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
---
--

"rk" wrote in message
...
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 -
and
make a gesture towards fighting climate change.

The best way Europeans could help poor African countries is to eliminate the
massive subsidies given to European farmers, particularly French, and allow
imported food. Africa could be a tremendous exporter of agriculture, but as
long as Europe stacks the deck against them that won't happen. This airline
tax is total nonsense, a bandaid for an amputated arm. It's typical EU
bureaucratic bull****.

"rk" wrote in message
...
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 -
and
make a gesture towards fighting climate change.

Finance ministers from the G8 agreed at the weekend to look at using
income
from airline traffic to boost aid.

-- end excerpt --
My understanding is that the airline people said it would just be too
complex to collect and consolidate taxes on hundreds of different airlines,
changes to all their IT systems etc.It sounds to me like a very inefficient
way to raise money.

And why tax people who fly rather than those who smoke, drive, drink, or
whatever? It seems a very arbitrary source of money and not related to the
need.

rk wrote:
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

First, the G-8 doesn't "want" it. It is one of many proposals being
considered. The Independent should be a little more careful with its
headlines.

This originally was a proposal from Germany (France thought it good,
too) and is designed to be voluntary and apply to the EU only.

Of course then someone said "make it world wide" since there is more
air travel in the US than the rest of the world combined. That way the
Euros could make the US pay for their initiative.

One more example of "I want, I want, I want. You pay."

"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.

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.

"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.

Dirk McQuigley wrote:
The best way Europeans could help poor African countries is to eliminate the
massive subsidies given to European farmers, particularly French, and allow
imported food.

Actually it is worse. Europe and USA not only compete on who can most
subsidize their argriculture, but they also export their below-cost
products to africa.

So, the farmers in Africa are faced with competing against subsidized
products from europe and USA against which they cannot compete since the
raw materials (seeds and basic nutrients/pesticides) cost more than what
they can get on the market for their products. As a result, many farms
have stopped producing since they lose less money that way.

Oh, and guess where the seeds and nutrients/pesticides come from ? USA
and European companies. So the few who do survive on agriculture in
Africa still give most of their revenus to rich nations.

Africa is a victim of egos between the USA and Europe, either of which
want to reduce their subsidies to farmers since it would be politically bad.

Jesus Christ, they could at least put a tax equal to the subsidy on
exports. This way the farmers would still be subsidized, and nations
such as africa, canada, australia and others wouldn't be penalised
because they can't afford to subsidize their farmers to the same levels
as do USA and Europe.

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 13:34:14 -0400, nobody wrote:

Jesus Christ, they could at least put a tax equal to the subsidy on
exports. This way the farmers would still be subsidized, and nations
such as africa, canada, australia and others wouldn't be penalised
because they can't afford to subsidize their farmers to the same levels
as do USA and Europe.

Some - Australia and Canada - CAN afford to subsidise them, we just
don't because it is seen as a retrograde step.

Dave

=====

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