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by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
December 10,
2018
from
GlobalResearch Website
The Western media in chorus upholds France's President Macron
against the 'Yellow
Vests Movement,' which it describes as "Climate Deniers".
The New York Times casually describes the fuel tax hike as a
carefully formulated economic policy to fight 'global
climate change.'
It's a lie...
Hikes in the fuel tax applied Worldwide in more than 120 countries
are part of a package of deadly macro-economic reforms which serve
to impoverish large sectors of the World population.
The hike in gasoline prices translates into increases in the price
of food, transportation and essential goods and services. It
undermines the productive structure. It leads to the collapse of the
standard of living.
The Yellow Vest protests in France against the fuel tax increase are
described by the media as,
"the biggest obstacle
yet to attempts to encourage conservation in alternative energy
use."
Strong statement!
Taxing fuel is presented as a means to,
"alleviate climate
change to the benefit of humanity."
(NYT, December 6, 2018)
What nonsense...!
Washington Post headline
December 4, 2018
The public is misled. The climate change issue (an objective in its
own right) is being used as a smokescreen, a pretext to repress the
protest movement.
What is the
Unspoken Objective of the Fuel Tax - Debt Servicing and the War
Economy
President Emmanuel Macron is an instrument of the financial
establishment, a former staff of
the Rothschilds, acting on their
behalf, enforcing a profit driven macro-economic agenda as well
boosting the revenues of the military contractors.
The tax on fuel serves the interests of powerful creditor
institutions.
The tax proceeds will be
channeled into servicing France's spiraling public debt which
is estimated at 2.2 trillion Euros, equivalent to 96.8 percent of
GDP.
Annual debt servicing
obligations of the French Republic are staggering. The entire fiscal
structure is in crisis.
"War is Good
for Business"
The tax on fuel will also serve to finance mounting military
expenditures (in excess of 30 billion Euros per annum in 2017) in
support of France's participation in NATO's various "peace-making"
initiatives in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Clamping down on the Yellow Vest protest movement is intimately
related to the War Economy, which is sustained by neoliberal
austerity measures.
On July 13, ironically
one day before Bastille Day, President Emmanuel Macron signed into
law the 2019-2025 military budget law,
"clearing the way for
a funding boost for procurement for the Air Force, Army and
Navy".
(Defense
News - July 16, 2018)
This thrust in military
expenditure was in large part in response to pressures from
Washington:
This was a "military
budget law of growth," he said in a speech to the officers and
personnel who would take part in the parade the next day. The
spending would be at a level unseen for decades, … and the move
comes at a time when the domestic budget was under strain.
(Defense
News - July 15, 2018)
Under the provisions of
the military budget law, the Macron government confirmed that
defence spending would increase by more than 40 percent.
The amounts of money that
need to be collected from tax revenues (including the fuel tax) to
finance France's war economy are colossal.
In turn the hike in
military expenditure is to be supported by drastic austerity
measures directed against all other categories of (civilian)
expenditure:
"The defence ministry
plans to raise its spending by 1.7 billion Euros a year
(2019-2022), increasing to 3 billion a year (2023-2025)".
(France24
- August 2, 2018)
US-NATO
Diktats
Profit over people...
What is at stake is a
process of lucrative military procurement through France's
Direction Générale pour l'Armement under the auspices of the
Ministry of Defense.
In turn, this multibillion war economy under NATO auspices,
controlled by the Pentagon and directed against Russia, is
destroying France's social fabric, its Welfare State, leading to
poverty and social despair.
Guns versus Butter:
This mechanism of
NATO sponsored social destruction (coupled with neoliberal
austerity measures) is operating relentlessly throughout the
European Union.
Fuel Taxes - A
Worldwide Process
Fuel taxes are being implemented in over 100 countries.
In developing countries
the hikes in fuel taxes are imposed by the World Bank on behalf of
creditor institutions. They are part of the so-called structural
adjustment program (SAP)
under the helm of
the IMF and the World Bank.
The hike in fuel prices
leads almost immediately to an increase in the prices of,
-
food
-
transportation
-
social services
Bitter "economic
medicine":
The result is
widespread poverty as well as the bankruptcy of local producers.
Gasoline
Prices - Let's Look at the Numbers
While the price of gasoline at the pump is spiraling (as a result of
retail profit markups and hikes in fuel taxes), the actual cost of a
liter or gallon of gasoline is abysmally low.
Look at the distance between the cost of a liter (or gallon) of
gasoline and the retail price paid at the pump.
-
A barrel of oil
is equivalent to 158.98 liters, or 42 gallons, which
suggests that the cost of WTI crude oil is less than 35
cents US a liter, or $1.25 a gallon.
-
In France the
cost of crude oil is Euro 0.27 a liter. At the pump, petrol
is selling at Euro 1.47
-
Consumers in
France are being charged Euro 1.47 a liter, more than five
times the liter cost of crude oil.
-
The refinery
costs associated with the transformation of crude oil into
gasoline are minimal.
SUPPORT THE
YELLOW VESTS
Oil is a
multibillion dollar operation.
The oil giants have
overlapping interests in banking and the military industrial
complex. They have a vested interest in collecting the public debt
as well as enabling the state to finance the war economy.
Taxes on fuel constitute a safety net for both the creditors and the
military industrial complex.
The climate change pretext is a lie...
Support the Yellow Vests. A major thrust is required to counter the
tide
of media disinformation...
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