The Emissions Trading Scheme: global Socialism

I’m calling it the Emissions Taxation Scam: it is using the lie of anthropogenic climate change as an excuse for stealing money.

This is pure Marxist income redistribution, i.e. stealing money from the wealthy countries and giving it to the poor countries. Here’s some excerpts from an International Monetary Fund press briefing:

* the IMF calls it a tax, and the tax is going to get heavier:

MR. COLLYNS: You can start off with a situation in which carbon taxes are relatively low, but provided that there is high credibility that those carbon prices will rise over time, then people will respond to the changing incentives.

Note the use of the word “incentive”. Yes, carbon taxes are an incentive for people to reduce carbon emissions, much like a slave master with a whip is an incentive for slaves to work. Politicians use language like this to disguise the truth.

The IMF admits that there will be an individual cost:

…there will be private economic costs arising from efforts to mitigate carbon emissions, for example, as a result of higher energy prices and increased investment requirements.

* here’s the admission that the Marxists are taking money from the rich and giving to the poor:

In regard to the effect of climate change on various countries:

…there may also be potential revenue opportunities from efficient carbon pricing schemes.

And:

QUESTIONER: You spoke about a lot of countries earning carbon credits and actually making some money out of the fact that they have tropical forests from these carbon funds. Most of these are emerging markets, you’ve got Indonesia and Africa as well.

What would you suggest that they would do with the money that they earned from those carbon funds? I mean should it be perhaps something like what oil rich countries have been doing is actually saving the money, the funds for the future. What would you say that they should be doing with that money?

MR. KEEN: I think perhaps I would just say, you are right, we are talking about developing and emerging markets. But we are also talking about the developed countries as well, where proper carbon pricing schemes, whether in the form of taxation or in the form of tradable permits for which a price was charged, would have revenue implications.

What one does with the revenues clearly has to be very country specific in terms of their own development priorities. What they see is where they see opportunities to strengthen other parts of their tax system. So it’s really very country specific. I don’t think we have a general one-size-fits-all recommendation on that.

MR. COLLYNS: From a macroeconomic perspective, the potential flows from payments for carbon credits could have macroeconomic implications. That is one of the things we’re going to be looking at in our chapter in our World Economic Outlook. The balance of payments implications, the exchange rate implications. One thing to be cautious about is that these revenues are well used, well directed into efficient local spending. But indeed, it’s quite possible that the best use for some of these funds will be to save them to avoid a “Dutch disease” type of problem. If you ramp up spending too quickly, it could lead to a loss of competitiveness in other parts of the economy which could have negative long term implications. So I think it is important to look at the temporal aspects of these issues when choosing how to use these funds.

MR. KATO: It is very country specific. It depends upon the source of monetary credit that country might earn. And certainly if that is an important issue, that will be taken up in context of the Article IV consultation surveillance.

* click here for a satirical view of climate change