Cheeseburger Cap and Trade

I am a big fan of cheeseburgers. I would list them in my top 10 favorite foods. I heard recently that beef causes clogged arteries, so they want to use a new system of "Cap and Trade" on dealing with my cheeseburger.

By the year 2015, they would like to impose a cap on my cheeseburgers. If I eat more than 5 cheeseburgers a year they will fine me real big or put me in jail. This is designed to "help" me to not eat as many cheeseburgers, which in turn would keep my arteries all clean and functioning.

Now if I want more than the 5 cheeseburger annual allotment, I can buy special cheeseburger "credits" from some vegan who hates cheeseburgers. I just pay them the money and poof I can have another cheeseburger. How handy huh?

So what really happened here? What happened is that the same amount of cheeseburgers are being eaten, my arteries are still being clogged, and the vegan has a few coins in his pocket for doing nothing but not eating meat.

This is my over-simplified version of this stupid cap and trade thing for greenhouse gases. We get the privilege of buying "carbon credits" from someone else, that they can not or will not spend so we can burn the same amount of green house gases we are burning now.

There is yet another catch that makes this even less attractive: Using my cheeseburger analogy, pretend that I am the only one on the "cheeseburger cap and trade system" and everybody else can still eat all the cheeseburgers they want. I think I would go to one of those places that have "cap and trade free cheeseburgers". That is the same thing that American businesses will do when they are told that they will be charged essentially a tax for doing their job. They will go to places like China or Chile or something just to escape the tax, or better yet, get paid by their competition for their "carbon credits".

All I can say is: If this isn't spreading the wealth or socialism, than I don't know the meaning of socialism.