Why no one should listen to Lorrie Goldstein

Toronto Sun columnist Lorrie Goldstein has something of a fixation on carbon pricing. He never misses an opportunity to condemn the idea. Even when there is nothing really going on with the climate change file, he will pump out a column complaining about the “hysteria” or the “myths” surrounding global warming. Number one myth is the idea that carbon pricing can be an effective policy response. His reasoning is fairly simple: carbon taxes don’t work, and since they don’t work, they must be nothing other than a cash-grab by the government.

Now if you read his stuff regularly, you get the sense that there is something wonky in his understanding of how the economy works. Indeed, it’s always fun listening to people on the right try to explain why carbon pricing can’t possibly work, because they usually wind up inadvertently ‘proving’ that capitalism as a whole can’t work. In other words, the arguments they make inevitably boil down to the claim that consumers are insensitive to price signals for ordinary market goods, such as gasoline.… Continue reading