Stevie is The Con , in 'conservative'

[AdamSmith]

Tom BrodbeckSun, September 14, 2008

Green shaft, people

Grit plan is balderdash
By TOM BRODBECK


I keep hearing supporters of the Liberal's Green Shift plan saying Stephane Dion's proposed carbon tax wouldn't affect gasoline prices at the pump.

Balderdash.

Just because the proposed tax doesn't apply directly to gasoline purchases, it doesn't mean a carbon tax wouldn't drive up gas prices.

The carbon tax would be applied to oil at the wholesale level and you can bet your last dollar big oil companies and refineries would pass that on to consumers at the pumps.

Why wouldn't they? They pass on everything else to us.

If they have extra taxes to pay in the form of a carbon tax, they will most certainly incorporate that into their pricing. But that's not the only driver.

How do you think gasoline is delivered to the retail market? By diesel truck. And would the carbon tax be applied directly to the cost of diesel?

Yep.

Would that cost be passed on to consumers at the pumps, too? I don't think I have to answer that.

The gas station isn't the only place consumers would feel the carbon tax pinch.

They would get a nasty surprise in the mail when they opened up their heating bills.

Under the Green Shift plan, the carbon tax would be applied directly to your natural gas or oil bill.

The Liberals estimate the tax would force Canadians to pay on average $57 to $67 more per year.

It's not that much. It's certainly not enough to force Canadians to change their behaviour as the Liberals claim it would. A $57-a-year tax isn't going to persuade anybody to turn down the thermostat, get a new high-efficiency furnace or install new windows.

It's just a straight tax grab. It's $57 less in your wallet.

I love this one:

The Green Shift would put a 24-cent tax on every 20-lb propane tank refill. Do they really expect people to have fewer barbecues because they have to pay an extra 24 cents?

No, it's just a straight tax that would take another 24 cents out of people's pockets and it would do nothing to reduce emissions.

It's a sham.

And it would hit lower-income people the hardest.

The Liberals claim they would reduce income taxes to offset higher carbon taxes. If you believe that, I have some Nortel shares to sell you.

But even if the Liberals did cut income taxes, low-income people don't pay much in income taxes so there's not much there to cut.

Some pay no income taxes at all. Which means they would be stuck with a net tax increase when their heating bills go up, when inflation goes up because of higher diesel prices and yes, when gas prices at the pump go up.

Even transit prices will go up because most buses are diesel fuelled.

I don't buy Prime Minister Stephen Harper's claim a carbon tax would plunge the country into recession. That's nonsense. It's alarmist rhetoric. So is Harper's claim a carbon tax would harm national unity. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard him say.

But what the carbon tax would do is take more money out of Canadians' pockets.

You can take that one to the bank.

[AdamSmith]

Numbers don't add up for Dion

Sat, September 13, 2008

By Greg Weston

BURNABY, B.C. -- On a day when Canadian gas prices skyrocketed up to 15c a litre overnight, Stephane Dion tried to sell his carbon tax to British Columbians already close to revolt over a similar provincial levy at the pumps.

Give Dion full marks for moxie, but not so much for math.

Dion promised a Liberal government would provide grants of up to $10,000 for homeowners to upgrade their houses with better heating systems, insulation, windows, and other energy-efficient improvements.

The new $10,000 limit would double the amount of federal assistance currently available to each homeowner under the Conservative government's existing home retrofit program.

Dion went on to pledge that if he is elected prime minister, his government would also provide homeowners with additional $10,000 interest-free loans for large-scale retrofits such as installing solar panels.

The Liberals say they are committed to energy-retrofitting 50% of Canadian homes by 2020, and 100% by 2030.

Dion estimated the two programs would cost $435 million in the first four years, much of it to be paid out of the Liberals' centrepiece "Green Shift" carbon tax.

The Liberal leader made the announcement in a beautiful park-like setting in suburban Vancouver, with the sun shining, the trees rustling, and the birds chirping for the perfect campaign photo op.

There is only one small hitch -- Dion is promising to solve a problem which doesn't exist at a cost that would break the federal treasury.

Let's start with the $10,000 for retrofits. The existing federal program run by the Conservatives offers up to $5,000 for energy-efficient retrofits, but doesn't simply cut a cheque to cover the full cost of a new furnace.

Like the old Liberal retrofit program, the Conservative version pays only a part of the costs of home upgrades, based on a complicated formula.

As a result, far from homeowners' needing more than the current $5,000 limit, federal figures show the average grant in the past year was only about $1,250.

If Dion wants to howl about that, it should be pointed out the average grant under the old Liberal refit scheme was even less, about $1,000.

There's another problem with Dion's plan.

Each home has to be inspected by a qualified environmental "auditor."

Last year, the Conservative government doubled the number of auditors previously employed under the Liberals, and still they only got to 35,000 homes.

At that rate, it would take roughly 200 years just to audit the half of all Canadian homes that Dion promises will be retrofitted in the next 12 years.

Even if the feds keep handing out rebates at the current average rate of $1,250, Dion's plan to get the drafts out of 50% of Canadian homes would cost almost $10 billion.

If he insisted on giving every homeowner the $10,000 maximum he is now promising, the federal treasury would be broke in no time.

Biggest illusion

Perhaps the biggest illusion of all is the notion that the Liberals' carbon tax will pay for all these environmental initiatives with money from pollution.

The scheme would put a new tax on all oil, gas and coal burned by the country's largest 700 industrial emitters of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

Since most of the biggest culprits are the oil companies and the power utilities, it is a pretty safe bet every dime of the tax will eventually be siphoned out of consumers' pockets.

Voters in British Columbia are already up in arms over a provincial carbon tax recently slapped on gasoline at the pumps.

Dion's plan to woo them with weather-stripping suggests that not all the hot air in the land is leaking from drafty homes.

[Fransisco]

Real classy agstar. People die in a tragic accident, and you try to turn it into a joke.

[AdamSmith]

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=435409&no=383649&rel_no=1
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encouraging for the price of wheat

and this from the nutball climate change zeolots
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If grain growers are feeling beleaguered in the UK, Canada and Australia, beef farmers will follow them into worryland if the advice of a United Nations official is followed.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is recommending that people worldwide should have one meat-free day every week. This would be their personal contribution to help tackle climate change.

Dr Pachauri says we should change our eating habits because the rearing of cattle and other animals is damaging the climate.

Cattle emit huge quantities of methane, which is 23 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that meat production produces around one fifth of global greenhouse gases. The production of food for the animals adds to the damage to the atmosphere.

Dr Pachauri says that if the average UK household reduced their meat eating by half they would be cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the same amount as they would by halving the use of their car.
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Ok lets read this again, just so we're all clear what the implications of what this guy is saying.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that meat production produces around one fifth of global greenhouse gases. The production of food for the animals adds to the damage to the atmosphere.

By the way this guy is a veggan.

So if you don't think that agriculture is going to come under serious attack by these zoony global warming people, think again.

read what the Aussies are saying

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/practical-but-diabolical-australias-climate-change-goal/1264853.aspx

or the Kiwi's

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10532156

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It's the most amazing thing to witness. To see the world go nuts and disembowl itself over something that hasn't even been proven yet.

Yes, climate change exists, but there is no solid evidence to suggest that man is the cause.

And if it is proven that man is the cause, the liklyhood that any effort we take short of nuking 4/5th of the worlds pop will have any imact whatsoever.

[SASKFARMER3]

Mustard you want to talk politics well here it is.
Under the liberals we were hit with ever damn thing in the book. All they ever did was discuss the problems and then set up committees and then study some more. When they finally saw that their would be a revolt they did a huge media blitz were spending Billions on farmers. Then the studied and studied and when the final checks were sent it worked out to 1/3 of what the total announcement was.
BSE, FROST FROST. Nothing at all was sent from their so called programs.
And our Idiot Ralphy Boy is as dumb as they come. He is trying to sell this green shaft program Look at it take your fuel bill and add 20% oh that's a hit. But wait he will study ways so farmers can be more green.(do you see a pattern) and then they might send out some cash. It's a damn con, Here is the head of this Liberano organization flying around the country on the most polluting jet ever build but he is the Green Machine.
MY wish they get wiped off the face of the map and I got a gut feeling its going to happen.

[bucket]

Was it Kim Campbell that was the scape goat for the PC's? Just substitute the name Stephen Dion. The liberals are done.

[liberty]

I read a news story this morning that the Tories are going to begin targeting Jack Layton this week. I suspect that their polling numbers are telling them that the NDP are overtaking the Liberals in a number of ridings. When the dust settles, could we see Jack Layton as leader of the Official Opposition?

[parsley]

Will Flaman switch to NDP?

Parsley

[Jay-mo]

I keep hearing this talk about Stephane Dion being a quote"intellectual"unquote.
I'm not going to be one to defend PMSH on all fronts, but I honestly have not heard anything intellectual from Dion.

His green "shift happens" plan seems to be in flux every time a liberal starts to explain it.
Can anyone on the street actually fully explain what it all entails? Other then just more taxes on the necessities of life?
Dion talks about gas prices needing to go higher. Even since Dion announced his green plan gas prices have risen far more then the tzxes he was proposing. Has it stopped people from filling up?
It really is just an extension of the foolisheness of taxing what every living person exhales every few seconds.
According to every AGW subscriber, just by breathing every human is an evil polluter.
Does it get any more insane then that?

[highwayman]

Mustard, ask yourself this, would you be pissed at all about Harper calling this election if you thought that your lefty lieberals had a remote chance of winning? The moral high ground you choose to take against the conservatives is rather humurous considering the dismal records of just about every left wing group of this country.