Apparently 150 business leaders from around the globe are petitioning the UN to create a “legally binding” framework of laws and regulations (so much for sovereignty) to combat climate change.  But why would business leaders want that?  Generally, businesses don’t want extra regulations as they just mean more overhead and less profitability.

Except, take a look at who these business leaders are.  Shell Oil?  Nike?  Philips?  Johnson & Johnson?  All huge, multi-national corporations.  So why would these huge businesses want more environmental regulations?

Because they’re huge and can afford those regulations, but a lot of their smaller competitors cannot.  Which means that this charade of environmental stewardships is really just plain old corporate rent seeking.  These corporate giants are inviting more government regulation because they know that regulation will stagnate competition, which is good for them.  They’ll get by with the tougher regulations even as those regulations put their competitors out of business.

Which is how it is with most big-government forays into the free market.  Raising the minimum wage helps Wal-Mart, a company that pays all of its employees well above the minimum wage - while hurting Wal-Mart’s smaller, more local, more “mom and pop” competitors who actually do pay quite a few people the minimum wage.  Yet big-government types continue to insist that the minimum wage helps the “little guy.”

It doesn’t.  It puts the little guy out of business, just as stringent new environmental regulations would.