Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Huffington Post has a plan to address the as yet unanswered question of who will foot the bill, for the renewable transformation green advocates want, in the wake of the Paris COP21 agreement. HuffPost’s suggestion is a $2.9 trillion rise in annual taxes on fossil fuels.
How Can We Pay for the New Energy Economy?
Many a great idea has been deflated by a simple question: “That’s nice, but who’s going to pay for it?” That question hovered like a cloud over the international climate conference in Paris a week ago. Simply put, the goal of the agreement at that conference is to build a world in which we achieve and sustain universal prosperity without plummeting into a future of irreversible climate catastrophe. It’s a great goal, but who is going to pay for it?
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Fossil Energy Subsidies: Some government subsidies go to energy consumers and some to energy producers. Some are direct – tax breaks, for example – and some are indirect “post tax” subsidies, including the social and environmental costs of using fossil fuels. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), direct and indirect subsidies around the world are expected to total $5.3 trillion this year.
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The IMF notes that the benefits of reforming fossil energy subsidies are “potentially enormous”. “Eliminating post-tax subsidies in 2015 could raise government revenue by $2.9 trillion (3.6% of global GDP), cut global CO2 emissions by more than 20% and cut premature air pollution deaths by more than half,” it says.
In addition, Huffpost thinks we should place an unspecified price on CO2.
Putting a Price on Carbon: The principal reason that climate change has become the world’s biggest market failure is that the energy market’s price signals are broken. Government subsidies keep energy prices artificially low. Moreover, the prices we pay at the pump and electric meter do not include the cost of damages that carbon fuels do to public health, the environment and so on.
…
The most common argument against carbon pricing is that it would kill jobs and cripple the economy, but actual experience shows this is not necessarily the case. One example is found in the nine U.S. states whose carbon trading I cited above. Between 2009 and 2013, their economies reportedly grew more than 9% compared to 8.8% in the other 41 states, while their combined carbon emissions dropped 14%. The net economic benefit to the region’s economy was $1.3 billion.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-s-becker/how-can-we-pay-for-the-ne_b_8845586.html
Taxing our way to prosperity – the green solution to the global climate “crisis”.
These people have no clue. This nonsense was debunked a couple hundred years ago by a common-sense economist named Frederick Bastiat, who demolished the economic nonsense of the nitwits formenting the French revolution.
One of Bastiat’s better known essays was a short parable called the Broken Window Fallacy. The idea is simple: you cannot increase prosperity by raising taxes.
Bastiat liked to write about ‘things seen and things unseen’. The only things (allowed to be) seen here are the jobs created by confiscating the earnings of millions of taxpayers, and funneling the loot to pals. What is unseen is the hit to the economy because those taxpayers will have less to spend.
If there’s one thing common to every socialist scam, it’s their economic illiteracy. They either have no clue about how the real world works, or worse: they know, but they are essentially thieves, and they’re using underhanded politics like this to re-direct working folks’ hard earned money into their own thieving pockets.
No wonder these ethics-challenged nincompoops refuse to publicly debate stupid carp like this. It couldn’t withstand the simplest questions. So they use media outlets like Huffington to get the head-nodding mouth breathers believing that taxing working people will bring about prosperity.
No wonder the economy is in such a shambles.
It’s the same with the belief many have that closing the border to imports will somehow improve the economy.
They see the money going overseas every time a foreign product is bought, but they do not see what happens to the money that the consumers saved by buying the foreign product.
The other thing is that when dollars are sent overseas, they have to return eventually. You can’t buy anything in Germany with US dollars. You can’t buy anything in Australia with US dollars. They only place you can spend US dollars is in the US.
The reason for the US balance of trade deficit can be traced to one reason. The budget deficit. Because of the budget deficit those with US dollars now have a choice, they can purchase US treasuries, or they can buy US merchandise. (They can also choose to buy US assets. Back in the 80’s, so many Japanese were buying property in Hawaii, that it drove up land prices.)
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on posting 300 comments under the fake “BusterBrown” name is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
Then what does the person who sold the Euro’s do with the dollars.
Please try to think for just a few seconds before posting.
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on posting 300 comments under the fake “BusterBrown” name is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
In other words, you agree that I was correct, the only thing you can do with dollars overseas, is bring them back to the US where they can be used to buy US goods.
Thank you for playing.
(Should’a asked for more time, Buster)
Funny one JK.
Or a shout out to a friend.
Merry Christmas.
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
Banks charge a fee for international transactions no matter what. In many countries any transaction is converted from originating local currency to US$ first, with a fee and an exchange rate favourable to the Bank, and then in to purchasing local currency, with a fee and an exchange rate favourable to the bank. Online transactions are another story and receiving some “attention”, certainly in Australia (The Govn’t wants 10% GST on any transaction more than AU$1000. Money for jam).
Been working in the banking industry since 1995…and it’s socking they are allowed to continue the practice as such high fee rates given the automation, and integration, in the system.
And there is a move away from signatures to PINs on credit card transactions (Been happening for about 10 years now). So in some countries, if you don’t have a PIN set or forgot it, you are STUCK and can do nothing with your credit card!
(Thanks, Knute . . and back at ya my friend).
“Crude oil throughout the world is priced in dollars. You can use dollars to buy it anywhere”
How convenient for those shopping for crude oil, Buster ; )
“One example is found in the nine U.S. states whose carbon trading I cited above. Between 2009 and 2013, their economies reportedly grew more than 9% compared to 8.8% in the other 41 states, while their combined carbon emissions dropped 14%.”
From 2010 to 2013, the same nine U.S. states GDP growth rates ranked 50th, 49th, 44th, 37th, 35th, 32nd, 30th, 16th and 15th in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_economic_growth_rate
If carbon trading gave those states an economic boost it was fleeting.
“One example …”
This is typical of leftwing thinking. They only look at one factor and declare that they have fully examined the problem. First off a difference between 8.8% and 9% in terms of economic growth over 5 years is statistical noise. Secondly, even 9% growth over 5 years is pathetic.
They are claiming that the fact that the growth in these 9 states managed to keep up, even though there were carbon taxes, fails to account for the million and one things that also impact growth rates.
That’s quite the endorsement. What they’re saying is: “It could possibly, if we’re really lucky and hold our mouths just right and the stars align, yes it could possibly work.”
The idea should be “consigned to the wastebasket as the ‘pipe dream‘ of an opium devotee.”
I’ve got a brilliant innovative idea. And here it is:
Why don’t we just heavily tax all productive industries which have demonstrated their worth through long-term sustained profits in the global marketplace? And then keep taxing them more and more heavily, until they can no longer generate profits and they cease to operate or move abroad?
And then we could give all the money generated by this scheme to idiots who claim to have brilliant innovative (although totally untested and likely worthless) ideas.
i.e. people like me.
I look forward to seeing this plan put into action.
I will certainly enjoy spending all that money, when modern society has collapsed.
If the Puffington Host thinks that there are great “Economic Benefits” from a $2.9 trillion annual tax hike on Fossil Fuels, why not propose a $29 trillion annual tax and get some truly staggering growth in the economy. Really, this is Leftist economics held up to the mirror by its legs and studied by fools.
I like to give those who back higher minimum wages a similar argument. If raising the minimum wage does no harm economically, why not raise it to $100/hr.
“According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), direct and indirect subsidies around the world are expected to total $5.3 trillion this year …” ( William S. Becker).
==============================
That statement links to the Coady, Parry, Sears, Shang Working Paper, which pops up constantly (like the John Cook et al. 97% survey), clearly states at the heading:
“IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management”.
The author also claims that “… the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that 40 nations, responsible for half of global energy consumption, subsidize what their consumers pay for fossil fuels …” but fails to point out that most of the leading subsidisers referred to in the report are important hydrocarbon producers in the Middle East and North Africa.
Articles like this serve a valuable function because the notion of taxing to prosperity is so self-evidently and utterly preposterous that they are, from the point-of-view of the the writers, counterproductive.
Great comments one and all +100.
I’m establishing a fund accessible for anyone who promotes no justice/no peace.
Just send me lots of money and I will make sure you feel good.
Birken bags for the first 100 lifetime donors (100K).
If you have kids, sorry climate internships are full, but we do have openings in the creative finance department for those who were successful at junk bond or housing loan bundling.
PS I have an in with the Pope if you are a consummate sinner.
Imagine what would happen to energy use if governments could simply agree to place a $100 per tonne tax on carbon based fuels.
Well, actually, there is no need to use your imagination. Because according to this OECD paper from 1991 (link below) all the major western economies had oil duties equivalent to over $100 dollars per tonne CO2. (Except America at $65).
Much more in many major nations. ~$300 dollars per tonne of CO2 in the UK.
And yet we all still drive cars. We drive cars alone. And we drive cars for pleasure.
This massive tax did NOT lead to the development of affordable electric cars.
I’m not sure quite how much the govt. would need to tax fuel to force us all to buy an electric car.
Surely, as the burden of higher energy costs ate into my disposable income and savings then that electric car option would become progressively less and less affordable.
Eventually I would be forced to give up personal transport.
By which time I would be destitute and rendered jobless.
http://www.oecd.org/eco/greeneco/34258255.pdf
A simple and elegant solution to a most vexing problem … how to rule large uppity populations … tax ’em into abject poverty where electricity will become an unaffordable luxury good, limited in availability only to the ruling elite.
A salesman comes to your door and make the following proposition:
“Why buy 10 kilowatt-hours of electrical energy per dollar,
when we can promise you 5 kilowatt-hours of luxury energy for the same money”.
So we ask, “Well that sounds like a dumb offer. What’s the difference?”
And the seller explains, “the luxury energy is innovative and it creates jobs for technicians”.
Obviously you can then say, “I don’t really care. Any electricity will suit me fine. And I do not regard technicians as persons desperately in need of my charitable interest”.
Of course the salesman then continues, “you see our luxury energy also saves polar bear cubs and Bangladeshi children – and – did ya hear – It stops tornadoes and hurricanes. And …er…Greenland, you see that’s a lot of ice you’ve got right there – now when that goes…”
You interrupt at that point, “What goes? Greenland? What the crap are you talking about? That’s right, run away now…and don’t come back…”
Sadly this conversation will never happen – because our governments are going to buy this dumb pile of poop on our behalf. Using our money.
+1
Diesel vehicles.
Diesel generator.
Thinking about one of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turby_wind_turbine
I’ll be damned if someone rams this nonsense down my throat.
But I’m an independent SOB, so it worries me that so many will have no choice but to succumb.
Do you pull the heat off your diesel genset? Unfortunately, I’m currently running off an air-cooled lister petter, so I’m conscious that I’m throwing away a lot of useful heat.
I’m 70-80% of the way there with erecting a chinese made turbine – standard HAWT. I’ve even put the foundations in. The turbine cost me about £300 for 1kw peak.
A bargain from eBay. Including two sections of mast, inverter and dump-load unit.
I bought it when everyone believed that peak oil had arrived.
Then I installed the batteries for the turbine and discovered that merely having batteries to charge cut my generator bill in half.
Hopefully, next year I will have the time off work to hoist the turbine up into the wind.
I’ll be doing it for fun and interest now, more than any specific concerns about energy costs.
My proposed turbine should look like this (momentarily, before the first storm destroys it!!!):
http://www.diytrade.com/china/pd/7975766/1KW_wind_turbine.html
How much fun is that … you are way ahead of the game.
Once I got the hang of making my own biodiesel, it’s all kind of easy and mostly I have to be opportunistic when i get stock. I just got the generator a short while ago, so I’ll consider the heat capture. Right now my biggest concern is the noise, but I think i can reduce it to a normal compressor.
The ultimate irony of it all is that I am quite the skeptic, but am probably freer of the “grid” than most of my alarmists aquaintances. The biggest tease I get is that I’m not really off the grid because I’m using “traditional” power sources. I increasingly find otherwise good thinkers buying into some nonsense that their moral righteousness (godliness) is next to how green is their power. (cleanliness is next to godliness has been replaced).
Bizarroworld.
You can do a lot to silence a generator by installing it in a box/shed with about 4inches of compressed rockwool all around it.
Most of the noise comes off the engine head. Once that’s dealt with the exhaust just makes a pfft sound.
But, if it’s air cooled then you also need a large fan driving cool air over it continually.
The cheapest source of reliable, quiet, water cooled diesel generation – is of course – a used eco-diesel vehicle.
Whisper quiet and you could upscale the alternator to a 24V 900watt truck version. (with a bit of messing about)
I currently have a couple of old 1.9l citreons which I occasionally use to run my house, during generator failures and engine strip-downs. But I was thinking of looking out for a scrap 1.0 – 1.2 litre eco-something that’s I could hook up to heating water and charging batteries.
Maybe a small VW – I hear that they have very low emissions!!? Ha ha.
Also a car and it’s fuel are also much less likely to be stolen than a generator + barrels of diesel.
So, this definitely looks like the future for my plans.
If you ever have to buy a sizeable inverter for your house then buy an ex-server UPS made by APC.
I bought mine for 99p from eBay.
It’s 2.4kw pure sine wave. 100% reliable over 8 years of daily use.
I also have a 3.0kw version but the incentive has never been there to switch them over.
Regarding solar P.V. – first I was waiting for the price to fall to a level where they would be “cost effective” – I am off grid – so I can’t tap into the free money bonanza.
And now I’m waiting for the EU to remove their stoopid 70% tax on Chinese Solar PV imports. I mean – WTF?
I’ve never been anti-renewables.
I’m only anti-bullshit.
I’m fundamentally opposed to government intervening to skew the market, through heavy handed taxes and tariffs.
That is the surest route to inefficiency and corruption.
So anyone who ever thought that I was anti-renewables was very wrong!!!
Thanks Frog
Great info and love the enthusiasm.
Yup, it’s just fundamentally stupid to make shit up in order to push an agenda.
Life is too short for that nonsense.
knutesea,
” Right now my biggest concern is the noise, but I think i can reduce it to a normal compressor.”
I once routed a noisy generator exhaust into a small hole I dug in the ground, and filled the top of the hole with steel wool. Cut the noise way down . .
Thanks JK
Brilliant in its simplicity.
Is there any evidence that the 9 states that do carbon trading have actually dropped carbon emissions by 14%? I suspect some creative accounting going on here.
Even if the net economic benefit to those 9 states was $1.3 billion, that would amount to roughly $7.2 billion when extrapolated to all 50 states. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $2.9 trillion in tax increases they’re proposing. It certainly wouldn’t make up for the huge rise in energy prices that would result from their proposal.
greenliness is next to godliness
and it evidently is priceless
Look at Spain which lost 2.5 jobs when they tried to go to strictly renewables (wind and solar).
If I was president (of the US), I would open up ANWR in Alaska to keep the pipeline flowing. I would, of course, approve the Keystone pipeline. I would get some nuclear power plants under construction, and in the meanwhile allow clean coal plants to be built in the interim. I would scale down the EPA, if not get rid of it (they have done their work). I would allow some new hydroelectric plants in California and elsewhere (new dams if necessary). I would stop subsidies for large solar and wind farms. And that’s just a start. Of course I would just need a pen and a phone for executive orders to do these things. (This is the new presidential power which evades the US constitution.) Anyone want to vote for me?…
JP Peterson for President
Do you ever wonder why such common sense decisions don’t get accomplished ?
Well, I’d say about half the voting population feels that way and they are called the silent majority.
I am constantly amazed how local jurisdictions mostly govern well, while States and Feds are increasingly detached from what the locals need and want.
Common sense exists at the local level mostly because it is in touch with day to day living. It has a way of reminding you what matters.
How about you cede much of the authority the feds took over the years and let local jurisdictions figure out how to run their own lives ?
“Clean coal”? That’s a catch-phrase the coal-haters use. The concept is that burning coal releases lots of “dirty” CO2 so employing hideously expensive carbon capture or other technologies “cleans” it, thus making it acceptable to carbonophobes. Of course, it also prices it out of the market, but that’s what they want anyway.
Here are some posts from the past (on WUWT) wrt subsidies:
================
Question in the mythical golden world , for the greens , of no ‘evil fossil fuels’, how would the governments make up for the 100’s of billion in the shortfall in income caused by the loss on tax on the same ‘evil fossil fuels’?
Why is the Left so bad at: math, science, economics and basic logic?….
Yeah, I know… a rhetorical question…
The hilarious “$5.9 trillion” in fictitious fossil fuel “subsidies” is a joke…
What Leftists call “subsidies” are: basic tax breaks provided to ALL corporations, reimbursements from feckless governments that force fossil fuel companies to sell fuel below cost to buy votes, accelerated capital-investment amortization schedules for fossil fuel companies, special licensing kickbacks received from extortive govenmet hacks, in exchange for political “donations”..etc, etc….
Leftist have a REAL problem with the economic problem of opportunity costs…. If $2.9 TRILLION is removed from the private sector to be flushed down the CAGW toilet, that’s $2.9 TRILLION that will never be spent wisely on necessary capital equipment, R&D, hiring more staff, increasing wages, developing new services and products, starting new companies, building new factories, etc…. The money has all been wasted…
What “climate catastrophe” are these Leftists referring to?????
CO2 has perhaps added 0.2C of beneficial warming recovery since the end of the ILLTTLE ICE AGE in 1850, with no discernible global warming trend over the past 20 years, despite 30% of all manmade CO2 emissions since 1750 being made just over the last 20 years….
There hasn’t been ANY increasing trends of severe weather incidence or intensity in 50~100 years, as IPCC’s AR5 report freely admits… NASA also admitted in October of this year that Antarctic land ice has been increasing at 100 billion tons per year, at least since ICESAT data went online in1992, so Leftists’ crazy claim of “unprecedented” Antarctic land ice loss was a scam…
When will people wake up to this Leftist CAGW scam??
I know…. Another rhetorical question…
Leftists get offended at the thought of anyone not under their complete control.
So removing tax breaks and raising the price of fuel and energy will ‘save the planet’ by pricing fuel and energy out of the reach of ordinary wage earners, the poor and the elderly on fixed incomes. Yes, that should work well, especially in cold northern climates. Should see the death rate soar, reduce the population and problem solved.
Great if you can afford it I suppose. Yet another reason I loathe champagne socialists and wealthy ‘greens’.
“Government subsidies keep energy prices artificially low.”
Really? Is that the reason why it costs me about half as much to fill my gas tank as it cost me a year or two back? And here I always thought that that old fashioned market forces caused that. Man, those government subsidies must have increased substantially in recent months!
Who writes this drivel at HuffPost?
No one. It’s computer-generated Greenie garbage, geared for the mindless leftard sheep.
Poor people pay a much larger proportion of their income on energy, thus this is a hugely regressive tax. Only the rich can afford electric cars, solar panels and wind mills. Hmmm, classic – “Steal from the poor and give to the rich.” Robin Hood is rolling in his grave.
Actually, Robin Hood stole from the govt.
The Climate Liars are doubling down on their lies. They know they are losing.
Like most liberals, they believe that you perfect the world by taking money from people you don’t like, and give it to those who will vote for you.
Well, HuffPo wins this week’s Butt-Ugly Stupid Award.
I wonder if any of those people have considered what fills their car’s gas tanks or powers airplanes that jet them across the continent.
Another way of looking at this is that it now requires $2.9 Trillion a year for renewables to break even with fossil fuels. It will be a long time before renewables reach parity on their own merit.
That’s $2.9Trillion, despite only producing about 5% as much energy.
So pro-rating that to a full replacement of fossil-fueled energy supplies would require an investment of $58 Trillion! No way the world economy, which has an annual GDP of $70 Trillion, could ever take such a hit and still survive.
Worse than that.
So long as renewables are only a small fraction of the total generation capacity, the ability of fossil and nuclear plants to ramp up and down their output can handle the unreliable nature of renewable power. As you get higher percentages of power from renewables, you have to start including means of storing that electricity so that it is always available when needed.
None of those storage technologies are included in the subsidies that you list.
Why is it that those who have the least amount of qualification concerning economics are always the ones with the biggest bullhorns?
This reminds me of what was said of the pre-political Donald Trump: he’ll buy everything you own if you lend him all the money that you have.
The parallels between the climate consensus and the behavior of Wall St prior to the 2008 train wreck are striking.
+ 100