Just working back through a load of left open and forgotten browser windows and came across Iain Dales, second misguided piece about the EU banning a dozen eggs*
And was reminded of the following rant/observation made by a friend of mine:
“There seems to be an obsession with misreporting EU legislation and yet, the actual real-bad legislation never gets very much reported, if I was into conspiracy theory I’d say that it was deliberate so bad-shit could just be hidden in the lies and crap but that’s unfounded because the British government have actually been quite good about some of the bad EU law and fought it , and lost.
The British government did a really good campaign on trying to fight the tax-flattening on pleasure craft fuel which was forced on us by the EU. In the past, pleasure boats could use pink-diesel and not be taxed on it anything like as much. Forcing pleasure craft to use fully taxed diesel has pretty much destroyed Britain’s pleasure-craft industry for all but the rich now, which in turn will destroy the economy of a lot of places…
But was that reported? Not much… Nothing like as much as some bollocks about not being able to sell eggs by the dozen any more.
Sure, a bunch of Scottish islands and a whole bunch of people who make their living out of the canal boats will go bust, but that’s nothing compared to … Well, eggs.
As it happens, the Brits complied with the fuel thing but accidentally forgot to employ any inspectors to make sure people were listening and not filling with pink… there is of course the other problem that most boat tanks will have remnants of pink diesel dye in them anyway so it’s practically impossible to test.”
So whilst you’ll still be able to buy a dozen eggs from a ruddy cheeked farmers wife, chances are you won’t be on a relaxing canal boat holiday when you do so.
*But not yet it seems four candles
Reading the Metro today is seems that the Transport Minister Sadiq Khan has announced that the fines for over running roadworks will be increased from 2,500 pounds a day to 25,000 pounds a day, which notionally seems a good idea just as it did when he announced the same thing back in October.
One thing that the new announcement does tackle is the concern that “utility firms could use it as an excuse to put up domestic prices to compensate“, the cunning plan to stop this which can not possibly fail is …they won’t be allowed to do it. Because of course if the Government tells them not to pass on the costs they’ll just accept the lost profits and work harder to avoid the fines, there’s no chance they won’t just change prices for utterly unrelated reasons that happen to cover this increased overhead.
With a government so full of people skilled at fleecing the tax payer whilst working strictly within “the rules”, you’d have thought that they might at least suspect that merely forbidding something may not actually work. A more cynical person might in fact suspect that every time they forbid the passing on over regulatory costs they know damn well they’ll be covered in the next price hike. Though if one were that cynical one might also note that it’s a neat indirect route of pulling money out of our pockets without actually increasing taxes and with the added bonus of being able to blame those evil utility companies
So after the G20 decided that a Tobin tax was a bad idea it has risen zombie like at the behest of varies lovies lefties and media pundits under the new name of The Robin hood tax. Which is far more fun sounding, though one has to ignore that Robin Hood was if the legends can be believed mainly against taxation, and has it’s own FaceBook page. Of course all of the problems pointed out last time about the Tobin tax still apply, it requires global enforcement else all of the transactions to be taxed will just change jurisdiction, it needs to be worded such that a minor change in the transactions won’t make them exempt and of course as observed by the Salted Slug if adding o.o5% was so painless the traders would already be charging 0.05% more. And all of that aside the banks will pass on these charges to theier customers in one form or another even if it’s just lower interest rates, and it will need to be administered and Governments don’t have a terribly good track record of move money from taxes to the “poor” very effectively. Oh and of course the banking crisis wasn’t caused by ForEx traders that a tobin tax is aimed at, but by poor credit and risk management. So the “Robin Hood” tax isn’t even going to affect the right group of “evil” bankers.
If people are so concerned about helping the poor why not ask the main parties the same question as Norman Tebbit is asking? Namely why are people that are considered to be so badly off they qualify for benefits at the same time expected to pay taxes? What sense can it make to pay one bunch of beauracrats to give them money whilst at the same time paying another lot to take it back off them? Could just not taking some taxes be a much simpler and better solution to helping the poor than trying to construct a globally agreed bureaucracy to take taxes from one group of people to give to another group of people that are also being taxed?
For those that say it would be used for the truly needy nations and not for the poor in the west, how well do you think that will work? Who’s going to decide which nations get to partake of this global bounty? Would it again not be simpler to just let these poorer nations off the debt they owe to other governments, or at least the interest? Or if that’s going to far how about removing the various trade barriers that help to stop the third world competing on a more even footing?
Of course if your goal isn’t to actually help the poor but rather to establish global control over banking and financial trading… do carry on.
Oh I should mention there is also a FaceBook page for people who think the Tobin tax is a stupid idea.
