Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon – President Macron’s government has retreated from imposing climate change fuel taxes, caved in to pressure from the yellow jacket movement. But the protestors are already suggesting that the government backdown might not be enough.
French PM announces suspension of fuel tax hikes after ‘Yellow Vest’ protests
Date created : 04/12/2018 – 12:31
Latest update : 04/12/2018 – 16:49French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Tuesday announced a suspension of the controversial fuel tax increases planned for January 1 in a move aimed at bringing an end to weeks of violent “Yellow Vest” protests against the tax.
Philippe announced a suspension of planned increases in three taxes on fuel for a six-month period in response to nationwide protests against high pump prices and rising living costs.
“This anger, you’d have to be deaf or blind not to see it or hear it,” Philippe said in his address.
“The French who have donned these yellow vests want taxes to fall and work to pay. That’s also what we want. If I didn’t manage to explain this well, if the ruling majority didn’t manage to convince the French, then something must change.”
The backpedaling by President Emmanuel Macron’s government appeared designed to calm the nation, coming three days after the worst unrest on the streets of Paris in decades.
“No tax is worth putting the nation’s unity in danger,” Philippe said, just three weeks after insisting that the government wouldn’t change course in its determination to wean French consumers off polluting fossil fuels.
…
More protests were expected this weekend in Paris.
“It’s a first step, but we will not settle for a crumb,” said Benjamin Cauchy, a protest leader.
…
Read more: https://www.france24.com/en/20181204-live-french-prime-minister-announces-suspension-fuel-tax-hikes
Something to remember next time President Macron attacks President Trump for his lack of climate action.
President Macron hoped to lead the world into a new low carbon age, but it turns out he can’t even lead his own country.
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So, taxpayers don’t want Leftist governments to steal $122 trillion (recent UN estimate) from them to fix the fictitious CAGW Hoax…. Imagine that….
I guess taxpayers don’t believe the Leftists’ lies that stealing $122 trillion from the private sector will stimulate the world economy and create more jobs than will be destroyed…
Taxpayers also don’t want to try and scratch out a feeble existence trying to live off an economy powered by a terribly expensive, intermittent,unreliable and thin gruel of wind and solar power… Imagine that….
The CAGW scam is imploding. The US is out, France can’t implement CAGW taxes, Brazil is looking to pull out, Australian, Canadian, Korean and Italian taxpayers are are becoming increasing skeptical, and China and India don’t have to contribute any CAGW taxes until 2030..
I’m sure the taxpayers in the remaining industrialized countries (U.K., Germany, Japan and Spain) will be happy to bear this $122 trillion, because the more money they waste, the more jobs will be created and the stronger their economies will become… Yeah, right..
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that when (not if) the idiotic CAGW hoax is finally exposed as the biggest and most expensive scam in human history, the blowback against Leftistism will be epic and voters will become more open to the Conservative philosophies of: limited government, fiscal responsibility and free-market Capitalism.
We’re getting so close to finally witnessing the demise of the CAGW hoax.
“I’m becoming increasingly convinced that when (not if) the idiotic CAGW hoax is finally exposed as the biggest and most expensive scam in human history, the blowback against Leftism will be epic”
That’s what I’ve been consoling myself with for years. But it’ll need a big and prolonged temperature drop to put CAGW six feet under.
The problem with that is that there are too many conservative in name only politicians who, once they get in power, expand government also as much as their lefty counterparts. The people are screwed either way, the only question is just which politicians/political party is going to screw them the least.
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men.
It’s the music of a people who will not be slaves again
Yes, Leftist tyrants are Les Miserables…
[Least Miserables? The mods would think “Most Miserables” .mod]
Moderator-san
“Les Miserables” is the play/movie Ben’s quoted song lyrics are from.
[A few Les Miserables, a few Mor Miserables? What is the standard deviation of the Average Miserable sang? .mod]
Macron and France unlike the US can’t print money. Under the Eurozone rule which controls the Euro fiscal deficits must be kept under 3% of GDP or they may be subject to sanctions. Money is controlle by the ECB We have averaged 5% of GDP fiscal deficits over the last 10 years.
The fuel tax is just the tip of the iceberg though. Neoliberal policies have resulted in huge tax breaks to the rich, privatization giveaways, cuts backs in health care and train infrastructure and services. Also, despite concerns of CO2 to justify the tax they are reducing cheap nuclear power and replacing it with more expensive energy
Furthermore since the 2009 financial crisis GDP growth has been a meager 1% growth over the last decade. Per capita GDP has increased only 0.3% since pre recession levels. In the early years of the recovery US fiscal deficits averaged over 7% of GDP allowing for a recovery in GDP growth in recent years that France did not realize due to enforced austerity measures
And unemployment has fallen to a 10 year low of 9%.
Maybe they should let BLS calculate this stuff for them
In the U.S., politicians and bureaucrats reduce unemployment by not counting people who have given up looking for a job because there aren’t any. How do French politicians and bureaucrats play with numbers to understate job losses?
The fiscal deficits under Obama likely had next to nothing to do with the recent U.S. economic recovery, but rather Trump’s rolling back the Obama regulatory boot from the throat of the American economy, thus freeing up the U.S. energy sector and economy, reducing the corporate tax rate to a reasonable level and also cutting taxes overall, and just a more general sense of optimism among many in the business community given how regulation-obsessed the Obama administration was. France’s economy likely did not stagnate due to austerity but rather due to its being so overly taxed and regulated, which will hamstring any economy.
I’ll have to learn to knit so I can go over and watch the heads drop in the basket.
Macron will relabel the taxes as the “Carbon Burden Fair Share Law”… The book “Atlas Shrugged” seems so relevant about now.
Its amazing what some politicians will do to chase their “legacy.”
At least President Trump concentrates on clear and present problems/dangers, eschewing feel-good platitudes for concrete and effective actions. Past obfuscation and dithering made national economics and international relations much worse, requiring more heroic efforts to solve.
A country run by urban elites, unaware of the changes in small rural towns. Sounds familiar.
All across France small shops and businesses have closed up, replaced by big box stores on the edge of the larger towns. A car is now a necessity for rural France. Still not needed in Paris, and I guess the Parisians are too busy basking in the glory of their accord to go out and see it in person.
If Macron wanted to do a test run in the next 6 months, could he announce that the fuel tax would only apply to consumers of a certain religion, like Muslim?
Macron is like so many arrogant preachy liberals who let their ego’s and desire to virtue signal replace common sense policies . The jig is up . People don’t have virtual bills to pay and humans are not setting the earths temperature ….ever .
Macron is toast … carbon free of course .
Recently a crew hauler showed up in a full featured luxurious German “tax efficient” 160 k€ hybrid. He stated that the image it displays allows for a full schedule occupation of the vehicle at rates that only image obsessed companies and political leaders can afford.
Consequence, the initial price tag is resorbed in less than a year while generating profits and driver salaries.
Compare that to the reality of an ordinary Paris cab operation and figure out who pays the difference.
Sure most of the population go along with the fake science, youth brainwashing and rampant left wing political agitation surrounding climate change. But deep down they know a fake hockey stick when they see it, they know that many eminent scientists dare not question the laughably named “settled science” and they know the virtue signalling Clime Syndicate is living high on the hog wherever you look.
So ask them to pay thousands of dollars for a gallon of gasoline – sorry make that five euro cents on a litre and you get an insight into how the giant Ponzi scheme is going to end.
Macron is turning out to be the canary in the coal mine. All he seems to care about is polishing his so-called liberal credentials on the world stage. It doesn’t impress Sonia 24, a childminder. Quoted in today’s Times newspaper she said: “He’s going on about 2035 but we need something now. You wonder if he has any idea what we are talking about. We can’t afford to do the shopping and he’s saying he will give us 100 euros towards the cost of replacing our windows. It’s completely idiotic”.
Macron Antoinette should not worry about doing what the people want.
After all, he has declared an end to nationalism and is instead focused on saving the world for the climatocracy.
So why should Macron Antoinette care a bit about what mere citizens of a nation actually want?
Instead they should be grateful for the opportunity to help pay for making the world safer in 100 years from the deluded dreams of his backers.
As his predecessor said when the pesky peasants were making their uppity demands, “let them eat cake”.
And it worked out so well for her (even if though she actually never said that famous line, which had been attributed, in one variation or another, to several other royal elites going back at least a century before her)
“President Macron hoped to lead the world into a new low carbon age, but it turns out he can’t even lead his own country.”
— Through their wide adoption of nuclear power, France is already leading as a low-carbon emitter. Nobody should be surprised that a welfare state like France would favor large tax increases. If Macron cared more about France being a leader, he’d be telling the rest of Europe to give up this renewable energy nonsense and build out some nuclear power.
It’s the prospect of higher taxes that has brought most governments on board with the climate change mantra, although the opportunity to direct infrastructure spending on high-visibility virtue signaling schemes like wind farms is a nice secondary benefit.
The problem is France is cutting their nuclear alongside cutting their coal in favor of wind and Solar.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/france-close-14-nuclear-reactors-2035-macron-110407929.html
Yes, that’s a puzzle isn’t it? I mean, Life on Earth is supposedly at stake, and resources are limited, and they’re going to expend a lot of money AND emit a lot of CO2 to convert from one zero-emission technology to another…
It’s almost as if the true motivation is something other else.
I’ve said this all along. The quickest way to cut carbon emissions is to use shale gas. The same stuff the Greens are fanatically against. Even though the extraction process is identical to that used for geothermal energy, which they are pushing.
They try to cover this with a nonsense story about methane being ‘an extremely powerful greenhouse gas’ but a quick run of MODTRAN proves the inaccuracy of this.
Thus, the real agenda isn’t carbon emissions.
Of course it isn’t. It never was. It’s all about power (and I don’t mean the kind you can get from fossil fuels, nuclear, wind or solar).
Geoff Chambers, the left-wing climate skeptic who lives in France, has a good article about the protests,
https://cliscep.com/2018/12/04/technocrate-moi/
“Macron’s ardent espousal of the climate cause confirms everything people like me and Ben Pile have been saying for years – that the environmental movement, far from being a grassroots affair, is a cult of the chattering classes, the cool city-dwelling, left-leaning hipsters centred round the opinionating professions; the media, advertising, marketing, and information technology”
AND useful idiots.
Wie kann man
in Deutschland leben ohne Heizung ohne Strom
Voraussetzungen:
ein Arbeitsplatz, besser
ein Arbeitsplatz mit Kantine oder
ein Arbeitsplatz mit Würstchenbude vor dem Werktor
eine Wohnung in einem mehrstöckigen Gebäude ab Stockwerk 3 ( eigene Körperwärme, Gebäude heizt mit ! )
Abhärtung für Kaltduschen, Sommer und Winter
Möglichkeit zum Einkaufen fahren Fahrrad oder KFZ
gute Nerven
Zu Hause, warme Getränke, warme Mahlzeiten
geschieht mit Teelichtern:
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=OusIXImmL4uusAHWtaGgDA&q=teelichter&oq=teelich&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp. und https://www.google.at/search?q=st%C3%B6vchen+f%C3%BCr+teelichter&client=ms-android-samsung&prmd=isvn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP0s_g84rfAhWrMewKHSiJA60Q_AUoAXoECBQQAQ&biw=360&bih=560
Im Backrohr E-Herd
kann man alles zubereiten mit Teelichtern und z.B. https://goo.gl/images/3YdN3x
Achtung:
max. 4 Teelichter im Backrohr – die Dinger heizen ordentlich!
dabeibleiben – ohne Strom gibt es auch keine Zeitschaltuhr!
Warme Getränke zubereiten
mit Stövchen und Teelicht:
https://goo.gl/images/3YdN3x
_________________________________
Anmerkungen, Korrekturen, Tipps erwünscht !