Pay for a Green New Deal by removing “fossil fuel subsidies”? Can anyone possibly be that financially illiterate?

Uncategorized 48 Comments

A dissection of the concept of “fossil fuel subsidies”, where the notion comes from, and the utterly disastrous consequences that will arise if people that do not understand the most fundamental aspects of finance get to implement the “green” plans they dream of.

Pay for a Green New Deal by removing “fossil fuel subsidies”? Can anyone possibly be that financially illiterate?

 

 

48 Replies to “Pay for a Green New Deal by removing “fossil fuel subsidies”? Can anyone possibly be that financially illiterate?”

  1. Your typical global warming mark is dumb AF, and will literally believe anything thrown to them by the watermelons leading the movement.

    Richard Feynman wrote about questions some extremely non-scientific people would ask him and they literally had no understanding of science and almost equated it with magic.

  2. There are only two true fossil fuel subsidies in the world:

    1) Actual subsidization of the price of fuel ex Venezuela’s ridiculously cheap gasoline. Really only a feature of 2nd world and 3rd world countries.

    2) USD devaluation: absolutely relevant to the 1st world and no one is talking about it except John Tamny. If the USD hadn’t been crushed by W, the US domestic energy sector would largely not exist. This absolutely is a massive subsidy, and the greens are wildly ignorant of it.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2019/04/28/a-56-lesson-about-fracking-and-the-limits-of-american-hype/#722709516e04

        1. From the stupid article…

          “About the late ‘90s, it’s useful to point out that with oil prices so low at the time, the domestic U.S. energy industry was largely non-existent.”

          From my second link you can see that the U.S. energy had been on a long decline since the 1980s, reaching a low point around 2004. Since then oil production has shot through the rood due to fracking. This sudden increase in domestic production has put pressure on oil prices because the world’s largest economy is moving toward oil self-sufficiency. How you can explain that as a subsidy reveals how well your brain works.

          Then to suggest the US dollar has been devalued. Have you looked at the Canadian dollar, the British pound, the Euro? The Euro started out around $1.00 USD in 1998. It went up to $1.50. It is trading at $1.12 (almost the same as 20 years ago).

          One of the interesting things that is never said about fossil fuels is what the government would do without the tax revenue – because fossil fuels subsidize our economy, not the other way around as fools pretend.

          1. “From my second link you can see that the U.S. energy had been on a long decline since the 1980s, reaching a low point around 2004. Since then oil production has shot through the rood due to fracking. ”

            The author’s point is that fracking revolution happened on the back of USD devaluation, which absolutely did happen. Looking at the other currencies that were also devalued because they are benchmarked to the USD doesn’t make that obvious (but there was a point where the CAD was above the USD and that deval is why). The real benchmark is the price of gold: the amount of gold the USD could buy plummeted through the aughts. That’s the devaluation.

            If the USD had been kept as it was in 1998 or so, the price of oil would have been kept way below the break-even price of most of the frack patch.

        2. From the stupid article…

          “Oil is priced in [US] dollars, the dollar is shrunken quite a bit since 2001 against nearly every global currency and every commodity, so oil costs quite a bit more.”

          USD against the Euro – the Euro has fallen from 1.45 to 1.12 over the past 10 years.

          https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=10Y

          USD against the British Pound – the pound has dropped from 1.70 to 1.30

          https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=10Y

          I won’t insult Canada by posting our currency against the USD – but I just sold some USD for $1.33 CAD. Used to be on par.

          1. The dollar shrunk against the only real benchmark: gold. Then the others tragically followed.

        3. The author is retarded. He complains about the high cost of gasoline and then tries to explain how it is subsidized.

    2. Neither are subsides. If they are then everything is a subsidy if you want it to be. USD devaluation? Really? Time to get real.

      1. Did you even read the article? And of course discounted natgas and gasoline is a subsidy. Duh.

        1. Discounted gasoline? What discounted gasoline?
          In California, the tax on gas is over $0.50 a gallon, and that is on top of the usual sales tax. This does not count the increased price on gas due to the special refining required by California.
          So if “discounted gasoline” is a subsidy, duh, what do you call special taxes on gasoline?
          You are just so stupid.

    3. You forgot the enormous “subsidy” in money and blood used to prop up the Islamic petrotyrannies that fuel China, Inc.

      There’s never any money or men to spare to secure the borders of civilized nations. There’s always plenty to spare to defend the House of Saud.

    5. You drop some odd, convoluted article by someone named John Tamney whose writing is ponderous and as linear as a corkscrew up the ass. So I go look for more of what this jabberwocky has written, and find this representative article of more imaginary nonsense …
      https://americanconsequences.com/if-you-hated-calculus-in-school/
      Yes. Mr. Tamney ADMITS that he sucked at math, as he rambles incoherently, and incompletely about “Free” Trade. Yet he never once cites the UNfairness of dumping cheap (produced below cost) Chinese products into the worldwide markets. Never once cites the complete absence of environmental or labor regulations in China. And yet makes believe there is an imaginary thing called “Free Trade”.

      My summary conclusion is this man needs to go back to math class, and remediate his shortcomings. And he should pay particular attention to “Logic”

      1. I have always claimed to be a “closet egalitarian.” I would like nothing better than a world where everyone contributes more or less equally, and everyone can live more or less the life of a median income American, which is pretty damn good indeed. I realize that the real world is not like that, but I thought the smaller the standard deviation, the better it is.
        I have believed in “free trade” in the same way, as a free competition between more or less equal competitors. But I always thought there was something wrong with the scenario where a supermarket, say, goes into a town and drives out all the local markets with ridiculously low prices, and then, when it has the town to itself, raise the prices to higher than before. If something is ethically wrong, it should not be legally condoned.
        With the “free trade” with China, we are facing the same situation. We are asking private companies which must make a profit, to compete with a giant nation who can manipulate prices on specific products any way it wants to. This is a regime whose ultimate aim is nothing less than world hegemony, and it condones, nay demands, illegal and immoral actions from its minions towards that end. It pays no attention to international agreements on rights of intellectual property. It thinks it is the duty of its citizens to spy whenever possible. It thinks of any one of Chinese extraction as a “citizen” to be so exploited. It doesn’t care about the welfare of the hoi polloi, rather believing in the supremacy of a small selected cadre. So it can build up its Potemkin economy on the backs of the exploited hoi polloi. It doesn’t care if the products sold to foreign countries, hell to its own citizens, have fatal flaws, as long as it can sell them. And against this we are asking American companies, who must comply with U.S. regulations, inclusive of unions and OSHA, to “freely” compete.
        To my thinking, what we should really do is demand standards like what we demand of domestic products. We don’t want to build buildings and bridges with inferior Chinese steel, for example, at any cost. This, in addition with tariffs at a reasonable rate, can bring Chinese products up to a competitive cost.
        The simple fact is, you can not have “free” competition with a totalitarian government, no matter how many layers of sheep’s clothing hides the wolf underneath. Inside the cuddly panda, or Pooh, is a not so nascent dragon wanting to devour the world.

        1. “We don’t want to build buildings and bridges with inferior Chinese steel”

          Who the hell is ‘we’ kemosabe? Can I please make some decisions for myself?

          “a supermarket, say, goes into a town and drives out all the local markets with ridiculously low prices, and then, when it has the town to itself, raise the prices to higher than before. If something is ethically wrong, it should not be legally condoned.
          With the “free trade” with China, we are facing the same situation”

          An apt metaphor because it never ever happens.

      2. I think we would benefit tremendously by slashing all taxes on fossil fuels.

      3. “Yet he never once cites the UNfairness of dumping cheap (produced below cost) Chinese products into the worldwide markets.”

        Probably because there’s nothing remotely unfair about that. GG losers.

        1. Now you’re just admitting defeat by repeating illogical and indefensible nonsense. Go-away, and come back when you can think clearly.

  3. How ironic is it that all subsidies, payouts and rent seeker rip-offs could all be cancelled and pay for the Green Raw New Deal?

  4. Of course there are fossil fuel subsidies. Oil companies are granted the privilege of deducting expenses from income before paying their taxes. Mind you – so is everyone else.

    1. I understand they also, gasp, defer taxes. Oh the inhumanity, shut them down and replace them with a Facebook factory.

  6. Oh FO.
    Name any other product in Canada taxed as much as petroleum for the masses. By all levels of government.
    Just so it/us can subsidize “green” shit.

  7. Yes.
    We are living the era of weapons grade stupidity,the only protection is flight or fight.
    We either retreat to a new country or we banish the terminally stupid.
    The only cure for stupidity is death,all other solutions have failed, just look at every Progressive enclave.
    BEHOLD CANADA.

    Personal responsibility .
    Remember that outdated ideal?

    Sometimes you have to let people fail, protecting the useless and clueless has brought us to today,where Gang Green runs rampant through the structure of civilization.

    Fools and Bandits believe civilization creates itself, so they can feast on the work of others.
    Semi-rational humans know civic society is an artificial construct, requiring cooperation,communication and room for all kinds, combined with the knowledge we share a dream,of a better future for our children.

    Shatter that illusion and you free those who have chosen to be productive.
    Free us to loot,steal and butcher..just like our Professional Parasite Class.

    Do you really want to go there?

  8. I see.

    So our masters do not have $500 billion to spare to make whole the Jewish families whose property was stolen or destroyed in the war.

    However, we, their tax- and debt-peons, apparently have $5 trillion—per year—to hand over as further tribute to the Red Emperor in China, either in cash or in the form of coal, oil or gas too cheap to bother charging for. That’s at least 5 percent of global GDP, probably more—and a good 35 percent of China’s.

    Now you know what China has to gain from the global warming hoax.

    The Chinese have raised sucking the blood of westerners and cheating them out of the fruits of their labour to a science. Their agents have infiltrated every western government. They regard us as little more than beasts of burden. They are convinced they have a mandate from God to enslave the human race. And they will stop at nothing to do so.

    But please, let’s hear Chrystia tell us what the Yid-Bolsheviks did to her poor grandfather.

  10. “Fossil fuel” is innately a much cheaper source of energy than “renewable energy.” If oil is freely explored and utilized, it would cost a fraction of what it costs today, the price now being controlled globally by the oil cartel (OPEC, i.e. essentially Saudi Arabia). On the other hand, “renewable energy” will cost several times as much without heavy subsidy by the government.
    Several important points:
    First, anything that has a useful life of twenty or so years is only “renewable” for that duration of time. In theory, gear boxes for windmills, say, can be replaced. In practice, that is not true. When the gear box goes, the windmill is useless. So a windmill is no more renewable than an oil well which goes dry in twenty or so years. In fact, less. Dry wells have been known to be productive again after a period of time.
    That brings up the second point. Oil is NOT “fossil fuel.” It is produced by the earth and seeps up to the surface. The more we look, the more we find. No one can seriously believe that the massive known oil reserve is really just the product of dead plants. (At least they have gotten away from the meme that is is the product of dead dinosaurs, as that contention has been proven to be completely untenable.) That is why dry wells can be productive again. Oil seeps into the well at a certain rate. If you take more than that out, eventually it will go dry. But if you only take out at the same rate, why, that well is truly “renewable.”
    I hate to bring up the third point as to me it is really irrelevant. That point is production of carbon dioxide. On a geological timeline, the atmosphere is actually at historically low CO2 concentration. (Oh, never succumb to calling CO2 “carbon.” That makes as much sense as calling H2O, i.e. water, “hydrogen”.) The earth has gone through periods where the CO2 concentration is five, maybe ten, times what it is today, without runaway global warming. But I’ll throw it in just in case there are people out there who truly believe CO2 is evil, rather than life giving. The third point is, given that windmills and solar panels actually have expiration dates, if you prorate the CO2 generated in producing those things, as well as using them, over their useful lifetime, their “carbon footprint” is actually higher than an equivalent amount of oil generated energy.
    Fourth, again playing the game of so called “environmentalists” who are not really, windmill and solar farms are much more environmentally hazardous than oil wells and refineries. We all know that windmills chop up birds and bats, making no allowances whether the particular species is protected by law. (And the “environmentalists” don’t care.) What many people don’t realize is that they generate a constant low frequency hum when operating. This persistent noise has been shown to cause physical discomfort and even illness. Likewise, the solar farms which concentrate rays into one processor are equally hazardous to flying animals. This is not even going into how the windmills and solar farms “destroy the native ecology” of the mountain passes and deserts.
    As a corollary, you may think that having heavily subsidized solar panels on your roof at least makes economic sense. It may, as long as your house does not catch on fire. First, solar panels bolted to the roof makes the attic much more difficult to get to, if that is where the fire is, and chances are good if it is an electrical fire. Second, the panels are made to produce energy. There is no device to turn the energy off. That makes the fire just that much more hazardous.

    1. Solar panels and wind turbines cannot be made without fossil fuels. That is a fact.

      1. They can’t be transported to site and assembled without fossil fuels. They can’t be maintained without fossil fuels. They can’t be recycled without fossil fuels.

      2. And for the energy output and life cycle, they’re presently at least as expensive as nuclear plants.

        1. they only produce energy when the source of that energy is available, which is determined by the organized chaos of weather conditions. if the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow…there ya go!

  11. O.K. so what subsidy does an oil and gas company get for drilling a dry hole? What subsidy does it get for spending big dollars setting up an exploration license that later gets cancelled because of enviro-activist pressure (i.e. Alberta’s Whaleback area)? What subsidy for companies taking over assets with literally thousands of inactive wells, hundreds of miles of suspended pipelines, dozens of shut-in or barely operating facilities with plans to revitalize and restart only to get kneecapped by ridiculous changes to regulations that make such work beyond economic? The business conditions that have evolved since the mid-90’s in Canada’s oil patch have consistently clawed away at potential economic returns from investment. It truly has been a death of a thousand cuts. There is no subsidy in Canada’s energy industry. Only an ever deepening money pit that scares the crap out of anyone looking at investing. The risk is beyond too great. And if actual industry investment risk was considered these stupid “subsidy” arguments would be stripped bare for the sham they are.

    1. In Alberta oil & gas companies can write off a dry well in a single year – probably the closest thing you will see to a subsidy. Alberta does this to encourage companies to drill. If this tax benefit was changed the company would have its capital tied up in a dry well for 5 or so years. In 2019 the Federal Liberal Government adopted a similar tax benefit for many other businesses including farming, to spur investment and innovation. Up to 75% of the capital purchase.

      “This past fall the federal government introduced the Accelerated Investment Incentive, giving Canadian businesses the ability to write off capital expenditures faster. Encased in its 2018 Fall Economic Statement, this incentive allows farmers and other businesses more depreciation in the year an asset is purchased … a lot more. The idea is to spur business investment and innovation.”

      https://www.country-guide.ca/guide-business/tax-change-depreciable-purchases-written-off-faster/

      Let’s not forget that the groups summarizing the “subsidies” to the oil & gas industry hate the oil & gas industry.

      1. Those are Exploration expenses which by definition are the riskiest wells, Steve. Development wells don’t get that treatment. How the heck does a gov’t encourage anyone to throw money to change moose pasture in productive acreage without providing an appropriate tax treatment? That’s hardly a subsidy in my books. It just merely addresses the reality of adjusting for the much larger degree of risk to make the roll of the dice more fair. It’s not like a cash top up. The taxpayers aren’t out any money like they are with green energy and electric cars where real money is exchanging hands from our pockets to someone else’s.

      1. Why can’t you just gracefully admit when you lose the argument? You got schooled big time; only you don’t know it or care.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation