The Angry Exile: Windfall taxes are for idiots

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Friday 29 August 2008

Windfall taxes are for idiots

Being British I have a natural fascination with the weather. Talking about it, guessing what it's going to do next, looking at the forecasts, complaining when they get it wrong. It's natural, and fortunately the weather in Victoria in general and Melbourne in particular is just as changeable as in Britain, so no one thinks I'm a weird pom for wanting to look at what's going on with the weather back in Blighty. Or everyone I know is just too polite to say so.

But the long and short of it is I'm aware the British summer has been a bit of a let down and many people are looking ahead to autumn and winter without a lot of enthusiasm. There seems to be some worry that it's going to be a cold one (and the winter here in Oz has been the coldest for ten years or so according to some, so Britons may well be right to be worried). Of particular concern is the fact that the economy looks like it's going into the shitter, money is tight and gas prices have gone up. Actually let's not mince words, they've fucking shot up. So, it's without much surprise that I've seen stories of a possible windfall tax to batter the energy companies with ( Telegraph here and here, and Grauniad letters for example).

Well, it's no shock that NuLab like the idea, good old fashioned wealth redistribution that it is. But look, it's a really fucking stupid thing to do. Let's say I ran an energy company, say for example one that's just put prices up 30% or so and is being ripped to bits in the media for pulling in a zillion pounds a minute. Let's also say, just for the sake of argument, that in spite of this the wholesale price of the energy source the company supplies has gone up and as a result the profits are actually down 30%. Now, how do I feel about a windfall tax when profits are down? Do I feel like re-investing in future supply to hep the business and its customers down the line, or do I think that now isn't a good time in spite of a looming energy crisis on the distant horizon? And how do the shareholders feel? Now, those of a wealth redistributionist persuasion might well think that the me and my shareholders, rich bastards to a man and woman, can all go fuck ourselves and the little people can be put first for a change. Well, true, there will certainly be plenty of rich bastards, but the little people should first want to know whether any of their pension or super* fund is invested in that energy company, and if so how much and whether it's going to suffer as a result. They should also want to know how likely I am to increase prices even further to protect those reduced profits and/or shareholder dividends. If it was me the answer is very likely.

The attraction of a windfall tax is that it looks like it's going to be the wealthy who pays, but in reality that's naive. The ripples spread out and nearly everybody ends up contributing to it. It's human bloody nature to pass costs like this on to customers, and in the highly unlikely event that doesn't happen anyone who has invested directly or indirectly pays. In either case re-investment is hurt, and that seems like a really bad idea when Britain is going to have to shut down a bunch of power stations in the next few years and has done almost, but not quite, sod all about building new ones.

So the question isn't whether the energy companies are making so much can afford to pay a windfall tax. It's whether Britain's cold and poor can afford it.

*Australian for pension.