Mar 262008
 

According to Monday’s Wall Street Journal, big business is now getting on the global warming bandwagon.

… executives from major multinationals are calling on the U.S. government to impose a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions. As Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s CEO, explained, because regulation is coming, “I’d just as soon have a seat at that table than have it pushed down my throat.”

In other words, a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions is a recipe for corrupt government. Policies will be made on the basis of who has the best insider connections, rather than on merit. It’ll be a sort of mutual corruption pact between leftwing regulators and big business corporations.

The Main Adversary calls them Green Robber Barons.

A plain carbon tax wouldn’t have all these possibilities for corrupt insider dealing, so I suppose that’s why politicians are pushing for emission caps instead.

(Of course, the way to get a carbon tax is to pay for it with offsetting tax cuts elsewhere. But I suppose that sort of paygo has no chance of getting any support in Congress.)