Financial Post- Ross McKitrick: Economists’ letter misses the point about the carbon tax revolt
Yes, the carbon tax works great in a ‘first-best’ world where it’s the only carbon policy. In the real world, carbon policies are piled high.
Financial Post- Ross McKitrick: Economists’ letter misses the point about the carbon tax revolt
Yes, the carbon tax works great in a ‘first-best’ world where it’s the only carbon policy. In the real world, carbon policies are piled high.
We all need to insist that it’s not carbon we’re talking about, it’s carbon dioxide. Kind of a big difference between a lump of coal and an invisible gas that makes up around 0.04% of the atmosphere.
Gerald Rennick in the Australian Senate called carbon dioxide the God molecule. As he explains that in order to bring up the temperature of the surrounding 6600 oxygen and nitrogen molecules by one degree the single carbon dioxide molecule must be at 6600 degree celsius. It’s like Jesus feeding 5000 people with a couple of fish he said 🙂
https://youtu.be/0swtPnN46Vo?si=9y6S4i1Md9Ns8HY8&t=256
This joke is a pretty accurate summary of Canada’s Economist Party (those living off taxpayers and beholden to the Liberal Party):
A businessman interviews a mathematician, an accountant, and an economist for a job. He asks them, “What is 2 + 2?”
The mathematician answers, “Exactly 4.”
The accountant replies, “Depending on what your interest, depreciation, and taxes are, approximately 2.”
The economist walks over to the door, shuts and locks it, closes the blinds on the window, and leans over and softly asks, “What do you want it to be?”
“The public would welcome insight from economists about how to deal with these challenges.”
Nope.
Economists are stupid assholes as evidenced by the McKitrick himself.
Right. There are no “challenges” except for those lacking the spine to call this entire scam what it is.
The reality is that no matter how much you tax “carbon”, it will not change the weather, ever.
Or the “climate” as the communists prefer to call it. McKittrick should have come out right away calling the man made climate change a scam. The climate will naturally change and there’s not anything any commie can, or will, do to stop it.
People my age and older need a kick to the head. There has always been weather cycles. Wet years, cold years, dry years and hot years. They seem to have this idea that Southern Alberta must be cold and snow every winter and luke warm in the summer. In the 1850s, John Palliser reported that the area was a desert; unable to support agriculture or permanent covilisation.
In the 1930s, folks organised picnics and ball tournaments on Christmas Day. I shot hoops in a tee shirt after Christmas Dinner.
For travelling, I preferred snowless Christmases to stereotypical cold and blizzarding.
Young kids I can forgive but older folks have no excuse falling for the BS. They should remember that warm winters and extremely hot summers are nothing unusual. Actually that type of weather is more normal than what the commies would have you believe.
If taxes could improve life then Canada would be a literal paradise, with comfort and prosperity for all, no matter how large the “all” number might be.
You know, since he is an economist, maybe he’d like to explain to his colleagues that in every step of production that requires payment of the “carbon tax”, it increases the costs to the next step, hiding it in the price, because in the end, there is only one taxpayer.
Lets say I want to buy bread at the Criminal Conspirator store up on Weston Road. The farmer has to increase his prices of wheat to cover the increased taxes paid on the fuel he uses to plant, fertilize, and harvest his wheat, plus the tax he pays on the power, and heat source to dry his grain. Once he sells his grain to the miller to make flour, they have to pay the extra carbon tax on their power, heat of their buildings and transportation, which increases the cost to the next step. Once the baker buys the flour from the miller, so that they can make the bread, they have to build into their sale price the additional costs to heat their buildings, and run their ovens to bake the bread. Then the store pays that higher price, and has to build in the cost of transportation to the store, and the cost to heat the store, so that I the customer can buy a $4 loaf of bread.
All the bank of canada did was look at the increased cost of driving to the store (but only 15,000km) for groceries to come up with their useless number.
Absolutely. Taxes for city services, hospitals and schools also go up as they too are paying a carbon tax.
Economics is voodoo at best. It’s not a science, nor even an art. And yes, most economists are a$$holes.
Actually your comment applies to all of the so-called social sciences. None of them are science; none of them have the rigour of mathematics as do the formal sciences of physics, chemistry, biology. The worst is the utterly absurd political science, which largely remains in the area of mere dogma.
Add sociology to that. …worst course I ever took!, except for English and philosophy.
Not all social sciences were awful in the past, but have deteriorated. I loved my statistics and psychology courses, which were hard core social science back then. Economics was OK too.
The real problem is erotion of the curriculum.
True dat. Not all, but the vast majority you wouldn’t want around your kids.
Layers of tax could be defined like compound interest. No doubt the carbon tax alone is minimum standing alone and that’s why they do it for the easy sell.
Believe to my very core that this goverment lives in a different reality, and continue on a path of destruction of this country.
These economists need to explain how private investment has cratered and now México has surpassed for US trade. Private investment are the smart ones, because it’s their money. Current trajectory of Canada is in decline and these economists can address how they see otherwise.
Where does the money go? I want to hear it. Go ahead, give it your best shot.
Liberal pockets.
Tax on everything at all levels.
I could hear chainsaws while reading Ross McKitrick’s list of evil stupidities at the end!:)
Using economic theory, the carbon tax doesn’t work. There are no realistic alternatives to Diesel, NG or Gasoline if there were to be a significant shift away from them, therefore the carbon tax is simply a regressive tax on prosperity. Mixed economy economists somehow consider state mandates (carbon tax) to be a “market-based” solution because it supposedly alters behavior more efficiently than pure dictates. That may be so where alternatives exist. Renewables and over-regulated nuclear power are not easily employed alternatives as the former is non-viable in any language and the later is virtually criminalized by regulators.
My natural gas blew up the house…
My hydrogen gas vehicle blew up the neighborhood…
Huge difference in problems to be solved that is if you want to travel any distance.
Not to mention that the current problem with engines as they burn out very quickly with the higher heat it produces.
Diesel my friend, is the ONLY way to go.
So-called renewables simply do not work well. Solar panels and windmills do not produce, nor do EV vehicles. We already have too much junk plugged into aging electrical systems.
The middle class KNOWS that they are being scammed. Co2 is good for trees and the world needs it for wealth, even if we have a slghtly warming climate, within an ice age.
Nothing is renewable with out coal, oil ,gas and manufacturing using all three in conjunction with manufacturing and the energy needed to build the so called “renewables”. Stupid people.
CO2 is not a problem it should be higher for an even greener world.
Agreed my friend…
1000-1500 ppm would be ideal.
We are at I do believe 380ppm
The signatories are relatively few in number and a complete bunch of nobodies to boot
Fundamental problems with the carbon dioxide tax. First it jacks up the price of everything as described above thus those who suffer most egregiously are, as ever, the poor. Second, fuel is not something which has much elasticity of demand. Where there is discretionary consumption three cents per litre will only make a difference to those for whom three cents per litre makes a difference i.e. the poor. It will have little impact on the weekend excursions of the Lamborghini club. Finally, if, as claimed, it is revenue neutral then it will no effect and therefore will have no effect. What then is the point other than pumping up another level of bureaucracy?
It is 89% revenue neutral to the government, but zero % revenue neutral to everyone else.
My friend, fn the people, rom a communist country said that recycling was/is about conditioning the people .
The whoo hoo flue was a check to see how well the conditioning was in effect.
The “carbon” tax is all about behaviorale modification, and is effective in the most part.
But the problem they say they are addressing doesn’t excist!
Guilbeaut himself admitted last week…it is about “changing behaviors “.
It was bombshell statement that was totally ignored.
McKitrick is no better than his fellow economists. He must disavow “climate change” and “net zero” as part of the fraud and electrification as a non starter. He has to abandon the concept of the most efficient way to get to wherever the fraudsters want to take us. In addition, he has to accept the that “fossil fuels” which are not derived from fossils, are renewable resources that are being constantly produced abiotically in the mantel of the earth. Since they are constantly being produced, they must go somewhere, that being to the surface of the earth. Whether we capture them and harness them for our purposes or not makes no difference. If we fail to use them, they will eventually escape into the atmosphere and be converted into H2O and CO2, the very same products that would result if we used them.
When we spend energy to produce electricity we are only adding to the H2O and CO2 that will naturally continue to escape into the atmosphere. The net result is the exact opposite of what these idiots think will happen because it takes more energy to produce electricity.
McKitrick and Steven Mcintyre are the two who debunked Michael Mann’s bogus hockey stick graph. He is no fool. Unfortunately he has to tread somewhat lightly while exposing his fellow economists as fools. Professional courtesy and all that, eh what?
Heh.
In a bankrupt country,economists speak?
What voodoo is this?
And how many of these “Independent economists” are paid by NGOs which a fully funded by Government?
A tax is a tax is a tax.. It wont make a lick of difference beyond enriching the government.. We don’t have much time.. Remember income tax was a temporary tax, brought in to pay for WW1.. Then the politicians got their “vote buying hands” on the money and never looked back..
I do not need another level of government over my head.. Three is enough..
Economists, by and large, are as dumb as the boulders he mentions in the column. I should know. I studied economics, after a business degree. Don’t ask or assume why, please. Let’s just say that I now know how they think.
As for climate change, my Accu-weather app warns that during a solar eclipse, the temperature can lower by several degrees, while the sun is hidden. Colour me surprised! Does that mean the CO2 levels will suddenly drop and reverse a warming trend? /Sarc.
So I tried to google how they measure a ton of carbon……….. confusion ensures …… try it.
The carbon tax is a mechanism by which government endlessly harvests taxpayer money, and directs it wherever it wishes. The ultimate government tyranny realized.
The real reason for the carbon tax? It has ZERO to do with “emissions”. Canada cannot pay back its debt (in fiat money systems you never can, because debt growth always HAS to outpace money supply. Check the Fed M2 and the M2V). What is Canada’s balance sheet sitting at? Way less than the debt. So there are only two choices left out of three: print money, or raise taxes. To service the debt. The third is “raise rates” but doing that will wipe out the money supply (through escalation of defaults) as well as the tax base.
Ever wonder why fiat money governments endlessly raise taxes? It is because they HAVE to keep raising revenues to offset their debt servicing. But “carbon tax” sounds way less scary to foreign investors than “across the board fundraising because we are so effing broke”.
Massive influx of immigrants is about voting to some extent, but it is more about soaking up excess money supply (from printing) so as to avoid hyperinflation. I should clarify – recent immigrant money is ‘dead’ money to some extent. They don’t tend to use it on securities speculating or on debt instruments. Then they get to work (allegedly) and start paying taxes again.
They (the WEF) are panicking now, and they are about to get curb-stomped in Ukraine.
taxes taxes taxes time for a tea party!
Further, it makes no sense when there is no scientific evidence that CO2 controls the planet temperature.