Comments by "firstandforemost87" (@firstandforemost87) on "Canada proposes cap on oil and gas emissions by introducing industry-specific price on carbon" video.

  1.  @kayouellette2856  You expect companies to price lower than they can?
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  2.  @kayouellette2856  You’re right, and as I mentioned I was being utopian w regards to nationalism. I was just saying you’d probably have more luck w that than through regulation in our current setting. And you’re right again, but in a world of limited liability how can we expect such things as ‘compassion’ from the faceless monoliths of the corporate world? They will claim to care, but behind it all is a group of shareholders who care for nothing outside of figures on a spreadsheet. They want you to be ‘healthy’ and ‘educated’ for the sake of productivity, which is little different from making sure that they oil and update the machines they’re replacing us with. Problem is, game theory basically dictates that they have to do this to survive. It would be nice if we could ask for, and receive, a consensus built on compassion, but as soon as one player deviates the rest must follow or die, and the more gargantuan and complex markets become the more true this becomes.
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  3.  @kayouellette2856  Nothing whatsoever to apologize for. This was one of the most civil exchanges I’ve ever had on the internet.
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  4.  @kayouellette2856  I didn’t say it can’t happen. I asked if you ‘expect’ it.
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  5.  @kayouellette2856  Democracies don’t necessarily prevent or create monopolies. In theory, a party could run on a platform of nationalization, for example, and form a state monopoly if elected. Kind of conflating the political sphere w the economic, no?
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  6.  @kayouellette2856  One informs the other, sure, but they’re two different things, and democracy in itself is a concept wholly divorced from market structure or economic theory. How democracy informs economics is a product of contemporary culture.
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  7.  @kayouellette2856  In a market economy w voluntary labour the producer can only beneficially price their goods at a price the market will bear, and they can only pay wages that labour suppliers are ‘willing’ to work for or else they won’t attract employees. That doesn’t mean the prices will be ‘good’, or that the wages will be satisfactory. It just means, in theory, that the outcome is efficient. This is partly why many aren’t big fans of globalism/globalization. Free mobility of labour means more competition amongst workers, lower wages, and offshoots like higher housing prices. Sounds familiar, right? Ever notice how the media acts like it should be easy for businesses to find staff?why should it be any easier for them to find ‘good’ staff than it is for individuals to find ‘good’ wages? In addition, it means producers can pick up and leave for another jurisdiction. If, in w/e jurisdiction, tax regimes and regulations are more stifling than other places, producers will invest elsewhere. This is why it’s difficult for governments to control pricing or to tax some companies ‘fairly’. We could ‘inject’ democracy into the economy, but that doesn’t mean producers will respond well to the outcome of say, referenda, and that they won’t just pick up their ball and go somewhere else. You’d probably get better results from nationalism. Our ‘post national state’ (as our own PM called it) isn’t as utopian as it sounds. Without a nation and the corresponding sense of belonging, what would prompt producers to prioritize ‘their’ ppl over their profit? Without that glue binding the different pieces of society together Canada is little more than a geographically defined consumer collective characterized only by competition between individuals, and small groups like families and small businesses, and larger entities like the dreaded big corps who often have the reach and resources to pick up and move to whichever jurisdiction offers them the best return. Why would they feel invested in w/e jurisdiction that is at all? That is in itself a somewhat utopian take on the potential benefits of nationalism, but I think it’s a lot more plausible than expecting large multinational commercial interests to ‘care’. This is why there is talk of harmonized tax regimes within large trading blocs.
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