S8 Ep150: 3/4. Price Discovery, Trade Policy, and Government Market Distortions — Terry Anderson (Editor) — Anderson discusses Timothy Fitzgerald's analysis demonstrating that border carbon adjustment mechanisms frequently disguise protectionist trade policies, ali

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

3/4. Price Discovery, Trade Policy, and Government Market Distortions — Terry Anderson (Editor) — Andersondiscusses Timothy Fitzgerald's analysis demonstrating that border carbon adjustment mechanisms frequently disguise protectionist trade policies, aligning with the "bootleggers and Baptists" theoretical model. Anderson stresses that authentic price discovery in financial markets is absolutely crucial for effective climate adaptation. However, government intervention, including subsidized insurance programs for flood and crop losses, systematically distorts accurate price signals, preventing consumers from developing effective behavioral and economic adaptations to genuine environmental risks.
1905

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm John Batchel. My colleague, Terry Anderson of the Hoover Institution, is the editor of a new book,
0:11.1	Adapt and Be Adept. This is market responses to climate change. And one of the market responses is trade.
0:18.7	Again, we're looking at the question of not what if there's climate
0:23.1	change. We're assuming Pascal's wager, we're going to assume there is climate change because we'll
0:29.2	adapt beforehand. If there's not, we haven't heard anything. We've made some adjustments and it
0:35.2	was probably all to the better that we were in charge.
0:38.1	It empowered us.
0:38.9	But I'm assuming there is climate change and it's time to adapt.
0:42.4	Trade is one way.
0:44.2	And one of the pieces that Terry edits and publishes by Timothy Fitzgerald is about trade and climate policy.
0:51.3	And there's a term of art here.
0:53.2	I'm learning this has to do with border
0:55.8	carbon adjustments. What is that, Terry? Well, first off, Tim is a long-time friend, former colleague,
1:05.5	and he spent time in the Trump administration with the Council of Economic Advisors, and I think
1:14.1	he received a real education in whether economics or politics dominates, and you can guess which
1:21.9	does. And the notion of these border maneuvers to try and account for climate change is that we will correct the price that we pay for goods by forcing other countries to put taxes on their products to change the price to reflect, again, the carbon they use.
1:48.8	That's how the theory goes.
1:51.1	But in fact, what happens is people who want trade barriers use this disguise or they put the wolf in sheep's clothing,
2:06.9	sheep's clothing in this being climate change.
2:09.4	And they disguise them the real goal of many of these policies,
2:13.9	which is to impose tariffs or obtain subsidies that are beneficial to the people who
2:20.8	want them, want those subsidies and tariffs.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.