Reflecting further on my previous post on the failed insulation program, perhaps we should consider the program from the perspective of putting the insulation industry permanently on the taxpayer life support?
Before the original insulation program, the industry existed nicely without government subsidies.
Then, on the pretext of insulating us from the global financial crisis (excuse the pun), the Government rolled out the insulation program in February 2009.
Now it is clear that even proponents of the stimulus program would find it difficult to justify further new stimulus measures.
We discover that the original insulation subsidy program is a failure for various reasons and the government rightly cancels it.
So why do we need a replacement? Has the Government turned the insulation industry from a subsidy-free industry into one – like the automotive industry – that has become addicted to subsidy?
Almost certainly it has.
Another example is described in Much and Mystery
URL: Agro-Tinkering
M&M is an excellent blog – written by a guy in California who raises cattle and knows and understands a lot about the science of agriculture, as well as the foolishness of governments.
ken nielsen
26 Feb 10 at 8:53 am
So why do we need a replacement? Has the Government turned the insulation industry from a subsidy-free industry into one – like the automotive industry – that has become addicted to subsidy?
looks like it. Add that on the list of the subsidy whores getting a free pass because of it’s remote connection to the green religion.
I couldn’t help the wry amusement listening to people that said they had lost their jobs because the government had taken the money away. Not because of them losing their jobs but at the entire exercise of government stupidity.
That smile was quickly wiped off my face when the innumerate PM said he was going to allocate $50 million in taxpayer money (technically borrowed money now) to provide a financial cushion to thiose that lost their jobs as a result of the money tree being shredded.
Now lets look at this for a moment.
People lost their jobs because the government is taking away money from a program that was 100% subsidized and now the government is going to offer out partial redundancy packages for people that lost their jobs because the subsidy was removed.
This is ALP economics 101. They never taught that at the time I going through school.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 8:53 am
Sorry – I tried to get too clever embedding that link. It is http://www.garyjones.org/mt/archives/001503.html
ken nielsen
26 Feb 10 at 8:56 am
The program basically put the insulation industry on a high-burn… now that many have their insulation, the demand will slump. The legitimate insulation providers – those who have had their business for years – have effectively been destroyed.
If I was an insulation provider, trying to find innovative ways to make money in light of the slump, I’d quickly start offering my services as an insulation removalist… or even as an inspector – the demand for those two will surely have increased with the whole fiasco.
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 8:59 am
Oh – and excuse the “high-burn” pun – that was unintended.
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 9:01 am
This is akin to riding the tiger by the ears.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 9:29 am
Yeah but when Carr gives us a proper industry policy all this will be brought under control. There will be accurate forecasts of demand and only that amount will be available for supply.
We do need to get more rational to cut waste of resources.
ken nielsen
26 Feb 10 at 10:19 am
Yes but this pink bats business is a perfectly good illustration how people can pervert economic terms like “demand”.
Having a government policy basically fund pink bats essentially for free (on government borrowed money) is perverting what “demand” actually means and thereby polluting the effects on GDP stats.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 10:25 am
The Australian has a long article today which argues that there is no good evidence that insulation reduces household energy consumption. It is clear that insulation reduces the energy requires to achieve a given level of occupant comfort but annecdotally people still consume just as much energy via comfort creep. Instead of heating one small closed off room they now heat the whole house. Instead of cooling one small room they now cool the whole house. If this is true then this is a human comfort subsidy not an environmental subsidy. Of course whilst this being true would make the government look bad it also makes the entire direct action approach prefered by the opposition also look dodgy.
TerjeP (say Tay-a)
26 Feb 10 at 10:36 am
JC – tax and spend isn’t really demand at all. It is a form of command. Did Keynes really say that the solution to a recession was an increase in aggregate command?
TerjeP (say Tay-a)
26 Feb 10 at 10:38 am
<i.Add that on the list of the subsidy whores getting a free pass because of it’s remote connection to the green religion.
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Yeah! What relationship to the Green Religion do these subsidy whores have?
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 11:46 am
Adrien:
You’re showing me a pic of JPmorgan’s old office Wall street?
Ironically they are the best capitalized big bank in the US. It was later found out they were forced to take the TARP. They didn’t need it but the government told them in uncertain (godfather like) terms that it was an offer too good to refuse.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:53 am
JC I’m showing you a picture of Wall St. Never been, ain’t gonna. I’m more of a Lennox Ave type. How the bloody hell would I know what bank’s where and who’s fucking capitalized? All I want to know about NYC is why I can’t rollerblade in the Guggenheim. C’arn it’s made for it man.
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The whole ‘govt stay outta the market’ tends to ring a bit hollow if, when it’s your turn to fall, you scream for mummmy and roll away with bagfulls of public treasure all because you fucked up.
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Libert is for strong people. And strong people take it and like it.
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 12:14 pm
Yeah! What relationship to the Green Religion do these subsidy whores have?
It begins with Enron.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 12:26 pm
Cough – I got there first.
I have also just been invited to a research seminar that I thought relevant:
Sounds like a typical appeal to justify a government program. If you want to beat the program creep, you have to try to out-emotion the special interest pleading.
Andrew Reynolds
26 Feb 10 at 12:55 pm
That’s similar to what I was thinking. After the subsidy program ends, the price of installing insulation will go up and at the same time there will be less people wanting insulation because so many people got it during the program.
TJW
26 Feb 10 at 1:05 pm
It begins with Enron.
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Enron? Aren’t they the guys who wrote the Bush Energy policy: Kill Alaska and establish a chain of restaurants where you go in, choose a baby harp seal and kill it yourself.
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They give you a choice of weapons and sauces.
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 1:18 pm
Enron?
They were the guys behind carbon trading, etc.
Aren’t they the guys who wrote the Bush Energy policy
Post-partisan, Adrien?
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 1:59 pm
They were the guys behind carbon trading, etc.
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Yet another stupid idea they came up with. Who gives these guys driver’s lisences?
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Post-partisan, Adrien?
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When it comes to letting your mates write the govt policy that imopacts most of your industry I’m downright bigoted.
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 2:01 pm
Most of their industry. Sorry.
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 2:02 pm
When it comes to letting your mates write the govt policy that imopacts most of your industry I’m downright bigoted.
A lefty-talking point, Adrien. Post-partisan? Pig’s arse.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 2:17 pm
It’s not as though green groups (or other stakeholder interests) never get to write government policy Adrien. A quick example would be Bligh’s WildRivers legislation.
Entropy
26 Feb 10 at 2:50 pm
It is not as though corporations like Enron have influenced government policy to allow further shitting in the environment. It is no co-ioncidence that Bush slashed health inspector numbers and the US soon after had breakouts of food poisoning. It is no co-incidence that Bush raised the acceptable thresholds for dumping shit into the environment.
We could argue back and forth about this all day but the point is we must recognise that when people and organisations act in self interest they too often do so without regard for the future consequences or others. That is part of being human, it is integral to our cognition. If anyone has a solution to that problem I’d love to hear it.
John H.
26 Feb 10 at 2:58 pm
A better lesson John H. is put not your trust in government. Any party any colour anytime.
ken n
26 Feb 10 at 3:07 pm
And it was all such a useful idea.
Not.
C.L.
26 Feb 10 at 3:09 pm
Yeah, I read that C.L. It doesn’t sound right to me. Someone riding an old hobby horse I think.
ken n
26 Feb 10 at 3:19 pm
A better lesson John H. is put not your trust in government. Any party any colour anytime.
Nor put my trust in greens, corporations, the market, or any interest group. A nice ideal but hopelessly impractical. No-one can be smart enough to make rational, objective (HA!) decisions about the welter of issues that confront society. We have to resort to trusting someone or some party or some group. As Camus once wrote: “There are many ways of leaping, the essential being to leap.”
You have not given me a lesson you have given me a libertarian talking point.
John H.
26 Feb 10 at 3:21 pm
A lefty-talking point, Adrien
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So you’re saying that it’s left-wing to object to such corruption? Okay.
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A quick example would be Bligh’s WildRivers legislation.
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Exactly. And I’ve objected to this too.
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It’s not lefty or righty it’s bad governance.
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 4:56 pm
Let’s just hope that this program works or Rudd may be ‘forced’ to take another ‘tough decision’ and compensate people for this failed compensation program.
And perhaps Peter Garrett will gradually lose responsibilites, while retaining the full confidence of the government, when he eventually becomes the minister for one particular tree in Canberra as it remains the only thing he hasn’t botched.
Karl Kessel
26 Feb 10 at 5:05 pm
No-one can be smart enough to make rational, objective (HA!) decisions about the welter of issues that confront society.
.
Yes.
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We have to resort to trusting someone or some party or some group.
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No.
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 5:10 pm
Peter Garrett will gradually lose responsibilites
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He has.
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the minister for one particular tree
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Don’t you like trees?
Adrien
26 Feb 10 at 5:11 pm
So you’re saying that it’s left-wing to object to such corruption? Okay.
No, I’m saying that the claim that Enron wrote Bush’s energy policy is nonsense and a lefty-talking point.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 5:18 pm
….when he eventually becomes the minister for one particular tree in Canberra as it remains the only thing he hasn’t botched.
The tree died two weeks ago, Karl. He’s now looking after the pot plant in the PM office near the left side window.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 5:21 pm
John H – I do trust corporations, most of the time.
Governments rarely and even less than individual politicians.
It has worked for me so far.
ken nielsen
26 Feb 10 at 5:37 pm
It sounds exactly right to me, Ken.
Garrett has just been demoted, by the way, and Rudd has announced the creation of a new bureaucracy – the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.
Odd. Rudd said he was accepting full responsibility for this disaster. Now he’s blaming Garrett again.
C.L.
26 Feb 10 at 6:02 pm
demoted?
I thought Lurch was an excellent minister and that Rudd was taking full responsibility. Now lurch is copping the blow torch?
how odd.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 6:05 pm
It was a Johnson/Cronkite moment. Rudd figured if he’d lost Kerry O’Brien, he’d lost the country.
C.L.
26 Feb 10 at 6:10 pm
The Australian isn’t bothering with the “demotion” baloney:
Garrett sacking over roofing insulation crisis lifts pressure on Rudd.
Denis Shanahan:
This government is a wreck.
C.L.
26 Feb 10 at 6:13 pm
More emerging about the mindset of our very own Dietrich Boenhoffer:
Bring on the “neo-liberal” IR scare campaign, you Dickensian monster. Bring it on.
C.L.
26 Feb 10 at 6:16 pm
Bring on the “neo-liberal” IR scare campaign, you Dickensian monster. Bring it on.
Love it.
I feel sorry for Garrett (even though I think he ought to have resigned). Out of this whole mess the worst smell seems to emanate from Rudd’s orifice, sorry, office. He ought to be crucified in the weekend papers over this little reshuffle that is principally designed to avoid the publicity of resignation.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 6:37 pm
Dover.
I don’t feel in the least sorry for Lurch. This pontificating creep has been sermonizing to us since the 80′s trying to undermine western resolve against the Soviet union over nuclear weapons (the West’s) and when the fucking arse-hole didn’t have a job singing because we won, he lurched onto the environmental bandwagon like a junky to heroin and then tries to destroy the nation’s confidence that way. He’s been at our throats one or another for 30’s years.
The incompetent then takes on a job he is totally unqualified for, spends our borrowed money like it’s going out of style, doesn’t bother reading the warning labels given to him numerous times, 5 people dead, 96 homes burned down and 160,000 have to be checked because of the fucker’s negligence.
So add $42 million for redundancies and another $60 million dollars checking the homes at risk to the $2.6 billion we borrowed and we’re talking real fucking money.
Feel sorry for him? The douchebag has been a fucking headwind since he’s been throwing his arms around like an anti- Fred Astair like, out of tune, singing for western disarmament in the 80′s trying to undermine our confidence. I don’t want to see the creep ever again. Ever. I haven’t even started on him.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 6:53 pm
JC, but compared to Rudd, he’s an angel.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 6:56 pm
Headline and sledge of the day:
Kevin Rudd can’t even sack a minister properly, says Tony Abbott.
C.L.
26 Feb 10 at 7:08 pm
True, Dover.
Don’t get me started on the little bureaucrat. Lol
You don’t know the 1/2 of how I feel about that one.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 7:17 pm
Wow. Abbott doesn’t waste any time. He’s really quite impressive.
I saw him on a clip and he really knows how to focus his language.
Watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFsVUStX9gE&feature=player_embedded
JC
26 Feb 10 at 7:21 pm
You don’t know the 1/2 of how I feel about that one.
You must tell me some time soon.
dover_beach
26 Feb 10 at 8:32 pm
Sorry JC, I can’t watch that… I’m sure Abbott made his point, but it’s tedious to listen to this stuff… question time has it’s moments, but for the most part, is boring to watch – a 20 minute video of it is never going to be that exciting!
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 9:28 pm
Two minutes is fine, fleeced. Don’t ever over do a thing thing
JC
26 Feb 10 at 10:05 pm
@JC – If you’re going to link to a 20min video of QT, you need to specify the timeframe worth listening to… most people (like me) will tune out after 30 seconds (esp once they realise how long there is to go).
Of course, Abbott is a straight talker compared to Rudd-waffle, but QT rants are still annoyingly boring. I gather that he wanted to censure the minister or something – but all I heard was, “blah blah blah”
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 10:53 pm
Fleeced,
Listen to whatever part you like. It’s all good.Would you like e to wash and clean your car as well?
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:00 pm
All good, or all boring? Even the best QT performer is too long-winded… sad, but true.
Wash and clean my car? Can’t somebody else do it? [/Homer Simpson]
Seriously though, I have nfi what your car comment was about…
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 11:08 pm
I was just making light of the fact that you kept telling me off about this abbot vid, that’s all. I was only kidding around.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:10 pm
@JC – Sure, I understood that… I still don’t get the car comment though – that was kind of left-field.
Maybe it’s the scotch making me fuzzy… I had a sore throat, so thought some scotch would help. Funnily enough, it has
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 11:19 pm
Good see you getting into the scotch, Fleeced.
Dude, I was just kidding. You kept telling me off about not being specific enough as to what part of a 20 minute vid to watch.
It was like… what did you last servant die of… type comment.
Just forget it and I hope your sore throat get better.
JC
26 Feb 10 at 11:27 pm
“It was like… what did you last servant die of… type comment.”
Oh, right…. now I get it
Of course, if you’d asked that (about the servant), I would have given the obvious answer of, “giving me the specific youtube timeframs” – hohoho!
“I hope your sore throat get better.”
Sore throat? Oh, that’s right… did I mention scotch is good for that?
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 11:34 pm
I’m thinking I probably shouldn’t drink and blog though…
Fleeced
26 Feb 10 at 11:37 pm
What does it take for Garrett to resign? I think he could be demoted to the Minister for Silly Walks and still hang on
Samuel J
27 Feb 10 at 12:08 am
As you all seem to be so qualified on the insulation debacle, maybe you can give me some advice as to what i should do with $500K of insulation my company has been left stranded with. We are a large insulation company with all our correct accreditations and my husband has been doing with within the building industry for 40 years but now thanks to a few scammers, we are out of business. Not gotten quieter, OUT OF BUSINESS. Perhaps we should look at a class action against the Govn. for breaking their contract with us?
Maria
1 Mar 10 at 4:25 pm
Yea, you should Maria. If they had contractual obligations they’ve broken or they led you to believe that their side of the commitment was going to hold up causing you to incur costs and expenses you may have a legit claim against Garrett’s department.
It would be worth consulting a good lawyer on this issue. Don’t go to any suburban dude though, go to one that knows this stuff.
That’s my advice.
JC
1 Mar 10 at 4:35 pm