Unitarian Services/Addresses, HPC Training, Emissions Price

[tcpip]

Last Sunday attended the Unitarian Church, with the assumption that I was giving the service. As it turned out the speaker didn't show, so at the last minute I gave my notes to the person I was supposed to be replacing and gave an address (I was especially impressed with the words by the Knox Dunedin Church), specifically a repeat of a talk I gave to the atheist society a few months prior on The Rejection of Imposed Authority, Divine or Human.

Spent today out at Monash University to assist in training researchers at the Melbourne HPC GPU Computing Workshop by familiarising said people with PBS/Torque. An extremely good turnout and was very impressed (again) by a presentation by Phillip Ward on HPC benchmarking and optimisation. Now planning to write an addditional course manual on "An Introduction to Scientific Programming Using Python, C, and Fortran" to bridge the gap between the Linux/HPC courses and the OpenMPI programming courses.

Big political event of the week in Australia was the announcement of a Clean Energy Future by the federal government. For once, the ABC has done a good job in explaining the matter of the carbon emissions tax that's part of the package in terms of how it works, key figures (note that tax-free threshold - it's been tripled!), effect on food prices, and Australia's contribution to emissions. The fact is, this is a bloody good policy and should see both an improvement in the Australian economy, a reduction in greenhouse emissions and significant assistance for the lower-income earners. What's not to like? Oh that's right.. it's socialist.

Comments

[shehasathree]

Now planning to write an addditional course manual on "An Introduction to Scientific Programming Using Python, C, and Fortran" to bridge the gap between the Linux/HPC courses and the OpenMPI programming courses.

My partner mistersteve says "awesome!", and would like to know how to go about getting a copy when you're done. :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'll put it up on the VPAC website.. Or you can just email me at lev AT levlafayette DOT com and he can get the the early release :)

[shehasathree]

Good stuff! I'll let him know. :)

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

There is one thing not to like: The inflation hit. It'll only be a one-off, but give recent years, the 1% increase in food prices is quite a bump. Not a huge deal, but it's a downside.

However, I don't think the government has a hope of convincing the public that the carbon dioxide tax is good. Partly, that's because our PM said she wouldn't introduce this tax and such a straight-up lie is just unpopular. Mostly, it's because so many voters are inherently self-centred and the thought process (using the term loosely) appears to be: "Is this something I want right now? If not, it should not happen/be illegal." Same applies whether the disapproval is of those evil adult video games or those naughty dope smokers or the $2/week they might be worse off for from a tax change. What you would like is for people to actually think about principles of what's best for everyone. Good luck with that.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

However, I don't think the government has a hope of convincing the public that the carbon dioxide tax is good.

It's been appalling bad, as has Labor's public relations as a whole since around January 2010 onwards.

Peter Nicholson explains quite well the problem of selling this policy:

http://nicholsoncartoons.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011-07-12-Gillard-sells-carbon-plan-650.jpg

(Which means they should really spend more time pointing out the increase to the tax-free threshold).

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

The tax-free threshold should have gone up ages ago. The poor would have less to pay and less to worry about and surely the proportion of the take which is absorbed in ATO wages to administer the small tax returns is large enough to make it a massively inefficient?

But, yes, this carrot to entice us into supporting the new tax should be waved around vigorously, not just mentioned somewhere along the way.

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

Better to impose it now than to have it as part of an election platform, perhaps--I'm looking at Stephane Dion, who featured carbon tax as a main plank of his candidacy and also had it be a source of criticism from others.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, we had an ETS as the promise of both major parties in 2007, and was proposed in 2010 as well so it's already gone to an election twice. There is a real sense that we should just get on with it.

[grailchaser.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that stuff on the Carbon Tax, Lev. I had no idea how it was supposed to work.

My next question would have to be "what renewable energy and low emissions goods"? Besides putting a Solar Hot water system on the roof and some expensive solar panels... what else is there?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I would say the renewables would be largely industry based as has recently been reported. The pricing changes above gives a fairly good example of relative emissions based on goods. Not too sure about the non-food sector off the top of my head.

[leadgend.livejournal.com]

While the ABC made a big deal out of the raising of the tax-free threshold they completely failed to mention that the tax rates in next couple of tax brackets are also being raised so people on ~50k+ get no net benefit. The amount people would actually pay for the carbon tax is almost trivial but by looking like they are sneaking a tax rise in the back door isn't doing the government any favours.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that all income earners below $80K will receive a tax cut.

[leadgend.livejournal.com]

Your link appears to be broken. I get a 404 message.

Ok, substantial tax cut offsetting the carbon tax then. When I plug my details into the governments carbon tax estimator tool it shows me getting a $16 tax cut while paying $441 extra due to price rises.

Looking up the tables shows only those on incomes under $45k (higher for those with dependents of course) actually get ahead.

The issue is not that raising the tax-free threshold shouldn't talked about in the context of offsetting the impact of the carbon tax but that rises to the other tax rates dropping that offset to nearly nothing if you earn 80k+ and basically wiping out the direct government assistance for singles on $45k wasn't mentioned. Thus when people on middle incomes go to the calculator expecting to see the lower tax offsetting the carbon increases they get a nasty shock which can't be good for the governments popularity.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The link is indeed broken; mustn't have pasted it in properly. It should be:

http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/household-assistance%E2%80%94tax-reform/

(Horrible non-standard characters in a URL.. Sheesh, what are they thinking).