Being adamant about something doesn’t make it true 😛

Surely if we gave businesses information surrounding the costs and benefits of different investment they would make the best choices themselves. Rod Oram seems to believe that businesses don’t take up opportunities, and only will when the government pushes them too.

Now I agree that the investment firms are making may not be socially optimal – which is why a carbon price makes sense. But he (and frog) takes it a step further and says that businesses will be “better off” when they are pushed to adopt different technology. I just can’t see how increasing someones costs of doing something makes them better off :). These are the “opportunities” that Frog and Rod Oram believe exist – I am skeptical to say the least.

I can’t see Oram admitting that he is “presuming”. He seems a little more adamant than that!

This isn’t the goal of the ETS though – the goal of the ETS is to pay for our carbon liability which we took on when we ratified Kyoto. If we didn’t pay through it through an ETS we would have to have higher income taxes to pay for it – most economists (outside of NZIER) agree that the ETS is the least cost way of paying off our liability, which is why we do it.

Not necessarily – but presuming that there are a whole bunch of opportunities seems like a more reckless way of determining what is good policy.