“Green” is the Color of Money

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Gas is cheaper than it’s ever been.algorean

Well, it would be – if we were just paying for gas.

But it’s artificially more expensive because of the taxes – and regulatory costs – tacked on to the cost of each gallon.

The taxes are disproportionate (nationally, they account for about 50 cents of the cost per gallon, which works out to a tax rate of appx. 25 percent or 2-3 times the ordinary sales tax in most states) as well as hugely regressive (most of us have to buy gas – unlike meals out  – and the tax hits the poor and working class the hardest) and arguably punitive – designed purposely to discourage driving by making driving ever-more-expensive.

But wait  – there’s more.

In California, a prequel of sorts is being rolled out that could go national – if it’s not stopped dead in it tracks (which hopefully it will be). An unelected and so largely dictatorial regulatory body vested with open-ended powers called the Air Resources Board (CARB) has been using its authority to jack up gas prices via “carbon credits” (that’s Algorean for taxes) that transfer money from the pockets of California drivers to “clean” and “green” government-approved projects such as mass transit, bicycle lanes and – of course – electrified boondoggles such as Tesla.

California plumbers and electricians making $40k annually get to “help” finance the purchase of six-figure electric cars – and line the pockets of billionaire crony capitalists like Elon Musk.carb pic

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office figures the add-on cost of these “green” fees will amount to 20-50 cents per gallon in total by 2020. This is on top of California’s already highest-in-the-country taxes on motor fuels. As of late May, a gallon of regular unleaded in the Golden State had risen to nearly $4 ($3.807 to be precise, according to the California Energy Commission; see here)   vs. about $2.40 on average nationally.

During the final week of May, the price of regular unleaded in CA rose by 7.5 cents per gallon – and summer’s just begun.

CARB’s “green fees” are a principal driver. But adding to the problem (via anticipation) are additional taxes (actually called taxes this time) on oil extraction  being proposed and pushed by Democrats (chiefly) who in turn are being funded and egged on by billionaire “environmental activist” Tom Steyer – for whom of course paying even $10 a gallon for gas is a small price to pay in the name of saving of the planet. Steyer made his billions managing hedge funds – which, it’s worth mentioning, are not subject to the sort of regulatory oversight he now favors for the little people.  And many of the “investments” he was involved in – and got rich via – involved (surprise!) oil and gas exploration projects, including tar sands extraction and fracking.

Now that he’s got his – he doesn’t want you to get yours.    

The oil extraction tax is also deliberately punitive – meant to discourage the production of oil in CA and thereby, limit the amount of gas that will be available not only in CA – and make whatever gas is available more costly. Which will discourage driving – that is, the use of private cars by ordinary people.Steyer pic

But billionaires such as Steyer – and Elon Musk and (of course) Al Gore (who is merely a multi-millionaire) will not be affected. Just as Dear Leader – whether it’s Obama or his successor – will continue to be chauffeured in the 4 MPG “beast” (the presidential armored limo).

It’s not driving per se that’s being targeted. It’s the you and me driving that’s being targeted.

But hey – I don’t live in California. Why worry?

Because what starts in California has a way of ending up as national policy.

CARB’s edicts, for example, affect the price of every new car sold in America – not just in California – because California is the nation’s biggest car market and it’s too expensive and inefficient for the car companies to build California-acceptable cars and then “49 state” acceptable cars. Hence, all new cars – whether destined for a dealership lot in Sacramento or one in Bangor, Maine are CARB-approved and compliant.

These “green” taxes being Beta tested in CA will also likely spread to other states and perhaps nationally. “Carbon credits” are already being “exchanged” (that is, money being transferred from you pockets to the pockets of others) in several states.the beast

It is only a matter of time and political maneuvering before unacceptably low gas prices (unacceptable to crony capitalist billionaires, that is) rise even higher than the “greenhouse gasses” they purport to combat.

If Al Gore drove a 45 MPG subcompact economy car instead of a 15 MPG V8 Cadillac Escalade – and billionaires like Steyer and Musk did not have “carbon footprints” several times the size of bigfoot’s (how much coal-fired electricity is burned up keeping the lights on at Steyer’s multiple homes and 2,000 acre ranch?) it would not be so easy to question their motives – and suspect their integrity.

It’s curious they became “green” once they themselves were literally rolling in it.

And now, they want to lock the gates to their McMansions and – echoing Marie Antoinette – let the masses eat cake.

And walk to work.   

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27 COMMENTS

  1. I’ll believe climate change is a crisis when the people who tell us it’s a crisis start ACTING like it’s a crisis.

    If that were so, you’d see these things…here are just 10:

    1. The President and other officials would make a lot more use of Skype and WebEx for public appearances.

    2. The federal government would encourage telecommuting and shrink its office space.

    3. The feds (and states, counties and cities) would shrink their motor and air pools dramatically, and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. No more Hemi Chargers and Durangos, twin-turbo Tauruses and Explorers and Tahoes, Impalas and Caprices with LT1 Corvette motors, not to mention private jets and choppers.

    4. You’d see a lot more vegetarian options at state dinners.

    5. You’d see the President make more use of rail travel.

    6. You’d see the White House remodeled into an LEED-certified green facility.

    7. You’d see the First Family do a lot less jet-setting all over creation.

    8. You’d see celebrities and corporate chieftains downsizing to smaller homes and ditching their supercars.

    9. You’d see more mainstream newspapers and books go completely online. I mean, think of the pollution involved in making the paper and ink, and the fuel burned to truck them around.

    10.

    Hey, even Jimmah Cartah wore a sweater in the White House, walked to the Capitol and put solar panels on the roof of the White House.

    FYI, Uncle Sam is one of the biggest energy hogs and biggest polluters out there. I know because I once worked with a company that was involved in cleaning up decommissioned military bases. The pollution was unlike anything you’d find anywhere else.

    • There were a lot of ‘shortages’ during WW II. “‘This was the universal phrase in the United States in response to shortages: “Don’t you know there’s a war on?'” (Gary North)
      The proper response would have been “Why is there a war on?” To which the gunvermin and the sheeple would have cried, “Because Japan attacked us.”
      But Japan did not attack ‘us.’ They attacked the US Navy in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. What was the Navy doing in Hawaii? ‘Defending’ the territory ‘we’ had conquered from the previously independent Hawaiians.

  2. Don’t forget about “hidden taxes”.

    Actual ‘total taxes’ on retail gasoline are over 50%.

    Because the government taxes every product you buy at every stage of its production & distribution. It all gets silently bundled into the final sales price to the end consumer.

    Federal, state, county, and local governments don’t just slap a sales tax on a product when you finally buy it retail– they also aggressively tax that product during every step of its production and distribution.

    Who ultimately pays the property taxes for oil drilling fields and refineries? Who pays all the taxes on that tanker truck delivering gasoline to your local gas station (?)… and that truck has to pay fuel taxes just like you. Think the gas station owner pays no taxes on that real estate, utilities, and licensing… or that he taps his kid’s college savings fund to pat such business costs?
    And there’s all sorts of employment & business taxes on all the folks who get that gasoline to your tank.

    It all adds up, but most Americans are clueless about actual taxation levels on gasoline, and everything else. Hillary will probably make it a campaign issue ☺

  3. eric, I felt compelled to post this somewhere…..and this seemed as good a spot as any. We have had quite a few discussion of new cars being hacked. If Michael Hastings wasn’t hacked then why did the LAPD cremate his body after his family via lawyers had already requested it back following the “official” autopsy?

    In that light, here’s a bit more on hacking cars:

    http://cu.convio.net/site/R?i=8LoN0hENru5EJEWLuKjUWQ

  4. Unrelated, but odd — out here in SoCal, gas is back up to around $4 per gallon; no surprise on that, with oil prices back up a bit.

    But, what is shocking to me is that diesel is now just above $3 per gallon, ballpark $0.80 LESS per gallon than gasoline.

    It used to be — just months ago — that diesel was more expensive, ~$0.50 per gallon, IIRC.

    Any idea what is going on?

  5. Al Gore is an investor in carbon trading firms. This is all about lining his pockets. I wouldn’t be surprised if Steyer had a money making angle in this too.

      • I knew Gore was only pushing an agenda, but learning of that little fact right there makes me wonder why I’ve never heard of that before. I’ve heard the hypocritical examples, but not that one. That one shows that Gore is lying about his professed beliefs. You’d think his opponents would have advertised this fact. How could global warming, err, climate change, believers rationalize it?

        • Gore grew up living the high life. He’s nothing but a spoiled brat without morals(makes you wonder what would have happened had he won over GB)who never had any other ambition but continuing to live that life and exert more power over people than his father.

          That Ca. home is a mansion de luxe with a larger electrical service(I saw a pic of it years ago, taken by someone putting it over on the ever-present security forces there)large enough to run most small industrial entities. Sure enough, we get to pay for most of it courtesy “national security”. He even got electrical service via means almost no one else could have arranged and probably at a rate not obtainable by most anyone else either. I recall seeing the entire place lit up at night from the air. And you know that photo wasn’t on the up and up since his “air defenses” were and are probably formidable.

          • There’s a scene in his movie. Al holding forth about “climate change”… while behind the wheel of his Escalade.

            • Eric, how about when Gore is in the private jet talking about climate in “An inconvenient Truth”. He burned as much oil in one hour as I did last YEAR! Never trust a hypocrite, i.e any politician!

              But to be honest I don’t know what jet he was flying but a modern G650 burns 503gl/hr and we burned(recorded) 618gl/yr(2014). I assume a private jet 9 years ago wasn’t quite as efficient as today’s

            • PTB,

              We do know. Owl Bore created the lie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, LOL! His agenda is to F the populace deep, long and hard. And by the creator of all things living he’ll do it one way or the other! Presickdick or not!

              Mah two cents and I’m sticking wid it.

              David Ward
              Guitarman6052@gmx.com
              Memphis, Tennessee

            • PtB, No we’ll never know. But to use the Shrub’s vernacular, my gut feeling(he was big on gut feelings….since he was a stupid dolt)said Al would not have blatantly lied, a treasonous crime, to the people of this country. What the Shrub did was high treason, he and his cohorts all told lies they knew were false to take this country to war. He and his minions should have been strung up long ago. And that’s the reason I still collect rope and will be available at some point to go to DC and “hang em high”, the whole friggin town. Lots of light poles, traffic poles and cherry trees. Get er done.

              • Ok,

                Is it just me or does the site seem to have things backwards? When I post without logging in to the site, the post appears automatically. When I post after logging in the post are moderated. What is WRONG with this picture. People that take the time to set up an account should post immediately and the people that do not should be moderated. Just saying!

                David Ward
                Guitarman6052@gmx.com
                Memphis, Tennessee

        • Hi Brandon,

          It’s a religion – a secular one – but nevertheless. And (no offense intended) religions are by definition taken on faith. They require the suspension of disbelief.

  6. Random thoughts:

    I wonder how much pollution is created by the manufacturing of catalytic converters.

    I wonder how much pollution is created by making cars disposable rather than repairable.

    I see cars with perfect bodies going to the crusher because all the pollution equipment and electronic transmissions cost more to fix than the cars are worth. How much pollution does that create?

    If oil came from decaying plant matter didn’t it have to give off those evil greenhouse gases in that natural process?

    If coal was once oil, didn’t it half to release a bunch of those dreaded volatile organic aromatic hydrocarbons in the conversion?

    If coal turns to shale and even in some cases diamonds during it’s natural circle of evolution, then didn’t it too have to give off all those dreaded gases?

    A compost pile for your garden gives off all the same gases as your old pre pollution controlled cars, so, aren’t all the forest floors on earth sheet composting and giving off “greenhouse” gases?

    If the plants contain carbon, that passed it on to oil, that passed it on to coal, never did that because they just rotted above ground on the forest floor wouldn’t they release the same gases?

    So, if we never burned any oil or coal isn’t it chemically burning in the ground anyway as it goes through it’s cycle of decay?

    • Clik – And don’t forget the replacement cost of airbags that may have been set off in an otherwise minor fender bender.

    • In the Indiana Dunes State Park, there is a stream that drains into Lake Michigan right by the main beach. Often the water draining from this stream is a reddish (you can often see it from the google map) color. Most assume its pollution from NW Indiana’s heavy industry, but its not. It’s due to the decay of natural plant material in the woods and swamps behind the dunes. What one person considers “pollution” often isn’t, even when presented with the evidence. Few consider “natural” processes pollution.

      But oil naturally oozes into the gulf of Mexico. Is that pollution? Or is decayed leaves and grasses in the Indiana Dunes?

  7. Any plumber or electrician in California who only makes $40K is either a journeyman or really terrible at their job. But your point is made, the working/productive classes are once again milked for revenue because that’s where the money is.

    The hypocrites environmentalists seem to love breaking out the hair shirt and making us feel guilty for our lifestyles. You wonder why kids don’t want cars? Because it’s been drummed into them from day one that they’re evil. And because they grew up watching the clock and “structured” playtime, they don’t have a problem with living on a bus schedule. Of course the elites are happy to live on their own timelines, thank you, by purchasing their own transportation and leaving carbon footprints bigger than Sasquatch.

    But the great thing about being a rich environmentalist is that you can buy your way into heaven. All you need to do is raise “awareness” and your sins will be washed clean. Heck, if you do it right you’ll even make a buck or two in the process, or at least give your kids something to do instead of directly sponging off you. There’s a lot of charity money out there, so why not put your kids in the non-profit money stream? It worked out great for Rockefeller, and he was pure evil.

  8. There is a reason CA especially, along w/OR and WA, are referred to as ‘the Left Coast.’ From there these ‘Progressive’ ideas jump across to Yankee land, then work their way back through flyover country.
    I wish the San Andreas fault would cause a little plate tectonics shift.

      • Judging from a report I just read about the recorded events from the last year and the last few months, we may not have a long wait. Look at a map of tectonic plates and you’ll see 3 major plates in the San Andreas area that have been very active recently. With 30 to 40 miles or in some cases, just a bit more, the likelihood of a “large” movement soon seems imminent. In any case, the Ring of Fire is mighty active. Love is a burning thing and it makes a fiery ring…….ok, it may not be love.

        A couple months ago due to an article in SHTF or some such, me and my old college buds had a fantasy of if it really happened and an 1800′ tsunami happened in the Atlantic how most of the population centers in the US would be wiped out. It was hard for me to focus on that while thinking about seafood in the back 40 and maybe a couple tankers of propane washed up. The old Ranger would be mighty handy. I could just toss all those bills from Austin and those yankees.

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