naked capitalism

Peripheral Visionary says:

Re: Modern Man; I am having a difficult time believing the authors’ premise, when he seems to be completely unaware of the significant increase in average height among populations in developed countries over the last hundred years. For any natural environment benefits that better muscle strength and speed may have had, earlier man was severely limited by the quantity of nutrients available, particularly during childhood and teenage years. Modern man may or may not have weaker genetics, but with much better nutrition, I think it’s a difficult argument to make that earlier man was significantly stronger or faster.

Re: Cap and Trade. I honestly don’t care what the numbers are, it is self-evident to me that any scheme with a high level of complexity that involves financial intermediaries will be inefficient at best, and riddled with speculation and corruption at worst. The problem with the cap and trade argument is that it is being compared to the “do nothing” approach, when the reality is that it compares poorly in virtually every way with a straight carbon tax approach, a proven entity which we have already partially implemented in the form of the gas tax. The critical question here is whether the interests of the rapidly growing eco-rent-seeking industry are in line with the interests of the public or even of the environment, a question whose answer is becoming ever more clear the more the carbon tax approach is ignored in this debate.