When there’s a speech by a government official talking about policy, there’s always going to be winners and losers.
For instance, during Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech, the winners were America and the Coalition and the losers were Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.
Simple enough.
President Obama recently gave a speech on climate change, and there were clear winners and losers.
The obvious winners were renewable energy providers, who have received government loans in the past and now will have more room in the marketplace due to more government subsidies.
The obvious loser: coal.
The most ambitious part of Obama’s plan involves a regulatory assault on coal-fired power plants. Obama says he will direct the EPA to create the first federal limits on the emissions from coal plants, something that will have a major impact on several industries.
Everybody uses coal. Chances are, you’re reading this on an electronic device that gets recharged using electricity powered by coal. When you think about it, nearly everything you touch is thanks to coal. So if the price of coal increases, and some plants have to shut down, then everything powered by coal becomes more expensive.
See how that works? And why government has no official function anymore other than to make private industry more expensive?
