Why ban when you can just price all but the very rich out of access to abundant energy?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called upon the U.S., its largest contributor, to levy a $500 billion a year carbon tax on consumers to offset what it calls “underpriced” oil, coal, and other energy products.
This “mispricing” is supposedly leading to “excessive energy consumption,” which is “accelerating the depletion of natural resources” and contributing to climate change.
“The IMF is lobbying on behalf of environmentalist radicals, arguing that not implementing a half-trillion dollar a year carbon tax is a de facto energy subsidy,” Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson wrote in a letter to members of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade.
The IMF study, published on Jan. 28, states, “Consumer subsidies include two components: a pre-tax subsidy (if the price paid by firms and households is below supply and distribution costs) and a tax subsidy (if taxes are below their efficient level).”
In a statement, Wilson called the IMF’s view “warped.” He added, “not taxing being construed as a subsidy that economically crowds out anything is as Orwellian as it gets. There is no level of deception these people will not stoop to in order to hide their true ends.”
The study justifies these taxes as preventing climate change: “The efficient taxation of energy further requires corrective taxes to capture negative environmental and other externalities due to energy use (such as global warming and local pollution).”
In a March 27 interview, the IMF’s head of fiscal affairs, Carlo Cottarelli said, “Even where countries impose taxes on energy, they’re rarely high enough to account for all of the adverse effects of excessive energy consumption, including on the environment.”
Cottarelli claimed that not taxing carbon emissions in the U.S. by $500 billion a year “crowd[s] out public spending that can boost growth, including on infrastructure, education, and health care. Cheap energy can also lead to overconsumption of energy, which aggravates environmental problems, such as pollution and climate change.”
“Just think about what Cottarelli said. It’s a completely distorted view of reality. It is higher energy costs and increased taxes are what would actually dampen consumer spending in other areas,” Wilson explained.
Therefore, Wilson said, the IMF-proposed carbon tax is “just a means to an end by increasing governmental power over other these other areas of the economy, like health care and education, for one by raising $500 billion a year in additional revenue.”
“By strangling the economy for money and restricting energy consumption, people will naturally turn to governments for sustenance since producing value in the private sector will come at a much higher premium. What good is a job in the U.S. economy if a person cannot afford to drive there?” Wilson asked.
Remember when the left and the so-called crunchy cons sneered at those of us who saw in these climate change “fixes” a move to justify global wealth redistribution and attempts to truly re-create a two-part global class system of wealthy elite/ruling class and then the rest of us?
And yet here it is, practically unvarnished: a failure to drive up energy costs through excessive taxation means that the government doesn’t have enough money to turn around and help those who are hurt by high-energy costs, effectively keeping the government from controlling the private free citizen.
Which is presented as a bad thing.
The left wants to limit productivity and mobility, because in doing so it promotes dependence — which in turn grants them power — and it increase the amount of generated wealth the must first flow through them, to be used as they see fit.
This is confiscatory. It is theft presented as environmental protection that, as a result of the dislocation it causes, seeks to position itself on the back end as governmental compassion. Which is a bit like having someone cut off your legs to save wear on the carpet, then turn around and offer you occasion wheel cheer access — and expect you to thank them for it.
This is who they are. It’s what they do and will always do. Unless we say no. Because their power, as I’ve noted before, comes only from our willingness to accede to their tyrannical designs.
What will be the spark that convinces us the time to fight back aggressively is upon us?
excessive energy consumption lol
baracky should be taxed for af 1 use
“Underpriced oil, coal, etc” of course being code for excessive freedom/choice/happiness for the brutes.
All vestiges of the free market (like a large and successful middle class [for lack of a better term]) have not yet been eradicated in this country. Africa and eastern Asia are the UN-approved model for subsistence/sustainable living. Get with the program North America!
Sour grapes from the EU contingent.
We should counter-offer an MYOB tax: for every furriner what sticks his nose in our business, we tax him one nose.
“But how will he smell?”
“He’s probably from Europe; you figure it out.”
If you’re going to have an “International Monetary Fund”, couldn’t you possibly find some people to work there who don’t hate money?
What will be the spark that convinces us the time to fight back aggressively is upon us?
Are we not yet persuaded that necessity alone (and therefore as mentioned, nothing of virtue or choice) will enter in to this effect? Which, actually, is a more cheerful prospect (that we are not persuaded!) Or, in the alternative, to quote a wise man “[we] come to understand that what ought not to be said cannot be said.”
Cottarelli claimed that not taxing carbon emissions in the U.S. by $500 billion a year “crowd[s] out public spending that can boost growth, including on infrastructure, education, and health care.
Cottarelli and his ilk better hope we don’t start taxing stupid.
Cottarelli and his ilk better hope we don’t start taxing stupid.
Oh no, we wouldn’t. We want to tax power.
Hey, it’s just a mere $1,600 or so per capita. That’s not a problem, right?
Just another part and parcel of Agenda 21. Go figure, huh.
Speaking of “climate change”, we’re now up to 20 years with no net warming.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/twenty-year-hiatus-in-rising-temperatures-has-climate-scientists-puzzled/story-e6frg6z6-1226609140980
Even James Hansen has been forced to admit it, though he’s still arguing that the Doom! Doom! Doom! is merely delayed.
tilting at windmills
James E. Hansen Retiring From NASA To Fight Global Warming
Does this mean Don Cheadle won’t be Captain Planet anymore?
It is darned curious how, no matter what the problem (or alleged problem) is, the solution is ALWAYS to give more money to thugocrats.
Communism: is there anything it can’t do?
So this is how the European Green Fascists and Third World Kleptocrats are going to punish America for our “carbon pollution” and reward China for theirs at the same time?
BRILLIANT!
Alternate reality: US suggests that IMF pay 500 billion energy tax for US and consider it a chance to do a solid for a good buddy. Or perhaps they could look on it as drone attack insurance at a very reasonable and highly discounted rate.
” and the so-called crunchy cons ”
So crunchy, yet so squishy at the same time.
I’d like to see the U.S. adopt an automatic boilerplate amendment process that would insert the language “but first you will blow us” in anything emanating from the UN, IMF, etc.
What if we agree but levy the tax entirely upon foreigners, kind of like the IMF wants to do to us?
Or we can agree to be the IMF’s “collections agent,” shaking down the Earth’s dupes and keeping a whopping cut for ourselves.
It could be explained by pretty much anything if your audience is a bunch of retards.
excessive energy consumption lol
crude dropped after data showed U.S. oil stockpiles climbed to a 22-year high
“Or we can agree to be the IMF’s “collections agent,” shaking down the Earth’s dupes and keeping a whopping cut for ourselves.”
Well, if we’re going to be an Empire rather than a Republic, we could at least be a competent one — the goodies are supposed to flow to us, not from us.
We’re going to have to do better than Elagabalus II first, though.
An eleventy quadrillion dollar tax on nookie. That would pay for everything forever.
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