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This is a point which gets overlooked pretty often. It's the same as the value of taxi medallions in the Uber debate. Allowing Uber to operate in a city where
by pzone 11y ago
This is a point which gets overlooked pretty often.
It's the same as the value of taxi medallions in the Uber debate. Allowing Uber to operate in a city where technically only medallion owners were supposed to drive is actually really shitty to the owners of those medallions. You open it up, suddenly tell them that their investment is worthless because of a change in regulations. It's really unfair to them. Perhaps the way to quiet the medallion owners would be to pay them like 25% or 50% of what they were worth earlier in compromise bill allowing Uber in. They don't feel so slighted, everyone else gets Uber. That's win-win.
How it would work in this case: pass a compromise bill which involves paying these companies some amount of cash so their shareholders won't feel so slighted. They will give up their fight against carbon taxes, and we avert global catastrophe.
- danieltillett 11y agoYes. I think we can say that the carbon owning companies are winning the fight so we need to do something different. Let's stop fighting them and let's start working with them.
- reitzensteinm 11y agoIt's not "really shitty" to the owners of the medallions, the risk of a loss of the artificial monopoly should have been baked into the price from the start. That the prices got as high as they did indicates the confidence the owners had over the stability of their political situation, which I have no sympathy for.
- pzone 11y agoIn that case, then the medallions also include the value of owners being able to maintain their monopoly through lobbying efforts. Whether or not you have any sympathy for them, striking a deal is the best solution. (Other question: do you have any sympathy for poor people who are hurt a bit by a carbon tax? Elsewhere in this discussion people are arguing against the tax because it hurts the poor. I think it would be a bit weird to be sympathetic to poor people who are hurt a little by a policy decision, but unsympathetic to slightly less poor people who are hurt a lot by a policy decision.)
- reitzensteinm 11y agoI don't have sympathy for losses sustained via poor investment decisions. I have lost a small fortune in my life because of mistakes I've made, and I don't want or deserve sympathy for any of it. Losing is part of playing the game. Poor people just trying to get by (and this included me at many points in my life) are who we should be saving our empathy for. Not wannabe businessmen.