Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
You likely didn’t realize that the First Rule for the Carbon Tax Club is … nobody talks about the Carbon Tax Club.
And not only that … it could cost the poor Aussies big bucks if they say what I just said about the Carbon Tax Club.
Gotta love totalitarianism in the service of national eco-themed suicide …
From Miranda Devine’s blog at the Australian Telegraph (emphasis mine):
THE whitewash begins. Now that the carbon tax has passed through federal parliament, the government’s clean-up brigade is getting into the swing by trying to erase any dissent against the jobs-destroying legislation.
On cue comes the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which this week issued warnings to businesses that they will face whopping fines of up to $1.1m if they blame the carbon tax for price rises.
It says it has been “directed by the Australian government to undertake a compliance and enforcement role in relation to claims made about the impact of a carbon price.”
Businesses are not even allowed to throw special carbon tax sales promotions before the tax arrives on July 1.
“Beat the Carbon Tax – Buy Now” or “Buy now before the carbon tax bites” are sales pitches that are verboten. Or at least, as the ACCC puts it, “you should be very cautious about making these types of claims”.
There will be 23 carbon cops roaming the streets doing snap audits of businesses that “choose to link your price increases to a carbon price”.
Instead, the ACCC suggests you tell customers you’ve raised prices because “the overall cost of running (your) business has increased”.
So if some Australian business prints up this post, and tapes it to his window … he can be fined up to one megabuck. A million dollar crime.
Eco-terrorism at its finest, where Australia now has criminalized free speech … carbon. A word to conjure with, the name that cannot be spoken.
w.
PS—I think we should have a contest for the best sign within the Aussie law. To open the bidding, I suggest that Australian businesses post a big sign inside their stores that says:
WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SAY THAT
THE CARBON TAX IS RESPONSIBLE
FOR OUR PRICE INCREASES.
Sincerely,
The Management
Bulldust says:
November 17, 2011 at 2:10 pm
If one visits the ACCC site one can see that Miranda Devine has grossly misrepresented the position of the organisation. The Chairman was quite clear about the organisations’s position in his presentation, which is no different than it has been in the past about any other misleading advertising:
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1017300/fromItemId/142
“Business costs increase all the time, and businesses are free to set their own prices. However, if a business chooses to raise their prices they should not misrepresent this as a result of the carbon price when it is not the case.”
“This is not new – the message is simple: if you are going to make a claim, you need to make sure it is right.”
I would suggest that Ms Devine has reading comprehension difficulties, or she is being deliberately misleading. The full guidance brochure can be found here, but the Chairman’s statements sum it up neatly:
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1017091
My BS meter went off immediately reading this story… always good to check the source first folks.
Thanks, Bulldust. While you are correct in theory, in reality there’s no way to do what the ACCC suggests. They say that if you want to say that the increase is due to increased carbon costs, you have to get a statement from your supplier that verifies that their increase is due to increased carbon costs.
However, a moment’s thought reveals the problem with that. If a man selling bread wants to make a statement about carbon, he has to get a statement from his baker. For his baker to make that statement, he has to get a statement from his miller, and his electricity supplier, and the man who sells petrol for his bread trucks, and the truck manufacturers where he buys the trucks, and for the increases in phone costs and every other cost.
And each of those, in an endless loop, all have to get statements from the other one. Try this on for size.
If I drive a Ford truck and I sell materials to Ford that they make cars with, they can’t make a statement about carbon without supporting carbon evidence from their suppliers … including me. But I can’t say how much my carbon costs have gone up without the carbon statement from Ford. Cute, huh?
The net results of this chilling regulation will be:
1. The actual costs due to the carbon tax will be underestimated at the business end. Since you can get fined up to a million dollars for exaggeration, every single estimate of the cost will be on the low side. This will no doubt be used to make the claim that the costs are minimal. They are not.
2. Many people will just say “sorry, I don’t have an estimate”, because a) it’s far too much work and hassle to contact every one of their suppliers and ask if they have an estimate, and b) you can get fined if you overestimate. Most folks will wisely say nothing … chilling. Unfortunately, when a supplier says that they have no estimate, what is the retailer to do? He is muzzled, he can’t say anything, because of another man’s inaction.
3. Any tax on energy, direct or indirect, is a much larger drag on the economy than a tax on a finished product. Simple economics, taxing the inputs to a manufacturing process is a greater burden on the economy than the same tax on a finished product. See my discussion in “Firing up the economy, literally“.
So while you are correct in saying this is framed by the Govt as a “truth in advertising” issue, Bulldust, in reality it is nothing of the sort. It is designed specifically to make it very hard to say anything about carbon, with draconian fines. The net result is guaranteed to be a suppression of comment on the carbon issue. I see no reason to conclude that it is accidental that the regulations will have a chilling effect. The regulations have made it a practical impossibility for a businessman to determine the effect of CO2 on the business.
w.
PS—Beyond that, what kind of nanny state is it that tries to keep shopkeepers from making ludicrous claims? Why can’t they say what they want about carbon? At the end of the day the market rules, if they jack their prices too far they’ll lose customers. Who is hurt if they say “20% price rise due to carbon” instead of “20% price rise due to our kids going to college” or “20% price rise due to general business conditions” or “20% price rise due astrological influences”?
Me, I think the Australian consumers are smart enough to look at a sign saying “20% price increase due to carbon tax” and say “I’ll shop next door, they raised their prices 3%”.
So truly … what is the harm to the consumer? For me, that’s government gone mad.
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Price rises necessary to pay for Black Balloons.
or you could have a Black and White Balloon sale.. The Balloon company charges you 2 x normal for the black balloons, but gives you the white ones for free.
Anyone into Balloon Futures ?
This is just an extension of a problem that has been going on for a long time. In fact those mop haired prognosticators from the 60’s predicted it:
Let me tell you how it will be;
There’s one for you, nineteen for me.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
(if you drive a car, car;) – I’ll tax the street;
(if you try to sit, sit;) – I’ll tax your seat;
(if you get too cold, cold;) – I’ll tax the heat;
(if you take a walk, walk;) – I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman!
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Don’t ask me what I want it for, (ah-ah, mister Wilson)
If you don’t want to pay some more. (ah-ah, mister heath)
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Now my advice for those who die, (taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes. (taxman)
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
And you’re working for no one but me.
Taxman!
How about this:
“I’ve had to raise my prices because my supplier has raised theirs. As to whether my supplier’s price rises are related to the carbon [dioxide] tax, please ask them”.
Let the ACCC try that on for size.
While I’m amused at many of the suggestions for circumventing this law, and have to admit I even thought up a few of my own, this seems to me to be much more serious than a lot of people think. When a government dictates to people what they can and cannot say, they have set foot on a path that leads to totalitarian rule. Finding amusing ways to circumvent this law is insufficient. The law must be rolled back to force that foot from the path. The well known saying comes to mind:
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Are protests being organized? Court challenges being funded? Will business leaders shutter their doors for a week, or even a day, in protest? If these things do not happen then I can recall another saying from the comic strip Pogo:
I have seen the enemy. And they are us.
How about this Willis:
“Truth in Advertising Fund”
“Contributions are solicited for a $1.1M (AUD) fund so that we may disclose details concerning recent price increases”
“The Manglement”
#
#
James of the West says:
November 17, 2011 at 3:48 pm
……The real core reason the ACCC will have been given this power is to catch people who put up their price opportunisitically and claim the carbon tax was responsible. Of course as we make rules more complicated we will get loopholes and false positives due to the complexity – the carbon tax is a very bad idea.
______________________________________________________
You have a really weird idea of how pricing actually works.
The pricing continuum has the following points.
1. If you price below cost you lose money. (Loss leader)
2. Break even
3. Small profit – large volume
4. Large profit – small volume
5. Price too high – No sale.
Your total profit = (profit per item) X (volume) so you are going to find the optimum balance between #3 and #4. Large chains go towards #3 while specialty stores go towards #4.
Despite what socialists seem to think pricing is very much a two way street especially if you have several suppliers to choose from. That is why monopolies or cartels are bad news, they interfere with the “bargaining” between buyer and seller. You can vote with your feet with big corporations or do as I do, pick small businesses and deal direct with the owner. Prices are not nearly as “carved in rock” as you might think.
“The law must be rolled back to force that foot from the path.”
Most Aussies are hoping for something to happen to bring on an election, or just somehow biding time until the next scheduled election. Then its goodbye all this crap that the current Green seduced lot has foisted us with through continued lies and deceit.
There will be no price increase due to the carbon tax under a company I manage!
or
Dear customer we have raised our prices significantly due to the carbon tax and the myriad of other useless government policies.Please use the calculator provided if you wish to work out what went where!
or
The government has mandated that our product should over time become more expensive , to encourage the development of the yet to be developed green products. We have decided to hasten this process!
Just remember that it is not Carbon Tax it is a Carbon Price.
Big Smother.
This has got to be one of the most shocking things I have read in regards to freedoms in a modern western nation.
As to the price increases, I think the idea behind this is to reduce consumption so that there is more natural resources for the rest of the world to use to grow their economies. At the same time, Australia will be shelling out up to 57 Billion dollars a year to foreign nations. This is how they will equalize all the national economies of the world.
In the process, bankers will probably get filthy richer.
In New Zealand our Gas bill has the CT amount seperately Itemised. But I doubt it includes the other cost incurred by the suppler from his suppliers. This as pointed out is not practicle therefore it underestimates the cost. Interestingly if an electricity supplier with multiple power sources (our own has several) wind, hydro etc, should he show the extra cost of producing power from wind as opposed to hydro, coal etc that goes to make up my power bill. that would be an interesting exercise.
Solution sign for Ausy industry.
“This cost increase of $xx.xx is an underestermit of the true cost. I am happy for the Government to prove otherwise.”
Miranda Devine sounded the first alert I noticed against the AWG scam when she warned, way, way back, of the approach of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” into Australian schools.
She saw it for what it was. Few others did.
In this column as quoted I feel she has gone maybe half a bridge too far — or perhaps she just wanted to draw attention to a government which is showing an alarming propensity to try and control us (we Australians) and felt a shock story was the only way to break through the thick fog of boredom or bemusement which is making us all a little punch-drunk.
I am going to cut her some slack; but I feel Bulldust has made a valid point and thank him for it.
“AndyG55 says:
November 17, 2011 at 5:45 pm”
My wife was involved in the last election (She could not vote then and still cannot vote now. I could have then but KRudd747 brought forward the election before I could secure citizenship). The AEC has just asked my wife to update her details. This is quite a bit early, ~18 months maybe more, which suggests to me the election will be brought forward again, late 2012 or very early in 2013.
Either way the ALP and The Greens will be consigned to the political wasteland for decades.
FWIW,
Willis says:
“The regulations have made it a practical impossibility for a businessman to determine the effect of CO2 on the business.”
=============
Yep, unless you are writing the rules.
Then: every lobbyist, business concern, or political ally knows exactly how much money they are going to soak out of the taxpayer.
It’s guaranteed revenue, and the unwashed masses are (thought to be) too stupid to understand it comes out of their own pocket.
The worrying part, is that none of the current politicians have noticed the sea change, or the fact that their captain has never sailed in a storm, it is, as if the ship was at the mercy of the winds.
Whilst Julia(r) tries to stop price increases via the ACCC until the tax actually comes into effect, how are companies expected to counter the indirect effects that are occurring NOW? E.g.:
The Australian July 12, 2011
Financial markets reacted negatively to the tax yesterday with steel, coal, airline and building material stocks sold by investors concerned about the tax’s implications from July 1 next year. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index closed down 72.4 points (1.56 per cent) at 4582.30, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 69.2 points (1.47 per cent) at 4646.80.
The Australian dollar lost nearly 0.4 per cent to trade at $US1.0716.
TD Securities strategist Roland Randall said the potential inflationary impact could prompt the RBA to keep interest rates tighter than had been anticipated.
If I were to buy shares in a company that had their share price dropped on the announcement of the carbon (dioxide) tax then sold them for a profit, am I going to have the Keystone Cops knocking on my door because I am making a profit from a carbon tax that is not yet in effect?
If the RBA can control interest rates now, based on people’s perception of what may occur when the tax starts, are they also going to be asked questions by the ACCC?
It seems that the Government are blind to reality and the markets will ALWAYS find a way around any law in order to make a profit.
(and we still do not know which are the 500 worst ‘polluters’ that will have to pay the tax and then pass the costs on to the rest of us – http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/500-companies/)
James of the West says: The real core reason the ACCC will have been given this power is to catch people who put up their price opportunisitically and claim the carbon tax was responsible.
I say Horse Hockey…. If a seller of a product increases the price of his product more than his competitor he will lose business. As a business owner it makes no sense to drive customers to shop at your competitors. The real reason is just what the vast majority of the people at WUWT think it is. This other phony contrived reason is an outright lie.
AUSSOC.
It really burns me up that a politician can lie and lie in a naked grab for power just to be in a position to condemn and penalise someone else who might indulge in a little puffery in the course of running a business.
A similar threatening attitude has been going on in Argentina, though unrelated to climate change. The government statistic agency (INDEC) publishes every month the inflation index with figures normally 50-60% of the real one, that is, the inflation people see in the supermarkets, fuel prices, and shops.
According to INDEC our inflation is 12%/year while many private consulting firms say the inflation is 30% a year. The government has been applying $150.000 dollar fines to those consulting firms for publishing their reports, so now the reports are given to the chamber of representatives (that cannot be fined) and they publish the reports. Our inflation is the third highest in the world, behind Venezuela’s and an African country…
Our government does that trick because the interest paid for our debt bonds are tied to the official inflation, that way the state pays only half or less of what is real. That’s the pleasure of living under a socialist ultra left pro Iran-Cuba-Venezuela government…
EU SAYS WATER IS NOT HEALTHY
Water is not healthy, drinking water does not protect against dehydration. Carbon dioxide is a toxic pollutant. And fruits and vegetables must conform to largely-aesthetic guidelines.
Welcome to the rule by fiat of the political elite, aided and abetted by the scientific elite. Comply or face their consequences, which are fair and just as they obviously know what you really need better than you do.
Australian Consumer Law. Start here and follow the trail. http://www.consumerlaw.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=the_acl.htm
An Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) [PDF 217KB] [RTF 236KB] signed by the Council of Australian Governments underpins the establishment of the ACL. This mechanism avoids Parliamentary debate. Some extraxts from ACXL papers follow:
…………
C. The objective of the new national consumer policy framework is to improve consumer wellbeing through consumer empowerment and protection, to foster effective competition and to enable the confident participation of consumers in markets in which both consumers and suppliers trade fairly.
D. This objective is supported by six operational objectives:
1) to ensure that consumers are sufficiently well‐informed to benefit from and stimulate effective competition;
2) to ensure that goods and services are safe and fit for the purposes for which they were sold;
3) to prevent practices that are unfair;
4) to meet the needs of those consumers who are most vulnerable or are at the greatest disadvantage;
5) to provide accessible and timely redress where consumer detriment has occurred; and
6) to promote proportionate, risk‐based enforcement.
E. The new national consumer policy framework consists of the following key elements:
1) a national consumer protection law based on the existing consumer protection provisions of the Trade Practices Act and also including:‐
provisions regulating unfair contract terms,
new enforcement and redress powers, and
new provisions based on best practice in State and Territory consumer protection laws;
2) a new national product safety regulatory and enforcement regime; and
3) improved enforcement cooperation and information sharing arrangements between Commonwealth, State and Territory Agencies.
………………………….
On a quick read, the law applies only to businesses, as did the Trade Practices Act.
The ACCC does not seem to have powers to investigate the conduct of an individual not engaged in a business.
Seems to me that private people can paste up whatever signs they like, providing a relevant business has no objection.
……………………….
This Law seems to exclude the Government as defendant. The ACCC appears to be unable to receive complaints about a product (“The CarbonTax”), of which the Prime Minister said last year “There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead”. This conduct is tantamount to the premeditated use of misleading words to gain a benefit, which is often an action punishable by law. This broken promise seems to be at odds with D3) ‘to prevent practices that are unfair’. However, this promise seems to have been made before the commencement date of the Australian Consumer Law.
………………………..
Where are you, Sir Humphrey?
Eco fascism, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Winston Churchill predicted that fascism would return in the guise of anti fascism.
No TAX means NEVER GREEN.
Australians should not forget they are living under no OZONE curtain.
This TAX increasing the first step towards the reality of OXYGEN that as a must should have a RATE, now its rate is ZERO. There are no more FREE OXYGEN.
http://acckkii.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/is-atmosphere-above-countries-national-or-global-resource/