Letter to the Editor
Watts Up With That
10 July 2011
Carbon Tax Mark 4 is flimsy but dangerous.
Because of public opposition to a new tax on everything, the tax has been gutted. The PM hopes to buy public support by giving exemptions to almost everyone and offering widespread bribes to voters. It is now feeble and ineffective.
But the Green-Gillard coalition is desperate and such people cannot be trusted. They will say or promise anything in order to get this new tax introduced.
Once on the law books, the exemptions will be whittled away, the tax rate will increase and the tax bribes will disappear. It is a stealthy cancer in the gut of the Australian economy.
The cost of electricity, food, fuel and travel will increase, but few people will recognise the root cause. Politicians will blame “Woolworths, power suppliers and Big Oil” for the pain.
This new stealth tax is the thin edge of the wedge.
It will have no effect on the climate, but is a fiscal weapon too dangerous to be left in the hands of green extremists.
Leaving Bob Brown loose with the vast powers of a carbon tax is like leaving the grandkids alone in the hayshed with a box of matches.
“Abolish the Stealth Tax” will be the next election slogan.
Viv Forbes
Via Rosewood Qld 4340 Australia
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For those of you in the UK, and in particular Scotland – the power utilities have been stiffing you for an illegal and ineptly stealthy “carbon tax” since 2002 see:
http://tpdrsl.org/index.php/bloggo/starvethe-beast
and more here:
http://tpdrsl.org/index.php/bloggo/how-to-starve-the-beast
They (Scottish Power et al) are putting their fingers in their ears at the moment….
Save 8% on your utility and make a point into the bargain.
A tax is a means of raising revenue, regardless of the “vehicle” (excuse) used to levy the tax.
A carbon tax would very reliably increase the cost of fossil fuels and everything made from and with them. It would not reliably and predictably reduce carbon emissions. Reductions would depend on: the cost of the alternative energy sources; the cost of emission reduction approaches; the relationship of these costs to the tax; and, the price elasticity of demand. The higher the costs of practical alternative sources, or of emissions control equipment, the higher the carbon tax would have to be to achieve some level of emissions reductions. Lower demand elasticity would also require the carbon tax to be higher.
One can only imagine how effectively the incremental tax revenues would be applied.
>> Leaving Bob Brown loose with the vast powers of a carbon tax is like leaving the grandkids alone in the hayshed with a box of matches.
We’ve got the same thing in the UK. Mr Chris Huhne, the minister for Climate Change, plans to have spent 100 billion pounds on windmills by 2020. Part of this is for a new grid to take account of the variabilities in wind generation. In addition, and to cope with the variable supply, he’s also going to build 17 gas-fired power stations to pick up the load when the wind doesn’t blow (or when it blows too hard). These power stations will be on standby, operating sub-optimally, and so producing more CO2 than when operating at their design optimum. Thus Mr Huhne plans to spend 117 billion pounds of our (UK taxpayer’s) money in the years up to 2020 not only to produce the electricity we need but also to *increase* the output of CO2. Go figure. Maybe you can. But Mr Huhne’s greenness is incomprehensible to me.
“Tax.”
Remarkably, it is ultimately a stealth cap and trade. Read the plan. And that plan was not whipped up overnight, and probably written by lobbyists working for the Aussie likes of Goldman Sachs. There is only a tax for three years, then it makes a “transition” to cap and trade. Which would mean the Aussie government giving up tax money in order to increase the profits of City of London type traders and those who can best invent carbon credits to sell. Via the UN’s certification mechanism, over 40% of the offsets come from China, and if more than 10% of those are legit, I’d eat my hat. The mention of specific targeted cuts by 2020 have nothing to do with a tax, but with cap and trade accounting, and calibration with Europe’s 2020 deadline. The 2020 tells me City of London owns the Aussie Labor party much.
When have politicians lied so much, risked so much, for a tax that they will give up in three years? Nope, I smell money on the backend, from the traders, maybe even China. Maybe guaranteed “investments” for the Greens. The only way I see why a cap and trade must be preceded by a tax is to give cover to Green purists who know cap and trade is a scam. There is no way personal money or power in the future from financial interests is involved. This is not a scam that comes from greenies yelling about pollution, but bankers. Maybe China owns Gillard??
Good luck in trying to get rid of it. We had it rammed down our throats here in BC all in the name of saving the planet.
As bad as this is, it seems better than the fiasco that California has with un-elected state agencies (primarily the Air Resources Board) forcing a cap-and-trade regulation on the state, rather than a carbon tax. Californians have essentially zero chance of overturning this very bad regulation at the ballot box. We tried, unsuccessfully, this past November (2010) with the ill-fated Proposition 23.
The same arguments from above apply:
Cap-and-trade is supposed to start out gently with little to no harm, then increase gradually “as the economy improves.”
It is supposed to combat the predicted evils of CAGW – shoreline inundation from rising sea levels, reduced or non-existent snowpack which is the source of most of California’s fresh water, more frequent and intense heat waves, more hazardous air and the health impacts, and others.
It is also supposed to stimulate technological innovation so that California invents the technologies and devices to solve the world’s problems related to CAGW. This is supposed to create jobs in California and boost the economy. Yet California’s economy is very near the worst in the country.
Meanwhile, California’s entire energy usage – read CO2 output – is approximately 2 percent of the world’s output. Cutting California’s CO2 output by 30 percent is like removing a thimbleful of water from an ocean, not nearly enough to make any difference.
The stark realities are that the ocean level is not rising off of California, instead it is decreasing. The snowpack has not declined, indeed, there is a near-record snowpack this year. The rivers and streams are thundering as fresh water pours into the ocean because there are not sufficient reservoirs in which to store the water. Heat waves are few and far between. The air is cleaner than ever before due to other regulations under the federal Clean Air Act and various state regulations designed to meet its requirements.
Words to a song from the 60’s come to mind: We’re On the Eve of Destruction. (1965 by Barry McGuire)
You Aussies think YOU have a problem. Just wait til next week when our Energy Secretary puts forward his policy for a low carbon economy. We are talking about 30% annual hikes to build windmills and subsidise nuclear. It’s OK though because according to Prime Minister Cameron ( assuming he’s got his instructions from Murdoch) it will make the UK the greenest country in the world (and one of the poorest). You think Greece has problems – you ain’t seen nothing yet.!
I remember a Liberal hopeful stand at my door and tell me that there would be exemptions and the carbon tax wouldn’t hurt the ordinary citizen so this is exactly the strategy the (Dion) Liberals tried in Canada an election ago. Canadians, thankfully, didn’t fall for it – or perhaps the party was unable to sell it.
Totally agree Viv. As a Welsh/Australian with two grown-up children returned to Aus. (Hunter’s Hill and Hornsby) I follow the Australian scene closely. It is extraordinary that with so many prominent and vocal ‘sceptic’ scientists that Australian politicians have chosen such an economically suicidal route. The politicos in the UK are similarly dazzled by the CO2 meme.
I am very embarrassed that Gillard, surely the most incompetent of Australian Prime Ministers, and with Hawke, Keating and Rudd she has serious competition, was born in Wales.
She will go down in history along with Huhne and too many others to mention as a destroyer of once vibrant economies.
(p.s. Perhaps Bob Tisdale’s latest post will be the clincher. Some hope.)
This is just the latest program of all too many brought to the unsuspecting public by the Good Intentions Paving Company. It is, of course and unfortunately, not limited to Australia. It starts out with a small beginning, sometimes seeming so innocuous, whether it be retirement programs, health programs, environment programs, educational programs, etc. It sounds so good, filled with goodies for everybody…and everybody then line up to get a piece of the action they never knew they needed. All of a sudden, a modest $10 billion program explodes to $250 billion, and nobody knows what hit ’em …
Ask the people of Greece how they like their decades of freebies, now that the Piper has called to collect while the country is dropping of a cliff into depression. Who’s next … Italy … Spain … Portugal … Ireland?
And when all such programs fail, as they always will, the blame will fall on: people are too selfish, too greedy, BIG (and it’s always big) [fill in the blank] sabotaged a good plan.
Notice that the politicians that foist their plans on an unsuspecting public never accept their blame for the mess they create by exceeding the bounds of good common sense. They never admit it but they really do think they rule a country, rather than hold their position as a servant to each nation’s many sovereigns
Letter to the Editor
Watts Up With That
We now have an editor? Is that an improvement?
Politicians will blame “Woolworths, power suppliers and Big Oil” for the pain.
There used to be Woolworth’s department stores in the US and elsewhere, had one in town. In case anyone’s wondering, the Woolworths mentioned here is Australia’s and New Zealand’s equivalent of Walmart.
Yes, BC now has a tax on carbon dioxide and as the only ones in North America to have it, I can honestly tell you IT SUCKS!!! The sucking noise is from the economy and the bone headed BC Liberals who brought it in. I switched to the BC Conservatives because they promise to throw it out.
It’s freezing up here!!!
The trick is that the people in power will be able to grant exemptions based upon how many political donations are made to them.
No donations, No exemptions.
To me, this is basically a political racket designed to put money in the hands of politicians in power & seeking re-election.
heh- if you don’t want it rammed down your throat, first, don’t get on your knees, then don’t open your mouth and close your eyes.
oz is getting what they have paid for.
it is just.
now if you want better – be better. to do that, you first have to know better. are we there yet?
Monroe, how’s the economy in neighboring Alberta these days?
>>Ed Reid says:
>>A tax is a means of raising revenue, regardless of the “vehicle” (excuse) used to levy the tax.
Interestingly, it’s supposed to be switched to emissions trading in 2015. Perhaps this is the bribe for businesses, to allow them to shut manufacturing down, sack the workers and move manufacturing offshore, earnings millions in credits, in Pachauri fashion ?
As an Australian I compare this deceitful act to the introduction of our GST years ago – with one exception – the government that introduced that at least ran an election campaign saying it would be introduced unlike our current situation where our PM said “there will be no carbon tax under any government I lead”.
I also remember how we were “compensated” for the GST at the time – tax cuts and increases is social security.
I note that in a few years those “compensations” became worthless with some inflation and other cost of living pressures BUT the GST impost appears on nearly everything.
There is one difference though – the GST is clearly stated on every bill – I hate it but it is at least honestly displayed.
I’ll bet that doesn’t happen with this one though.
I have supported the ALP all my life – they were once the party that represented workers, they provided Australia with many social policies without extremism and they were usually honest – as a working person they were the logical choice.
But no more – they have become dishonest – “mean and tricky” and spin doctors.
I will break a lifetime’s trend next election and vote conservative – not because I think their policies are superior but because I cannot support this tax and its ultimate goals and I cannot abide liars.
You have to PASS the bill before you can know what’s IN the bill…
Familiar schema. Sort of like issuing thousands of waivers in order to get companies to endorse a convoluted bureaucratic morass of health-care regulations.
Ms. Forbes is absolutely right. Once the tax is on the books all those wonderful exemptions will disappear and I’m guessin’ it won’t be long before a future socialist leaning government takes it and runs with it. It doesn’t matter if the tax income is for a particular purpose, they will change the rules ’cause SPEND is in their genes. We all know the spending is to maintain their hold on power and not for the general welfare of the governed.
She’s right about the “blame game” too. The Feds blame the the oil companies for high prices completely ignoring that they take more at the pump in fuel taxes than the oil company does. A lot more!
Lying scoundrels, the lot of them!
Ww says:
July 10, 2011 at 1:46 pm
I remember a Liberal hopeful stand at my door and tell me that there would be exemptions and the carbon tax wouldn’t hurt the ordinary citizen
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You mean like re-defining who’s rich every 1- seconds, if you like your insurance you’ll be able to keep it, and the most transparent government that has to hurry up and pass it so you can read what’s in it?
Please don’t judge the majority of Australians by this insane development.
We have had a policy announced that sees $4.7 billion MORE spent than will be raised by the tax. Thats right.
And for a tax that is supposed to curb consumption, people are compensated so that they can continue to consume without paying the price.
Its is fairyland stuff.
Poor fellow, my country
What power is capable to corrupt so many countries. These politicians know they will not survive the next election but that does not seem to be a problem. WHY ?
And those who win the next elections wil do exactly the same thing. WHY ?
It looks like our politicians are or stupid , brainwashed or afraid.
To prevent the camel’s nose under the tent from becoming the entire camel,
the camel must be shot.
Jack N, I wouldn’t be surprised if China owns Gillard. We had to fire the defence minister a couple of years ago because he had dubious contacts with Chinese intelligence agents. Kevin Rudd , the previous PM, likes to get drunk in nightclubs and paw naked women. No way a young Mandarin speaking diplomat with his habits could get in trouble on a China posting is there?
Too much focus on the science and not enough on the politics – these people are part of a world-wide political movement to install a socialist system by stealth, by any other name except what it truly is, and most of you have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.