Again, voting Remain is not voting for the status quo

In your humble Devil's last post, I pointed out that a vote to Remain in the EU is, in fact, not a vote for the current situation.

As a swift adjunct to that, I find this July 2015 article, from Andrew Lilico, which neatly reinforces the economic problems within the Euro area.

So when British politicians propose that EU political integration should slow or that the EU should prioritize some other objective (e.g. the Single Market), that is not merely seen as unattractive—it is impossible.

The reasons why are economic. As was widely discussed in the UK debate about the euro in the 1990s and early 2000s, to make a single currency such as the euro work, one needs an adequate combination of trade integration, similarity of economic cycles (so that one size fits all interest rate and exchange rate policies do indeed fit all), capital and labour mobility (to offset any “asymmetries” in economic shocks – that is, economic shocks hitting some parts of the Eurozone harder than others) and fiscal transfers (to compensate for any large or long-term differential performance that is not offset by capital and labour mobility).

The Eurozone has fairly good trade integration, some material differences in economic cycles (though not especially larger than the differences between regions within the UK or US), and fairly high capital mobility. But even when they occur at around the same time (so cycles are not out), economic shocks affect some parts of the Eurozone much worse than others (as we have seen in the Eurozone crisis). And, Ireland excepted, labour mobility is not particularly high (despite all the complaints about immigration in some Member States).
That means—as has been argued all along—that for the Eurozone to work over the longer term there will need to be much more significant fiscal transfers between regions.

Which is precisely what I articulated a few days ago. And, of course, in order for the economic scenario to work, there must be more political union.

If adequate economic mechanisms and political union are not introduced, it is believed that the Eurozone crisis will return and anti-European sentiment will (rightly) increase, ultimately destroying the Eurozone and the EU project as a whole. Banking union and constraints upon Member State budgets have been introduced. Even more political integration is on the way.

So in the Eurozone, the answer to increased Euroscepticism is not seen as any form of rowing back on integration. Quite the opposite — Euroscepticism has arisen because political integration had not proceeded rapidly enough.

For the Eurozone and EU to survive at all, deeper political integration, including Eurozone-level tax and spending decisions and democratic mechanisms to oversee them plus reduced control over tax and spending decisions for Member State, are an existential necessity.

Quite so. Lilico's conclusion implies that the current referendum may be very far from being the last turning point for the UK in its relationship with the EU.

This all means current debates about whether the UK will have a referendum and how folk will vote is of only passing significance. What counts fundamentally to whether the UK stays in the EU after about 2020 is whether there are any non-euro members of the EU at all, given the existential economic necessity of the Eurozone forming into a deeper political union. At present that seems highly unlikely.

It may be that, regardless of the result of the referendum on July 23, the UK will have another chance to choose its destiny within the European Union. That is the optimistic view.

The less optimistic view—at least, for those of us who have no interest in being swallowed up by a European super-state based on Napoleonic Law (rather than the Common Law)—is this: that our leaders will view any vote against leaving the current arrangement as an affirmative decision to enter into this superstate.

That must not be allowed to happen. For all that the Leave campaign have been incompetent in being able to articulate this unpleasant future, the Remain campaign have expressly avoided telling the British people the inevitable future of political and economic integration.

If the British do not vote to Leave the status quo, only the extremely dishonest would take that to mean that they have signed up to a federalist future.

Scientists hoist by their own petard

Now, as we all know, there is a pressing problem that we have—all this carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is warming the planet and we are all going to fry unless we severely reduce our output of said gas.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the effective ways of generating the energy that makes our world go round emit CO₂ to a large extent; but, so severe is the problem, our politicians have responded to the urging of the scientific experts and put in place a number of measures to make carbon emission—and thus energy generation—much more expensive.

Now, do remember that this is all climate scientists because, of course, there is a "consensus" on the climate change topic. And almost all other scientists have urged us to listen to the climate scientists because they know what they are talking about and we laymen—even those who have a rather more specialist knowledge of statistical analysis or computer model programming—have no idea at all.

So, basically, we can say that the vast majority of the world's scientists back urgent action on carbon emissions: energy must be made much more expensive. Oh, wait, we didn't mean for us!

World-class research into future sources of green energy is under threat in Britain from an environmental tax designed to boost energy efficiency and drive down carbon emissions, scientists claim.

Some facilities must find hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle green tax bills, putting jobs and research at risk.

Altogether now... Aaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha! Aaaaahahahaha! Ah-ha! Ha!

Wait—let me catch my breath.

Aaaaaaaaaahaahahahahahahahaa! Aaaaaahahaha.

Whew.

Right. I... Aaaaahahaha. Ha.

OK, no, really, I'm sorry. I haven't laughed that much since Chris Huhne admitted that he drove a car.

Anyway, so, what are these scientists going to do? Could it be that they are going to cough up gladly, pointing out that this is precisely the outcome that they wanted? Ah, no.

The unexpected impact of the government's carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme is so severe that scientists and research funders have lobbied ministers for an exemption to reduce the bills.

No, absolutely not.

Alright, I admit that a good deal of the satisfaction of the above is based purely on spite: you bastards (as in the scientific community) insisted that we take action on climate change—and you got it. I don't see why everyone but you should suffer.

Yes, it might seem counter-intuitive that government-funded initiatives should have to pay government taxes (in the same way that it might seem odd that government-funded jobs need to pay taxes) but there are, as Timmy points out, a couple of valid reasons (i.e. ones not based on spite) why scientists should not be exempt.

1. It would be a subsidy. And we want subsidies to be out in the open. We want to be able to add up what whatever rule or regulation, tax or charge, actually costs us. So we don’t want any hidden subsidies at all. This applies to everything: council house rents should be full market rents, even if that means everyone gets housing benefit. We can then look at the benefit bill and see how much housing the poor costs us. Trains and farmers should pay full whack on fuel duty, even if that means we then have to send them a cheque to compensate. We want to be able to see, exactly, what their subsidy is.


2. We absolutely do not want things run by politicians and bureaucrats to be free of the rules politicians and bureuacrats impose upon the rest of us. It’s our only hope of reducing the complexities, that they have to struggle with their impositions as we do. Note the screams from MPs as their expenses are doled out in the same manner the dole is doled out. Quite bloody right too.

But it is very entertaining, nonetheless, to listen to the various sob stories highlitedby the Grauniad article...

Among the worst hit is the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, a facility for research into almost limitless carbon-free energy. The lab faces an estimated £400,000 payment next year, raising the spectre of job losses and operational cuts. "Considering our research is aimed at producing zero-carbon energy, it seems ironic and perverse to clobber us with an extra bill," a senior scientist at the lab said. "We have to use electricity to run the machine and there is no way of getting around that."

And that is different from other businesses how, exactly?

Oh, by the way, you're flogging a dead horse: you may have the largest fusion reactor in Europe but if it actually generated, you know, any electricity then you could offset the costs, eh? But it doesn't.

Another Oxfordshire laboratory, the Diamond synchrotron light source, expects a £300,000 bill under the CRC. A spokesman said the lab hoped to offset the bill by investing in better climate control and motion-sensitive lighting.

Well, that's what the government is telling private businesses to do—why should it not apply to these scientist types?

At the Daresbury laboratory in Cheshire, the CRC bill will worsen financial woes that have forced managers to draft redundancy packages and consider cutting back on equipment. "Science is already struggling here and now we are being charged an additional premium to go about our everyday business while working to address the government's own stated grand challenges in science for the 21st century.," said Lee Jones, an accelerator physicist at the laboratory.

Well, we are all doing that, Lee: after all, some of us have to try to "address the government's own stated grand challenges" for GDP growth over the next five years—also in the face of rising costs and taxes.

So, with all due respect, o science types, you can take your exemption and stuff it up your pontificating arseholes.

Budget for Growth: not oiling the wheels of business

A few days ago, in my comment on the Budget, your humble Devil pointed out that raising the tax on the oil companies was completely fucking stupid.

Quite simply, with fuel prices lowered, people will buy more of it—demand increases. But Osborne is going to tax the suppliers of this good, so that they produce less of it. Is the man a complete moron?

Well, that didn't take long, did it?

One of the world's biggest oil companies, Norway's Statoil, has halted work on two North Sea projects because of the huge tax hit on oil fields in the Budget.

It comes after smaller companies such as Valiant Petroleum warned that they are re-evaluating new projects, since the Chancellor increased tax by 12 percentage points to more than 62pc.

There have also been reports that oil majors have withdrawn plans to sell billions of pounds in North Sea fields nearing the end of their lives, leading to fears they will be abandoned with oil still in the ground.

Statoil, the Norwegian state-controlled company, said on Tuesday it will "pause and reflect" on the future of its Mariner and Bressay fields to the south east of Shetland.

So, what we are faced with is a decrease (however small it may be in the grand scheme of things) in the supply of oil just as the Chancellor has dropped the price of petrol.

And that drop in price is supposed to be paid for by this increased tax on North Sea oil producers. Only the tax increase will see said producers actually producing less. As Timmy says, this is a very neat demonstration of the Laffer Curve in action...

Whether this will actually lead to a decline in tax revenues overall is moot at this point: it certainly won’t lead to a reduction in short term revenues. But it will definitely lead to a reduction in the amount of oil pumped up over the decades and so is quite likely to lead to a reduction in the long term tax take.

And do note that no one is trying to dodge a tax, no one is trying to pass it on. It’s simply that the imposition of a tax has made previously viable activity now non-viable. We’re, in that long term, poorer because of the tax.

Leading to the conclusion that George Osborne is a total fuckwit because he won't raise the revenue that he expects from the producers.

On the other hand, it might be that George Osborne is, in fact, possessed of a near-fiendish Machiavellian cunning...

Because what may happen—especially with the current uncertainty in the other areas of the oil-producing world—is that these announcements are enough to put an upward pressure on the price of oil. This will then raise the price of petrol at the pump, enabling Osborne to wibble on about "greedy oil companies raping the British consumer".

Then, as the price of oil goes up, the Treasury—collecting fuel duty and VAT (a percentage of the price)—gets even more cash than they would have raked in from the 1p duty anyway. In this way, the government can rim its citizens for more cash whilst looking like the good guy.

Actually, of course, I don't think that Osborne has the intellectual nouse to pull that kind of cunning stunt—it's just that he's a stunning cunt.

No shit

Via Dick Puddlecote, I see that someone has woken up to the idea that speed cameras might actually cause accidents.

Eighty-one per cent of respondents to the insurer’s survey admitted to instantly looking at their speedometers, instead of the road, on detecting a speed camera and one in twenty admitted to braking suddenly, risking losing control of their vehicle or a rear-end shunt.

In other news, the Pope is still Catholic and bears do shit in the woods.

And what is the scale of the problem...?

The insurer estimates that at least 28,000 road accidents have been triggered by the cameras since 2001 and nearly one in three motorists questioned said they had witnessed an accident or near miss as a result of other drivers’ erratic behaviour when faced with one of the cameras.

Close to half of motorists surveyed believe the cameras divert attention away from other areas of driving while one in ten claim that speed cameras increase the risk of an accident.

Speed cameras cause accidents by distracting drivers from the road in front of them and causing them to drive erratically.

This is far more likely to cause an accident than travelling at 45mph in a 40mph area.

In other news, water is—apparently—wet...