CIS and “ANTI-TAX CANDIDATE CALLS FOR CARBON TAX”
A tax on electricity and a tax specifically aimed at a type of production of electricity are entirely different beasts. The former non-specific tax hits all producers of electricity. A carbon tax specifically aimed at coal fuelled producers is by definition destructive of these firms. Only by destroying the coal-based producers does the only alternative capable of doing the work of the coal-based firms become economically viable: nuclear energy.
I am not opposed to nuclear power plants, in science and engineering. My objection is the economic problem disclosed in the demand for the destruction of capital in coal based plants and the subsidisation of nuclear power plants. These imperious demands indicate that nuclear plants in Australia are not economic. This does not necessarily mean that in a free market they might not be economic in the future. Indeed, a major problem is that there is no free market in energy production in Australia.
Federal and States’ regulations and taxes already impose tremendous burdens, and distort markets. They are, for example, damaging the oil companies and their refining operations (and Caltex directors want to beat this by asking Rudd to inflict more pain via a carbon tax!). In Britain, nuclear-based companies are burdened with additional regulations that were imposed under the pretext of ensuring safe operation of plants. Those firms are bleeding and the burdens also make it difficult to tell whether they are economic or not.
As things stand in Australia no company has ventured they will build a nuclear power plant, except on the basis that Walker and Morgan demand. I’m aware of only one nuclear power company, the Ronnie-Hughie company. These two aren’t interested in trying it on a free market basis. Mind they couldn’t succeed if they did as Morgan showed by wiping out a multi-billion dollar company. No, they will do it if Rudd cripples the coal plants and transfers billions of dollars to them in the process. We know this, because they said so in a press conference last year.
Under a carbon tax coal-based companies would be compelled to preside over the extinction of their own capital goods. And this is happening now in Victoria (there was another major power blackout in Melbourne this last weekend). Consumers are by Govt. coercion denied efficiently produced power at lower prices. Businesses are hit too because energy is a factor of production. This is what manufacturers in Britain are screaming about. As the British Govt wipes out the capital of power companies with carbon taxes, many more companies are incurring major losses as a consequence.
These massive losses are incurred because the means (capital goods) of generating electricity efficiently are being wiped out by the British Govt. Firms in Japan are not sinking capital into economically efficient coal stations because the Japanese Govt. plans to impose carbon taxes. The implications are obvious; the Japanese are about to face the same problems as the British. How many other plants that were on the drawing board have been binned?
Jackson delivered (irrespective of Sinclair Davidson’s dishonest appraisal) a meticulously written and impeccably reasoned Austrian analysis of Humphreys’ paper. The analysis zeroes in on the kernel of what the tax is and its impact. It is neatly rooted in, and explains Austrian capital theory. Humphreys from his first effort at ‘rebutting’ Jackson didn’t attempt to refute the analysis. No, he did something entirely different.
He smeared Jackson, and misrepresented what Jackson had written. He combined evasion and abuse in a telling comment, he accused Jackson of smearing him and distorting his paper! He continues to fabricate stories about the articles and smear Jackson. Nowhere in his papers did Jackson smear Humphreys. Nowhere did he distort what Humphreys set out in his paper. Jackson put a thorough case and Humphreys, instead of attempting a rebuttal, or conceding he is mistaken, resorted to ad hominen cracks.
In taking a stand against the position of Humphreys and the CIS I have said harsh things about them but not out of personal spite. The reason is the content of the position they set out in that paper. It is horrendous in force. This censure Humphreys and the CIS find strange, horrible and nasty.
What is strange and nasty is distilled in that paper, taken up in an odd remark by Humphreys, he is ‘concerned for productive work’. That lot do not give a stuff about what the real implications are, what it will do to Australians. As for ‘productive work’, smashing capital cuts it and that means Australians facing pay cuts too. For some, as already in Britain, the prospect is a 100% cut in pay. That lot call that empathy!
This is precisely the attitude of Australia’s rightwing, a callous contempt for many but themselves and their fat pay checks. They mirror the left in this as on many other grave matters. They also mirror the left in smearing those who, for good reason, take objection to what they stand for. They take offence? I can’t take that lot seriously. What I take seriously is the fact their position is about to be rammed down by Rudd. I cannot credit that they are mature, serious adults at all.
We see it in the Victorian Liberal Party – Costello, Kroger, their Brahmin backers, Toorak doctors’ wives, their stick puppets and what sits in Spring street as “Liberal” mps. To this, I shall be resuming my items on the case of Jennifer and Peter and the Victorian Govt. and the STO. Indeed, what the Victorian Govt is doing to many Victorians is more evidence of Australia’s rightwing contempt and total lack of principle. The scandal of the Victoria Govt. and the STO seems to stem from the Cain-Kirner years. However, and this is explosive itself, it was the right-wingers who formalised it and entrenched it under Kennett and Stockdale.
A source has related to me what was done, and it points to types the likes of which stuff rightwing think tanks pretending to be free market economists. Needless to say, the bean bags occupying Liberal seats in Spring St. have not stood up against what is a shocking scandal. One Liberal MP at least has not done his honour bound duty by his constituent, Jennifer. As for the right wing in the Party, and their think tanks, absolute silence. “Defenders of Liberty”; what a joke.
It shows out in the rubbish Morgan, Evans, and Moore poured out as ‘free labour market economics’, and look at what they achieved. Now this, the CIS pushing for a carbon tax. I don’t believe there is need to comment much more on their “morals”; the deception involved does the job.
What is being pushed by them is a tax on the capital of coal based companies. Why this is the fact of the paper’s content is obvious. Humphreys told his readers in a blog;
Gerry entirely makes up the stupid strawman of “taxing coal out of existence”, and saying (oh, so, wisely) that technological development won’t happen overnight. Quite true. But the coal/oil age will end…(not via) lack of coal/oil… but because of technological development… Nobody (except Gerry) is talking about taxing coal out of existence. If there are no other altneratives, then even with a moderate carbon tax, coal will still be king…
The consequence of the tax will be to increase the price of electricity like an electricity tax; and to bias the market in favour of (alternative electricity generation)…(it) increases the incentive to invest in alternative energy by artificially increasing the potential profits form alternative energy ( by taxing their carbon hungry competitors)
What did Jackson say?
In his defence of a destructive carbon tax John Humphreys argues that the best way to encourage the growth of “alternative energies” is to “put a price on carbon”. The market will respond by discovering “new energy sources”.
The fallacy here should be obvious:
Taxes do not result from a market process… taxation is a method of intervening, not an alternative to intervention or nonmarket allocation.
Moreover, so-called alternative energy sources would savage our living standards*.
Mr Humphreys argues that once the tax is implemented the market process will then “discover the best new energy sources”, among which he numbers solar and wind.. he ignored the embarrassing scientific evidence that these so-called energy sources can never compete against centralized energy production. In his response Humphreys chose to overlook a basic point that I stressed in my article:
These alleged alternatives suffer enormous diseconomies of scale that can never be overcome.
These supporters of the carbon tax have a very peculiar notion indeed of the meaning of competitive. These alternative energy technologies can never be competitive in any meaningful sense of the word. The only way they could successfully ‘compete’ with coal-fired electricity plants is by becoming more efficient. They can never do this because they are strictly limited by the laws of physics
(Clarification: By more efficient I mean that even if these alternatives were 100 per cent efficient in a technical sense they still could not compete with centralised electricity generation. Therefore, what we are concerned with is economic efficiency, not technical efficiency…
What did Humphreys say in the CIS paper and fully endorsed by the CIS?
To combat man-made climate change, it is necessary to address emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide. The goal of government action on climate change is to reduce our reliance on carbon-intensive energy (specifically, ‘dirty’ coal) so that human activity produces less greenhouse gas. The goal is not to reduce energy use, but instead to increase the relative appeal of alternative energy (nuclear, solar, wind, ‘clean’ coal, and so on) so as to speed the transition away from carbon-intensive energy. No matter how this is done, it will have an adverse consequence on Australia’s coal industry…One option is to subsidise low-emission energies and new technologies…involves politicians directing government funds toward particular industries or technologies…a range of programmes to direct funds toward improved wind and solar energy, energy from pig waste and from using biomass waste from sugar mills, cloud-seeding for more hydropower, geothermal energy from hot dry rocks, wave power, and a range of other energy alternatives….
Box 1: 2007 Bob Brown argued that Australia could not adequately address climate change unless we reduce our coal exports.6 He was wrong…. The most important way that Australia can contribute to combating AGW is to shift our domestic energy consumption towards less carbon-intensive energy. By putting a price on carbon, Australia can increase the incentive to invest in alternative energy technology and increase the incentive for energy users to switch from ‘dirty’ coal to cleaner energy.
Carbon trading versus carbon tax Both…involve manipulating the price and quantity of carbon released into in the atmosphere from human activity.
With a carbon tax, money flows from polluters to the government. In a carbon trading system, money flows from polluters to organisations who receive carbon credits. The allocation of carbon credits amounts to a subsidy for some producers, and while this would be popular among the recipients of the subsidy, it would likely to promote further inefficiencies by picking winners and creating perverse incentives (not least the incentive to pollute heavily in the base year to get more credits the year after).This paper argues that a carbon tax is relatively more efficient, simple and equitable than a carbon trading system. One of the significant advantages of a carbon tax is that the revenue raised can be used to reduce other taxes to minimize the impact on economic efficiency.
Funny, not simply Humphreys but the CIS is calling for the destruction of the competitive coal-based producers against uncompetitive ‘alternatives’. It’s spelt out in that paper. It’s a specific tax. It’s not a matter whether the tax is called a tax or carbon credit type tax. Due to the distortions, misrepresentations and smears committed by Humphreys and his supporters, readers should take the trouble to carefully read the CIS paper, the articles Jackson wrote, and then the items of Humphreys and his supporters.
I formed a hunch that is showing out to be correct. The CIS’ reference to ‘alternative energy’ has only one sound inference, nuclear power plants. Jackson correctly stated that while windmills and solar panels might be technically ‘efficient’ – they are not economically efficient. JC has also patiently and carefully explained this on Catallaxy. His effort was met by abuse too.
What else could there be then to replace coal plants but nuclear plants. Yet, as above, nuclear power plants are not economically efficient in Australia. If they were, those behind the putsch would not only be not calling for the elimination of coal based generation, they would also not be demanding tax transfers to prop up a nuclear plant. What did Humphreys write?
I draw readers’ attention to this statement by Humphreys:
First a carbon tax is not a tax on generating electricity. It is a tax on generatingn electricity while producing carbon emissions. If carbon emissions reduce to zero, so does the tax (comment no. 29)
The force of it is clear. It is not simply that if the coal-based companies do not produce electricity they pay no carbon tax. Nor is it simply if they cut production to lower output they will reduce their tax. What it means is, if they voluntarily run their plants at a loss they will reduce the tax (to zero if stopped altogether). For, to do what he states they can do means just that, running at losses.
Profit is addition to capital. Losses are reduction in capital. The force of what Humphreys put is thus:
Entrepreneurs in the coal-based companies can cut the tax burden by deliberately destroying capital, leaving this remarkable prospect:
If they do not cut production, run capital at a loss, then the Govt. will demolish their capital by the full carbon tax liability. If they do cut production, they will wipe out their capital anyway. This is an even more bizarre version of “Morton’s fork”, or, to use the saying, “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. What Humphreys and the CIS have set out is the entrepreneurs must be forced to commit financial suicide, to destroy the capital of shareholders, the private property of shareholders, and for what? So that a lucky few will make billions out of forced transfers into their bank vault named pseudo-business nuclear power plant.
Nothing alters if the tax were ‘carbon credits and trading”, except for one thing, the reality of corruption that measure will induce, as the W.A. and N.S.W. schemes so well demonstrates. Moreover: instead of the capital required for coal powered plants, and the rest allocated to production of other valuable goods, all that capital will be, by central Govt. diversion, directed at the nuclear plant company. What is in clear view is:
1.A ‘policy” aimed at coerced destruction of economically efficient capital of the directly targeted companies and their investors.
2. A policy that cuts supply to firms and householders, and forces the price of supply up.
3. The impact of these measures on production by many other firms.
What is also interesting is that power as a factor of production for all other firms confirms a central theorem of the Austrian school of economics, summed up in the expressions “lattice of capital” and “extension of the lattice of capital” In Britain, firms are screaming and dying because one piece of the lattice has been blasted into rubble, thanks to carbon taxes, that piece is power. The more I examine what Jackson has written on the Humphreys paper, and relate such observations as the above to his analysis, the more I appreciate:
How devastating Jackson’s paper is. How thoroughly sound is the Austrian school’s body of theory is. On the other hand, I recognise it is so because of its neatness, explanatory power, and the consisteny of prediction thus confirming it. What is not nice at all is appreciating it through the lens of a measure that entails destruction on a massive scale, the carbon tax. Lastly, for this item, it seems there are those, who support the LDP and genuinely believe the LDP stands for restrained Govt., liberty, and light taxation. They need to reconsider their estimation of the LDP because:
What they have made as one of their ‘policy planks’ is not a light tax. It is a massive tax, as the above shows. It does not stand for restrained Govt. The ‘policy’ requires Govt. coercion enforced by expansion of bureaucracy. It does not stand for liberty, not in the classical liberal and correct definition, because the carbon tax is coercion, it requires addition of police state powers to enforce it. It strikes at the liberty of Australians. They are Libertines, not Liberals.
They are libertine with the lives of millions of other Australians. How strange, they can be mistaken for treacherous leftists. They also have much in common with Australia’s treacherous rightwing. This applies to the CIS too.
Humphreys, the CIS, their support club, bolstered by leftists, just won’t admit what many readers appreciate; their position is unconscionable. It is monstrous. It is not merely intellectually indefensible. It is morally indefensible; it is repugnant; it is malevolent in its force. No wonder they smear those who for sound reasons are hot against it, malevolence and malice reinforce each other. And that lot have the hide to whine about any lack of civility and manners I might have showed toward them! Anyone pushing for such things are not decent, and not to be treated with kid gloves. Their actions require stiff opposition. They can whine but let me remind that lot:
What will you say to genuine Liberals who donate funds?
If that lot reckon I am ferocious, let me remind them that there are many genuine Liberals in Victoria fed up to the gills with the ‘Rightwing” and their wrecking of great Liberal causes. The CIS and Humphreys have once again shown why genuine Liberals are not cross, not angry, but furious and their blood is up.
I love the contradiction in terms: Humphreys the ‘anti-tax candidate’ pushing for a highly destructive massive tax, the carbon tax.
The articles
Exploring a Carbon Tax for Australia, CIS and Humphreys.
Jackson:
Carbon taxes and Keynesian insanity
Why is the Centre for Independent Studies supporting the destructive carbon tax?
Why a carbon tax would hit living standards
Carbon taxes versus living standards
Australian Libertarian Society Blog,The Gerry chronicles: carbon tax & bad economics
John Humphreys wrote:
you’ve said nothing new
a tax distorts the allocation of resources, including changing the capital structure, which creates an economic cost
this is also true of the fuel tax and the income tax
so a carbon tax has costs, and cutting the income/fuel tax has benefits
this is all very simple and well understood by everybody except you & gerry. All you do is repeat the same old irrelevant stuff
the only solution to this is for you to write another 20,000 words. Now get cracking
oh — and answer my original question. if you’re not scared.
Posted on 12-Mar-08 at 4:42 pm | Permalink
Terje (say tay-a) wrote:
John,
Maybe if you offered to use the carbon tax revenue to reduce capital gains tax then the logic of tax reform might sink in. However I won’t be holding my breath.
Posted on 12-Mar-08 at 8:02 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
No Humphreys you are not even at first base here. Still got your mantra going and your head up your ass.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks for that excellent summary of this terrible conundrum we are in Douglas.
But you ought not be against nuclear. You ought to be against government/business partnership.
And yet the problems you point out are very serious.
1. We have all these cultural/regularaty/NIMBY (ie not in my back yard) objections to both coal and nuclear going on like arsenic in our body-politic.
2. We don’t want government involvement, but on the other hand the way things stand, nothing can get done without it.
3. And the environmentalists have dropped us in a frightful energy crisis.
I tell you that the way forward is clear. In order to overcome this very real crisis, in a great good hurry, we need not only a Canberra overide to any zoning restrictions on energy and fuel production…..
… But the crisis is such, and the need to shut out government INVOLVEMENT is such…. that we need also a 50 year tax exemption for the firms and employees of those firms…….. for the firms who produce either energy or fuel.
We could try and shore up property rights more generally but we won’t get the job done in time. We need this specific energy/fuel production streamlining.
“I am not opposed to nuclear power plants, in science and engineering. My objection is the economic problem disclosed in the demand for the destruction of capital in coal based plants and the subsidisation of nuclear power plants.”
Yeah sure but you are only thinking like that because you are thinking that at this late stage in the crisis government involvement is inevitable and these thieving assholes are trying to put over nuclear with a carbon tax.
We have to dissaggregate all of this because we need to scramble for coal and nuclear BOTH and starting from right now, and stomp any environmentalist that gets in the way since this is an emergency.
Keep it up Douglas.
Your economics is impeccable.
Posted on 13-Mar-08 at 3:47 am | Permalink
D wrote:
No problems with nuclear Graeme. If it economic, on free market, and a firm runs on that basis, fine. But there is more involved as I disclose today - and this is in addition to there’s no inidcation, currently anyway, that it is.
Terje, there’s a tinsy winsy obstacle to:
Maybe if you offered to use the carbon tax revenue to reduce capital gains tax then
There can be no reduction in capital gains tax when capital is being smashed due to the carbon tax.
Secondly, why should reduction of one capital tax be pinned to willingness to accept another, in this case one that is destructive on a massive scale.
‘the logic…” Oh, lord, I’m rolling about laughing. You and your pal Humphrey, it is now clear, do not have a clue as to what you are talking about at all. I think your pal Sinclair should takeover and explain what so far everyone of you joinging in on your sites have failed to understand, let alone reason out. The smears are understandable, and I don’t mind, against me, I find it hilarious.
Posted on 13-Mar-08 at 7:01 am | Permalink
Terje (say tay-a) wrote:
Doug,
Personally I wouldn’t use revenue from a carbon tax to cut capital gains tax. I’d use it to cut fuel tax. However given that you want to frame this discussion around capital then a measure designed to explicitly neutralise some of that concern is worthy of discussion.
You seem resistant to choosing between the lesser of evils. Thats nice. However democracy is about to press gang all of us into addressing CO2 emissions for better or for worse. Both major political parties endorse that view. I am all for articulating the good and the great when it comes to public policy ideas (eg I think we should abolish income tax) however that does not make discussion regarding the relative merits of bad options redundant. You carry on as if John, Terje or Doug have a free hand in deciding public policy. That kind of ignores a serious constraint called power and a process called influence.
Would you rather:-
a) A tax of CO2 that pays for a cut in fuel tax.
b) A cap and trade scheme that is effectively a tax on CO2 that pays for a stack of wind farms.
You may prefer (c) as an option but unless you plan on raiding parliament you are dreaming. Stop pretending that political reality isn’t a constraint. By all means advocate for the ideal but don’t do it with your head in the sand.
Posted on 13-Mar-08 at 9:09 am | Permalink
D wrote:
“democracy is about to press gang all of us into addressing CO2 emissions for better or for worse. Both major political parties endorse that view.”
And who is responsible for it? It’s not the left alone. It’s the rightwing. What do we see, the CIS in there adiing and abetting, and not doing one thing to fight, and help the Liberals fight. No, you are flying cover by publishin gwhat is nothingless than propaganda piece. That is the CIS.
“Lesser of two evils” - bloody heck, this lot have real job prosepcts with some really thoroughly thujggish regime of little dictators.
Oh, as for democracy: what about the rule of common law - rooted in private p[ropert5y and econopmic freedom, the ruightwing don’t defend that ether. they are helping the left destroy it.
When I say morally unconscionable, repugnant and etc., I mean it, and it is dead right.
Posted on 13-Mar-08 at 9:46 am | Permalink
TerjeP (say tay-a) wrote:
What is this rot about helping the Liberals. The Liberals have rolled on Kyoto. You’re asking us to defend a castle that has already crumbled. If you want to be consistent you should be kicking their ass also. Your tactical response is to stand in the rumble declaring that victory is at hand if we all pull together. I’m saying it is time to concede this battle and lay down a new line of defence. It is time to accept that there will be regulation of CO2 emissions whether we like it or not, whether we participate in the debate or not. Rudd and Nelson have signed us up whether we agree or disagree.
Cap and trade will create a whole class of rent seekers that will make any later rethink hard to implement. If the downside is ugly the voters will let governments know. However if many voters are at that stage already in the rent seeking class thus created then many of them are not going to pull back in spite of any economic pain. Cap and trade essentially entails bridge burning. Retreat becomes more difficult to sell the deeper we go.
By contrast a carbon tax in relation to electricity that pays for other worthy tax cuts (eg fuel tax) does not lock us into a ratchet down in Coal usage, does not create the same class of rent seekers, avoids many of the openings for corruption and is ultimately a lot more reversable.
So whats your game plan?
Posted on 13-Mar-08 at 4:48 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Terje. It is unacceptable to be pushing a new tax on the basis of theft-neutrality. Sometimes a new tax may indeed be right. This is not one of those cases since Carbon-tax is a crap tax. For Gerry’s reasons and for my supplementary reasons not least of which is that you will be supporting a mass-murdering environmentalist movement.
But even aside from the poxy nature of this tax, it is unacceptable behaviour to push a new tax on the basis of Theft-neutrality.
I think that dollar for dollar, in the longest run, land-value tax is a bit less harmfull then a lot of others.
But I’d never advocate an increase unless:
1. The pensioners were shielded.
2. We had ten times as much revenue lost in alternative tax cuts.
So if we were wanting to raise 100 million in extra land tax I’d want to be giving back billions by making rental income non-taxable, getting rid of stamp duty and so forth.
I don’t know how it is you can think of things differently. You must never justify a new tax on the basis of simple neutrality. Thats a disgrace. You are then saying to all and sundry that the taxeaters jobs are sancrosanct and that stealing comes first.
But all this is quite apart from the fact that carbon-tax is the most appalling tax imagineable in this year of our Lord 2008.
Posted on 14-Mar-08 at 2:32 am | Permalink
John Humphreys wrote:
No GMB… what we’re saying is that it’s a FACT that the government is going to do something. It will probably involve tax, spend & regulate. Compared with that, tax & tax-cut is a better option.
If I could choose a tax system, it would be zero tax on everything.
But in the real world, sometimes we need to argue for options that are better than all the alternatives, even if they’re not the best.
Posted on 14-Mar-08 at 4:33 am | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
So you are pitching policy not at the best policy you can get. Not even at better than the status quo. But now you are formulating policy on such an unsound basis as to be a tiny bit better than AN EVEN WORSE policy that is being planned by the murderous environmentalists down the track.
Hence the logic behind you policy formulation is nihilistic from the getgo. The nihilistic principle is that better policy doesn’t matter. And appeasing the left with appalling policy is just fine just so long as your policy is marginally less atrocious than the lefts.
So even before you started typing this crap monograph the whole basis you were formulating it on was nihilistic.
Now start engaging my supplementary arguments.
Posted on 14-Mar-08 at 6:57 am | Permalink
John Humphreys wrote:
GMB — you can’t deny the reality. The government will pass AGW legislation. This is a fact. I’m a policy analyst. It’s appropriate for me to be involved in this debate. At the end of the day, you should be praying that they listen to me instead of everybody else offering proposals.
I’m not going to debate the science with you. That’s old. I think you’re a crack-pot on the science and you think I just don’t get it. Fine. Whatever. I’m more interested in the contemporary policy debate.
Posted on 14-Mar-08 at 3:52 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Your job is not soothsayer. You might mention in passing that cap-and-trade IS EVEN MORE APPALLING then a carbon tax.
I’ve mentioned this in passing and never did hang myself by the neck in remorse.
But this is not what you and Jason did. You kept on supporting this. Over and over again. So you were supporting cap and trade and international energy rationing and a mass-murdering facsimile of the DDT-bureacratisation-holocaust.
Because you did not mention in passing that the carbon tax was MASSIVELY HARMFUL but theoretically less harmful then the obnoxious cap and trade. You actively supported the fraud entire.
Your whole basis for beginning the monograph was nihilistic from the start.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 1:06 am | Permalink
Jeff wrote:
Graeme, your views on fractional reserve banking are pretty nihilistic.
And how come you never paid your bet to MarkB on Larvatus Prodeo after he defeated you in that debate over peak oil?
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 1:09 am | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
You’ve just got to stop listening to the clapping and cheering of the leftists in the background.
They’ll blow up your ego. But your learning so far does not seem to extend beyond “free to choose.”
I’m a bunch older then you and you may not realise how explosively damaging this two tribes triangulation is to the rest of us.
There is no incremental change to what you are about. You have got to let that cheering recede and think about something amounting to a total conversion.
Your narcissism is screwing things up.
Other people out there have kids and grandchildren to worry about. Think about all the clapping you are getting. A lot of these people are non-breeders or unsophisticates or made leftists or all three.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 1:14 am | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Mark Bahnisch nevere defeated me in any argument whatsoever threadwrecker. If you are not Tillman then surely you are jimmythespiv. The stupidest man on the internet. Get lost you marxist jerk.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 8:05 am | Permalink
John Humphreys wrote:
so GMB… you agree that my proposal is the best in australia. But then you argue that I should never have made the argument. So you want there to be no better alternative to carbon trading.
The only reasons you would say that is (1) you support carbon trading, which you admit is worse than my proposal; or (2) you’re so cronically stupid that you can’t work out the consequences of your action.
Some people may accuse you of supporting the trading system. But I know how truely stupid you are… so I’m betting on answer (2).
We all agree that utopia is a better option than reality. The issue is which possible option are you helping in reality. GMB is helping carbon trading. Not because he’s evil. Just because he’s dumb.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 8:48 am | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
No I don’t agree any such thing. Clearly you are lying. I’ve always opposed your monograph and I don’t agree its a good proposal at all. Its a terrible proposal. A disgraceful proposal on all levels.
Why not barrack for getting rid of the tax on diesel? Or for getting rid of any taxes on the retained earnings of energy-production outfits?
Thats two proposals right there that are better than your monograph by a country mile.
You might have thought that what I was after was your PRETENSE that you were engaging the argument. Actually I wanted you to engage the argument and skip the pretense.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 9:16 am | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
How could you possibly miscontrue matters so as to suggest that I had suggested your proposal was the best proposal in Australia. Its a horrible proposal. I can come up with ten proposals better than that one before breakfast. A 50 year guarantee no tax on diesel or liquified coal being just one of them.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 9:19 am | Permalink
John Humphreys wrote:
Your ideas haven’t been published anywhere Graeme… and they never will be because you’re not very smart.
By your standards, my proposal is the best proposal published in Australia. If the government is going to do something on AGW (which they will — fact) then my proposal is the best.
Come on churkey — admit it.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 5:54 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Look obviously I’m smarter than you’ll ever be. For one thing I’d never take a superstitious attitude to publishing.
Now lets go over it again and this time address the argument. Remembering that this is only a summary argument. By the way you didn’t get paid for this idiotic monograph. So lets not get uppity about it:
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:19 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Imagine being so supersitious as to think that being published or not being published could effect retroactively affect reality.
Is this the knew Jason Soon view of epistemology?
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:21 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
This reminds me of a story about Gerry Jackson and Quiggin having a debate. Gerry won the debate and then Quiggin came up with his resume as an argument. What a freaking moon-unit but this is basically what Humphreys is trying on here.
You are just going to have to learn the material Humphreys.
Key phrases: Austrian Capital Theory, The Structure of Production, the lengthening of the structure of production, Gross Investment, Productive Expenditure.
And also you might want to bone up on the nuts and bolts of energy production.
You could do a few field trips to a factory also. I mean your economics just has no bearing on the real world. Whereas the Jackson/Reisman way of looking at things is just like how businesses actually work.
This outlook is very much in line with nuts and bolts of business reality.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:27 pm | Permalink
observer wrote:
Hey Churkey
sorry to break it to you but manufacturing is pretty much irrelevant to Australia. we can import stuff that other countries make while we sell more lucrative services.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:39 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Sorry to break it to you observer but you are entirely wrong. And in fact most services are just things that heavy industry is outsourcing.
This is all just a myth. This is neoclassical economics not being able to see the total economy on account of their GDP-focus.
Name some of these service industries you are envisaging. All of them require heavy industry and energy production.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:43 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
This reminds me of some neoclassical nutball that was trying to tell me that we were going to be able to get by on landscape-gardening and Hedge-fund management. He seemed to think that the loss of our heavy industries would be a sign of success. Real dummies these people. Their understanding bears no relationship to the real world whatsoever.
Economics is largely about moving things, picking them up, putting them down, changing their nature.
That all means big trucks and heavy industry. It all means more and more energy. It means more infrastructure and more infrastructure takes big trucks, machinery and heavy industry.
Energy consumption will typically grow disproportionately in relation to GDP. Since growth in GDP implies a disproportionate growth in GDR due to the lengthening of the structure of production.
For this reason energy production is the longest pole in the tent. We need that in place before we can do anything else.
And we now face an emergency in energy production that has been foisted on us by environmentalism and zoning and is not part free enterprise as such.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:51 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Only Humphreys or Jason Soon could come up with something as ridiculous as what observer came up with.
And in fact observer is no observer but rather a swallower. A swallower of stupid notions like the idea of the service economy, or the idea that trade deficits never matter no matter what the context.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:54 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Stupid notions but I don’t think the “service economy” was the best way I could explain this.
Its the notion of POST-INDUSTRIAL-SOCIETY that is the foolish notion. We need heavy industry that is more and more robust all the time.
Note also that observer has taken on a nonsensical appraoch to comparative advantage. Comparative advantage doesn’t mean that anyone loses their heavy industry.
You lose your heavy industry because of bad policy. Never because of comparative advantage.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 6:58 pm | Permalink
observer wrote:
Division of labour can be geographical churkey. Someone may need to make the stuff and others can specialise in designing it. The second bit is done by advanced economies, the first bit by growing economies like China. Advanced economies can do the ’symbolic analyst’ stuff like software engineering, design, finance while sending stuff to China or wherever else to be made.
Are you worried because you work in a declining industry?
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 7:31 pm | Permalink
observer wrote:
Trade deficits don’t matter, socialist,
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 7:31 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Trade deficits do matter. So thats another thing you have wrong.
There are CIRCUMSTANCES where they don’t matter. But this is more dangerous ignorance on your part.
You are taking a wrong and stupid view of comparative advantage. It knows no national or geographical boundaries and does not divide itself into services for one country and manufacturing for the next country. Comparative advantage isn’t even a notion to do with countries. It works between individuals.
Now I’m aware that what you are saying is the neoclassical consensus but it is totally wrong JASON SOON.
So you’ve simply got to learn economics all over again and get it right this time.
Your economics is thief-economics and its ruining this country.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 7:50 pm | Permalink
Jeff wrote:
Bird is a Keynesian. He told Quiggin that staglation couldn’t exist and it was just a lie.
He told Mark at Prodeo that Central Planning would be possible when communities became powerful enough to process the model of the entire economy.
He’s a libertarian now but that’s because he’s waiting for Intel to catch up with where he really wants the world to be.
He wants more regulation of the banking industry and he wants us to pay more tax to cover it all off.
Bird is a fraud and a charlatan.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 8:16 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Well yes I’m afraid that everything you say here is a lie. As you know I’d never be allowed onto that DDT-Holocaust-deniers site.
Posted on 15-Mar-08 at 8:29 pm | Permalink