Here’s the story the major mainstream media would prefer not to mention at all.
Hat-tip: Die kalte Sonne site here.
At the online finanznachrichten.de there’s a short report about a recent Swiss vote on a Greens-Liberals energy tax initiative. The result:
92 percent voted against the initiative that would tax the consumption of non-renewable energies such as oil, gas, coal and uranium instead of having a value added tax. According to the Greens-Liberals it would be an effective instrument for reducing energy consumption and for promoting renewable energies.”
In summary on a few fringe activists in Switzerland are interested in taxing reliable and still affordable fossil and nuclear energy.
The Swiss Blick.ch called the result “an historic debacle” and “the most massive slap up beside the head ever” that a citizens’ initiative has ever suffered in Switzerland. Blick.ch writes:
The failure was historic – no initiative has ever gotten a result of less than 10 percent.”
Die kalte Sonne comments on the result, reminding us that it was…:
…the most clear rejection by the citizens since the founding of the modern Swiss federal state in 1848. It is also notable that the parties who supported the petition for a referendum, “The Green-Liberals” and “The Greens”, were not even able to convince many of their own voters. Both parties together represent 13.8% of all voters.”
Die kalte Sonne also comments on the lopsidedness of the result, claiming that it is the sort that one is accustomed to seeing in “hardcore communist states”. Only this time the vote was free and offered a choice.
Sensible folk, the Swiss
Don’t know about the rest of the world (apart from Switzerland), but the British people don’t get a say in this kind of thing. The politicians don’t trust us.
Oh, they DO trust us – they trust us to kick all their “anthropogenic climate change” crap and their useless waste-of-space and money “alternate energies” out the door.
That’s why they won’t let us vote – they know the outcome and don’t want it (they have too much invested in the wind turbines and the fake wave-power generation)
If US or UK were allowed a vote, I suspect a similar outcome….
… but the government would do it anyway.
Several blackouts in the Cologne area stopped the rollercoasters of PhantasiaLand, an amusement park, over Eastern.
http://www.handelsblatt.com/panorama/aus-aller-welt/vergnuegungspark-stromausfall-in-phantasialand/11601164.html
Whether this is related to the unreliable electricity production of wind and Solar the paper does not tell. The blackouts were not limited to the amusement park, so not a failure of their machinery.
It might be advisable to use the stairs and avoid the lift when in Germany.
Much more info here: http://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/panorama/id_73536616/phantasialand-mit-drittem-stromausfall-in-24-stunden.html Will post on this today.
Here is a link with details about the plan and the idea behind the tax on wikipedia. Thre is also the full text of the proposed law (but it is in german):
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidgen%C3%B6ssische_Volksinitiative_%C2%ABEnergie-_statt_Mehrwertsteuer%C2%BB
The main argument against the tax is simple: as the tax would be a revenue neutral replacement of the value added tax, less and less fossil fuels would have to be taxed more and more.
It is easy to see, that many opponents were afraid, that the state would lose revenue.
The tax contains ideas to weaken the effect on exports and poor people.
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A comparison between this proposal and others is difficult, as it was perceived as a raise of taxes for the majority of people.
so a fair comparison is with other proposals of this sort.
In the last election in Germany, the green and SPD parties were also running on a program of tax increases (income tax) and many analysts are saying, that this explains big parts of their weak results.
“In the last election in Germany, the green and SPD parties were also running on a program of tax increases (income tax) and many analysts are saying, that this explains big parts of their weak results.”
This shows that the Germans are still too reactionary to see what is good for them, and our efforts to create the New Man must be redoubled!
The “Wolf in Sheep’s clothing” (Fabians) had the right idea: Eugenics! Genetic progressivism”. That’s the plan behind the curtain.
Democracy in action !
This was an effort by a young political party (the Green Liberal Party, less “étatist” and more “business friendly” than the Greens or the Socialists) to come up with a “price neutral” solution to global warming. Apparently they had hoped to attract support from the Center and Center-Right.
VAT was to be shelved and replaced by a tax on CO2, resulting in no additional net tax revenue.
The Greens and Socialists rejected it because they both favor the current VAT system as well as additional tax revenue (for “Climate” as well as other initiatives). The rest rejected it because the plan was half-baked (and was correctly recognized as a recipe for disaster). Nice ideas can often have unintended consequences.
Nevertheless, our Bundesrat (Executive branch, wherein all major political forces are represented) intends to proceed with its own tbd “CO2 reduction measures” simultaneously with a decommissioning of nuclear power plants.
Eventually, this “feel good” train of Energy/Climate/Anti-nuke reform will run into the brick wall of reality.
Kurt in Switzerland