The Copenhagen meeting has produced an agreement, though it’s more of an “agreement to agree” than a concrete deal. Most of the specifics have been left for later. That’s problematic of course, but not as bad as an agreement on specifics that are too weak to achieving anything. The deal (draft text here has several important elements
* A warming target of 2 degrees
* Commitment by the developed countries to spend $30 billion over 2010-12 and aim for $100 billion a year by 2020 in assistance to developing countries with a particular focus on preventing deforestation
* A technology transfer mechanism
Of these, the most significant is probably the deal on deforestation, which has actual money (or at least commitments) attached. Assuming this happens, it’s an outcome more significant than that of any international conference in the last decade at least. And technology transfer is important in a number of ways, particularly as a countervailing force against the pressure for ever-stronger intellectual property protections.
I’m a bit surprised, in that I thought the payments to developing countries would be one of the hardest issues of all, whereas the biggest single sticking point seems to have been China’s objections to transparent monitoring – the kind of silly national sovereignty stuff that is par for the course at these meetings but usually gets smoothed over and traded away by the end.
The 2 degree target has been controversial, with lots of countries calling for a 1.5 degree target. But it’s important to remember that only a couple of years ago, the Stern Review was focusing on a 550 ppm stabilization target, which would most likely be associated with long-term warming of 3 degrees. If we can get agreement now on a 2 degree/450 ppm target, there’s a reasonable chance, given technological progress, of bringing concentrations back down to 350 ppm or even to pre-industrial levels (about 280 ppm) by 2100 and that trajectory would have a fair chance of avoiding any sustained period of temperatures more than 1.5 degrees above 1900 levels. Even that trajectory implies significant environmental damage, but it minimises the risk of large-scale climatic catastrophes.
The next step is for Obama to push Waxman-Markey through the US Senate. I’m confident he can do this, given sufficient Administration pressure on the Senate (including, if necessary, the threat of ending the minority right to filibuster legislation with 40 votes). And, given that he has put his credibility on the line, I’m at least reasonably confident that he will do it.
Looking at the Australian implications, I imagine the Opposition will say that there was no need to pass the ETS before Copenhagen. That would have helped them if they had elected, say, Joe Hockey as leader, and settled on a position of deferring, but ultimately supporting the ETS. But it’s hard to see that it will do Abbott any good – sooner or later, he has to come up with an alternative to the ETS, and no remotely affordable alternative is on offer.
The big disappointment is that the longer timetable will give Rudd the option of going for a double dissolution in the second half of 2010, based on the abortive deal with Turnbull.
John Quiggin 
Fred – for some examples look up the BN-600, and Phenix reactors in wikipedia. Even if we use light water reactors with a nuclear waste output of 100 grams per house per annum the waste can be stockpiled for later use as fuel in fast breeder reactors and it would be safer than the uranium waste that coal fired power stations pump into the air.
An olympic swimming pool contains about 2.5 billion grams of water. In the same space you could theoretically fit about 48 billion grams of uranium. So for 10 million Australian homes creating 100 grams each per annum in nuclear waste from light water reactors we could stockpile in such an area for 48 years. Obviously we might not store it in such a packed format in practice but the point is that we can stockpile for a long time in minimal space. As and when we build fast breeder reactors the olympic pool size stock pile would yield about 4800 years worth of electricity for our baseline 10 million homes.
Fred
Yes, there are no TerjeP reactors operating, it is a research program with very little practical information available. It is a nice poetic concept that allows nuke-pundits to inject unwarrented favourable speculations into the debate.
This is the only way they can avoid the real problems and issues.
TerjeP has 1 gm per home of waste but it is not clear what this waste is.
These reactors generally run on P239, the most dangerous of nuke materials. There is no safe dosage of P239 and it has a long half life. Breeders are generally known as dirty reactors.
If Australia has 10 million homes – waste is 10,000 kg per annum. This is 10 metric tonnes.
So if we get half our needs from dirty-nukes we still have to deal with unspecified waste that piles up continuously at around 5 tonnes per year, year after year.
I suppose some unnamed isotopes will decay quickly, but these are usually extremely hot and need early short-term treatment. TergeP should indicate what is required here.
The key issue, little touched on at Copenhagen, is population growth and industrialisation in general.
p.s. My above comment is out of context unless you also read my previous comment to Fred on the prior page.
Right, no IFRs in operation hey?
Seems to be drawing a long bow to claim them as the answer to all prayers then.
Plus, using wiki again, I find that there are no fast breeder reactors operational in the USA, there were some experimental types but after the Lagoona Beach one had early problems and then some years later the sodium caught fire and eventually it was shut down there are none operating now.
Superphenix in France had not produced electricity for 10 years before it was shut down and virtually no electricity has been produced by this type there.
Similarly, despite much research and money the UK has only produced a few MWs of electricity from breeders and there are none operating there now.
Nowhere near GWs of power and currently none.
Much the same scene in Germany.
India apparently has some and so does the former Soviet Union.
Japan had the Monju reactor which has just restarted after years being closed down after the sodium caught fire!
Overall not an impressive record from the point of view of generating power or safety I would have thought.
Coupled with the fact that there have been several nuclear reactor ‘incidents/accidents’ in Japan, Sweden and France in recent years as a result of which entire national nuclear generation electricity systems ceased there seems to be a fair gap between the claims of the nuke proponents and the actual results.
In Sweden a nuclear reactor was leaking radioactive gas for 3 years without being detected and in Japan a reactor released material into the environment after being damaged by an earthquake having been built on a fault line.
Not exactly confidence inspiring in either case.
I am wary of the claims made for the various types of purportedly you beaut reactors.
Sorry I missed the few previous comments, I’ll read them now.
You folk type fast!
“Try reading up on the multiplier”
How big do you think it is, Alice?
Freelander observes:
Here too the specious character of your complaint is clear. There are no state-based income taxes to cut. The state could certainly cut stamp duty or death duty — both of which would be regressive.
Like Terje, you and Alice have your boilerplate which is that no matter what happens, the state will arrange matters so as to maximise inequity. On that basis, it’s hard to see how any measure that didn’t pass this test ever saw the light of day — yet Alice at least implies that there were some such at some point.
Hypothecation is the key question here. One would arrange matters so that all of the revenue and all of the savings on road maintenance less state-based fuel excise and sales tax revenue losses from falling vehicle miles would be diverted into programs aimed at providing good alternatives for those forsaking the roadspace.
Imagine someone who normally drives 20,000 km each year of which 17,000 is commuting. Instead, the person carpools with just one other person — each of them taking a turn to drive on a week about basis. Allowing for four weeks annual leave, the commuting miles are cut in half — to about 8500km which allowing a marginal cost of about 50cents per km in depreciation, service, wear and tear on moving parts and fuel saves the person about $4250. They use up 240 of their 300 permits and auction the remaining 60, further offsetting their travelling costs.
Let’s say a public car park is set up on the approach to the permit-restricted bridge and rapid shuttle public transport is supplied. Then the costs fall by even more because even allowing a charge for usage, the marginal cost will be lower than using the car and an even greater proportion of the permist can be auctioned.
That revenue/benefit of course comes from people exercising the options, whom you and Alice say are the rich and privileged. They pay an increased cost but get benefits they deem valuable. Those forsaking the road are trading the negative benefit of sitting in traffic and paying a large marginal cost for the positive benefit of reduced marginal costs, and cash rewards. That sounds a lot like a Pareto optimum to me — and insofar as there is transfer of benefit, it is in the direction or relatively disadvantaged people. Oh, and the air is cleaner, which also relatively assists those who suffer disprproportionately from low quality air — i.e. less advantaged people. So everyone is better off but the relatively poor especially so.
If you can think of a better way to achieve benefits given existing arrangements, I’d be interested in hearing about it, but if you are simply going to vent a whole bunch of metaphysical nonsense about the machinations of the wealthy then really, you ought to save your breath.
Chris – what I have read indicates that the waste from a fast breeder reactor requires secure storage for 300 years before it decays to background levels of radioactivity. And as indicated above if we powered all of Australia on fast breeder reactors then the waste over 4800 years of operation would hypothetically fit in an olympic swimming pool. So storage space isn’t a big issue.
Fast breeder reactors are used to “burn up” waste from old nuclear weapons. In theory we could use existing stockpiles of waste for hundreds of years in fast reactors and all that time existing stockpiles would be getting smaller not larger.
@Ernestine Gross
I’m not sure what the question is here. Perhaps you can clarify precisely what you seek.
As I see it, the bridge system would have a fixed quantity of permits to cross. A rpimary constraint would be of course, the state’s revenue target, which would in turn be driven by modelling of the likely revenue costs for maintaining the said bridges, plus the cost of providing the alternative public transport, public housing, car partks etc on some timeline.
I suspect that if, for example, each licenced driver in the Sydney Met area were issued with 300 such permits, and that in addition, the state issued a further three for each for bid, then the cap would be a multiple of four of the existing licenced drivers in Sydney. You might allow that the permits were required only between 6AM and 9PM so that those travelling during times when the marginal cost of public transport was highest and the net public utility lowest could use their cars and avoid using a permit. This might encourage a shift for delivery drivers to after hours, further spreading the traffic volume across notional roadspace.
Overall though the system would be redistributive and progressive because it would create positive incentives for people currently using a large part of their PDI to operate motor vehicles to be more judicious, and allow at least some to do away with them altogether while allowing them to auction off rights to wealthy people for cash.
Fran – I’m not sure of the point you are making against me. However I’m not against time of use charging for roads if it is part of an integrated approach.
People that continually derail threads with nuclear propaganda generally gloss over the following:
It is not an economical option without a significant carbon price, and even then there will be better economic options that will need to get dispatched first (such as wind, solar hot water, and nat gas).
As nuclear power provides 14% of the world’s electricity and as electricity provides approximately 25% of the world’s GHGs, even a doubling of nuclear power (which is unlikely to happen over the next 15-20 years) would only produce an approximate 5% reduction in global GHG emissions. As we need a 40% reduction over this time period it is not a “solution” to the immediate issue at hand. Although further research and appropriate development is, of course, quite sensible.
Iain – almost nothing is viable relative to fossil fuels without a carbon price. And excluding hydro the impact of doubling the output from any other zero CO2 alternative is far more dismal compared to nuclear.
TerjeP,
The point I, and seemingly Chris is on the same track, am making is that IFRs and Fast Breeders are so hyped up by the nuke industry and so far behind that hype in real performance, cost and safety, never mind the insoluble waste problem whether it is 10,000 years or a mere 400 years [roughly double the life of European Australia] that it is fantasy to intrude them into a discussion of power for the future.
I get amused by the nuke proponents who trot out what are essentially fantasy numbers and then accuse the sustainable renewable proponents as being idealists and dreamers.
The reality is that it is the nuke proponents who live in la-la land.
@Fran Barlow
Says to Freelander “Here too the specious character of your complaint is clear. There are no state-based income taxes to cut. The state could certainly cut stamp duty or death duty — both of which would be regressive. ”
There is nothing specious about it Fran. We do continue to have to suffer the continued clamourings for “tax cuts tax cuts” from the wealthier and the Murdoch press. Its got to the point of the absurd the medi pressure for yet more tax cuts (and they have had substantial tax cuts over the period of neo liberal dogmatism). I suspect they have the resources to fan the media spin for it and perpetuate the myths of the same dogma (supported by the arch conservative and I would suggest arch tax tightwad Rupert Murdoch) .
If the government capitulates to this “more tax cuts” BS they may as well give up and lay down their powers and walk away for all the good it will do.
Tax allocations from Commonwealth to State already occur as do grants from the building infrastructure fund and others. These can be changed depending on needs acrosss the country and should be. You have just indulged in a hair splitting coment – thats all. What Freelander alluded to is not specious at all. BTW – I dont as you suggest think that the State should always provide all services, just that they have been hawking far too many services to the private sector and abrogated the great majority of the responsibility for capital infrastructure investment to the private sector. Its not proving effective.
I dont want the State responsible for all capital infrastructure investment nor do I want the alternate lunacy of the private sector being solely responsible for capital infrastructure investment in this country. Why? Because its not working (not happening) in a suitable or sustainable or well planned – for future needs – fashion. I dont know why you cannot see that balance is obviously required – perhaps I should lend you my boiler plate for a while seeing as you are so fond of the expression. Its you hiding behind larger dogma on the miracle of price rationing (and its apparent healing powers for any and every circumstance) than either Freelander or I.
On that last note Ernestine also asked you a question that so far you have ignored.
Terje, there is a difference between time lag and scaling possibilities between wind, solar hot water and nat gas etc. — and nuclear.
The people of Samso Island disagree with your assessment that “nothing is viable relative to fossil fuels without a carbon price”. Perhaps you can explain your theories to them?
@Alice
From a pure engineering standpoint, congestion pricing is a good idea. From an equity standpoint, you do have some valid points. However, I think you are not defining your terms properly, and so coming to erroneous conclusions.
You say that “we” (or “they”) paid for the roads with our/their taxes. For the sake of simplicity, this is true – everyone pays for the public goods. But then your unspoken assumption is that these goods – in this case major roads, or bridges – are used equally. They are not. Everyone in NSW pays for a bridge, but only those that go over the bridge get any direct benefit* from it. So people in rural areas, for example, who tend to be poorer than urban dwellers, are in effect subsidising their richer brethren. Is this fair and equitable? No.
One way to make it fairer would be to earmark taxes from everywhere west of the GDR so that they’re not spent on the proposed M4 East. Or something similar to minimise the subsidy. Would you agree thus far?
It’s only one more step to then say that those in Campbelltown shouldn’t subsidise North Shore professionals commuting to their city offices either, that they should pay their own way. How would you do that? A toll.
Therefore, the most equitable method is getting users to pay for using, which is what you’re arguing against. Why do you hate the poor? 😉
* One can make an argument that the economic activity facilitated by the bridge creates benefits for the wider economy, including those not using the bridge directly, but then that flows both ways, so for the purposes of this comment I’ll assume it’s a wash.
Re last comment above that Ernestine’s question has been answered. Multiple postings in transition.
@Jarrah
Ads I indicated in my last post Jarrah – its a question of balance. Read it carefully.
Fran,
1. You ask for clarifiction. As nanks and others may testify, I usually rewrite when there is ambiguity. I can’t see a need in this case to rewrite. So I ask a subsidiary question. Can you give me a reference of any auction theory model you have read?
2. Your conclusion in your third paragraph depends on your second paragraph which contains only an assumption (“I suspect”). To illustrate the difficulties with your approach: Suppose some arbitrary rule (eg your suggestion) would result in delivery drivers using the roads “after hours”. Can’t you see that this is either plain nonsense (to whom would the delivery drivers deliver when everybody has gone home? or, assuming they deliver on the footpath, how much would the “revenue target” for the police department have to increase?)
I understand London has introduced a congestion price system. But London is not a good case to copy because of lack of comparable conditions. London has a well developed public transport system hence choice is available. Thus, the order of events matters. Further, London doesn’t have a sizeable harbour and two major rivers flowing into the harbour and hilly areas like Sydney. Thus, the ‘real world’ – the physical environment – matters.
@Alice
You’re not answering the question or addressing the criticism.
@Jarrah
Jarrah – I asked you to read my comment again because in it, I am not criticising the use of a price rationing system but I am criticising overeliance on it. I dont think I have any agreement with what you say above in certain circumstances, however user pays is a principle that also has many weaknesses.
As you state
“It’s only one more step to then say that those in Campbelltown shouldn’t subsidise North Shore professionals commuting to their city offices either, that they should pay their own way. How would you do that? A toll.
Therefore, the most equitable method is getting users to pay for using, which is what you’re arguing against. Why do you hate the poor?”
Equity is only one concern Future needs for a growing population is another important concern. Fran discusses spreading loads by introducing bridge permits that operate in certain hours (or dont) but this about spreading loads and making existing infrastructure more efficient. Its not without cost but at a certain point we could have had a major project implemented and completed in the time eg the State government has fiddled while congestion soared.
These are the big ideas Jarrah – eg a major upgrade and extension of the rail system in Sydney. They require large scale planning and capital investment without necessarily getting bogged down in the equity locality arguments over Campbelltown V the “leafy North Shore.
The next generation who may use it may not live in either Campbelltown or the “leafy North Shore” and may not even use public trains at all. I chide you Jarrah for your use of emotive terms like the “leafy” north shore. In fact I live on the “leafy” north shore and if you think the transport is a joy, you are sadly mistaken.
Yet without it (a major integrated centralised system of some sort that deals with needs across the country ) we will continue to burden ourselves with requirements for the sorts of short term fixes Fran discusses above, without really making much progress as natural population growth erodes our short term efficiency gains in relatively short time.
We assume that an entity like Macbank is a preferable owner and constructor but that is not necessarily the case. Taxpayers too can be the owners, investors and get the revenue stream from the price later. Do we wait until we cannot get to work at all or do we start a national integrated plan now? A number of States are quite frankly, too incompetent to administer or oversee it.
@Ernestine Gross
My interest has been spurred by discussions of cap and trade in carbon markets. This article
discusses some of the issues
In terms of game theory, the complex of strategies open to the players represent a Nash equilibrium because each player benefits maximally no matter what strategy other players adopt.
The bulk of delivery is to businesses (eg manufacturers to wholesalers to retailers etc). And personally, I’d prefer the postal contractors to come late. It’s a damn nuisance having to take time off work to visit the post office or to find stuff simply dumped on my front lawn.
Alice said:
So why would you want them in charge? When would you propose starting? With what resources (human and material)?
There is no satisfactory answer within your paradigm.
@Jarrah
I’d be pretty confident that the rural folk are actually subsidised by urban taxpayers. The km of road or numbers of bridges per unit of population figures would be heavily skewed in favour of rural taxpayers/road users.
I’m not suggesting, btw, that rural road users should be subjected to user pays charges, since that would likely lead to the abandonment of much of rural and regional Australia. As Prof Q has previously written, road tolls on new infrastructure are perverse and regressive, since they discourage use of efficient new roads and create incentives in favour of inefficient old (but free) roads.
Last, in a carbon-constrained future world, there are lots of reasons why it would be in the interest of rural road users, who have no alternative transport options, to support low-emissions transport options for urbanites.
@Fran Barlow
says
Alice said:
Do we wait until we cannot get to work at all or do we start a national integrated plan now? A number of States are quite frankly, too incompetent to administer or oversee it.
So why would you want them in charge? When would you propose starting? With what resources (human and material)?
There is no satisfactory answer within your paradigm.
there is Fran and once again you ignore the blatantly obvious 1) either enure the states have some of the tax take (look up the history of vertical fiscal imbalance in this country and tell me what you find out) or 2) get rid of the states and make in a commonwealth responsibility
Its just amazing to me Fran how you can come up with every variety of user pays price rationing short term fix under the sun but solutions at all of any other type seem to escape your radar entirely.
Actually its not that amazing. I know who is wearing the ideological neo liberal boiler suit.
should read – ensure the states have more of the income tax take (see VFI)
We ought to abolish commonwealth state grants and give income tax back to the states. That would still leave a lot of other revenue in federal hands. We need more localised democracy and less centralised democracy. We ought to be more like switzerland in this regard.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
I disagree. Were it possible to bring it off, I’d abolish the states entirely and replace them with regional government, who would have only quite limited revenue raising powers. All but essentially regional matters would be federally funded and coordinated.
@Fran Barlow
Fran,
1. The discussion paper you referenced is a public relations piece written for the US audience. There are holes in the argument, some of which are due to the authors ignoring time and hence financing and hence the tax implications of debt finance.
2. “In terms of game theory, the complex of strategies open to the players represent a Nash equilibrium because each player benefits maximally no matter what strategy other players adopt”.
Your statement is either taken out of context from a paper (public relations?) that is not particularly careful in the usage of terminology or it is total nonsense. A Nash equilibrium is defined as: each player chooses that strategy available to him or her which is the ‘best response’ to the other players’ strategy choice (note the ‘each’). Further, note the Nash solution concept has the property of non-uniqueness. (Incidentally, mechanism design is not the same as game theory just as civil engineering is not the same as physics; being related is not the same as being the same.)
3. It was not I who introduced the tangent of congestion pricing for traffic.
4. “The bulk of delivery is to businesses (eg manufacturers to wholesalers to retailers etc).” Is it still not clear that delivery “after hours” would not be possible except by depositing the stuff on the footpath?
5. So, you want to have ‘after hours’ for yourself but not for the postman (or woman). Incidentally, you can hire someone to pick up your mail from the post office if you don’t wish to take time off work – user pays applied to you.
Now onto a bit of different leadership news.
The French are acknowledged (at least by some people) as the world leader in fashion. What if the change in fashion in the gift giving area in France, described in the following article, becomes the fashion in the global economy … ?
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/french-green-gifting-to-save-money-and-the-planet-20091221-l7r5.html
@Alice
“I chide you Jarrah for your use of emotive terms like the “leafy” north shore. ”
???
I didn’t. Clearly you don’t read my comments with any care. Or you like misrepresenting me (it wouldn’t be the first time).
@Fran Barlow
“I’d abolish the states entirely and replace them with regional government, who would have only quite limited revenue raising powers.”
Since we’re on wishlists now, I’d abolish states and LGAs entirely and replace them with regional governments (based on watershed/geological/ecological boundaries), who would have a majority of the revenue-raising and -spending powers. Competitive federalism FTW.
@Ernestine Gross
Nor I. I was for auctioning the space off.
I’m beginning to doubt your powers of comprehension as well as your expressive literacy skills. Get back to me if you can work out what I really said.
@Jarrah
The first part sounds like what I had in mind, but I’d leave the funding and oversight with the Feds.
TerjeP
One should always keep an eye on scientific developments, but the onus is on proponents to demonstrate their case – rigorously.
I do not see that a swimming pool of waste, is a major problem, but I am very skeptical because the details of high-level cf. low level waste concerns have not been addressed, and the isotopes in the waste, not cataloged.
However present launch costs are around 10,000 per kilo, so a reduced quantity of waste, in the future, may be a trivial concern.
BUT – This does not apply today, and is NOT relevant to our present need to switch out of fossil fuels.
Many households can get 1KW from their roofs and even pump surplus into the grid. Hybrid cars and full electric cars are closer than acceptable nukes. Methane is easily produced and can be liquefied as easily as LPG. Tidal, wind, geothermal, hydo all add to a better, less risky, more democratic solution to global warming.
As I have already mentioned, I do not see that reducing nuclear activity to “background levels” is meaningful, because if this returns to the environment, the background level increases.
Adding low level radioactive waste to the environment, is not like adding salty water to the ocean. In any case background levels are already dangerous to embryos and mammalian reproductive systems.
Imaginary nukes may make economic sense – they are a public policy disaster.
@Jarrah
Pardon me Jarrah – I did misquote you – re the usage of the term “leafy norh shore” – you actually did not use this term – what you suggested was why should people who live in Campbelltown subsidise “north shore professionals” commuting to work (to wit – not all residents on the North Shore are professionals jarrah – different terminology – same intention – I still chide you! Why should North shore residents subsidise Campbelltown professionals commuting to work.
Because Jarrah – the roadways to travel to work should be a public good and the vast great majority of us need to use them to work. Make it fast, efficient and available and we all subsidise each other.
Taxes prices taxes tolls – no damn difference Jarrah – it just comes out of your pocket one way or another – except with a price the poor are excluded from getting to work easily (btw – the poorer tend to live a longer distance from the city – by yours and Frans arguments they should pay more because they use the roads more.
Ugly Jarrah ugly.
@Fran Barlow
Nice response to Ernestine…it must be that hard neo liberal armour making you uncomfortable. Did you pay a price for that?. You must value it more. It seems those with the most to gain are willing to pay a higher price for the dissemination of the policies of self interest.
Is that what one would call user pays economic policy?.
@Alice
That response makes even less sense that your previous posts.
Don’t you have anything to say outside of reflexive moralising?
@Alice
For sheer idiocy, this takes some beating:
Anyone who thinks travelling at under 10 kph average for 10 hours or more each week while paying a bundle for it is “getting to work easily” really ought not to be posturing as a buddy of the poor.
Chris – do the proponents of wind and solar also have to demonstrate their case vigourously?
@Ernestine Gross
Nice idea Ernestine. If the French are thumbing their noses at mass pre packaged consumerism at Xmas what can I say but bien fait!
@Fran Barlow
Well I posture I am a better buddy to the poor than you are Fran if you think wacking a price on so the poor are declogged from your roads is actually an efficiency measure….and then waiting until some distant time when enough revenues are collected from those who can pay to er er ahem cough…build a public train for the poor? Right Fran…so the poor wait and wait and wait for the train?
Nice try…back to my question…tax ?price? tax? price?? Now let me see. There is a difference – tax will deliver the public train faster. You can have your train ticket price when it pulls in to the station.
@Fran Barlow
Do you actually have any meaningful comment to make on the rest of my point Fran or do you just cherry pick to arrive at your definition of idiocy which takes some beating also…
“except with a price the poor are excluded from getting to work easily (btw – the poorer tend to live a longer distance from the city – by yours and Frans arguments they should pay more because they use the roads more.”
@Fran Barlow
Insults (to myself and Ernestine I now note) are hardly an argument but then something tells me this isnt a considered argument rather than blind user pays faith on your part Fran.
Alice – you’re a fan of socialist remedies. In my book that makes you no friend of the poor.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Terje – in my book you push more of the free market ideologies that have prevailed over the last few decades and have only given us rising inequality and more burdens on the poor and more benefits to the rich.
In my book that makes you no friend of the poor.
I am a fan of socialist remedies when the free market nonsense has gone too far and is proving damaging. Im in favour of a “mixed economy” Terje. If you call it socialist so be it. Im not ashamed of my views. Its in our history and has provided us with much in this country. I only wonder at your shame and denial of our history.
Where to now Terje?. Agree to disagree? Lets have a little graciousness here unless you want to charge a user pays price for it LOL?
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
So am I Terje — it’s just that I prefer those that are optimal.
Fran Barlow, I wish you a merry christmas in your universe.
Alice, I wish you a merry christmas in our leafy north shore.
@Ernestine Gross
And as a secularist I wish you the judgement needed to live well during the coming season.
@Ernestine Gross
Thanks Ernestine and I especially wish you one too! I echo your sentiments elsewhere as well…we may not always understand those that seem to differ from us…but thats the beauty of life isnt it?.
@Fran Barlow
Fran – we may as well enjoy Xmas – all of us here… and btw there is nothing in here I like better than a bit of real agry bargy about stuff that matters an d I do appreciate your inputs! I hope you enjoy yours as well and Terje also (Ill get you next year Terje…he is mighty slippery!).
But most of all Id like to thank JQ for this blog – really. I think its the best blog in Australia because it is open to most views!!
@Alice
Really Alice, you have got yourself into a tizz, haven’t you? My roads? Amusing, but rather sad.
You can prefer to have the socially disadvantaged compete with each other for high-prioced road space or you can have the privileged essentially subsidise them out of their cars and their houses in the boondocks miles from anywhere and onto quality public transport and residences near their work.
To me, it seems a straightforward enough thing. The poor are better off on public tranpsort with cash from wealthier people in their pockets than sitting in their cars grizzling about the state of the roads and their fellows.
As always, YMMV … 😉
I find your citation of “user pays” perverse. For all discretionary services, user pays is a suitable principle. While there’s a compelling case for ensuring equirty in housing, health, education, water, air, food, clothing etc why people shouldn’t bear the cost of purely private and discretionary usages is far from clear.
Should flat screen TVs be subsidised for the sake of equity? What about alcohol or cigarettes or a day down at the TAB?
You surely are an odd bird.