Tag Archives: higher taxes

EV, heat pump mandates just the tip of the iceberg

From CFACT

By Duggan Flanakin

Midsection of businessman stacking coins with electric car at wooden table

“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton

Modern governments are infected with the idea that they are anointed to squelch the desires of ordinary humans. To hold onto power, they force compliance – in even insignificant ways – with their whims. They try to crush anyone who speaks or acts against their power.

Here’s an unspoken truth. While it is true that governments have subsidized the rich who buy electric vehicles, heat pumps, solar panels, wind turbines, and other products, their motives are far from the altruistic myth they spread across even kindergarten classrooms. They are rubbing our faces in the mud, saying, “Gimme your lunch money, or you will be sorry!”

And they are not ashamed, even when their pet policies create great harm to their “subjects.”

In the United Kingdom, the very birthplace of the Magna Carta and the modern theory of the “rights of man,” the government has decided to ban tobacco products, phasing it in over time. This comes on top of a myriad of other diktats – electric vehicles, heat pumps, and multi-front assaults on traditional culture.

Elsewhere in Europe, governments are just as smugly arrogant. As part of a putsch to force 40 million Europeans to buy electric vehicles (up from 8 million today), governments offer bribes to auto buyers to force-feed a future EV monopoly. Even in tiny Malta, 50 million euros have been allocated to “help” 5,000 Maltese into total dependency on the electric grid.

In the United States, government has decided to ban the export of natural gas, impose electric vehicle mandatesignore laws protecting endangered species in the name of “saving the planet,” attack the very foundations of liberty inscribed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and lock up those who resist and ignored their right to a speedy trial. Another mandate requires all new vehicles to have a government-controlled “kill switch.”

New York is now monitoring social media writings, collecting data, and using law enforcement to stifle expression it dubs as “hate speech.” As nearly everything from mathematics to Taylor Swift lyrics is now deemed by somebody as “racist,” it becomes clear that New York intends to suppress any opinion the monarchy does not like.

In Canada, the Prime Minister debanked truckers who fought for their jobs. Now, a new “Online Harms Act” would empower the government to put people in prison for life for “hate speech” (defined by them, of course). Talk about squelching freedom!

It’s not just the monarchy that wants to crush free people. In pre-pandemic 2019, The Atlantic “warned” that “Overtourism is destroying the planet.” Last year, The New Yorker made a new case against travel, asserting that “travel turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best.”

That is, of course, unless you were an Antifa rioter traveling from city to city to burn down buildings and assault the police. Or John Kerry and his merrie men out “saving the planet” on private jets.

Funny how this viewpoint dovetails with globalist demands for “15-minute cities,” which the BBC glowingly describes as a glorious model that “requires minimal travel among housing, offices, restaurants, parks, hospitals, and cultural venues.” Then there’s the push for per-mile highway taxes to further suppress private travel.

More people now see that would-be monarchs and their courtiers are hell-bent on forcing society to bend to their oft-misguided will. No wonder that anyone who challenges government power is tarred as a “right-wing extremist.”

American colonists rebelled against a 4 percent tea tax because the revenues were being sent to the monarchy. Today, much higher taxes are being extracted for earmarks, foreign “aid” that never helps ordinary people, and subsidies to the rich and powerful that harm average taxpayers.

The 2024 U.S. elections could be a referendum on the abuses of government power against the people – a vote up or down on the elitist control. Rest assured that the powerful will do all in their power to distract, obfuscate, and even encourage street violence to prevent any serious challenge to their rule. Consider how quickly House Speaker Mike Johnson became a mouse.

There is a budding revolt, even in once-free Britain. Evidence includes the fact that £173 million of a £300 million subsidy program for heat pumps to replace gas boilers remains unused after 2 years of the bribery scheme (only the rich took the money). Even new electric vehicle sales to private individuals fell by 14 percent last year despite government bribes and threats.

Eschewing Biden’s mandates, consumers cite marathon charging times, higher insurance rates, and benefits to China among their objections to being forced to abandon their 300 million cars and trucks just so their “leaders” can earn brownie points in Davos.

In what might be deemed a shocking development (a betrayal of her class), Rebecca Grynspan, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, admitted that “rich countries are using the green transition as an excuse to boost their own economies at the expense of developing ones, exploiting outdated WTO rules.”

Grynspan said developing countries see Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” and its European Union counterparts that subsidize domestic production of silicon chips, critical minerals, and green technology as “protectionist.”

She may as well have said “racist.” Developing nations are pressed to comply with EU- and UN-imposed “net zero” mandates via restrictions to trade, duties, and new taxes – all of which work against development of indigenous economies.

The massive wealth transfers to largely unregulated tech giants, the Big Three hedge funds (Black Rock, State Street, and Vanguard), and well-protected Big Pharma reveal just how much influence government has today over who wins and loses — and how the rich skew the game to their own advantage.

At the same time, leaders have brought the entire world to the brink of nuclear war.

A reckoning is coming.

Freedom that comes via oppression is only for the few.

The world today is crying out for freedom despite all the efforts of the monarchies and their courts to suppress and control the freedoms earned over centuries by those we once revered.

The battle is just now heating up.

As Coriolanus Snow might say, “Let the games begin.”

Why German Farmers Are Protesting: They Refuse To Be The Government’s Cash Cow

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 9. January 2024

The air is getting awfully thin for Germany’s Socialist/Green government. Never in postwar history has a ruling government been so unpopular, and there’s a reason for that. 

The reasons tens of thousands of farmers and truckers have blocked major traffic arteries everywhere and paralyzed the country is because of the governments insatiable appetite for tax revenue, which it needs to pay for the massive green new deal to decarbonize Germany by 2040.

Moreover, governments in Europe are attempting to liquidate agriculture and hand over all the farmland to huge, faceless corporations. Farmers are rising up and are not going to take it anymore.

What is angering the farmers?

  1. Higher fuel tax. The government announced it would raise the fuel tax on agricultural diesel. Farmers pay 20 cents a liter less than regular motorists. The government now says farmers have to pay the same price as everyone else.  The problem, though, is that the fuel tax was initially imposed in order to pay for road maintenance and repair. And because tractors burn most of the fuel working the fields and not on streets, the government gave the farmers a break. The government now wants to end this “subsidy”.
  2. Vehicle registration tax. The government also wants to impose a vehicle registration tax on tractors and forestry vehicles. Up to now, these vehicles have been exempt, because again their use was mostly off road. Here the government wants to charge a vehicle tax on tractors and foresty vehicles as well, and thus put an end to this “subsidy”.
  3. Expanded highway tolls: Truckers are protesting the government’s plan to impose a highway toll on all vehicles that are 3.5 tons or heavier, beginning July 1, 2024.
  4. Inflation: Higher energy prices, in large part due to renewable energies, have fueled inflation and made it more difficult for farmers and truckers to earn a living.
  5. New fertilizer regulation, which limits and restricts farmers in their use of fertilizers and aimed to ensure “sustainable fertilizer practice, reliability for farmers, and clean waterways.

Other facts:

  1. 260,000 farms are operating in Germany. Many face financial hardship from the energy policies.
  2. The conservative right-wing AfD and center-right CDU and CSU parties support the farmers.
  3. The farmers and truckers are getting vast support from the population. Many are attending the protests.
  4. Environmental groups, like Greenpeace, on the other hand, say the government’s controversial measures don’t go far enough and that agriculture is emitting too much greenhouse gases.
  5. The farmers will protest at least a week.
  6. Despite the disruptions, the farmers and truckers enjoy support from a vast majority of the citizens. They know that they will end up footing the bill through higher prices.
  7. Farmers from neighboring countries like Poland, Austria, Hungary, France, Holland and Switzerland are joining the German protests.
  8. The media and government first tried to ignore the protests, but now are attacking the farmers, some are even claiming Russia or Nazis are behind them.
  9. In the meantime news of German farmer’s protests are captivating the headlines. The genie is out of the bottle.
  10. Germany faces even more chaos, as the train conductors of the country’s massive German railway are threatening to go on strike next week.
  11. Only 17% of Germans say they are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the government. So there’s a real chance that the protests could even intensify and spread.

What can be expected to happen?

  1. Don’t expect the government and complicit media to give in to the farmer’s demands. They are ideologically driven and are convinced they know what’s best for everyone. They don’t care what the vast majority want. Dissenters get dismissed as rightwing nutjobs.
  2. The CDU/CSU center right party, under the leadership of Angela Merkel, started the whole mess and they are no opposition (German RINOS).
  3. Only the right-wing AfD party has taken on the role of opposition. Currently they are polling at about 21-22% nationwide. over 30% in the East. There are calls to ban the party, because some claim they are “a danger to democracy.”

Tumultuous times in Germany and Europe.