plucking quote.
Here’s an abstract of a profile of a scientist who thinks that Cap & Trade doesn’t go far enough. He’s convinced (and this abstract at least sounds convincing) that global warming is a very real threat that needs to be faced.
https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/29/090629fa_fact_kolbert
And apparently this particular scientist is so concerned that he was willing to make a scene about it last week:
https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/06/elizabeth-kolbert-james-hansen-the-arrested-scientist.html
Any tax on any business–auto, energy, construction, retail, etc–is ALWAYS passed on to the consummer by increased prices.
The American public is mostly (totally?) ignorant of how business works (how government works, for that matter).