Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Cap-and-Trade Market in Babies

"When Britain decided to end slavery,
Wilberforce didn't set up a cap-and-trade system"
That's me, misquoting myself.

Sometimes I find my fellow capitalists repulsive. When they lobby for political favors, then turn around and blandly refer to the result as an example of free markets I don't know whether to laugh, cry or attempt to destroy them. Laughing is probably the healthiest response, world domination the most challenging.

I've been looking for examples to skewer CO2 cap-and-trade.
One thought problem was how to end slavery.
Another was Nuclear weapons proliferation. Think about it.
Mr. Consultant comes up to you and says "The market based system of capping production and handing out allowances to produce nukes, which can then be traded, is the only rational approach".
Don't think too long though, lest you enter "Le Théâtre de l'Absurde". Trust me, the world of Jean Genet and Sam Beckett gets old fast, Pinter and Albee's, faster.

Here's another angle, from the Scotsman (scroll down):

NO-ONE could fail to be moved by last week's horrifying TV documentary on the missing children of China.

The Chinese government's limitations on numbers of children and the licensing of childbirth have led to a trade in babies with some parents actually offering up their children for sale, others hiding them with extended family in the hinterland and still more facing the anguish of having their babies stolen.

Not for the first time I find myself angry that instead of international condemnation of such a regime, we turn a blind eye because they are one of the big guys, the new superpower.