G8 wants tax on airline tickets to help world poor
 

rk wrote:

[x-posted to rec.travel.europe]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=646523



G8 wants tax on airline tickets to help world poor
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent, 13 June 2005

Airline groups have condemned plans by the world's richest countries to
impose
a tax on airline tickets to fund extra money for poor African countries -


Not one more cent should be sent to that economic aid sinkhole known as
"Africa"...hundreds of billions have been poured into Africa in the past 45
years, and conditions there have only gotten worse...even *more* money is
not going to solve any problems.

Simply let Africa sink or swim on it's own, e.g. let it "Darwinize"
itself...


and
make a gesture towards fighting climate change.


To what effect? The climate is going to change regardless of any human
intervention, it's been continually changing now for billions of years...

Might as well have a tax on shagging to change the orbit of Mercury for all
it's worth. A useless and futile gesture.

--
Best
Greg

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:15:14 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
gregorymorrowEMERGENCYCANCELLATIONARCHIMEDES@eart hlink.net wrote:


rk wrote:

[x-posted to rec.travel.europe]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=646523



G8 wants tax on airline tickets to help world poor
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent, 13 June 2005

Airline groups have condemned plans by the world's richest countries to
impose
a tax on airline tickets to fund extra money for poor African countries -


Not one more cent should be sent to that economic aid sinkhole known as
"Africa"...hundreds of billions have been poured into Africa in the past 45
years, and conditions there have only gotten worse...even *more* money is
not going to solve any problems.

Simply let Africa sink or swim on it's own, e.g. let it "Darwinize"
itself...

SA and Zimbabwe have produced a fair number of millionaires over the
years. It's those smelly little brown people that throw things at each
other that can't seem to get it together though.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

"make a gesture towards fighting climate change."

Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a
very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance
flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains. Most European
countries shouldn't even have domestic flights.

Martin wrote:

On 13 Jun 2005 06:07:43 -0700, wrote:


"make a gesture towards fighting climate change."

Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a
very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance
flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains.


How will high speed trains help to reduce global warming?

Trains are an 18th century invention. As everyone knows, 18th century
inventions are much better than 19th and 20th century inventions.

T.

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:31:16 +0200, Tom Peel
wrote:

Martin wrote:

On 13 Jun 2005 06:07:43 -0700, wrote:


"make a gesture towards fighting climate change."

Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a
very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance
flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains.


How will high speed trains help to reduce global warming?

Trains are an 18th century invention. As everyone knows, 18th century
inventions are much better than 19th and 20th century inventions.

So we are talking about horses pulling wooden trucks on wooden tracks?


Yuk - Think of the methane pollution.

What we need are fewer people.

Lets start by killing all the .........'s

For many journeys within Europe, city-centre to city-centre times by
train are comparable (or shorter) than those by air. However, the cost
of such a journey by train is absurdly higher than by air. For
example, from Exeter (where I am) I can get a Flybe flight to Paris for
less than the cost of a train ticket to Heathrow, while the train
ticket from Exeter to Luton airport costs six times as much as a flight
(on Easyjet) from Luton to Turin.

Personally I would always prefer to do a journey within Europe by train
rather than by air, but the cost of not flying is enormous. The
proposed tax might go some way towards tipping the economics in a more
sustainable direction.

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On 13 Jun 2005 06:07:43 -0700, wrote:

"make a gesture towards fighting climate change."

Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a
very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance
flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains.

How will high speed trains help to reduce global warming?

Because they run on electricity generated by a nuclear power
station :-(.

tim


--
Martin

"Personally I would always prefer to do a journey within Europe by
train
rather than by air, but the cost of not flying is enormous."

Part of the problem is that air travel is far more heavily subsidized
than trains. If flight and train prices reflected the real costs to
government and the environment, then trains would be much more
competitive pricewise, if not actually cheaper than the planes over
short distances.

Deep Foiled Malls wrote:


SA and Zimbabwe have produced a fair number of millionaires over the
years. It's those smelly little brown people that throw things at each
other that can't seem to get it together though.


A lot of money has been pumped into Africa over the years, but it is like a
bottomless pit. While foreign governments send billions of dollars the poor
people remain poor and the political elite vacation in European luxury resorts
and hotels.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to sop giving the money to the government
and instead, funnel it directly into infrastructure improvement. Send their
armies, corps of engineers or contractors and equipment in to build the projects
and hire a few locals so the money goes directly to the poor instead of
trickling down. It should be accompanied by an arms embargo on the entire
continent. If they cannot feed their people or provide any sort of
infrastructure there should be no money available for arms and ammunition.