Briar Patch Economics

David Roberts, editor at Gristmill, thinks we shouldn't use a Carbon Tax and rebate system because nobody in Washington thinks it's a good idea except most progressives and a few conservative columnists playing B'rer Rabbit and the Briar Patch. (see "Carbon tax is a poison pill")


""I guess I'm going to be barbecue this day." Brer Rabbit sighed. "But getting barbecued is a whole lot better than getting thrown in the briar patch." He sighed again. "No doubt about it. Getting barbecued is almost a blessing compared to being thrown in that briar patch on the other side of the road. If you got to go, go in a barbecue sauce. That's what I always say. How much lemon juice and brown sugar you put in yours?"-from mythfolklore.net

Yeah, those poor conservative shills or the Coal'N'Oil industries suddenly want anything but "Cap'N'Trade."

On Noes!! B'rer Obama! You gots us now and we know we have to change our coal burning ways. We'll do whatever you like just don make us deal with a "Cap'N'Trade"system; oh my think of the paper work.

Now B'rer Obama he knows how tricksy Coal'N'Oil can get and he surely is tired of getting kicked by them so he thinks he just might toss 'em in a sack of Carbon Tacks where the more they kick the more they get poked. Yep, it's a little bit of the hike over the hill to the shed where he can get a good strong sack and them Carbon Tacks but to be rid of Coal'N'Oil he jus might do it'. Yer gone git the Carbon Tacks in a nice tight sack he tells Coal'N'Oil.

Coal'N'Oil he surely don't want no Carbon Tacks in a nice tight sack so he thinks quick looks around and sees the crazy Sierra Club bird hanging out on a nearby tree limb. Throwin his voice he sings out like it's the Sierra Club bird... "Give 'em to the Carbon Off-sets" he sings, "they'll tear him to pieces and starve him to death those Carbon Off-sets will."

Well those Carbon Off-sets will fill my mouth with fur, bite me like a thousand house-flies and tear out my nails but surely that will be better than throwing me to the Cap'N'Trade system. Whatever you all do jus don' throw me there.

B'rer Obama thinks about this and decides that Carbon Off-sets won't hurt nearly enough and tell's Coal'N'Oil it might be fun to tie Coal'N'Oil up in front of his pump house and feed everyone who comes up to the pump house door with Sun-power seeds, Wind-turbinados and Geo-powershakes that he's going to pay for with Coal'N'Oil's tab down at the treasury. Coal'N'Oil let's go a mighty shudder and sings out.. "Well that's a relief because for a minute there I thought you were going to throw me to the Cap'N'Trade"system where I'd be cut to pieces by all those long Wall Street knives."

We all know how this story is supposed to end but remember what happened when California tried to throw Coal'N'Oil's big Uncle Enron into the Power'N'Trade system which was pretty much the Cap'N'Trade system with free drinks and skittles. Uncle Enron managed to steal California's paycheck and the deed to the house on the way in and things haven't gone right there since.

If B'rer Obama listens to a word Coal'N'Oil is singing or the confusion caused by the voice throwing and wailing by the Wall Street ravens who rely on Coal'N'Oil to feed them a steady supply of dead and dying economies to feed on the rest of us are sunk. It will be way over four years before anybody gets their hands around Coal'N'Oil's throat again because nobody's gonna trust B'rer Obama if he screws this one up and it could be twelve years of doing nothing useful before the winds blow the right way again. We played this game with B'rer Clinton and health care and people are still paying for that bungle.

Push the carbon tax now and rebate now and structure it so the first rebate checks arrive in mailbox's March 2010 and there won't be a whimper from the GOP. Nobody complains about their Social Security checks arriving despite the fact that THAT'S an income redistribution system. A per capita rebate system advantages the very people the GOP would try and rally against any kind of carbon fee; the rural middle class. I'm pretty sure that given the choice between God in the pulpit and Mammon in the mailbox they'll choose mammon.

Your little World: link to a parable.

So how much of the planet are you actually responsible for? How much of
this whole problem is your fault. In a recent post over at Gristmill Michael
Tobis give us a little parable titled My little world
(and yours, too) that explains what your share of the planet really is.

"Imagine, as a thought experiment, that everyone on the planet
had the same share of the world's resources. It turns out your share is about
six acres (2.5 hectares) of dry land. ....................... Let's tell
a slightly different story, with a similar asteroid, a per-capita world.
Instead of being one of six billion people on a big planet, let's suppose
you were alone on a comparable asteroid. We'll give you your six-billionth
share of the surface area, your six-billionth share of each of the major
land masses and biomes, your own six billionth scale Africa, your own little
Australia. In other words, you will have exactly the average resource ownership
of everyone else on earth. Your little asteroid has a six billionth of the
earth's total surface area. It is a sphere with a radius of 82 meters, and
with a surface area of about 85,000 square meters. That, depending on how
you prefer to think about it, is almost exactly 21 acres, or 8.5 hectares.
In more urban terms, that is 19 American football fields, or about 12 English
football (professional soccer) fields. Just over 70 percent of your 21 acres
is covered by salt water. If it were to freeze over, you could walk from
any point to any other point at a leisurely pace in under ten minutes. Since
the ocean covers fifteen acres, the land surface covers the remaining six
acres. A vast variety of soils and climates are arrayed about your 6 dry
acres. According to the CIA, the area under cultivation is a bit under 5
percent of the total land area, or a bit over a third of an acre. If you
push matters to less valuable soil, you might be able to grow things on as
much as an acre, but most of your 6 acres are desert or tundra........"

Well, you get the idea. Your fair share of the farmland on the world is
about an acre. Since you are reading this on a computer that means that you,
or some proxy for you, has forcibly booted about a dozen other people off
their little planets in order to provide you with luxury goods. Yes food
in the fridge and clean cotton clothing are luxuries. I highly recommend
that you go over and read the whole story and visit Michael's blog, "Only in it for the Gold."