Second worst results in modern Swiss history
Swiss voters Sunday overwhelmingly rejected an initiative that would have scrapped the Alpine country’s value-added-tax system and replaced it with a carbon tax. Roughly 92% of voters opposed the initiative while 8% supported the measure.
The initiative would have encouraged Swiss households to use renewable energy sources, including solar and wind, which would have been exempt from taxes. The initiative, which was introduced by the Green Liberal Party of Switzerland, was designed to help lower carbon emissions and reduce global warming. –Neil Maclucas, The Wall Street Journal, 8 March 2015
A proposal replacing the main consumer tax with a new levy on non-renewable energy has suffered a blistering defeat in Sunday’s nationwide ballot. The proposal by the Liberal Green Party won only 8% of the vote, according to final official results. Sunday’s result was the second worst in modern Swiss history. —Swiss Info, 8 March 2015
h/t to The GWPF
Dear me. That’s what you get if you let democracy rule. Wolrd leaders, beware!
I am so glad we have enlightened leaders like Joe Biden who know that global warming is as certain as gravity and not peasants like that.
I guess that’s why alarmists admire China so much even though it is the number one emitter of CO2. Now they’ll work even harder to limit democracy so elites like them can rule by fiat like the elites in China.
Meanwhile in the states, Obama “knows” that Canadian oil sand is “extraordinarily dirty”. http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/obama-canadian-oil-extraction-is-extraordinarily-dirty I suspect he would not know what bitumen is if he got his arm stuck up to his elbow in the “[trimmed] bitumen baby”. Sadly, these folks got others to vote for them.
There can be no doubt that somebody is manipulating Obama in the same manner.
@ShrNfr but he doesn’t seem to care about it when he and Clinton supported and signed off on the Alberta Clipper pipeline, the very same “dirty corrosive dangerous” Canadian tar sand oil. Pipeline goes through Illinois. What a shocker (not)
The proposal by the Liberal Green Party won only 8% of the vote, according to final official results.
I look forward to the day when we can say the same in the US of A.
It will be the end of an error!
It is the conceit of liberals that there is no politics in non-democratic countries. This is not true. There is an enormous amount of politics in China, it is just that most of it is conducted outside of the public eye. The rulers of China have to build coalitions by rewarding friends and punishing enemies just like democracies. They can issue fiats, but getting bureaucrats to implement them is another story. Sorry to bust your bubble.
Democracy in action? Was it that thing of the past?
Positive proof of regional global climate warming weather thingey – if you know what I mean. More or less snow is a sure sign of something or other.
Link
http://iceagenow.info/2014/12/record-snow-zurich-switzerland/
Actually, the Swiss winter overall has been distinctly average in terms of snowfall. A few heavy downpours, but broadly the south, slightly above average and the North East/SE slightly below.
See http://www.slf.ch to find detailed diagrams with data to back this up……
92 % is not near the 97%, but probably a better representation.
A truer representation, that is not manipulated.
+1. You beat me to it.
The Swiss sign says ‘Senseless and Expensive’.
I think it’s a little stronger, my reading is “Nonsensical and expensive”.
Are you calling his Swiss cheesey?
Well. That’s very encouraging.
I guess the Swiss have a better democracy than I realized. Unfortunately the same can’t be said of Canada.
If their Liberal party is elected next year, they will not have a referendum on a carbon tax, they will simply ram it down their citizens throats whether they want it or not.
And if their Federal government doesn’t do it, their provincial governments will. That’s the Canadian way.
Name you own poison…the lessor of two evils…
the lessor of two evils
If that was a pun, it was a good one.
I can’t quite understand how any specific vote-count on a referendum can be either better or worse than any other election result. If by “second worst” they mean “second worst drubbing”, well, that may be significant, but not in any way intrinsically bad. To me, this result is quite rational, and therefore may be in the running for the best result in Swiss history.
It was meant that this vote was the Swiss national referendum with the second smallest pro-percentage for a suggested initiative in Switzerland since 1848. But actually it was really the worst result for a popular vote initiative in Switzerland ever, because the only one with a smaller pro-percentage in 1929 did have a counter-proposal by the Government which even the initiators accepted. In addition, the vote for women, which are more likely to vote for green politics, started only after 1971 in Switzerland, so you can’t compare the bad outcome of the 1929 referendum with this smashing defeat of the suggested carbon tax by the Swiss Green Liberal Party (GLP) in 2015.
The green party in Britain is starting to be a hoot. They want equal “human rights” for all sentient beings including rodents. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/green-party/11456572/Rodents-to-be-given-human-rights-under-Green-Party-plans.html They have 55,000 members. I do, actually, live catch my mice and release them outside when I can, but if they persist, the snap trap is at the ready.
@ShrNfr
Personally, I think a rational conversation on the topic of sentience is worth having… but not with “greens”. Unfortunately, those folks have no comprehension of the difference between what is desirable and what is possible. To make matter worse, they also have no tolerance of views that diverge from their own. Pity.
Gotta love Greenies
@ShrNfr
Their policy leaves me in something of a quandry. If I stop my cat catching (and killing) mice, her rights will be infringed. If I don’t, the mouse’s rights will be equally infringed. Help!
The Greens should come to Australia or New Zealand to see what a rodent problem can expand to.
The sense of the sub-headline is as you state in your second sentence, “second worst drubbing”. I believe you are also correct in suggesting this is an excellent result. I am surprised that the Swiss could harbor as many economic nincompoops as to yield 8% in favor of the proposition.
Switzerland does have a serious heroin drug abuse culture, hidden in plain sight. Estimates of lifetime heroin abuse (current and former) are in the 7% – 9% range of the adult population. Coincidence… probably.
source: http://www.bag.admin.ch/themen/drogen/00042/00624/06044/07683/index.html%3Flang%3Den%26download%3DNHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1ad1IZn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCIdHx9gWym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A–&sa=U&ei=TCr-VJSKBMqpogSru4Ew&ved=0CCgQFjAE&sig2=0sKZauOeMkp3j7orW-1s8A&usg=AFQjCNFXISIC12wA72Id8nxHrnCxR9HkTQ
Statistically, there must be some slow Swiss who are not junkies. Does it mean even the slow ones thought this was a lousy idea?
Perfect correlation, Joel! We can say with 97% certainty that the ‘pro-carbon tax’ voters are ‘crack-heads’.
They like the smack of green discipline.
Or maybe the taste?
Australia apparently has 55% economic nincompoops because that’s how many supposedly want Bill Shorten and the Labor Party to be the next government. Bill wants to re-introduce a carbon tax.
People all over the world do NOT want to pay more taxes. Anybody that preaches that citizens should pay more taxes, is probably getting some of that money.
I like to think “Nobody is more qualified on how to spend my money than me”.
Well, the proposed deal of this carbon tax initiative was actually to remove VAT in order to compensate the new carbon (and uranium-) tax. Thus the overall tax burden would have stayed – more or less – the same for the Swiss people. Therefore, this crashing defeat for the anti-CO2 hysteria of the Swiss Greens is even more striking !!!
Obviously the Swiss voters are not a bit afraid of the alleged “man-made” climate change, despite the facts that Switzerland is the host state of IPCC (in Geneva) and that an overwhelming majority of the Swiss media does constantly demonize all CO2 emissions coming from fossil fuels…
gentle tramp
“…Thus the overall tax burden would have stayed – more or less – the same…” – surely you jest.
@ChipJavert
This statement was simply the official goal or claim of the Swiss Green Liberal Party which did propose the initiative. If it could have been a realistic goal is not my problem…
@ Gentle Tramp
British Columbia has a carbon tax that is supposed to be “revenue neutral”. It isn’t. BC’s carbon tax has been a burden on tax payers. And, it has not reduced CO2 emissions either. Maybe the Swiss are observant enough to see the example already set.
@ Cam S and that tax will not only never go away, it will steadily increase.
No, no, no!! You must let the gubbmint decide! You’ll just waste it! LOL!
“Any dollar kept from the hands of the government is a dollar well spent”.
Sounds like something Ronald Reagan would quip.
now if it was only 97%…..
Wow now THAT is a consensus! !
All they need to do now is scrap that backassward value added tax nonsense.
The Swiss will now be isolated until they have been inoculated against the thinking contagion.
They already are isolated, and loving every minute of it. Laughing their @rses off at the EU.
Actually, VAT is a good idea.
… It is the only way, in this new ‘free world trade’ environment, that you can tax imports.
… It prevents greedy American multinationals, like Amazon, Starbucks and Google, from offshoring all their profits (and thus their taxes) to Luxembourg or Lichtenstein.
… It taxes products, not jobs.
… It taxes products, not profits.
The only problem with these taxes, is that we give them to numbskulls who waste them on infantile projects. Now that is the REAL problem.
R
“Actually, VAT is a good idea.”
No, a VAT (Valve Added Tax) is not a good idea. Why? Because like the U.S. tax system taxes are hidden from view and is subject to abuse by politicans (picking winners and losers). Lets say you mine and process iron ore, under VAT a tax rate is added when you sell the ore to the [steel] producer and so on until the product is sold to the end user of goods and services. By that time the total tax rate could be as high as 50% A better idea would scrap the present tax system (U.S.)institute a nation sales tax. One tax rate for all paid at POS.
Billboard: “crazy and expensive”
“energie – steuer” is interesting because steuer means “levy” or “tax” but it also means steering wheel or helm. A very apt word.
Good job Switzerland.
In parliamentary democracies, this would be “a vote of nonconfidence” in the government and a call for a new election. The real mystery is, if the Swiss voted in the Liberal Green Party in the first place, why did they go against the only policy arrow in its quiver? I guess since the election they’ve seen the light somehow.
The Green Liberal Party only controls 14 out of 246 seats, 12 in the national Council and 2 in the Council of States.
If they only control 14 seats, then how the hell did they get their retarded pet project to get to a referendum? Isnt that a colossal waste of public funds to vote on something that probably has no chance to pass to begin with?
14 seats out of 246 = 5.7%
Any individual, any association, any grouping, or any party can collect signatures from Swiss citizens to demand a popular vote (initiative) on any federal subject. If they can collect over 100’000 valid signatures within 18 months, the initiative will be submitted in the form of a legislative text to the Swiss citizens for a federal vote.
in this case, the Green Liberal Party initiated the collection of the signatures.
Based on recent elections and the number of registered voters and the turnout for this election, approximately 168,000 voted in support of the proposition. Almost the only folks who voted for it were the ones who signed the petition.
No mystery at all:
Switzerland is a basic-democratic country. That means, anybody (even a small party like GLP with 5.4 % in the last federal election) can start a national referendum about a political proposal (called an initiative) if they can collect 100’000 approvals for this proposal by Swiss voters.
I can’t say, given the scope, I find that notion unappealing. I know a few of These States that could benefit.
Here is my cartoon contribution to Monday Funny:
What a Waste
http://www.maxphoton.com/what-a-waste/
It seems at least the Swiss understand this scheme!
Also, for those who missed my Friday Funny cartoon, I think this is apropos for this thread:
Before Nuts
http://www.maxphoton.com/before-nuts/
At least now we know some humans are smarter than cyanobacteria!
+1
love it
Max, you’re a hoot … keep them commin’.
This one truly is great.
“Settled Science…” LOL
This REAL climate change- political climate. And now the “other” party controls both houses of Congress.
AGW RIP
Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein!
Bart, they have two national languages: Non! Non! Non!
Streetcred, no they have even 4 national languages:
Nein (German), Non (French), No (Italian), Na (Romansh).
It’ll be nyet soon 😉 LOL
Absolument pas !!
How can Nein! be ten?
(Add Nein!?)
The Green Liberal Party introduced the measure. Shows you what people think of the Greens.
Reblogged this on SasjaL and commented:
Swedish media will not report this … Anyway, they are now together with politicians to busy promoting radical feminism (leftism) and support IS activists …
Well,these days swedish media will hardly report anything remotely linked to democratic procedure….
So tell me again how the state and US government gets away with the carbon tax on businesses. California started spending the carbon tax revenue before they even collected it. Is the US actually collecting any carbon tax yet?
That is somewhat a corollary of Pelosi’s concept,
you know,
we need to spend it so we can collect it.
/grin
“Second worst result”? Nein! Second best result! Yes!
Ausgezeichnet! 😀
Gesundheit! 🙂
Good health! ☺
Schadenfreude! 🙂
Das.
Just prove what the UN “My World” poll shows, namely that out of 16 criteria of concern, climate change came in dead last. Ditto for the Swiss vote.
The Swiss failed to see this article in The Guardian. It’s by a very enthusiastic man named Bill McKibben.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/09/climate-fight-wont-wait-for-paris-vive-la-resistance
It explains how we should organize a resistance movement to fight global warming, and avoid sea level rise. I wonder if they will call it the Weather Underground?
Very clever. Much like!
Weather Six Feet Underground.
Big oil must have bought off a lot of voters!
One thing Switzerland if famous for is political neutrality.
I guess there are a few Greens wondering why it hurts down there. 😎
Swiss “neutrality” in WWII was a sham. They knew only too well that if Germany won the war, Switzerland would become a puppet state, at best. They maintained the appearance of neutrality, but hated the Nazis. Germany didn’t invade Switzerland for a number of reasons, including (1) The Swiss could blow up the mountain passes in minutes; (2) Germany was already stretched too thin; (3) German officials (including many high-ranking Wehrmacht officers) had put their savings in Swiss banks; (4) Switzerland made a convenient go-between for dealings with other nations; (5) Up to a point (July 1942??), Switzerland was an exporter of agricultural products to Germany.
(6) Switzerland together with Sweden, demanded that Jews should have the word “Jew” (“Juden”) included in their passports.
@jorge
And don’t forget: The Swiss delivered weapons and ammunition for the German army in exchange for necessary coal supplies. See e.g. here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oerlikon_20_mm_cannon
“Second worst result”?
Please tell me, I want to know.
What was the worst then?
I’m just very curious. Was it voting to ban triangular chocolate or demanding honesty in banking or ..?
Your hilarious fancies are funny but wrong: It was only something about saving the supply of cereals. See here:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/va/19290303/
The reason for the smaller support then was simply the fact, that the Government did offer a counter-proposal which was even accepted by the initiators…
Gentle Tramp , Thank you.
I was intrigued by the gap.
Second screams “What’s first?”
The current Liberal government in Ontario is planning on bringing in a new
taxrevenue stream on the back of an excuse to fight global warming.The Ontario Government needs to generate more revenue to pay for what it already can’t pay. It’s proposed new pension plan is cute as well.
I bet the new provincial pension fund will buy Ontario government bonds.
Just as lefties now want to be known as “progressives” taxes are now to known as “revenue tools”.
taxes are now to be known as
Let it Be
The fools that use that terminology are tools also…
Switzerland is clearly “fly-over-country” or soon will be.
It’s also a darn nice train-thru country, too.
…. And driving and skiing and hiking and eating and drinking and biking and….. aw shucks, you get the idea!
I expect someone will decide Switzerland is unsustainable.
Can we have “another” referendum in the UK please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Only if it involves torches and pitchforks.
Very decisive common sense from the Swiss public.
More common sense, this time suprisingly from the California courts where a UCLA researcher has won a
lawsuit after being fired for whistleblowing about corruption in environmental science research at UCLA:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/415100/victory-academic-freedom-and-defeat-junk-environmental-science-david-french
Incredibly as well as other unethical appointments the fired whistleblower had even pointed out that the lead researcher had a fraudulent degree, the ‘research’ led to new particulate emission laws.
(From link posted by Larry Ledwick in ‘Tips and Notes’)
Any bets as to if the Guardian reports it?
This is why Christiana Figueres, IPCC chief made the comment in the Guardian interview January 13th 2014 that democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Chinese communism is the best model.
The UN, the chief promulgators of the cAGW fraud and one of the main recipients of the money from carbon taxes obviously have no issue of the iron fist of totalitarianism being used to “solve” a non-existent ‘problem.”
Wow, consider the lack of love for the VAT most days, it must be feeling pretty good this day in the sun.
I figure the US will institute a VAT to get more of that taxed-once Roth IRA money calling out to congresscritters everywhere.
My prediction would be that any such tax will be a straight-forward sales tax. It’s bat-shit crazy calculating VAT, plus it gives government more information about your business than they need.
“the proposal by the Liberal Green Party won only 8% of the vote”
But on the bright side they did a lot better than I thought they would.
Quite wrong! The Swiss Greens hoped for a much bigger support because the lefty Swiss MSM do constantly wail about the “devilish evil CO2 from fossil fuels” and the “terrible, terrible climate disasters” which will come true if we don’t stop our “sinful fossil fuel burning”…
Well, this never-ending Green propaganda in all Swiss MSM seems to be not such effective as the Greens did hope, luckily… 😉
Go Switzerland 🙂
[snip – off topic rant -mod]
Given the beauty of he Swiss landscape, why would they want wind turbines blocking out the view?
jimS It is not just wind turbines they do not want, recently they banned the building of new mosques.
Wrong: The building of mosques is still allowed because of religious freedom. Only the building of minarets – as a symbol of power – was banned by a national referendum.
WSJ article title search = full article.
https://www.google.ca/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&q=Swiss+Voters+Reject+Initiative+to+Replace+VAT+System+With+Carbon+Tax
If anyone is wondering about above URL, it switches off the annoying Google auto complete.
https://www.google.ca/webhp?complete=0
Filler
https://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0
Filler
https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?complete=0
If they had voted in favour of the CO2 tax to replace the VAT, what would happen if the CO2 tax was “successful”, and everyone actually did switch to renewable energy sources? Wouldn’t there be no tax at all then? I thought the whole point of a CO2 tax was to stop people emitting the stuff.
You have to heat your home and even if you burn wood, the CO2 police come and hassle you. Swiss realize they don’t want to freeze just as I hope people here in Upstate NY realize they face annihilation if the CO2 scheme runs its full course.
These Greens want to get rid of our cows, too!
If they switched to renewables, there wouldn’t be a whole lot to tax, anyway.
This is out there I know, but can Willis or anyone have a look at this article from NASA. Or am I missing something?
NASA states that co2 acts as a thermostat and sends energy/heat back into space. Here’s a quote below———— and here’s the link— http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/solarstorm-power.html
“This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. “It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.”
Mlynczak is the associate principal investigator for the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
That’s what happened on March 8th when a coronal mass ejection (CME) propelled in our direction by an X5-class solar flare hit Earth’s magnetic field. (On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-class flares are the most powerful kind.) Energetic particles rained down on the upper atmosphere, depositing their energy where they hit. The action produced spectacular auroras around the poles and significant1 upper atmospheric heating all around the globe.”
@Neville last paragraph? was that march 8 2015 or 2005, ( sorry I just read it again it was 2012) An X5 is not all that strong when it gets beyond X10 things will get dicey but the main effects are on our electrical grids and satellites and any astronauts up there but as far as heat built up I doubt it at the X5 level. Most sats have built in safeguards and shut down major components during a radiation storm. They have ample warning with Soho and Lasco sats warning us.
If I have have math right that they use IE “enough power to to heat every home in NY for 2 years” ,That is less than 0.5% of the total use of power by the population on the planet over the same two years.
The Swiss got a vote. The people of the US will not.
That’s because they (Swiss) have referendums, which Millennials better introduce here to control what Congress does.
I was over there in Basel on business a few months ago, right about the time they had the referendum on spending money to work on population control in developing countries. It didn’t pass, but at least they’re addressing the issue as opposed to the brainless numb nuts who come on here spouting their AGW crap as if there’s no consequences and no downside to telling hordes of poor people that we want to murder them because we are their planet-saving betters. Eh, Brandon Warren, what say you ??.
🎵🎵 Oh Happy Day. 🎵🎵 Oh Happy Daaay. 🎵🎵When Jesus walked . . . .
Hey, they just want to prevent those glaciers from advancing like they did in the Little Ice Age.
My personal respect for Switzerland is now up 22 points.
Refreshing my memory a bit about energy sources in Switzerland, it appears that their domestic sources of energy have always been rather green, as they are heavy on hydroelectric (all that beautiful snow melt) and nuclear (green only to some). Purchased energy from outside of Switzerland is either nuclear or more of the naughty carbon variety. So who exactly were they going to tax, and how? Looks like it would have been a tax on imported carbon based energy, which would just make their energy more expensive. Perhaps they are looking at their neighbors the Germans and realizing that they don’t want to emulate them and the negative impacts on their industries. The Swiss tend to be VERY pragmatic, and this seems to be further evidence of that fact.
Is that a consensus?
Regardless, Switzerland already has a Carbon Tax…
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/switzerland-raises-carbon-tax-by-two-thirds/150/537/71519/
Yes, but a rather small one, lets say in a more symbolically fashion. The now defeated initiative of the Swiss Green Liberals would have been a really brutal levy on all fossil fuels!
OK, so I’ve finally made it to the bottom of the current comments… Coming in on the pragmatic note of the previous commenter.
Before drawing all sorts of sweeping conclusions about this topic, however hilarious some of them might be, there are some things to get straight(er), that I can try to help with, having voted in that election and followed it a bit (and living in Switzerland):
– The “Green Liberal Party” is a right wing version of a green party, which is far more recent and slightly less popular (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partis_politiques_suisses) that the original and still present green party. It’s the latter which is more similar to what you’d see in other countries, and wanted to present a counter-proposal to the initiative that was more in line with the government. The Green LIberal party has been accused of being a “fake green” or “greenwashed” party.
– Many popular votes in Switzerland fail because of perceived poor details, implementability or clarity, rather than people being against it in principle. This was clearly at least partly true here, as it would have imposed a baffling system with many questions left unanswered. E.g. 7% VAT (that represents, if I recall properly, around 40% of government revenue) would have been removed and to balance the budget, the commonly-repeated estimate was that, for exemple, gasoline would have immediately reached 5 francs (CHF,=USD) per litre (or a bit under 20$ per gallon for the non-metric). Someone else here mentioned the other big question: what happens when consumption of fossil fuels went down as a reaction? Revenue would fall or the tax would have to increase. Thus there were probably too many unknowns, potential pitfall and large, rapid changes for many to stomach. Hence the thrashing. Often laws based on good principles will get retooled, even several times, and finally get voted in. Something this extreme may have been counterproductive to even green causes, however (my opinion).
– As spaatch mentioned just above, Switzerland does have a carbon tax, on fossil fuels (http://www.bafu.admin.ch/co2-abgabe/12357/index.html?lang=fr), though it’s not big, at about 60 CHF/USD per ton of CO2, and, oddly, companies can get exemptions if they consume a lot of them…
Overall, I don’t think there are many conclusions to draw from this vote. I see it as a blip on the radar, similar to other crazily ridiculous things we vote on periodically. Though some of the bad ones of those pass, too, sadly…
It was a good old-fashioned butt-kicking, and could have scarcely happened to more deserving folk. We’ll have to update our list of Chuck Norris superlatives to include this somehow.
The Koch brothers bought off 92% of the Swiss voters.
Well that’s what I heard somewhere. /s
Although I am not greatly in favor of a carbon tax, I see a reason why the election went the way it did. The proposal was to use a tax on non-renewable energy to replace the usual European value-added tax, which would be completely ditched. I see why voters in a European country would overwhelmingly vote against completely ditching the nowadays-traditional European main means of taxation.
Carbon Tax = Carbon Currency for banksters. Nothing more, nothing less.
Green Fiasco: 92% Of Swiss Voters Reject Carbon Tax In Referendum
And now you know , if you did not already . when the greens try to get such idea imposed without the public having a say so. Their view of democracy has always been that its good idea once everyone agrees with them , until they people should be told what to do ‘for the shake of the planet ‘
I think I’ll move to Switzerland.
Switzerland in cold Phaedo, and will get colder if the sun’s orbit throws us into another ice age or mini ice age. Nice place though to ski.
Congrats to the Swiss. Unfortunately, here in Ontario, the provincial government is planning to introduce a new tax – to save the children, of course. They are deciding whether it will be a “Carbon” tax (I personally do not want the price of pencils to rise) or a Cap and Trade extravaganza.
Questions are: How much colder will this make Ontario and how much damage will it do to the economy. Also, where are the
thievesLiberals going to stash the loot?A Carbon Tax? When, thanks to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung the Swiss, and the rest of the world, know that this would mean being part of the world’s biggest political and intellectual fraud?
To recap, please see NZZ of 14 November 2010, Ottmar Edenhofer interview. Links and wider explanations at http://tinyurl.com/naexuho
I think this is an excellent result. What is there not to like?
They should have done the Obama-style end around with excuses later approach. This head-on free choice approach is not going to work for them.
The Swiss would do a lot better with a tax on their constitutionally sanctioned global tax cheating in place of taxing their own energy use or a VAT tax on their own consumption.
There is no global tax cheating in Switzerland.
First because for the major taxes the Swiss have their say if their should be a tax and how much. They don’t need to evade their own tax.
Second the original Swiss mentality is that you pay your debts. Do you know of any other nation where you can order something by phone and only have to pay within 30 days after you have received the item?
Bernd Palmer
March 10, 2015 at 1:53 pm
U.S. of A. – I do that nearly on a daily basis here in the U.S. for business and personal purchases and I’m not talking giving a credit card# with the order. Not criticizing or arguing with you. Your comment just kind of made me think, “Huh?!?” What is he talking about?” I’m probably not the only one who is puzzled by your remark.
New poll from Nanos Research.
Canadians don’t want to pay a carbon tax either. (17 pages)
Canada doing a poor job at trying to reduce greenhouse gases
Less than half would support taxes on fossil fuels such as gasoline or heating oil to reduce greenhouse gases
http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-S15-T636.pdf
Notice the similarity of the words “teuer” (= expensive) and “steuer” (= tax).
These guys have their nomenclature spot on!
we already have a carbon tax. the rejection of replacing the vallue added tax with an energy tax has nothing to do with AGW denial. typical WIWT dishonesty.
http://www.bafu.admin.ch/co2-abgabe/index.html?lang=en