It's pretty rare that a blog makes me want to buy a textbook; I've just finished graduate school, have a pretty solid grasp of my subjects (at least I like to think), and am pretty broke to boot. But MR makes me reconsider with one pithy sentence. On cap and trade:
...To make progress against global warming, may require building a political coalition. A carbon tax pushes one very powerful and interested group, the large energy firms, into the opposition. If tradable allowances are instead given to firms initially, there is a better chance of bringing the large energy firms into the coalition. Perhaps it’s not fair that politically powerful groups must be bought off but as Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s first chancellor, once said,“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” We can only add that producing both laws and sausages requires some pork.
For some reason, I don't remember my 101 class being this exciting...but maybe that's because it was MWF at 9 am.
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