I’m afraid that none of these definitions apply in my earlier Tylenol example. I am not coerced to purchase any Tylenol - I am free to look for alternative products if I find the price too high.

If you can’t accept that, understand this: your definition of ‘free market’ would be harmful to any nation, and I’m glad we don’t have one.

The ‘carbon credit’ system is a ‘free market’ system, using the more common definition as in ‘Canada’s market is a free market’.

Leave the personal attacks at the door. You don’t know me or my education. Disagree with me if you like, but please don’t debase the conversation.

To violate a free market, prices do not have to be set nor controlled by the government. There needs only be some element coercion influencing the agents of that market. Your Tylenol(TM) transaction occurs within the context of a coercive environment. Just to name a few, taxation and patents are coercive conditions.

Here is some more advice to put in your bag of vast economic education:
The next time that you wish to level a strawman argument for or against the free market — or you encounter somebody else doing so, for that matter — find out what government institutions and structures are hidden behind the scenes which either foster or hinder that market in question.

Economics is constantly butchered for political means. You, Abattoir, have been suckered into accepting a misleading concept of the free-market and no doubt, you take all the strawmen arguments for or against it for granted.

“And yes, I did take economics in university. Did well, too, thanks.”
Now demonstrated throughout the entire internet to have been an embarrassment. Either you were given a free pass without knowing it or your school ripped you off.

Smarter Than Yourself,
You have the ability to learn too, I am sure.

The link was actually more appropriate in a different thread. You will see it posted there.

“A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers.”

I want to buy some Tylenol to treat a headache. The drugstore wants to sell me the Tylenol. They have a set price, and I am willing to pay that price, or I am free to go to the drugstore across the street where it is 10% cheaper. The price is set by our mutual consent. The price is not set nor controlled by the government. Neither of us is being forced or coerced. This is a free market transaction, by the very definition you quoted.

Yet it is not a market without regulation. The drug must have government approval, the manufacturer cannot use the Tylenol trademark without permission, the drugstore must pay the employees a certain minimum wage, the government charges a sales tax, etc.

Let me try to break it down for you, Charles. Free market != no regulation. Free market = no price controls. The free market you have in mind would be anarchistic.

And yes, I did take economics in university. Did well, too, thanks.

Also, I read the link you provided, and again, I’m not sure how this is relevant to the discussion at hand?

*gag*

Btw, I think this is interesting:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calga.....ments.html

Looks like people are starting to get sick of people hiding behind the internet.

I will also post this under Unruh’s thread.

So, by your definition, a ‘free’ market is one without regulation?

That definition is correct but it is not my definition. It is common knowledge — so common that it is even found as the very first entry in Wikipoedia!

A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. By definition, in a free market environment buyers and sellers do not coerce or mislead each other nor are they coerced by a third party.

Abattoir finally learns economics:

Then we, by definition, do not have any free markets, because they all have regulations.

Correct.
Like I said, go back and re-take Econ101 but stay awake the next time.

Keep the snide comments to yourself, and try learning something.

At your service!

I think I did learn something: You never took an economics course in your life, did you?

Yet another enlightening “discussion” at thepolitic.

Blah blah blah blah, you are stupid…

No, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… see you are stupid.

If you knew anything blah blah blah blah blah, then you would clearly see that I am right blah blah blah blah, you idiot.

Oh yeah, well, blah blah blah blah blah… you don’t understand economics…

Pfft, blah blah blah blah… see how big and smart I am… blah blah blah blah

Ugh, it is like watching Question Period, it means nothing.

Think about it. The financial sector has regulations on trading, interest rates, lending, .. the list goes on. Patents and trademarks are fundamentally regulatory controls on a free market. The automotive, telecom, pharmaceutical, electronic sectors all face their own controls.

A free market does not mean a market without regulation or control. A free market is one in which the prices of goods and services are determined using supply and demand. This does not mean they are not regulated, controlled, or stimulated by government.

Keep the snide comments to yourself, and try learning something.

Thus spake Abattoir:
“The government needs to regulate….
The carbon credit system is quite similar.”
Enough said.

The price of inaction..hmm…for starters, what is the property value of Manhattan? Now the price of action - that depends on your approach. Kicking and screaming - pretty expensive. Using it as an opportunity - could actually be profitable.

“Stop talking nonsense” - that’s productive. Try taking an economics class, and then talk about the free market.

The right to pollute CO2 is a valuable asset. I could easily compare it with the right to draw water from a public river. Without any regulation, it is cheapest for factories to draw all the water they could ever need.

The government needs to regulate the amount of water taken from the river to protect the environment, so it charges for the water. It therefore becomes profitable for the users to conserve the water they use.

The carbon credit system is quite similar. Instead of charging a flat rate per ton of CO2 (or per litre of water), they are allowing factories to pollute x amount for free, and they can sell their excess capacity to others. The principle is the same - restrict the asset, and this gives it a monetary value.

Hyptheticallly, I am sure scientific evidence could also be provided to demonstrate that universal healthcare served on a silver platter to every single Canadian to treat anything from paper-cuts to brain transplants would be perfect too. Should we enforce such policy without knowing the cost?????

Good stuff!

Let’s just make sure we have it straight.

1) DON’T make or enforce government policy based on scientific evidence.

2) DO make or enforce government policy based on beliefs derived from myth.

Perfect.

This is not an extra tax we all have to pay for a religious purpose. This is simply taking tax payers money and using it to subsidise said tax payers educational choices. Agree with this funding or not, this is not what a carbon tax would be. To compare I could say use my taxes already collected and going for environmental projects to reduce the polutants in water and you could say reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere. That I could live with.

You compare apples and oranges. If someone came up to me and said you MUST give me 100$ for every sin you have commited, then you would have a valid point. As it is now your comments are flippant and distracting from the others from having a rational conversation.

What would it take, in your eyes?

An actual price tag would be a good start. The actual “science” is irrelevant because ultimately, people have a right to disagree.

Carbon credits are a complete rip-off, unless you actually believe that throwing all this CO2 into the atmosphere might actually be harming something. Once you believe that, it’s an innovative free-market system for

Stop writing nonsense!
If you have to enforce the transactions in a particular market through the barrel of a gun, it is not a free market.

We can debate global warming until the cows come home, on websites like this, and never come up with an answer.

I retired a few years ago and have followed politics and news casts very carefully. To date the only reason that man-made global warming is happening is because the Media has told me so.

Not once in my years of retirement have I seen a TV show that debated the Pros and Cons with panel of qualified scientists so I could made an informed decision.

This political left,right scraping means nothing to me.

You mean like public funding for private religious schools?

Carbon credits are a complete rip-off, unless you actually believe that throwing all this CO2 into the atmosphere might actually be harming something. Once you believe that, it’s an innovative free-market system for encouraging CO2 emission reductions. It rewards those who reduce their emissions, by taxing those who don’t. It’s a very capitalist approach.

This is a significant difference. We learn in chemistry class that ice and water only exist together around the phase change temperature, or about -6C. Any further heating of the ice water will go to melting the ice first, not heating the water (at equilibrium, of course).

Once the ice is completely gone, there is nothing keeping the water from heating further.

As to the greenhouse gases - yes, all those things are naturally occuring, and are all greenhouse gases. Our current climate depends on a specific (within certain bounds) equilibrium mix of all of these elements. Significant, long-term changes of any of them, no matter the cause, results in changes to the climate.

We are vastly increasing the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, and thus upsetting the natural balance. Millions of tons of CO2 (and other gases) are naturally created (forest fires, volcanoes) and absorbed (plant growth) each year. We are upsetting that natural balance by burning millions of tons of coal, oil, and gas.

Venus has the epitome of a ‘greenhouse gas’ atmosphere, with about 96% CO2. The CO2 acts as a blanket for the planet, making the planet hotter than Mercury, although it is twice as far away.

It’s happening. How anyone could claim otherwise is staggering

Easily — because “global warming” is not measured with a ruler. All “evidence” is VERY indirect and the effect of carbon dioxide is argumentative.

Furthermore, a market is being created for “carbon credits” and people like Al Gore have vested interests in forcing other people to buy them. There is money to be made by forcing “global warming” down everybody’s throat.

How anyone could claim otherwise is staggering - when was the last time the North-West Passage was completely ice-free? Before 2007, not in recorded history.

Huh? Did you do any research? The passage has been clear plenty of times:
http://freestudents.blogspot.c.....ssage.html

What’s different? CO2 in the atmosphere is a known ‘greenhouse gas’.

So what? So is water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

Look to Venus as a demonstration.

Huh?

When they start wanting to charge us a God tax that we can’t opt out of, then yes.

It’s happening. How anyone could claim otherwise is staggering - when was the last time the North-West Passage was completely ice-free? Before 2007, not in recorded history.

What’s different? CO2 in the atmosphere is a known ‘greenhouse gas’. Look to Venus as a demonstration. Who puts the CO2 in the air? We do.

There is also a lack of concensus regarding the nature of god. Time to throw that one out with the bath water too?

-I thought that is what leftists were already doing.
I don’t think we are saying; how it is any different than the other times in history that it has happened?
Give us some real proof not Al Gore made up stories or U.N. sponsored propagandists with their livelyhood at stake.