So much of your post is true krby, but half true. It's been a while since I gave any serious effort to a post, so I'll give it a shot here. What the hell-- it's Christmas!
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If it cost more to make goods then companies will do one of two things:
1) Increase the cost of their goods to maintain margins
2) Cut expenses in other areas to maintain margins
If they don't do one of those two then they will:
3) lose money and possibly go out of business.
When option #2 and #3 happen people lose jobs. When companies have to cut expenses they look at labor. They will either not hire that extra worker or lay others off.
True-- *sometimes*. When option #2 happens, people don't *always* lose jobs. You present these things like it's an inevitability, when it's not. For example, while fuel costs rose dramatically over the last few years, 100s of companies managed to continue without cutting jobs all over the country. Some did, and some did not.
Will costs be passed on to consumers? Sure. The neat thing is what happens next. Company A and Company B sell widgets and pollute, and have to pay for a lot of carbon credits on the market. Company A says, "we want to make more money. Let's invest in cleaner technology so we don't have to buy those carbon credits. Now we can lower our price and sell more widgets than Company B!" Company B says, "now we have to invest in cleaner technology to be competitive with Company A." Around and around it goes-- we have real, direct monetary incentive for people to be clean and to be successful.
Right now you and people like you claim that the market alone should be enough incentive for such clean technology. "If people want it bad enough, markets will provide!" is the mantra, despite demonstrable evidence that it doesn't. See, when companies pollute, they often never have to pay the direct cost to do so. It simply affects us all. In fact, the incentive is to NOT invest in cleaner technology, for as long as you can get away with it.
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You also have to look at the ripple effect this will have. Look at how the cost of EVERYTHING went up when the price of gas went up. If company A needs widgets to make its product and company B makes widgets and company B is taxed for creating widgets then they will sell their widgets to company A for more to try to maintain their margins. Company A now has to face an increased cost of supplies (widgets) and increased expenses (idiot tax) and they will have to raise their cost to their consumers to try to maintain their margins.
More of the same, but again you don't consider the added incentive all this has on companies to find ways to reduce those costs. Be clean, and you can offer your goods cheaper than your neighbor. Profit. Win.
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A Cap and Trade tax will affect everyone. Your pizza delivery will cost more, your groceries will cost more, heating/cooling your house will cost more, your clothes will cost more, your transportation will cost more, your garbage removal will cost more. Everything. If they don't then the quality will go down.
The lack of a Cap and trade tax affects everyone too. The pollution it is designed to help limit costs us billions in asthma, cancer, etc. All these drive up our health costs, driving up our insurance, driving up the cost of employers to have employees, driving up the price of goods, etc etc etc. Since it's not a *direct* cost, however, you seem unwilling to see it all around us.
Cap and Trade give incentive for a company to be clean so they can be cheaper than everyone else, allowing them to profit.
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Why would you want to tax businesses out of business just because of a theory that is not proven?
See, this is a huge jump you make in your posts which is simply exaggeration. "Tax them out of business?" No evidence, but this is the jump you have to make to try to get your point across. I also believe the idea that it isn't proven is not really correct, either. The idea involves taking basic principals of capitalistic marketing and applying it to pollution. The beauty of the general design of such systems is that it simply works like any other market-- markets we've studied and theorized about for the last 150 years. It's hardly a fly-by-night idea-- it's application of proven principles we've seen around us work in many other types of markets all over the world.
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Why do we want to punish our production when other countries (read: China and India) will not do the same? Why then will you complain that production and manufactuing jobs have left our country and gone to places that don't have such taxes? Why will you not complain that produce from Mexico actually has a larger impact to the environment than produce we could have produced here but due to extra taxation it is more cost effective to grow them in another country and ship it here?
I'm glad you brought up outsourcing of jobs. Why are you upset about jobs leaving the country? Why punish the production of companies by insisting they use high cost labor here?
Do you see the parallel between that subject and what you are objecting to here yet? If you are ok with insisting on companies using American labor, but are opposed to insisting on companies be clean, do you at least see the inconsistency?
In other subjects, if other countries will not do the same, we can implement tariffs on their goods. In my opinion if other companies have poor labor standards, or poor pollution standards, I have no problem with us as a country saying, "we will not trade with you, or we will make your goods more expensive, because of how you treat your people and your environment." I believe that's called "fair trade," and that would certainly protect our companies here striving for a higher standard.
Or, we could just keep on polluting in the name of "fairness," until some day in our future, or our grandchildren's future, we can simply no longer live in our country in a healthy manner.
Just my thoughts on the matter.