Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Good Politics, Bad Policy

Here's a great Obama ad:



I say great in the sense that it's a simple effective attack. It draws a distinction between the candidates that anyone can easily understand and talk about with their friends.

I don't think it's particularly good policy though. Oil company profits are no better or worse than other industry profits. Natch we'd like to see less reliance on their product, but the way to do that is to tax carbon not tax profits. The more stuff like this happens the more you encourage them to fiddle with their books or behavior to avoid making too much profit for their shareholders, which is perverse.

No comments: