Is Ontario’s Green Energy Plan Reasonable?
Recently the United States, Japan and the EU have submitted a complaint to the WTO about local content rules being used by Dolton McGuinty’s government. The rules state that half the goods and services used for FIT projects (that are paid premiums for generating renewable energy) must be from Canada. The project is aimed at trying to create “thousands of green jobs” while the province phases out coal generation in the province, a long term election promise of the liberal government.
From a household’s perspective the local content rules present significant problems. By forcing suppliers to use less efficient and more expensive Canadian sources for wind and solar power this is discouraging households from investing in renewable power generation. However, a main goal of Mr. McGuinty’s plan is to create jobs, as illustrated by Samsung being convinced to build “four manufacturing plants in the province”. The rules aid energy installers who can provide some of the required local content, but it also harms firms selling renewable energy projects as they become more expensive. The key for other large suppliers is to follow Samsung’s example and take advantage of government support while they can.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/us-eu-join-fight-over-ontarios-green-energy-plan/article1736573/?cmpid=nl-news1
For-Profit Universities: Are they Ethical?
Regulators in the United States have come under calls to increase regulation of for-profit colleges and universities. The GAO, Government Accountability Office, released a report in August that criticised 15 prominent for-profit universities’ misleading recruitment tactics centred on encouraging students to take out loans they couldn’t afford. The results have been high numbers of students defaulting on loans because their costs are higher than expected, coupled with salaries being lower after graduation than expected. These schools argue that the reason their students default more often is that they come from lower-income families and are therefore “riskier”.
Private, for profit, schooling is tricky ethically as it theoretically should reduce costs for students, thus increasig the availability of education to low-income groups. These colleges boast high proportions of students from non-university educated parents, as seen in figure I. However a characteristic of the market system is that companies will go bust, leaving consumers with no payback of investments. I believe that these institutions are ethical if they are carefully regulated because of their benefits, however care must be taken to ensure time investments by students are not wasted should their school go bust by allowing for easy transfer of credits.
Sources:
Welcome to my Blog
I will be updating a blog with news articles and my thoughts on them as a part of my Bachelor of Commerce at UBC.
I hope you enjoy, comments are welcome!
cheers,
Graham