You buy carbon, I prefer whisky
LETTERS
Re: “Dr. Gordon needs to learn,” Aug. 4 Peter Foster’s response to Stephen Gordon amply demonstrates why conservatives, or common, garden- variety l i bertarians l i ke myself, would have little to learn f r om Gordon’s musings about carbon taxes. While Gordon is right that both prices and taxes are what we pay to receive a service, the crucial difference is that I have no choice about paying a tax, whereas I am free not to buy a service if the terms are not suitable.
As for Gordon’s claim that a decline in government revenues as a percentage of GDP means that governments are shrinking rather than expanding, other economists ( correctly, in my view) look instead at government expenditures as a percentage of GDP, which tend to suggest the opposite. In 2014 the ratio for Canada was 41.9 per cent of GDP, compared with 41.6 per cent for the U.S., and 35.3 per cent for Australia. (As Mises pointed out, politicians are not confined to official revenues to float their boats; they regularly resort to inflation, which has the advantage of being not nearly so obvious as a tax).
While I am aware that some favour carbon taxes, I don’t happen to be one of them, so rather than add them to the mix, I favour a free- market solution, where those that wish to buy them can do so, since as Gordon argues, there is no difference in the end between a market price and a tax. And those of us who would rather not, would be free instead to spend the money on cigarettes or whisky. Grahame Booker, PhD, Stratford, Ont.
A superior model
Re: “Ontario: Surely not in denial,” letter, Aug. 2 Ontario environment minister Glen Murray touts the alleged benefits of Ontario’s cap- and- trade program. He asserts that it will be costeffective and economically advantageous. Why does he think it will be such a success in Ontario when it has been an abject failure in Europe, plagued by corruption and fraud?
Informed economic and financial commentators agree that a carbon tax such as that in B.C. is a far superior model. But of course, in that case politicians and bureaucrats aren’t able to hand out goodies to favoured players and industrial sectors. This does not accord with Murray’s Soviet-style central-planning ambitions. Gerry Wood, Toronto
Cooler head prevails
Re: “It is about the size of government,” Aug. 11 Peter Foster’s excellent article left me marvelling at his cool- headed patience and precision in dissecting and demolishing Prof. Gordon’s arguments. I unfortunately seriously doubt if Peter’s article will have succeeded in altering by one iota Gordon’s thoroughly misguided views of how best to promote social and economic progress. It has been historically a perpetually futile exercise when attempting to convince socialists, and more so when the latter are academics, of the utter failure of their dogma.
Socialist governments, as we now see manifested in Ontario and Ottawa, refuse to accept the notion that they are, by design, incapable of growing economies. In fact they fear true economic growth, and its associated personal freedoms, since it results in the mass of the people realizing they actually don’t need big government to show them how to succeed. David Green, Thornhill, Ont.
Symptoms, meet disease
Re: “How Ontario’s one per cent can reduce fuel poverty,” Aug. 16 Brady Yauch suggests that if only the rich were enticed to waste as much energy as possible, they could soak up all of Ontario’s excess power, which, in the fullness of time, would cause our crippling electricity rates to be lowered. Fat chance of that happening, and so much for the notion of conservation. The twin lunacies of giving Ontario’s power away to our U. S. competitors or paying generators to stop producing renewable energy, are not the problems but the symptoms. The Liberals’ Green Energy Plan, a poorly quantified and enormous undertaking, is the disease. How little sense it makes is illustrated by the disastrous compromises that have to be made to keep it alive. If logic ever has a say in this matter, its answer would be to kill the GEP, not feed it some more. Rick Fuschi, Windsor, Ont.
Beware of Trump
“Beware of Democrats,” July 29 Terence Corcoran fails to realize that it i s Donald Trump who wants to scrap trade agreements in the name of fair trade. The success of Donald Trump in the Republican primaries stemmed from his ability to connect with mainly bluecollar white men who blame unfair trade agreements for the loss of well- paid factory jobs. They blame the nation’s elites — Republican and Democrat — for exporting jobs to low- wage countries. They blame politicians for being beholden to corporate interests. They tend to believe that only a self-financed non- politician like Trump can stand up for them.
By promising to re- write or scrap these “unfair” trade deals, Trump has successfully tapped into this discontent and is likely to win in a landslide with the support of “angry” blue-collar Americans. With Trump poised to become the next president, Canada should beware his anti-NAFTA rhetoric. Mahmood Elahi, Ottawa