Yesterday, I had a guest post appear on The Daily Capitalist.
Click here to read “It’s Not About Canadianism; It’s About Capitalism.”
And thanks to Jeff at The Daily Capitalist for posting.
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Yes. You read that headline correctly. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives want to set up a “Reasonable Profits Board” to control the amount of profit made by oil and gas companies. The Gas Prices Spike Act, HR 3784, provides for taxes of between 50 and 100 percent on profits over an amount considered to be “reasonable.” How is “reasonable” to be determined? The bill states that “reasonable” will be defined by a three member, president-appointed panel which will compose the board. Dangerous? Almost certainly. Just imagine what this law would do to oil and gas prices and supply, not to mention its effects on U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Anti-capitalistic? Absolutely. In fact, socialistic is a more accurate characterization. Read more about this bill in “Dems Propose ‘Reasonable Profits Board’ to Regulate Oil Company Profits” at TheHill.com.
In the United States, as in certain countries in Europe, the government often works hand-in-glove with various activist groups to pass legislation, enact regulations, and/or to delay decisions which will limit economic growth. One recent example of such behavior is President Obama’s decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline. (Update: January 19, 2012 – President Obama announced a final decision not to delay but to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.) Bowing to environmentalist pressure, the president has decided to delay a decision on an oil pipeline that would have provided tens of thousands of needed American jobs, not to mention that it would have increased energy independence from unfriendly Middle Eastern countries. Not only does this delay preclude many jobs and an increase in energy independence, but the postponement threatens to divert that Canadian energy from the United States to our Chinese competitors, signaling a loss of future jobs from an increase in Chinese business influence fueled by Canadian oil. Such is a prime example of government as a warrior against capitalism. But, this past Monday, January 9, 2012, a government, the Canadian government, did something highly unusual for a government. They took a stand against activist influence; they stood up as a warrior for capitalism. Canada, administered by a conservative rather than a liberal executive, took a stand against interests continuously at war with a prosperous economy. The Canadian Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, published an “open letter” committing Canada to the diversification of its energy assets by streamlining its regulatory process in favor of Canada’s economic interest. What a breath of fresh air. Eh? About activists, Mr. Oliver said in his letter: “We must expand our trade with the fast growing Asian economies. We know that increasing trade will help ensure the financial security of Canadians and their families. “Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams. “These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” I liked everything he said, except the part about expanding trade with Asian economies. I’d prefer he said North American economies instead. Now, lest you think that the Canadians will now move environmentally sensitive projects forward willy-nilly with reckless abandon of the environment, Mr. Oliver continued: “Our regulatory system must be fair, independent, consider different viewpoints including those of Aboriginal communities, review the evidence dispassionately and then make an objective determination. It must be based on science and the facts.” Apparently, governmental kowtowing to emotional radical environmentalism is about to cease in the Great White North. To our neighbors over the northern border I say “Bravo.” Although it may be much colder today in the Provinces than in the States, the lower temperatures are not Continue reading Canada Chooses Prosperity Over Radical Influence A few days ago I was discussing the precautionary principle with a colleague. It’s that conversation which inspires this post. With reference to a particular case of irregular competition, we talked about the capriciousness of the precautionary principle and its lack of certainty, and how those characteristics of confusion make it a tool tailor-made for activist (irregular competitor) application in engagements against companies. For those readers who aren’t familiar with the concept of the precautionary principle, I’ll use the Wikipedia definition of the precautionary principle to explain further. The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action. What this definition implies is that, say for example, if a business wants to introduce a new product, then when the precautionary principle is imposed upon that business either by activists or via governmental authority it becomes necessary for that business to prove beyond a doubt that the product will not be harmful to anyone or anything under any circumstances. Proving a negative under any and all circumstances is, of course, impossible. And requiring a company to do so is akin to placing a basic judicial tenet on its head and forcing a defendant to prove that he/she is not guilty. The precautionary principle, as defined above, is often the version that American activists invoke when there is even the slightest doubt, a doubt often created by those activists themselves, about an action to be taken by a business. In opposition to the proposed action by the business, the activist will deploy their scientists who say that the action may be harmful and to be “100% safe” the company’s proposed action should be prohibited. This tactic achieves the lack of scientific consensus, regardless of whether the activist’s scientists are correct or not, so necessary for the above definition of the precautionary principle to kick in. And how hard is that? To create the “absence of scientific consensus”? As we all know, there is no “100% safe” in anything and to expect such is unreasonable and potentially harmful to economic progress. Yet, because of the recent social uptake of the precautionary principle, for whatever reason, it appears to be something that will be with us into the near future. It will be something that business will need to deal with on an ongoing basis. So, if we have to have this principle, couldn’t we – shouldn’t we – have at least a more reasonable interpretation of it? (I know the activists out there will say “No,” or rather shout “NO,” because the word “reason” is often absent from their lexicon. And from their professional perspective I understand why.) Finding that more reasonable interpretation may be as simple as taking a “walk across the pond.” The government of Continue reading Toward a More Reasonable Precautionary Principle A government that does an end-run around the spirit of its own laws? And by exploiting green activists in the process? Impossible, you say? Then perhaps you believe that there was no gambling a Rick’s Café Americain? A recent opinion column, titled “The Multinationals’ Dilemma — Gratify the Greens or Protect the Poor?” and written by James M. Roberts of The Heritage Foundation, made these very assertions, but without the tongue-in-cheek suggestion of disbelief. In his article, Mr. Roberts discusses many different issues, perhaps too many for the space allotted him, the foremost of which is the issue of how multinational corporations may actually damage economic progress when they acquiesce to the protest demands of various activist groups. This is a complicated and controversial issue, one which I have often discussed on this blog. But, this issue is not the topic of today’s post. Rather, the topic of today’s posts is one of the minor issues as raised by Mr. Roberts in his opinion article. That issue is the financing of activist groups by governments and the reason for such financing. I previously dealt with this topic in my April 2010 post “Nice Work . . . If You Can Get It? Friends of the Earth Does.” In that post, I noted that in 2008 Friends of the Earth Europe received over 50% of its annual income from a European government grant. Of their €1.5 million budget for that year, Friends of the Earth Europe received €790,000 in the form of a grant from the Directorate General Environmental, the environmental commission of the European government. (Figures per the International Policy Network (IPN). Please see my previous post for full citation.) As I said in the title of that previous post, nice work if you can get it, eh? For sure. But what’s even more interesting is the reason for the awarding of such financing. |
 
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