Who says the air is free?
The cost of air is a mere £45 billion a year at the moment to which our friendly faceless rulers in Brussels want to add another £11 billion. That sounds like £56 billion for the privilege of breathing, although maths were never the Count's strong point.
£56 billion a year may be a mere trifle to Billy Boy over at Microsoft, but even a Count has to start counting his pennies (or stop breathing) when the Brussels bureaucrats breathing bill arrives on the butler's tray along with a neatly ironed copy of the Daily Torygraph, which carries this dismal news today, on page 32.
At this point I decided to entertain the butler with my three step dance to see if I could discover the meadow mayonnaise lurking behind the number.
Step One: the venal start. Start not by looking at the number, but at the people who produced this number. Lurking behind the £56 billion is that world famous organisation called UNICE (as in "you nice, me nasty"). Closer examination finds that this is an EU wide business lobby group that is not wildly keen on spending money on clean air. They would much prefer to choke us all to death on their pollution while they take their money and run off to the one remaining island which is not suffering Chinese style perma-smog and is not about to be submerged under the rising oceans as their pollution causes global warming.
Step two: The meadow mayonnaise moment. To prove their point, UNICE conjoures up out of thin (but polluted) air the magic number of £56 billion as the cost of clean air regulations. This is as close to reality as the Count's annual tax return.
Step three: The illogical conclusion. UNICE want us to imagine the hardship that will result from these costs: think of all the fat cats on skid row, down to their last country house and sports car. The conclusion is that we should all die in a chemical soup of their making for their benefit.
Of course, the opposite position is equally absurd. If you want a nutty perspective, look no further than Brussels and the Greens. The Greens like nuts because they are vegetarian. So the EU Commission has piped up and said that their regulations will save 350,000 lives. How do they know that? Can they prove it? This is as implausible and as meaningless as the £56 billion number.
A simplistic reading of the EU claim is this: £56 billion saves 350,000 lives at an average cost of £150,000. This is cheap for saving the Count's life, but is wild profligacy if it is the cost of saving a bureaucrat's life.
Now look again. The EU says it will save this number of lives "Over the long term". OK, lets say it will save 350,000 lives over thirty five years and that each life is extended by a generous 10 years. That mean that each year of a person's life is being valued at £560,000. It could be that the only lives being "saved" are people at death's door anyway, and the regulations simply extend their misery.
So now we have a recipe for a bullshit fight. UNICE will claim ever greater costs of the regulations. Brussels will claim ever greater benefits for their regulations.
The only solution is to bring in some sensible government again. How much pollution was there when we aristocrats ran the world? None. I rest my case. Move aside Brussels, let the Count take over.
The cost of air is a mere £45 billion a year at the moment to which our friendly faceless rulers in Brussels want to add another £11 billion. That sounds like £56 billion for the privilege of breathing, although maths were never the Count's strong point.
£56 billion a year may be a mere trifle to Billy Boy over at Microsoft, but even a Count has to start counting his pennies (or stop breathing) when the Brussels bureaucrats breathing bill arrives on the butler's tray along with a neatly ironed copy of the Daily Torygraph, which carries this dismal news today, on page 32.
At this point I decided to entertain the butler with my three step dance to see if I could discover the meadow mayonnaise lurking behind the number.
Step One: the venal start. Start not by looking at the number, but at the people who produced this number. Lurking behind the £56 billion is that world famous organisation called UNICE (as in "you nice, me nasty"). Closer examination finds that this is an EU wide business lobby group that is not wildly keen on spending money on clean air. They would much prefer to choke us all to death on their pollution while they take their money and run off to the one remaining island which is not suffering Chinese style perma-smog and is not about to be submerged under the rising oceans as their pollution causes global warming.
Step two: The meadow mayonnaise moment. To prove their point, UNICE conjoures up out of thin (but polluted) air the magic number of £56 billion as the cost of clean air regulations. This is as close to reality as the Count's annual tax return.
Step three: The illogical conclusion. UNICE want us to imagine the hardship that will result from these costs: think of all the fat cats on skid row, down to their last country house and sports car. The conclusion is that we should all die in a chemical soup of their making for their benefit.
Of course, the opposite position is equally absurd. If you want a nutty perspective, look no further than Brussels and the Greens. The Greens like nuts because they are vegetarian. So the EU Commission has piped up and said that their regulations will save 350,000 lives. How do they know that? Can they prove it? This is as implausible and as meaningless as the £56 billion number.
A simplistic reading of the EU claim is this: £56 billion saves 350,000 lives at an average cost of £150,000. This is cheap for saving the Count's life, but is wild profligacy if it is the cost of saving a bureaucrat's life.
Now look again. The EU says it will save this number of lives "Over the long term". OK, lets say it will save 350,000 lives over thirty five years and that each life is extended by a generous 10 years. That mean that each year of a person's life is being valued at £560,000. It could be that the only lives being "saved" are people at death's door anyway, and the regulations simply extend their misery.
So now we have a recipe for a bullshit fight. UNICE will claim ever greater costs of the regulations. Brussels will claim ever greater benefits for their regulations.
The only solution is to bring in some sensible government again. How much pollution was there when we aristocrats ran the world? None. I rest my case. Move aside Brussels, let the Count take over.
posted by Count Kostov at
8:14 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home