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from the extant-dinosaurs-dealing-in-dead-dinosaurs dept.
Common Dreams reports
Governments are failing to properly tax fossil fuel consumption, with enormous environmental costs, the IMF reports.
The fossil fuel industry receives $5.3 trillion a year in government subsidies, despite its disastrous toll on the environment, human health, and other global inequality issues, a new report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published [May 18] has found.
That means that governments worldwide are spending $10 million every minute to fund energy companies--more than the estimated public health spending for the entire globe, IMF economists Benedict Clements and Vitor Gaspar wrote in a blog post accompanying the report (pdf).
[...]Subsidies occur in two ways, IMF Fiscal Affairs Department directors Sanjeev Gupta and Michael Keen explained in a separate blog post published [May 18]:"[Pre-tax]" subsidies--which occur when people and businesses pay less than it costs to supply the energy--are smaller than a few years back. But "post-tax" subsidies--which add to pre-tax subsidies an amount that reflects the environmental, health and other damage that energy use causes and the benefit from favorable VAT or sales tax treatment--remain extremely high, and indeed are now well above our previous estimates.
[...]If anything, the report's findings are "conservative", Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, told Common Dreams. "[It] doesn't include direct subsidies to fossil fuel producers, and it doesn't include things like the cost of military resources to defend Persian Gulf oil."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @10:10PM
If I hit almost everyone I pass with a baseball bat, but skip the blondes, this does not represent a subsidy to the blondes. Lack of harm does not equal encouragement.
This is playing word games. It wouldn't represent a "subsidy" only because it doesn't involve money. It does represent a benefit to them. The status quo is "hit with a baseball bat" but if you are blonde then you can walk around without fear of that and have better freedom of movement, less pain, etc. A more concrete example would be in Saudi Arabia where only men are allowed to drive. Are you really arguing that men don't have it better than women in this case because they merely have a lack of harm but not real benefit?
Taking this back to economics, though, let's say I give all blondes $500. I'm sure you would say that would benefit blondes. Now let's say I take away $500 from everybody except blondes. That would still benefit blondes, as each dollar would buy more due to there being less cash in the economy (read: deflation) and each dollar buying more. It's of course "more complicated than that," but the general idea holds.
Here is another example which may make more sense to you. You can tax deduct (read: "not be hit with a baseball bat") for charitable contributions... do you really think everybody would be donating as much clothing, money, and everything else if they did not get that tax benefit for doing so?