Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Over at her excellent blog, Judith Curry is hosting a discussion that in part is about “revenue-neutral” carbon (in reality energy) taxes. This is another example of where being a generalist is an advantage. I’ve started and run businesses, so I know why revenue neutral isn’t neutral at all when it comes to an energy tax.
Figure 1. The money doesn’t always end up where you think it will go.
The reason that energy taxes are not revenue neutral is that although the government does indeed return the taxes to the consumers, there is a hidden effect working under the radar that most folks don’t think about.
A businessman prices any product based on how much money he has in it. A typical rule of thumb for manufactured products, for example, is that your product should sell for around twice what you have directly invested in producing it.
So a typical product cost analysis might look something like this:
Widget Production Cost = $10 materials + $10 labor + $10 energy = $30 total cost per widget
Widget Sales Price ≈ 2 * Widget Production Cost ≈ $60 per widget
The businessman has to do that, he or she has to get a percentage return on the money that they have tied up in the product. So I go in and buy a widget, I pay $60, and go home happy.
Now, remember that the deal with a “revenue-neutral tax” is that the consumer is supposed to get the money back from the government. According to the pundits, this means that a revenue-neutral tax won’t slow down the economy, since the taxes aren’t removed from circulation, instead they’re returned right back to the consumers. We’ll ignore the details on how that is supposed to happen in a fair and equitable manner, although that’s another interesting can of worms. For our present purposes, we’ll leave that worm tin hermetically sealed and just assume that the US Government in its brilliant wisdom has decided to impose a $10 tax on the energy that’s used to make widgets. To balance that out and make it all revenue neutral, they’ll give you that money back as a crisp new $10 bill when you buy a widget. Perfectly revenue neutral. What’s not to like?
Here’s the difficulty. Let’s run the new widget costing numbers including the tax.
Widget Production Cost = $10 materials + $10 labor + $20 energy = $40 total cost
Widget Sales Price = 2 * Widget Production Cost = $80 per widget
So I go in to buy another widget, I give the widget man $80, and the Government gives me $10 and says everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds. It’s all balanced since the tax was $10 and I got the $10 back, so the Government and I are exactly even, shake hands and part revenue-neutral friends …
Except for the part where I’m short ten bucks, and the widget maker has made ten dollars extra for the same widget. The revenue is neutral, but despite that, in the case of energy taxes the net effect is to slow down the economy.
Why will the economy slow? If we have the same amount of goods at higher prices, demand will fall and the economy will slow. It’s basic economics.
And that’s why a “revenue-neutral” energy tax isn’t neutral at all … and more to the point, it’s one reason why taxing energy in any form is a really dumb idea. Even when it’s revenue-neutral it slows the economic cycle, and when it’s not revenue-neutral, it slows it even more.
w.
PS – In addition, an energy tax is a very regressive tax. An extra $10 energy tax for the energy used to commute to work means little to the CEO, but may break the bank of the janitor. Taxing energy is a bad plan for a host of reasons.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Jordan says:
March 18, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Too aggressive, Jordan. When you mean “that is not the case in the UK”, you don’t get to say “that is not the case”. And since you are talking about VAT, you are so far off topic that on most threads you’d get banned. I don’t do that, but what in the world would VAT have to do with a US carbon tax? We don’t even have VAT in any form.
If there is a carbon tax in the US, it will be applied on fuel for making the widgets, and when the widgetmaker pays for the fuel, he’ll pay for the tax in front. So your claim that he doesn’t “tie-up money with the taxman” is, well, nonsense. You ever been in business in the US?
So yeah, Jordan, I’d say you are way too aggressive with your fantasies about VAT and your claims about whether money would be tied up. Maybe you’d be right in the UK, but in the US, we drive on the other side of the street, and we pay our taxes in front, when we purchase the goods.
w.
PS – For your future health, next time you are lost in your absurd fantasies about US VAT and US taxes, telling the guy you are discussing it with to “take a deep breath and count to ten” doesn’t gain you any points. It just makes people point and laugh, particularly when your underlying claim turns out to be about as substantial as mocha froth …
Another carbon limiting scheme is Tradeable Energy Quotas, which are basically vouchers, distributed to everyone on a per capita bases, which are required to purchase fuels. Those who conserve sell their TEQs to those who use more fuel. The market takes care of the distribution. No government involvement necessary, except to issue the vouchers and track for counterfeit.
A side benefit is having this carbon-based (reality-based) currency on hand when fiat currencies go by-by.
Willis, an economist’s perspective on adopting a “revenue neutral” carbon tax follows.
First, I would like to note that there is no such thing as a “neutral” tax. Second, I note that “neutral tax” and “revenue neutral tax” are two decidedly different concepts.
A “revenue neutral” tax is one designed to generate the same amount of revenue as a tax targeted for replacement. A “revenue neutral carbon tax” is one assessed on carbon instead of some other identifiable factor such as labor.
Substituting a tax on fossil-derived carbon fuels for an existing employer payroll tax on labor would alter your analytic dynamics in material ways. Energy intensive industries would face higher costs while labor intensive industries could realize production cost reductions. Robust assessment of the effects of a carbon tax requires consideration of industrial, commercial, and consumer demand responses to relative price changes of goods and services produced. All “widgets” are not created equal in the market place due to wide disparities among products in their respective income and price elasticities of demand. Economic dislocations of sudden displacement of an existing tax with a carbon tax could be severe in some industries and for the economy at large while a gradual, measured transition on a defined, publicly disclosed time line of five – ten years might be hardly noticed. The outcome would be a relatively more labor intensive and less energy intensive economy with effect on national output level determined by international competitiveness.
FWIW
Revenue neutral carbon taxation is feasible in this country and could be implemented relatively easily and inexpensively by collecting carbon taxes through energy suppliers rather than from energy consumers. Motivations/rationales for considering restructuring of tax systems to widen the tax wedge between user (consumer) and producer costs of carbon fuels are many with AGW alarmism ranking dead last in my book.
Willis you nail it again, here in Canada we are due for the annual wail of, productivity is falling in Canada, happens every year about this time. When we are taxed to the point of absurdity and our government lies about all benefits they pretend to provide, our answer has been to earn less, tradesmen refuse overtime, small businesses limit their known income, we go fishing instead of investing our effort in creating anything as our government steals over 1/2 of the return on our labour and then rewards clueless authoritarians with highly paid well benefited positions to oversee us.There is no revenue neutral tax there is only theft by authority through tax, fee, permit, licence and any other code words. Canada is going broke and we can all see that govt can not provide the benefits (bait) they insisted would flow from the endless taxes. Many here have taken govt jobs to hasten the end, thats a common joke among our work force. For at least as a govt employee you do not pay tax, you are just lied to as to your hourly rate of pay.
How can you tell its tax filing time in Canada?
I agree Bob Maginnis with the first part of your comment, the added cost for most widgets will be a relatively small percentage of the price. However, I do not favor having the government pick winners, such as “home insulation” or “passenger rail” or any other, because they almost always screw up and pick the ones that are in the interests of the most politically-connected. There is also the cost, and likely corruption, of the government checking up that you actually purchased and installed the insulation or whatever is required to get the subsidy.
Just distribute the money equally to every citizen and legal resident taxpayer, and let them decide what is in their own best self-inerest. If the higher costs of fuel justifies better insulation of my house, I will do so. If driving my car a long way to work now costs too much, I will decide to put up with the inconvenience of car-pooling or public transit. My money, my decision. If the higher cost of fossil fuel justifies a switch to fuels made of biowaste from farms and food industries, or nuclear power, let them make that decision, etc.
Willis, the conclusion is correct, but the model is bad. Most prices are not 2 times cost. Your analysis would change only in detail if 2 was replaced by 2.5 or 10, or 1.o5, and the conclusion would still be right. But many prices are not set proportional to cost. The politicians have got to be convinced that a CO2 tax is a bad idea. To do that, the reasoning must be sound. There are many ways to set prices, probably dozens. The skimming pricing model with the tax hurts the folks the politicians want to hurt. However the price is set, and however the price changes over time, and however the costs change over time, at every moment there will still be a number such that price = cost times that number. HTH.
Master class hapooner.
Well said, Dave! The tax would be applied across-the-board to fossil fuels and products containing high levels of fossil fuels at the port of entry, and on fossil fuels at US coal mines, and US oil and gas wells. The feds already impose taxes at these points, so the Carbon Tax would be a straight adder, easy to calculate and hard to cheat on.
The revenue would be distributed equally to every US citizen and legal resident who is required to file a federal tax return. Their bank account info is already available to the feds, and the distribution would be inexpensive to administer. Illegal aliens and others who do not file federal returns would not get any of the prebate, which would amount to a penalty for their illegal activity, since they, along with everyone else, would have to pay higher prices for products with high fossil fuel content.
The Carbon Tax, as Dave suggests, would start at a low level, but have a clearly defined ramp-up to more effective levels. Individuals and businesses would thus be encouraged to plan long-term to make investments in energy efficiency, according to their own judgment of self-interest, and not at the whim of some bureaucrat (such as the bunch that decided to subsidize Ethanol or the other civil servants who came up with the idea to give away golf carts).
At first, the additional costs would hardly be noticed. The defined ramp-up, over the long-term, would give businesses and individuals time to adjust their energy usage, which would soften the bite when the Carbon Tax reached the specified end point.
My motivation, like Dave’s, is not based on any kind of what he called “AGW alarmism” or what I call Catastrophic “CAGW”. As a lukewarmer-skeptic I accept that human activities are responsible for some minor part of the warming of the past century, but natural processes are the main cause. It looks as if natural cycles may revert back to Global Cooling if the Sunspot/Galactic Cosmic Ray theory is correct. We may come to thank previous AGW and recognize CO2 as the plant food it is.
I favor the revenue-neutral Carbon Tax because, by encouraging energy efficiency, and alternative sources (including nuclear), it will reduce our dependence on petroleum from unstable foreign sources. I want to relieve the cost, in blood and treasure, we have been paying to protect our access to those critical resources.
We also need something to counter the dangerous Cap & Trade scam that is a politicians delight selling carbon indulgences. Cap & Trade is already law in several countries and has been proposed by powerful interests in the US. You can’t fight something with nothing, so lets fight it with a lesser evil, the Carbon Tax, that may actually work at intended.
Willis – Too agressive? Absolutely you were! Your condescending response to Ira was basically offensive – addded to the fact that you were plain wrong. There are plenty of other sites where we can go to for that kind of crap.
My point about VAT and corporation tax (tax on profit) was in reply to your incorrect comment that businesses fund every tax dime from their own working capital. No need for the veiled threats to ban me on that point Willis.
With regard to the net cash position on business taxation, have a look at the recent Q4 balance sheet of a multinational, like BP:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/B/bp_fourth_quarter_2010_results.pdf
Page 16 – Balance Sheet, Current Liabilities ….. $3bn Current Tax Payable.
But maybe BP is not the best example, they had a bad year. Royal Dutch Shell’s 2010 Balance sheet has $10bn current liability for taxes payable. And it’s not just oil companies, you can have a look at GE and Microsoft’s balance on “income tax”.
These companies owe money to the taxman. Their shareholders have no reason to consider that they are owed a single dime for return on capital on that money.
Even if their net taxes due is zero, what about those “baked in taxes” that are levied on business expenses and input costs. Again, this is a bad point and your general complaint is not supported.
A business will have a balance of creditors (money it owes, including payments to its suppliers) and debtors (typically payments owed to the business by its customers). To try to maxmise funding from other sources, businesses will usually try to minimise current debtors (cash into the business ASAP) and maximise curent creditors (hang onto it as long as possible).
Now I’m not going to make any claim that every business is always successful in maintaining a healthy balance of current creditors over debtors. But it is what they try to do and they tend to be successful at it.
Your point about net “baked in” tax payments being early net payment to the taxman only applies to businesses who -for whatever reason – are not so successful at cash management.
Therefore I call BS on the assertion that we may conclude -unconditionally – that “baked in” taxes necessarily leaves a business in tax-negative cash position on those taxes.
I guess you will have had a look at that link I posted and learned something new about how taxes (and subsidies) are expected to be shared between businesses and their customers according to basic economic theories. Those principles say precisely NOTHING about whether the tax (or subsidy) is a CO2 tax or an energy tax, or where the tax is levied.
Those basic principles apply where there is competition and other forms of choice which defines a balance of bargaining power between business and their customers. Your claim that businesses are in the fortunate position of simply adding a mark-up onto tax and then passing it onto customers is only consistent with basic economics if you are granted the assumption that the customer has no bargaining power. It might occasionally happen, but it is usually not the case.
Businesses and customers end up SHARING the burden of business taxation.
I might take the opportunity to respond in your own words Willis – your claim that tax DOES “tie-up money with the taxman” is, well, nonsense. Yeah, Willis, I’d say you are way too aggressive with your fantasies about taxes on business and your claims about whether money would be tied up.
PS – take another deep breath and count to ten. And the next time you reply to me, feel free to adopt a far more temperate and conciliatory tone.
One twist in this example:
When the widget price goes to $80, or even $70 if the widget maker doesn’t mark up the tax, the widgets made in China, or Zimbabwe or wherever, will continue to sell at $60 (or for whatever they were selling before the tax), thus creating (or increasing) the price difference.
The government (in Australia) said that they will compensate consumers, not manufacturer. So I will collect my $10 from the government and buy the Chinese widget. What is going to happen to Australian manufacturers?
Jordan said @ur momisugly March 18, 2011 at 11:15 pm “Willis – your claim that tax DOES “tie-up money with the taxman” is, well, nonsense. Yeah, Willis, I’d say you are way too aggressive with your fantasies about taxes on business and your claims about whether money would be tied up.”
I live in Oz and I can tell you that the Australian Taxation Commissioner sent me a provisional tax bill in the late 90s for several thousand dollars more than my anticipated gross income. He charged me interest on the unpaid amount owing even though he sent me a refund at the end of that FY as I had paid as much as I could afford to keep the interest payment as low as possible.
You are talking through your anus if you think the tax eaters don’t tie up business capital!
Willis, don’t take it as a personal attack or ad hom, but the truth is I really do want to see what an economist has to say. I do think that you are wrong in your logic – but me arguing with you is silly, when there are highly trained economists out there!
What about asking Stephen Levitt (co-author of Freakonomics)? He has the knack of making economics comprehensible to the layman. We readers here would go away knowing stuff we didn’t know before – and that has got to be good.
Why, I’ll bet, Willis, that even you wouldn’t mind knowing a bit more than you do now.
Pompous Git says: “.. the Australian Taxation Commissioner sent me a provisional tax bill in the late 90s for several thousand dollars more than my anticipated gross income. He charged me interest on the unpaid amount owing even though he sent me a refund at the end of that FY…. ”
I sympathise, and have been in a similar position. But you cannot extrapolate from one (unexplained) example to calim that businesses necessarily fund any CO2/energy tax out of their own working capital. That just doesn’t follow.
For the situation you described, my guess would be one of the following:
Some form of enforcement measure had been invoked by the taxaman. Perhaps your tax return had passed a deadline, or there was something anomalous with your tax return. It’s not nice, but the taxman often then has punitive remedies at his disposal on the principle that the taxpayer’s interests will come first when businesses “step out of line”.
Another possibility is tax charge was based on some form of rolling assessment of business performance (like last year’s turnover) and the next year’s peformance was lower. Tax principles would normally expect you to make adequate provision (current tax liability) because you should have been aware of the situation. The difference in timing (tax due on a previous year’s measure) would be viewed as cash positive and you should have been reporting a current tax liability.
Or the tax office made a bad mistake and you were unfairly treated. This type of thing can happen, but there is a limit before it becomes politcal and the legistlation is changed.
However, I would echo your own phraseology: you are talking through your anus if you think tieing up business capital is an ordinary principle of business taxation.
If in doubt, look at some reported accounts and see how many businesses are routinely sitting on a large tax debtor.
Jordan says:
March 18, 2011 at 11:15 pm
If you have plenty of other sites, well, don’t let the door hit you in the backside on the way out.
Quote? Cite? I’m not going to guess what you are raving about, I know I never said anything that asinine about funding businesses. My friend, my most recent job was as Chief Financial Officer for a company with sales of $40 million a year, so don’t even think about lecturing me on how businesses fund their actions. I know how businesses do it, it was my job to know, I was good at it, and forty megabucks a year depended on my skill at doing it. Can you say the same? You’re poking a hornet’s nest with a short stick, go away before you get hurt.
I’ve asked repeatedly for you to quote what you object to. No reply until you do. I’m done jerking about. Get with the picture or get ignored.
“Veiled threat”? I specifically said I don’t ban people, and if you’re paying attention, you know I make every effort to tell the truth. I’ve never banned anyone in my life. So that’s just paranoia on your part.
In any case, come back when you have something substantial to say. I’m not going to battle air, and that’s all you’re offering.
w.
John Brookes says:
March 19, 2011 at 1:32 am
Thanks, John. You are correct, I love learning. I agree that you should ask Levitt, whoever he is, see what he has to say.
You need to remember Harry Truman’s comment in this regard. He said that he wanted fire all his economists and hire a one-armed economist. When they asked him why, he said that every economist he knew would lay out a perfectly logical argument about why something had to be a certain way because of basic economic theory.
But then, Truman said, every one of them would go on to say “But on the other hand, …”
w.
Willis Eschenbach said:
Smoking Frog says:
March 18, 2011 at 4:31 am
… 2. A tax on “the output of production” is a consumption tax. It’s misleading to speak as if it were a tax on production, although obviously it will slow down production, unless there’s an equal or better substitute etc. as I said.
[Willis] You’ve missed the point entirely. I was making a distinction between a tax on the inputs to industrial production (mat’ls, labor, energy) as opposed to a tax on the output of industrial production. Those have different effects.
I don’t really see that I missed the point. I recognize the distinction, but I think a tax on “the output of production” is more appropriately called a “consumption tax,” and I’m not persuaded that its effects are very different from those of a tax on “the inputs of production.”
I might be wrong about some aspect(s) of that (e.g., the effect on investment), but I don’t see your argument that the widget maker “has made ten dollars extra for the same widget,” because I don’t see that his price/cost ratio will still be so great as 2X. Even if it’s still that great per widget (which I doubt), he’ll be selling fewer widgets.
[Your whole post was italicised – I have removed the second iteration of the html tags around what ‘seemed’ to be your reply – hope I have got it right ~jove, mod]
Here’s a pretty comprehensive demolition of the carbon tax concept as a measure for reducing emissions. Pretty obvious, when you think about it.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/crisis-removes-easy-path-to-low-carbon-world/story-e6frg6zo-1226023501327
Another combatative and bombastict post from Willis Eschenbach
Willis: “Quote? Cite?”
Simple – look at any balance sheet with a current liability called “tax” and net current assets where creditors exceed debtors. I even gave you examples. If you cannot grasp that point then I don’t know what else there is to add.
Willis: “I’m not going to guess what you are raving about”
I know. But attacking me (and Ira and others) doesn’t disguise your nakedness. You clearly don’t understand why your basic argument above is wrong and you are too emotional to try.
Willis: “I know I never said anything that asinine about funding businesses.”
I know Willis. But I did . And you have not been able to understand the linkage sources of cash and funding of a business and therfore why the point was relevant to the debate above.
Willis “My friend, my most recent job was as Chief Financial Officer for a company with sales of $40 million a year, so don’t even think about lecturing me on how businesses fund their actions.”
I don’t know what I can add to that, except to wonder how those around you managed to prop you up against your own incompetence.
Willis: “Can you say the same?”
Yes I can, but I’m not going to get into the game of comparing the size of fallices. You’ll just have to guess.
Willis: “You’re poking a hornet’s nest with a short stick, go away before you get hurt.”
OMG. Your nakedness is complete with that kind of empty threat.
Willis: “come back when you have something substantial to say”
I’ve said everything I need to help you understand why your are wrong. It has become a waste of time and I’m done with being attacked.
Willis: “If you have plenty of other sites, well, don’t let the door hit you in the backside on the way out.”
I can see you were never in charge of the marketing department. I wonder how Anthony feels about you showing the door to his suppoters for daring to disagree with you. I’ll accept your apology or I’ll consider taking up your offer.
I don’t understand any of Jordan’s posts especially the point about companies making money holding onto their due taxes.
Let me give Jordan a real example from a real company.
We have a business that uses helicopters. Helicopters use jet fuel. A carbon tax would add to my direct costs which reduces my margins.
We have a large building heated with natural gas. A carbon tax would increase the cost of heating.
We have trucks and trailers to transport our equipment.
So everything we do or use would increase in costs if a carbon tax were introduced.
So where is the revenue neutral in my business?
Of course I can raise my prices but I won’t be making any extra money holding onto those unpaid taxes.
When we file our corporate returns with the government we have a certain period of time to pay our taxes. Of course we keep this money aside because it isn’t ours, it belongs to the government.
But when I buy 42,000 liters of jet fuel it’s cash on delivery.
Sorry Jordan but you make no sense at all and posting links to bp isn’t helping a guy who has run two revenue generating corporations for years that are heavily into energy use understand how a co2 tax can be revenue neutral.
I’m happy to pay, I’m happy to charge, but don’t ask an economist to try and explain what a revenue neutral tax is. It’s like communism. Great in theory…
Jordan wrote:
“Small taxes are not controversial because people don’t notice them. But they also do nothing to change behaviour and are ineffective if the purpose is to reduce CO2 emissions.
Bob says they are not ineffective if the tax revenue is used for energy efficiency that would otherwise not happen.
Ira G says: ” If the higher costs of fuel justifies better insulation of my house, I will do so. If driving my car a long way to work now costs too much, I will decide to put up with the inconvenience of car-pooling or public transit. My money, my decision.
Bob says, if you are a renter, you won’t want to make a long term insulation investment in the landlord’s property. If you are a slumlord, you won’t care. If you want to take public transit, it might not be there without public subsidy.
vindsavfuktare says:
“March 18, 2011 at 1:52 am
I disagree. Taxing energy has the side effect of decreasing pollution (not talking CO2 here). Taxing labour has the side effect of increasing unemployment.
Any tax levied by the government will increase product cost more than the tax itself. Doesn’t matter if its energy, labour or corporate taxes. That is a reason to keep government small, but the taxes you do have to levy might as well be taxed on things that have nasty side effects. Any energy production (incl solar, wind etc) have severe environmental impact and is thus a good source to tax.
I choose decreased pollution over decreased employment any day”.
An economy which is throttled down due to reduced energy use is a dead.
Taxes don’t do anything to reduce any pollution.
Our modern engines and factories are already operating ‘clean’.
This is legalized theft.
Jove, yes, you got it right. Thanks. I noticed my error right after I had posted, so I posted a short message pointing out where my reply began.
Willis,
I appreciate your efforts to keep it simple, but you seem to have gotten a bit carried away. You have increased the sale price of widgets without any thought for the unavoidable corresponding increase in the purchase cost of the materials with which to make them. Surely that would ensure a downward spiral of negative wealth-creation.
Jordan says:
March 19, 2011 at 6:16 am
Jordan, you’ll have to go with choice B. You come in, say that my ideas are “crap”, call me “incompetent”, refuse to provide citations, and then want an apology for me calling you on your nonsense?
Sorry, my friend, you picked the wrong man. I don’t apologize to strange cowards who hide behind an alias to call me “incompetent” and claim my ideas are “crap”. People are funny that way …
w.
REPLY: For the record, I’m fine with what Willis said which was: “don’t let the door hit you in the backside on the way out.” – Anthony
Anthony and Willis
I’d prefer not to hide behind an alias, but the alternative could be seriously bad for me personally. Please bear in mind the need for privacy is not necessarily cowardice or sinister. I wish it were different, but it isn’t.
I would confirm that $40M is not a significant value to what I do (M&A). Understanding what makes businesses tick, where they get their cash, their liabilities, the impact of taxation and so forth is quite important when evaluating an acquisition. I’ll leave it at that as it shouldn’t be necessary to justify myself.
Somewhere along the line we failed to communicate. But I found myself very quickly under an unwarranted attack for speaking up when I saw failings and weaknesses in the arguments put up here. And when I tried to speak-up for the sarcastic treatment of others. For example when Ira got this classic “I have to assume you live in the land of idiotic businessmen, if they actually act like that where you live.”
That’s just too sarcastic. Ira had posted a thoughtful and polite comment. And she did make a good point (that businesses and their customers share taxes in a competitive market). I would urge you both to think about how that looks, and how it can hand amunition to your opponents.
If you had any issues with what I had to say, you could have politely asked me to explain to examine what I had to say in more detail. Asking questions is kinda important for learning. I did set out my case and I gave examples. I would have gone into more detail, if there had been any serious attempt to communicate.
But it’s hard to do that with the megaphone blaring out the likes of ” you are way too aggressive with your fantasies about VAT and your claims about whether money would be tied up”
I came to WUWT because I felt sites like RC and Tamino are closed-minded. I don’t like their forthright aggresion towards disagreement. I have heard others say that WUWT is intolerant towards those who disagree, and it took only a small point of difference for me to discover that for myself.
Of course it’s up to WUWT to set the agenda and drive the culture. And if I don’t like it here, then I’m free to go elsewhere.
So that’s what I will do. I accept your kind offer, and hope the door doesn’t hit me on the way out.
I wish you success in the future and bid you farewell.
[Reply: I don’t think Ira is a “she.” ~dbs, mod.]