Fuel tax in a loop
The CIS’ frontman for carbon taxes is in a closed loop;
John Humphreys wrote:
And I notice you’re too scared to answer my question. I’ll re-state it. Which do you prefer — a high fuel tax and no electricity tax… or a low fuel tax and a low electricity tax?
Answer the question, boy. It’s not difficult. Feel free to ask anybody for help.
Posted on 05-Mar-08 at 4:18 pm
So are CPI indexed taxes. Rudd and Swann have decided to tie fuel taxes to the CPI again. The galling thing about CPI indexed taxes is they are a vicious circle. How many products are indexed? The problem is how many of them are used in CPI calculation.
period 1 $1 plus tax, period 2 last total is multplied by the indexed tax.
So, as can be observed of a number of high volume products, wine, beer , spirits for example, the retail price is increased each quarter.
Just as ghastly, instead of pinning the real culprit behind inflation, the central bank and its credit expansion, inflation is treated as prices rises, summed up in the CPI. Making all this a daft business is, the govt’s. CPI indexed taxes of course raise the total consumer prices. ‘Inflation’, higher than ‘targeted’, as they say, seems to me a government ordered self-fulfilling ‘prophecy’.
No, Humphreys, not scared - I have answered it. Lindsay must be very embarrassed.
Let us assume, however, the taxes were as ‘modest as proposed’, did not have the impact he and the CIS insist on denying. He cannot not claim they would remain modest. Take income tax, which was raised as a measure in WWII to fund as a temporary tax. Look what happened. The politicians refused to strike it out at war’s end and it is been increased into another hideous burden.
But a specific tax on on coal based energy production is , once again for the benefit of the CIS, a hit on the capital. The objective is to damage the coal companies and force funding of ‘alternative energy’. There is nothing moderate in the object.
Secondly, it is simply an absurdity, a false dilemma. Both are evil, both can be imposed. Moreover, until the tax is imposed it must be fought. Even when it is imposed it must be fought. It is sound, highly moral principle to do so. Whereas, what we see from the CIS is a semblance of reasonabless, concealing something unpleasant, a damning conflict of interest.
They must fancy themsleves as Australian Bismarcks, defeating the left by incorporating at least some of their aims as policy. An act of ‘real politik’ or ‘compromise’. Well, the Germans did that and they ended up with the Nazi regime.
Defenders of Liberty and free markets? That Lot? Bull-shite. I am now convinced their failure to address capital theory is due to ignorance; while they might refer to it, they really don’t have a grip. For, if they did, they wouldn’t be pushing a tax which is destructive.
Well, instead, Rudd and Wong are pushing the credit carbon version of that destructive tax. it is a non-specific tax, and there is the CIS pretending to have it all in hand. Jokes come thick and fast.
Taxes wrote:
[…] DJ Drummond wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSo are CPI indexed taxes. Rudd and Swann have decided to tie fuel taxes to the CPI again. The galling thing about CPI indexed taxes is they are a vicious circle. How many products are indexed? The problem is how many of them are used in … […]
Posted on 19-Mar-08 at 7:34 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Yeah he’s stuck in a loop alright. Totally failed analysis since instead of considering the best options he’s narrowed it down to the only CO2-bedwetting option he wanted in the first place. Stuck in the loop is clearly the right way to put it because he released the study. We argued against it in vain since he wasn’t open to reason. But then he brings it up again in the middle of an election when policy formation was officially closed off. And now its up again and he’s still stuck in the exact same loop.
I wanted to get rid of the diesel excise and guarantee that any taxes on diesel or liquified coal was banned in any state or by the feds for at least 50 years. That way investors and the rest of us would be able to dieselise our economy since gasoline is set to rise in price much faster than diesel or liquified-coal.
Now thats an option. A minimalist one. But not an option which John would consider. Since he is, as you say, STUCK IN A LOOP. He’s a CO2-bedwetter and appeaser to the global governance crowd.
But we had a bit of a confession from one of these guys:
“This is what those of who actually get paid squillions to be intellectual hired guns (i.e. consultants) do all the time - have in preparation an argument that concedes the main assumption of the other side but still manages to lead to the conclusions we want.”
You see? Pretending to go for good analysis but actually whores. Just sellouts to cronytown and bloodsucker-central:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=3478#comment-86922
See the comment:
6. Jason Soon | March 18th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Posted on 20-Mar-08 at 3:15 am | Permalink
D wrote:
And there’s something else he never quite explained, graeme.
In that paper, he asserted an overt carbon tax would eliminate corruption, unlike carbon credits and trading. Now, I’d nearly forgotten this but, I can’t help it but for some odd reason, the corruption devolves on calculation of co2 emissions for credits. It’s all very rubbery.
The rummy thing is, that little thorn still pricks when calculating co2 for carbon tax.
he’s stuck in a very small loop.
And dead right, cutting excise on diesel, and any other fuel is a separate matter and worth fighting for.
How come that lot at the CIS look like a footy team with most of their players on crutches - but the ump bans crtuches on the field so they have to crawl around instead of merely hobble.
Posted on 20-Mar-08 at 7:28 am | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Well we’ve got to look at it from the point of view that the CSIRO has gone belly up and for THEM to have done this there must be some history to it and it must say something about the Zietgeist of those of us under 40 who have grown up in an urban environment. When I say “US” clearly I’m bolloxing and don’t include myself in the plural ……
As far as economics is concerned you have a situation where truly smart people like Friedman, wind up trying to win a few battles in the short-run, at the expense of compromises that can cause us trouble in the short-run.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Its hard not the meander in this talk.
Its hard not to talk AROUND the subject. Its hard to know which way to go with it.
I could go with it from the point of view of what oddball circumstances lead to the Athenian experience that later got mixed with the Christian religion.
The experience of Athens appears to have been very odd indeed. And a great deal to do with all these small land plots of family farms where the farmer had to take up arms as an hoplite, and get the rumble over quickly to get back to his ten acre block.
So we are saying that there was a significant proportion of the population who made it on his own on his own land and worked his land and fought for his land.
AND HAD A HAND IN HIS COMMUNITY ON TOP OF THAT.
And furthermore it was a sort of harsh mediterranean climate and you had to use human reason AND INTUITION both, to not waste all your efforts in the Autumn, just to get a null result in the spring.
Victor Hansen has looked into this. And it appears to me on the basis of such ruminations that the only healthy way of people to live is in like 5 acre blocks or alternatively massively spacious high-rise.
So to me its SPACIOUSNESS more generally that can save us from this anti-reason post-modernism.
And when we get to these other in-between situations the culture tends to destroy-itself.
It actually can be hard to trust any woman brought up on indoor plumbing.
And of course the blokes are all useless if they haven’t built a tree-hut one time or another.
All I can say is that somehow we have to change our thinking.
And most of the “human capital” from which we can salvage the situation has to come from Australians who are now 50+ in age, and likely most of them will have had some experience in rural living.
If this crowd, as I have described above….. If this crowd gives up…… well then in my view, we are pretty much done for.
Posted on 21-Mar-08 at 12:40 am | Permalink
observer wrote:
Yaaaawn
Posted on 21-Mar-08 at 7:45 am | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
Well thats about the sum total of your economics understanding. Its just a little bit too hard for you and you get sleepy when you strain your brain to think about it. After all that was your same reaction to the mass-murder your crowd was responsible for.
Next time keep your mouth closed. You look disgusting.
Posted on 21-Mar-08 at 8:49 am | Permalink
observer wrote:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Posted on 21-Mar-08 at 12:23 pm | Permalink
Graeme Bird wrote:
So this is a neoclassical economist in Australia 2008. Doesn’t understand anything about economics and gets sleepy when asked to try and understand.
Posted on 24-Mar-08 at 10:22 am | Permalink