COP26

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Economic ‘health’ is measured by GDP, GDP is generated through economic activity, you need population growth to sustain economic growth. 
 

I saw this many years ago when a friend tried to introduce me to "factoring", the scheme was to ease cash flow when mills were taking several weeks to pay. What happened was you supplied the timber to a mill, raised an invoice for it and sent the invoice to the bank, they immediately paid you a high percentage of the invoice and sent an identical invoice to the sawmill. Then paid you the balance when the the sawmill finally coughed up less a small percentage of the total for their fees. Trouble was as far as I could see this small percentage was about the same as my profit margin. Trade was good and my mate's business grew like topsy, he paid himself all the net profit and lived the life of Riley. Essentially he was living off the difference in turnover between the current month's turnover and next month's larger turnover, all the profit was consumed by the bank. All went well until there was a downturn and a sawmill defaulted. Bankruptcy became inevitable.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

6 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I saw this many years ago when a friend tried to introduce me to "factoring", the scheme was to ease cash flow when mills were taking several weeks to pay. What happened was you supplied the timber to a mill, raised an invoice for it and sent the invoice to the bank, they immediately paid you a high percentage of the invoice and sent an identical invoice to the sawmill. Then paid you the balance when the the sawmill finally coughed up less a small percentage of the total for their fees. Trouble was as far as I could see this small percentage was about the same as my profit margin. Trade was good and my mate's business grew like topsy, he paid himself all the net profit and lived the life of Riley. Essentially he was living off the difference in turnover between the current month's turnover and next month's larger turnover, all the profit was consumed by the bank. All went well until there was a downturn and a sawmill defaulted. Bankruptcy became inevitable.

No good ever came from giving some shiny ass a slice of the pie you worked hard for while they were a getting manicure. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[peds]

Updated Dutch flag, seen at the recent climate demonstrations in Amsterdam.

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by peds

[openspaceman]

18 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

No good ever came from giving some shiny ass a slice of the pie you worked hard for while they were a getting manicure. 

I agree but I would hope you see the parallel of  the confidence trick of depending on a future slice of a forever growing cake in a finite world.

[Cuttup]

1 hour ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Not so much a ‘conspiracy’ rather a reflection on the obvious reality. 
 

Economic ‘health’ is measured by GDP, GDP is generated through economic activity, you need population growth to sustain economic growth. 
 

The problem is the apparent unwillingness of just about everyone to acknowledge that GDP is the root of the problem rather than the solution. 
 

So it’s not so much a conspiracy theory based upon tax - tax is just a byproduct of GDP. 
 

Consumption is the symptom, population the cause and GDP is a flawed measure of success. 

Is the root of the problem not consumption, or perhaps our obsession with money? Companies keep producing more the rich get richer etc. but its all for nothing. Money is in the end of limited use when you are well above the bread line.The mega wealthy are so out of ideas as to what to do with it that they are taking holidays to space now.

 

Population growth (which is caused by poverty) is a symtom of neoliberal policies of the 80's where derugulation  of the markets and financial systems took place increasing the gap between rich and poor which is ever increasing.  I don't know many (any?) people who genuinely believe in communisim as a good model but unfettered capitalism as we are seing also comes with its costs and challenges, one of which is disregard for the environment.

 

I'm not sure where the conspiracy ideas come from, it all seems fairly transparent to me.

 

PS why is Great Thunberg such a polarising young woman?

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

2 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I agree but I would hope you see the parallel of  the confidence trick of depending on a future slice of a forever growing cake in a finite world.

Yes, I absolutely do. That is exactly my beef with GDP as a measure of ‘success.’  
 

It’s completely at odds with what is ‘presented’ as the ‘supposed’ aspirations of COP26, it is a vacuous and deeply flawed philosophy and it baffles me that these so-called world leaders stand up there and spout their complete shite and people seem to suck it up. 

[Mesterh]

7 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Are you the guy who believes in astrology? I get confused.

Tell me Michael, how can a billion Indian people be wrong?

 

If its written in the stars then maybe he can tell us how it all pans out. It might save me from buying a beech house in the Maldives.

 

2030 is only so next year (taking into consideration on how fast time is flying past lately) that if the predictions are true it does leave us with what seems to be an unreasonable amount of time to do anything worthwhile. I can now understand why elon and Jeff have developed a space program, the two richest people on the planet. At least poor old Bill G  is doing his best for us mere earthlings.

 

I hope I'm doing my bit as much as I can in regards to recycling, car sharing, buying local and not owning a second yacht.

 

Seriously though, I'll admit that I am fairly ignorant to what's going on with climate change and I'm glad that this thread has been brought/popped to attention.

 

 

 

 

 

[Woodworks]

I always liked the idea of a carbon tax. You have an allowance that you can use up on what you like ie petrol, flying, beef etc but once you go over your allowance you start getting taxed. The further you go over your allowance the higher the tax rate.

 

It would allows flexibility. I dont want to stop eating meat but live in a lowish carbon house and never fly and would resent a meat tax. Chap down the road who has no car and lives in a tiny flat could fly off to wherever without extra taxes. The rich who chose to do everything will pay plenty of carbon taxes. The tax can be ring fenced to improve insulation, public transport, renewables etc.

 

Probably very complicated to implement but we need to do something and if carbon is the problem just tax carbon

[Cuttup]

15 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

I always liked the idea of a carbon tax. You have an allowance that you can use up on what you like ie petrol, flying, beef etc but once you go over your allowance you start getting taxed. The further you go over your allowance the higher the tax rate.

 

It would allows flexibility. I dont want to stop eating meat but live in a lowish carbon house and never fly and would resent a meat tax. Chap down the road who has no car and lives in a tiny flat could fly off to wherever without extra taxes. The rich who chose to do everything will pay plenty of carbon taxes. The tax can be ring fenced to improve insulation, public transport, renewables etc.

 

Probably very complicated to implement but we need to do something and if carbon is the problem just tax carbon

It's beginning to happen. I have a friend who works in the city. His job is basically to find tax avoidance strategies for (large) companies. There are a lot of people making a tonne of money out to decarbonization/carbon credits etc.

 

A local estate has just been bought by a London pension firm for just that. They are planning to plant 500 Ha of new woodland. So whilst the motivation may still be $$$$ (I don't see tha tever changing) hopefully it will be of benefit to local economies and the environment. Mar Carney, governor of Bank of Englad said this a year or 2 ago, tha t big companies would have to pursue green activities to remain competitive. It would appear he was correct. This isn't the end of capitalism, but perhaps a gradual move towards green investments

 

I suspect managing this and ensuring that fair tax is applied and credits aren't 'double booked' may become  the issue. Sadly, that's is nothing new, the wealthy have the means and access to the expertise to find the most tax efficient ways to operate and the rest of us will be stuck with taxes that are proportionally more punitive.

[Cuttup]

But in principle I like your idea Woodworks