Report set to recommend green taxes

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 23 Nov 2009, 13:47

jonny2mad wrote:its just green wash unless it looks at population and to address that you would need to move from a situation where your rewarded for having children to where your taxed .
also you would need to look at immigration , none of this will happen under either conservative or labour as it would be to unpopular .

I agree - there are no votes in it.
Frank Field is the only Politician in recent times who has seriously tried to look at these issues.
First Term New Labour - large majority and mandate for reform. Didn't last long, did he ?

The standard response from the Politicians is:
"but we need all these people to pay for our ageing population".......

Personally, I believe pensions will be steadily eroded over time to a point where they'll be virtually worthless anyway.
Here's a thought - maybe the government could raise some dosh by draining the old for their body fat as they do in Peru ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8369674.stm

stumuzz · Post by **stumuzz** » 23 Nov 2009, 18:59

Mark, emordnilap and Jonny2mad,

Do you have any children? Or are you what the rabbi called the selfish generation?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... abbi-theos

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 24 Nov 2009, 08:36

I don't have any children, but I just as well could have as the futures just going to be a battle for resources, no way are we heading for a peaceful transition or planned open population reduction.

I don't see any reason why I should not have children when "my" government encourages the third world to come to the uk and europe or anywhere where european's were once in the majority and pays them to have big family's .

either that or they encourage one parent family's which have higher rates of delinquency

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 24 Nov 2009, 11:13

stumuzz wrote:Mark, emordnilap and Jonny2mad,

Do you have any children?

Two.

Choosing not to have children could be one of the most un-selfish acts ever.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 24 Nov 2009, 11:44

stumuzz wrote:Mark, emordnilap and Jonny2mad,

Do you have any children? Or are you what the rabbi called the selfish generation?

Zero and zero planned for various reasons - one of which is the situation that they would inherit.

The Rabbi wants more good Jews to pass on his doctrine.
The Pope wants more Catholics......
The Mullah wants more Muslims....
It's just one big Religious Arms Race & as with any Arms Race, there will be no winners.

Quintus · Post by **Quintus** » 24 Nov 2009, 18:52

If it is an "arms race" Powerswitchers are probably not going to win. I suspect the average fertility rate on here is low. The vast bulk of Powerswitchers are in 'over 35' categories (apparently) yet only half have children.

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... t=children

On another poll, nobody indicated they were Jewish or muslim ('Catholic' was not an option - but there were only 3 practising Christians).

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... dce5ee8344

Frankly I wouldn't feel guilty adding 2 or 3 extra to the population, perhaps because I'm more optimistic about the future than many on here. We survived on far less materially in the past, and were probably just as happy, why not in the future?

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 25 Nov 2009, 00:01

Last time I saw the stats Catholic countries (in Europe) had the lowest birthrates of the lot, while those where fatherlessness isn't a stoneable offence (erm I exaggerate a bit..) have higher birthrates. Given the choice women are giving up, not on children but on marriage.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 25 Nov 2009, 09:36

Quintus wrote:If it is an "arms race" Powerswitchers are probably not going to win.

Powerswitchers are definitely going to lose - even with the increased profile of Peak Oil in the media etc., there are still less than 1,500 signed up on here and the majority of those are inactive. If you add up all the 'eco' types of various shades in the UK, I'd guess at ~1million out of a population of ~60million.

Global population was ~6.7billion and rising last time I looked. The Synagogues, Churches and Mosques are still doing brisk business, especially in the less developed countries. They all have difficulty with the concept of birth control and preach the 'go forth and multiply message' in one form or another.

The only logical outcome is that we will eventually make the planet totally uninhabitable by humans.
Easter Island, but on a global scale.
The only real question is when.

Quintus · Post by **Quintus** » 25 Nov 2009, 12:05

Mark wrote:The only logical outcome is that we will eventually make the planet totally uninhabitable by humans.
Easter Island, but on a global scale.
The only real question is when.

So far on here I think I’ve managed to avoid the topic of population (frequently an elephant in the room) and how it can’t keep going up indefinitely on our small planet; something, at some point, has to stop it. I hope it is family planning, rather than a disaster.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 25 Nov 2009, 12:37

Quintus wrote:So far on here I think I’ve managed to avoid the topic of population (frequently an elephant in the room) and how it can’t keep going up indefinitely on our small planet; something, at some point, has to stop it. I hope it is family planning, rather than a disaster.

I agree: something has to stop the population rise at some point. AIDS, famine and war currently are doing their best; more drastic developments are required.

As discussed elsewhere, abolishing (that is, proposing at some definite future date to abolish) child benefits beyond the second child would be an easy and humane start in those countries with such a welfare system. What are posters' objections to this, please?

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 25 Nov 2009, 13:18

The objection that will be put forward (although I am not expressing it as a necessarily valid view) is that the people who tend to have large families do so regardless of income to support them. If anything, there is an inverse relationship between income and family size.

The argument would be that cutting child benefit would raise child poverty levels far more than is justified by the reduction in population achieved.

Just speaking of local experience, I can name several large families. They all have below average and rather unreliable parental income (and verge on the socially dysfunctional...)

Yves75 · Post by **Yves75** » 25 Nov 2009, 13:46

emordnilap wrote: As discussed elsewhere, abolishing (that is, proposing at some definite future date to abolish) child benefits beyond the second child would be an easy and humane start in those countries with such a welfare system. What are posters' objections to this, please?

Yes that would be a very sensible move, Yves Cochet (MP from the "verts" ecologist party in france) is making it an official proposition (in fact not zero but seriously diminishing starting at the third)

http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/planete/artic ... _3244.html
(in French)

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 25 Nov 2009, 14:39

RalphW wrote:The objection that will be put forward (although I am not expressing it as a necessarily valid view) is that the people who tend to have large families do so regardless of income to support them. If anything, there is an inverse relationship between income and family size.

The argument would be that cutting child benefit would raise child poverty levels far more than is justified by the reduction in population achieved.

Just speaking of local experience, I can name several large families. They all have below average and rather unreliable parental income (and verge on the socially dysfunctional...)

Thank you for that. It's obvious that education plays a large part.

Perhaps part of an answer is for increasingly intrusive and annoying means testing (which most people detest) as family size increases.

Also the word education...it's not beyond the wit of government to put together the right words in the right place to warn of the lack of support for larger families, so no-one can have a real excuse. They have quite an effective propaganda machine, I believe.

Who was it said opting not to have children was indicative of selfishness?

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 25 Nov 2009, 14:39

Alain75 wrote:
emordnilap wrote: As discussed elsewhere, abolishing (that is, proposing at some definite future date to abolish) child benefits beyond the second child would be an easy and humane start in those countries with such a welfare system. What are posters' objections to this, please?
Yes that would be a very sensible move, Yves Cochet (MP from the "verts" ecologist party in france) is making it an official proposition (in fact not zero but seriously diminishing starting at the third)

http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/planete/artic ... _3244.html
(in French)

How does s/he deal with the points in RalphW's post?

Yves75 · Post by **Yves75** » 25 Nov 2009, 15:57

emordnilap wrote:
How does s/he deal with the points in RalphW's post?

No sure about that, but his point is that the government shouldn't favor natality in any way.
And I guess if the information was clear, and the law non retroactive, then we should be able to have people make their choices with associated knowledge in developed countries.
Moreover this doesn't mean that redistribution or help doesn't remain based on social differences, but the children count wouldn't be part of the value of this redistribution.