| Many countries effectively have a speed tax at least for small amounts of going over the speed limit. I'm not sure why you keep harping on about people's wallets? Yes, rich people can afford more stuff. What else is new? The economic theory of taxing externalities does not rely on all people having the same size wallet. Have a look at eg London's congestion charge: it's not a problem for that system, that some people are richer than others. You can also look at Singapore's congestion charge or Singapore's Certificate of Entitlement system. Or look at the very successful US sulphur dioxide cap and trade programme: it's not a problem that rich people can in theory just pay to emit more sulphur dioxide, the system still works. > What makes you suppose the price will go up only a bit? In the long run, the same reasoning that made Simon win his wager: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager > What makes you expect a material price will stay bellow the economical threshold of its extraction ? Sorry, I don't understand. The price will generally be above that threshold, otherwise why would anyone bother extracting the stuff? > Fracking [0] is my Favorite one. Fracking is great, yes, I agree. One my favourites as well: The extra natural gas that the US got from fracking allowed them to reduce their carbon emissions in the 2010s, despite lack of political support for such a goal! Holier than thou Europe meanwhile increased their carbon emissions, because fracking is verboten over there, so they burned more coal and oil instead. |