Friday 25 July 2014

This little piggy went weee weee weee all the way home.

The UK Green Building Council and their fellow subsidy junkies are not happy. They've been shoved off the public teat and they are squealing: “The sudden and immediate closure of this fund is another setback for the energy efficiency industry because companies have specifically geared up to market and deliver through this scheme."

Translated, this means that their business model depended on subsidy capture and now that there is no more subsidy, they are going to either have to sell things to people that they want at a price they can afford or go bust.

Neil Schofield, from boiler manufacturer Worcester, Bosch Group, said “The tragedy is that, for once, Decc has come up with a scheme that works. It’s a body blow and a triumph for short-termism.”

No shit, Sherlock. The government offers to give people money and they accept it. Basically, the Green Deal wasn't working and was an embarrassment to the government so they decided to pay people to accept it and lo and behold, it's suddenly very popular.

All of which goes to show that Big Green is even more insidious than Big Oil, Big Pharma or even Big Land. The latter three can survive without government help, although they make sure they get planty of it, but the former is wholly dependent on subsidies and so has the biggest stake in making sure the public and their politicians believe all the things necessary for that income stream to continue.

1 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, AFAIAA, in this country, Big Pharma and Big Oil aren't net subsidy recipients, they are net taxpayers. Even our system for taxing Big Oil is positively Georgist compared to most things. (And the NHS sets (maximum) world prices for many patented medicines, so well done NHS.)

Big Land are the most evil fuckers, obviously, but let's not forget Big Bank and Big Pension Provider, they are just as subsidy-dependent as Big Green.