Statist economist Greg Mankiw launches a fresh offensive on freedom with the Pigou Club (to view which, you must register at facebook.com, but Mankiw describes it on his blog). There he and a familiar list of famous (Al Gore) statists and their fellow travellers advocate increased taxes on gasoline to bolster government revenues (now there’s a lofty goal) and alleviate global warming at the same time - a one, two punch as it were.
Terence Corcoran, editor of Canada’s National Post, has launched the NoPigou Club right out in the open, accessible like any other Web site, and you can join that one just by sending them an e-mail with your (real) name in it.
Corcoran and a growing list of nobodies like me hold that Mankiw’s proposed tax “is just another form of central planning dressed up in free market terminology.” Sour grapes from someone who didn’t get his snout into the trough fast enough? Well, after your snout’s been at the wrong end of the trough for long enough, you develop a taste for sour grapes.
Oink.