Carbon Tax

[russtafa]

The Australian prime minister wants to tax thin air:mad:

[Faldur]

http://www.discoverynews.org/manbearpig.jpg

[russtafa]

We will march on Canberra and make these parasites back down

[russtafa]

Thousands are marching on parliment on the 23rd to confront the goverment

[russtafa]

The left wing socialist's are shitting themselves over being caught out about their lies and deceptions.There is going to be a very large march on our capitol on the 23march against our socialist government and it's carbon tax scam

[Stavros]

The logic of a carbon tax is that it encourages industry to limit carbon emissions and thereby reduce its level of taxation; carbon trading under the right conditions and controls is also an effective measure to reduce emissions. Left right or centre has nothing to do with it, taking measures to protect the planet crosses party boundaries -anyway there aren't any left wing socialists in Australia, they were of miniscule importance as far back as the last great Australian Gough Whitlam, never mind Bob Hawke.

[onmyknees]

you're naive....with all due respect. No one likes dirty air, that's why we have the EPA restricting everything from smokestack emissions, to rain run off. Maybe if the left we hadn't smashed efforts ( you might remember the battle cry in the 70's and 80's....NO Nukes") to build nuke power plants here in the US we might be well on our way to less carbon emissions... Kinda ironic don't ya think? A carbon tax is typical left wing think tank nonsence. It won't see the light of day here in the US. Put it back into mothballs just like the "millionaires tax on yachts" that served only to send potential buyers to other countries and boat yard workers her in the US into the unemployment lines.

[russtafa]

Australian politics are far more socialist than America and our media is dominated by the left who manipulate the public for our communist government

[Cuchulain]

you're naive....with all due respect. No one likes dirty air, that's why we have the EPA restricting everything from smokestack emissions, to rain run off. Maybe if the left we hadn't smashed efforts ( you might remember the battle cry in the 70's and 80's....NO Nukes") to build nuke power plants here in the US we might be well on our way to less carbon emissions... Kinda ironic don't ya think? A carbon tax is typical left wing think tank nonsence. It won't see the light of day here in the US. Put it back into mothballs just like the "millionaires tax on yachts" that served only to send potential buyers to other countries and boat yard workers her in the US into the unemployment lines.

Oh be honest. You love dirty air...as long as someone is making a profit from it. Your crowd in Congress is doing all they can to hobble that pesky EPA. "How dare these Liberal pansies try to interfere with the sacred corporate RIGHT to make obscene profits? A few more toxins won't hurt anyone."

As for nukes, Japan might be rethinking that whole issue right now. I'd say let's put one in your backyard and I'll come get a few years of heavy overtime to build it, but of course the fallout won't stay in your backyard, will it? What was it that I've been hearing you say about 'let the free market decide'? I guess that doesn't apply to the nuke industry, which requires huge govt subsidies to survive. Come to think of it, Big Oil get's a pass from your free market crowd too...

Regarding your comments on a carbon tax, I believe hippifried has some sage words on that subject.

[Cuchulain]

Australian politics are far more socialist than America and our media is dominated by the left who manipulate the public for our communist government

What are you, the Aussie 'Lonesome Roads' Beck?

[russtafa]

Who?

[russtafa]

The liberals[conservatives] have smashed labour in the N.S.W election it is labour's worst defeat in a hundred and ten years and part of the reason is federal labour's proposal of a carbon tax on the people

[south ov da border]

carbon tax is a joke, even tho I understand where they are coming from. I just don't see it happening, and if it does, it will just mean kickbacks for the powerst that be anyway...

[russtafa]

It's a scam to rip off the workers and put money in rich peoples pockets

[Ben]

It's a scam to rip off the workers and put money in rich peoples pockets

NAFTA, too, is a system designed to: put money in the pockets of the super-rich.
And corporations are specifically designed to put money in the hands of the investor class. I think, too, a fundamental attack on democracy is a way to put money in the pockets of the rich; and, also, the offshoring of jobs. And tax loopholes for the corporate sector. I mean, hell, government policy is carried out to serve the rich and powerful.
As Adam Smith said: Merchants and manufacturers -- today corporations -- are going to serve their own specific interests regardless of the grievous impact on others. Namely the population. (Also the invisible hand. Any idea what that refers to? Well, it appears once in the Wealth of Nations. It's an argument against globalization, against the free movement of capital. But the corporate sector, again, will serve their own interests and thus are totally indifferent to the concerns of the populace.)
And, too, we know about the kinship between the state sector and the corporate sector.

[Stavros]

Also the invisible hand. Any idea what that refers to? Well, it appears once in the Wealth of Nations. It's an argument against globalization, against the free movement of capital

Hmmm....when I was an undergraduate the invisible hand was Smith's metaphor to describe the way in which free markets work to order society -not from an overbearing political structure but as a consequence of market interactions: it IS the free movement of capital.

A key issue in the critique of late capitalism is precisely: how 'free ' are markets? There will always be a degree of regulation -a) to defend the system against type a thieves (=the smash and grab kind), and b) because of the complexity of variable currencies, domesic economic regimes, trade agreements etc: the reality is that if the international economy was left to an 'invisible hand' it would collapse: freedom is an ideal not a reality. (type B thieves I suppose are slick tax lawyers, type c Madoff? etc)

You could try Hardt and Negri's leftist support for globalisation in 'Empire' [2000] as a corrective to your current thinking. Marx would have approved.

[trish]

An unregulated market is an unstable market. The theorems of Von Neumann/Morgenstern show that, without regulation, players will always simplify the game by forming coalitions effectively reducing the number of players. A market controlled by cartels and shifting coalitions of international corporations struggling to buy each other out is not a free market. To desire a market that is unregulated by democratic government is to desire an anarchic instability which will ultimately lead to economic rule by oligarchy. Free markets are, by necessity, regulated by all the people who have an interest in the resources of the commons.

[russtafa]

The carbon tax will probably bring down our federal government

[russtafa]

There was 6ooo people at the no carbon tax rally that's a lot for Sydney

[russtafa]

The unions are now talking of withdrawing their support for the government because their members are so worried about this tax