British Chambers of Commerce survey: EU is putting burdens on British businesses and making them uncompetitive

The few remaining British EU enthusiasts - including the BBC - have traditionally been eager to stress how much UK businesses benefit from EU membership. However, a new survey by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that a majority of British companies believe that EU is putting burdens on them and making them uncompetitive:

British businesses are largely in favour of a re-negotiation of the UK's relationship with the European Union, the the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) believes.

An 'EU Business Barometer' from the BCC gathered responses from more than 4,000 businesses of all sizes and sectors across the UK.

Its main finding was that most companies believe that re-negotiation - rather than further integration or outright withdrawal - is most likely to deliver business and economic benefit to the UK. Only 15% see the current situation as positive.

John Longworth, director general of the BCC, told the Today programme: "Businesses are looking to have the best outcome for themselves and for the UK.

"They definitely believe that the EU is putting burdens on them that make them uncompetitive in the world market."

Read the entire article here

EU "president" Van Rompuy seems to think that ordinary Europeans are stupid

Herman is tweeting:
 Herman Van Rompuy ‏@euHvR12 Apr

Every year around 1 trillion € is lost to tax evasion & avoidance. Unfair to citizens, companies & serious problem for member states

EU "president" Herman Van Rompuy is desperately trying to find a pseudo activity that he thinks will be popular among European citizens, who are increasingly skeptic about the costly - and failed - euro rescue policies. The haiku poet seems to think that tax evasion is the golden opportunity to make the EUSSR popular again:

The fight against tax evasion will be on the agenda of the next European Union summit in May, EU president Herman Van Rompuy said Friday.

"Every year a trillion euros are lost in tax evasion and tax avoidance" in Europe, Van Rompuy said in a video message. "I have decided to put tax evasion on the agenda of the next May 22" summit.

Van Rompuy, who chairs the talks between the bloc's 27 leaders, said the amount lost each year equalled the GDP of Spain, the EU's fifth biggest economy, and was 100 times the size of the 10-billion-euro bailout just agreed for Cyprus.

"Tax evasion is unfair to citizens" as well as to companies, Van Rompuy said. "We simply cannot afford or tolerate tax complacency."

A renewed drive to stamp out tax fraud has launched in Europe amid a scandal embroiling French President Francois Hollande's government and is likely to figure prominently at talks in Dublin on Friday and Saturday between the EU's finance ministers.

However, Van Rompuy is seriously underestimating the intelligence of European citizens, who,according to an old Scandinavian saying, are not prepared to accept a goat guarding a cabbage patch:

The European Union is still wasting billions every year, spending watchdogs said today as they refused to sign off  official accounts - again.

It is the 18th successive year that the Court of Auditors has said the EU’s finances were in such a mess that they could not be given a clean bill of health. In fact errors are still on the rise.

It included a ‘special premium’ paid to a farmer for 150 sheep which did not exist and 200,000 euros paid for a two-storey "laboratory" for producing fruit in Lombardy, Italy which inspectors found had ‘predominantly the charters of a private residence’.

The revelations will heap pressure on David Cameron who suffered a humiliating Commons defeat last week as Labour and Tory rebels united to demand he insist on a cut on the vast budget at talks next month.

The 27 member states and the executive Commission stand accused of failing to do enough to track billions of pounds in spending at a time when countries are imposing deep spending cuts at homes.

The Court of Auditors said that errors in EU payments had risen to 3.9 per cent from the 2011 budget of almost 130billion euros (£104billion).

It added that there were ‘too many cases of EU money not hitting the target or being used sub-optimally’.

Read the entire article here

And it is so easy for an overpaid bureaucrat, like Van Rompuy - who barely pays any taxes himself - to talk about other peoples' tax evasion: 

A ruling by the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice upheld the long-held exemption that spares former EU officials from paying national taxes on their EU earnings.

Instead, they pay a special low-rate EU community tax that starts at just eight per cent.

It means former EU commissioners, including Lord Kinnock and Lord Mandelson, can receive their five-figure taxpayer-funded pensions at far lower tax rates than are paid by other British citizens.

The decision is bound to infuriate millions of pensioners.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said: “Tax, for Eurocrats, is something that happens to other people.”

Robert Oxley, Campaign Manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Taxpayers are fed up of funding the lavish lifestyle of EU staff while having to tighten their own belts at home. This ruling is further evidence that the EU elite is out of touch with reality.” --

Recent research showed that European taxpayers are now spending £1billion a year on pensions for retired officials. British taxpayers contributed around £135million in 2010.

The Luxembourg court ruling upholds a “privileges and immunities” protocol that dates back more than 50 years.

Read the entire article here

Canadian forestry company shows how to deal with envirofundamentalist Greenpeace

Lies and intimidation have been the core of Greenpeace's campaigns against forest companies for years now. Most companies have chosen not to take a fight with the greenmailers fearing a no-win situation. Finally, one company, Canadian Resolute shows how to deal with the envirofundamentalist NGO:

In December, Greenpeace pulled the trigger, claiming it had proof from GPS-tagged video and pictures that one of the coalition industry members, Resolute Forest Products, was building logging roads in areas forbidden by the agreement. It released pictures it said were taken in August 2012 in Quebec’s Montagnes Blanches region, and it promptly resigned from the CBFA (Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement). --

Unlike Kimberly-Clark and Quebec-based hardware and lumber retailer Rona, which buckled under harsh criticism and paid greenmail, Resolute fought back, providing documentation that the allegations were untrue. It supplied “concrete milestones” that it had reached for caribou protection and the implementation of best practices.

When its prey did not drop, Greenpeace reloaded and fired again. Spokesperson Shane Moffat trumpeted “Greenpeace’s science-based advocacy for responsible forestry” as the group issued a report,Boreal Alarm that threatened to wreak havoc on Resolute’s brand if it didn’t junk its logging practices, already approved under the terms of the CBFA coalition, in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba.

Greenpeace and its key allies were surprised at Resolute’s resoluteness. But the company believed it was standing on firm factual ground and refused to be bullied. Finally in a huge embarrassment, on March 19, the activist group admitted it had bungled its “investigation” and that the unimpeachable videos and photos were just plain wrong. Even as it crowed about its 40 years of commitment to “best available science and research,” Greenpeace admitted it relied on “inaccurate maps” before launching its highly public and damaging attacks.

Read the entire article here

The Resolute way of taking on Greenpeace will hopefully encourage other companies worldwide to do the same. It is time to stop the job destroying envirofundamentalist greenmailers! 

UK MPs getting serious about stopping the wind power idiocy: "The time has come to stop feeding this extraordinary cash cow"

Wind turbines in Ardrossan, Scotland. 
(image wikipedia)

Finally, the opposition against the inefficient, bird killing and landscape destroying monstrous wind turbines is getting serious in Britain:

Wind farm developers are facing a dramatic escalation of opposition from dozens of MPs who say they will fight every application in their constituencies.

The MPs, many of whom have until now only opposed particular proposals, believe their intervention will make it more difficult for planning permission to be given.

In a fresh protest against the Government’s support for onshore wind turbines, backbenchers said their constituencies had reached “tipping point” and would be ruined by further development.

They are sharing advice on running local campaigns against wind farms after the Tory head of a larger cross party group of MPs opposed to the spread of onshore wind distributed a manual on how to fight proposals by developers.

The move comes after the group of 106 MPs - 101 of them Tories - called on the Government to cut generous subsidies, which they say are driving the expansion of wind farms. In a letter to the Prime Minister in February last year they warned it was “unwise” to make consumers subsidise “inefficient and intermittent energy production”.

Geoffrey Cox, the MP for Torridge and West Devon, one of the signatories to the letter said: “There are now so many turbine applications that the whole of our district is affected. I believe we have now reached a tipping point.  ==

Mr Cox said the proposals for six turbines on privately owned farmland in Torridge followed the construction of “dozens” of turbines in the last three years.

He said: “Torridge is now facing over 60 applications. They are going to make a fundamental change to the character of this exquisite landscape, trashing an ancient and beautiful countryside for the sake of filling the pockets of developers with consumer subsidies.

“These are some of the most romantic and attractive destinations in our country and yet we are erecting giant machines which litter the countryside. The time has come to stop feeding this extraordinary cash cow.”

The UK MPs now fighting the wind turbine scam are also serving as important role models in the growing global anti wind power movement. It's time to stop the wasteful wind turbine idiocy! 

Another green energy failure: FBI investigating company which was supposed to install hundreds of charging stations for electric cars in 20 U.S. areas

The handful of electric car owners in Chicago will have to wait for their "filling stations".

There seems to be no end to the failures in the "green" energy business. The latest greenie flagship project to fail is the "rollout" of hundreds of chargaing stations for electric cars in Chicago and 19 other U.S. areas. 

In February 2011 there were enthusiastic media reports about a bright new future for the miniscule number of electric car owners in Chicago and 19 other U.S. regions:


Chicagoans soon will be able to juice up their electric cars at charging stations at Willis Tower, five local tollway oases, O’Hare and Midway airports and at select I-GO, Zipcar, grocery store and shopping mall parking lots.
That futuristic scenario will become reality later this year, as electric cars reach dealerships and as San Diego, Calif.-based company 350Green installs 280 electric vehicle charging stations throughout the region.=

The rollout is funded by $1 million in federal stimulus money, plus $1 million from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. 350Green invested $6.9 million to cover the upfront costs.

To years later, not one of the charging stations is functioning, and the FBI is investigating the 350 Green project. The FBI declined to comment, but it seems clear that the $1 million in federal stimulus money, plus $1 million from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity have gone down the drain - and God knows how many millions of public money have been lost on the other 19 similar projects elsewhere: 

 Several hundred charging stations were supposed to have been installed by 350Green before the end of 2011, but work stopped some time ago, the company said. Projects by the company in 19 other markets also have been halted. -

Two Chicago-area contractors working on the project, and others with direct knowledge of the situation, told the Tribune the FBI has been examining the 350Green project. The status of the investigation isn't clear. The FBI declined to comment.

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by the Tribune under the Freedom of Information Act show that 350Green submitted copies of checks to the city in order to receive state and federal grant money.

The checks show contractors were paid. But three contractors contacted by the Tribune said they hadn't received those checks and had been paid only a portion of what they were owed overall. In the hope of getting reimbursed, some have filed liens against retailers that agreed to host charging stations.

Russian opposition leader Navalny knows why Putin and his cronies want to jail him: "They've stolen billions ... they are protecting themselves"

The show trial against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny will begin next week in the city of Kirov. Navalny, who is falsely accused of stealing logs, sawdust and 16m roubles from a company, knows very well why Vladimir Putin has ordered the trial:

Why does Putin want to jail me? (I have no doubts that he personally has ordered my case). It seems to me the logic is obvious: he and his circle must guard their power. And to stay in power they have no other mechanism than jailing people – which is what they are doing. I'm not the first and, unfortunately, will not be the last: we must be ready for the fact that they will jail many more people. They've stolen billions, they know people are outraged by this, that millions of people share my attitude towards them and they are protecting themselves.

Look what's happening in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan: everywhere the method is the same. Putin takes his example from Lukashenko,Nazarbayev, Karimov. And that's how it will be in Russia as long as they are allowed to jail people, as long as a million people don't go out into the streets. The first protest on Bolotnaya Square scared them – they announced political reforms, then turned on the fear and PR techniques, people started getting scared to go to protests and then the reforms were first stopped, then subverted. As long as they are not really scared, they will continue to jail people.

Read the entire article here

New study debunks another greenie propaganda slogan: Fracking does NOT cause any significant earthquakes

Another of the envirofundamentalist greenies' favorite propaganda slogans, "fracking causes dangerous earthquakes" has now been debunked:

Hydraulic fracturing used to access oil and gas from rock and shale hasn’t caused “significant” earthquakes, according to a study by Durham University.

“Hydraulic fracturing is not a significant mechanism for inducing felt earthquakes,” Richard Davies, director of the U.K. university’s energy institute, said today in a statement. “The size and number of felt earthquakes caused by fracking is low compared to other manmade triggers such as mining, geothermal activity or reservoir water storage.”

The new study is of course a bitter pill to swallow for groups like Greenpeace:

Tremors aren’t the only concern about the method, known as fracking, according to a Greenpeace statement. “Communities have also expressed concern about noise, disruption, traffic, falling house prices and a general industrialization of the English countryside,” Lawrence Carter, an energy campaigner for the environmental group, said in the statement.

It is interesting to see Greenpeace suddenly interested in noise, falling house prices and the preservation of the English countryside. These same greenies have no problem with all this when it comes to filling the English countryside with thousands of noisy, bird killing, ineffective and ugly wind turbines.