21–30 of 112 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume by arguing the personal liberty cost of emissions outweighs the personal liberty gained by tax reduction.
wouldnt the libertarian reaction to emissions be to sue the emitter for the lowered quality of air?
http://blogs.nelson.wisc.edu/es112-304-4/wp-content/uploads/...
Musk leaves out - or maybe he didn't but the reporter did - a couple of things. 1) Most of the subsidy for fossil fuels is actually a subsidy for transportation, which relies mostly on fossil fuels. 2) The production and re-fueling of EVs is primarily a fossil-fuel enabled activity ("EVs just have a longer tailpipe".) Someone really interested in reducing fossil fuel consumption might want instead to subsidize ways o…
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30760-carbon-tax-or-carbo...
I would expect him to make any argument he can against fossil fuels. He is heavily invested in solar technology.
Agreed. It's an argument for indirect subsidies to his company on top of the direct subsidies he already receives. Elon Musk is hardly a libertarian. He's just another crony capitalist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume by arguing the personal liberty cost of emissions outweighs the personal liberty gained by tax reduction.
wouldnt the libertarian reaction to emissions be to sue the emitter for the lowered quality of air?
In reality that's not the case, and there is no overarching principle any sect of libertarians hold (as far as I know) that harm can only be addressed via lawsuits. Since the overhead of lawsuits grows ridiculously large when the number of plaintiffs is equal to the population of the country (or even world), the far more practical solution is to just directly apply a Carbon Tax. This is pretty much equivalent to a lawsuit without the overhead of the courts. The biggest difference is while after a lawsuit the wealth is distributed directly, here the wealth is distributed by lowering taxes.
I would expect him to make any argument he can against fossil fuels. He is heavily invested in solar technology.
Agreed. It's an argument for indirect subsidies to his company on top of the direct subsidies he already receives. Elon Musk is hardly a libertarian. He's just another crony capitalist.
Oil companies do get direct subsidies through tax breaks, so no mater what you think is going on here, energy is not pure market. In practise, how often do you see a pure market anyway?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. It's an argument for indirect subsidies to his company on top of the direct subsidies he already receives. Elon Musk is hardly a libertarian. He's just another crony capitalist.
In this case it is not about indirect subsidies to his company, but about removing indirect subsidies from the combustion engine industry. Their "freely available externalities" are polluting the place.
