[Newfie]

KJ,

When you talk about contempt for our laws then you and Cog are talking the same language. IMHO we are no longer a law abiding country.

But also I feel less threatened by the super wealth simply because I really don’t think that wealth exists. It’s like the Tulip Bubble. Wait till this shit pops and then see who has what.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I understand your concepts all too well. You are hypocritical with them. You want a progressive consumption tax that will fall most heavily on the 10%. You don't care that the other 90% of the population will be immune to this tax. For them, you don't care if they breed like rabbits and consume even more resources in your over-heated world.

You are out to get the rich no matter how you have to go about it. They are the problem in your world, not the other 90%. But its not socially acceptable to get rid of the 90%, so you pick the target that is not popular. The 10%. So cut to the chase and simply kill the 10% and all of your problems will be solved.

You voted for Obama twice didn't you? That is a simple yes or no question. You also voted for Hillary didn't you?

Sigh.

Look, I AM the 10%, if not the 1%, depending on what you are measuring.

I'm just looking to greatly cut the output of CO2. If I thought we could do that without taxing anyone, that would be just fine with me. If I thought we could run the planet of 7.5+ billion people in a rational way without taxing anyone, that would also be just fine with me.

I don't know how to do that. Do you? Just pretending no problems exist won't cut it, IMO.

Why would the other 90% be "immune" to the moderate tax I'm proposing for over 300 gallons of gasoline consumed a year? With the US drivers averaging about 13,000 miles a year, and the fleet average at about 25 mpg -- do the math. The vast majority of people certainly would NOT be "immune" from the CO2 taxes. They just wouldn't pay the same level of taxes the guy flying in his private jet would.

Well, SO WHAT? Look at income taxes. Despite all the false claims by the far left, the rich in the US pay a HUGE proportion of the income taxes. Again, you seem to be getting over-excited about nothing, and making false assumptions/claims about what I want. If you think income taxes don't fall most heavily on the 10% and especially the 1% today, I think you're badly confused.

I voted for Obama once. Given what was happening in 2008, I don't apologize for that. As I've repeatedly said on this site, I voted third party in 2016, rejecting both HRC (who I pretty much hate) and Trump (who is far too random to me).

[KaiserJeep]

OS, face up to the conumdrum: the basic problem we have is too many humans on one planet. Excessive atmospheric carbon dioxide is a symptom of human overpopulation.

[ROCKMAN]

Newfie – I don’t care too dig to find the calculation of that ridiculous stat in the thread title. I assume that’s some of the cherry picking you’ve referred to. Did some one bother to offer the GHG generation by segment (industrial & commercial & residential)?

“The industrial, residential and commercial sectors are the main users of electricity covering 92% of usage. Industry is the largest consumer of the three because certain manufacturing processes are very energy intensive. Specifically, the production of chemicals, iron/steel, cement, aluminum as well as pulp and paper account for the great majority of industrial electricity use. The residential and commercial sectors are also heavily reliant on electricity for meeting their energy needs, particularly for lighting, heating, air conditioning and appliances.”

And further:

“The transportation sector is the second largest source of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Transporting goods and people around the world produced 22% of fossil fuel related carbon dioxide emissions in 2010.”

So just 22% by ALL ICE CONSUMSUMPTION by every person on the planet.

An do need to discuss what % of the 7.5 billion folks on the planet are “rich”? Again I don’t really care what ridiculous calculus was used to come up with the 10% = 50% stat. After all if the richest 10% of that number is the richest of the global population that’s 750 MILLION PEOPLE. Are there 750 million folks that have private jets? Have McMansions? Own fuel guzzling yachts?

So is that the 10% of the “rich” they refer to…750 million gluttonous fossil fuel consumers? And where (in detail) do those 750 million “rich” folks live? More importantly: who here would accept that there are 750 million "rich" folks somewhere on the planet as has been characterized by some on this thread?
IOW what is the average income of those 750 million "rich" people?

[Outcast_Searcher]

OS, face up to the conumdrum: the basic problem we have is too many humans on one planet. Excessive atmospheric carbon dioxide is a symptom of human overpopulation.

No disagreement here at all. I just prefer to try to do something, vs. just laying down and dying, or doing what we seem to be doing by default, i.e. "party now and get all I can, and the hell with the next generations".

I have no kids. One of the primary reasons that is the case is I reasoned that overpopulation is THE fundamental problem humans face.

Aside from advocating using less FF's (and actually doing so in my personal life), I don't know what else to do about the issue, since I have one vote, and despite the claims of Cog, don't want to kill people.

[KaiserJeep]

A lot of you are playing fast and loose with the terms 10% and 1%. We beat the terms to death in the thread titled "The One Percent Pt. 2":

http://peakoil.com/forums/the-one-percent-pt-2-t73396.html

Here's the source article that sparked the definitions. Most Middle Class Americans are in the 1% of the world. Many of us here admit to being in the 10% of the most wealthy Americans. In any case, the numbers were updated in the original article on May 14 of this year:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050615/are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp

[KaiserJeep]

OS, I'll have to say, it annoys me when people who are smart enough to recognize that overpopulation is the #1 problem, do not reproduce. But then I got to read the actual conclusions that were reached on the Human Genome Project, before the academia nuts and the politicians Bowdlerized it to remove all the non-PC content.

Suffice it to say that without any doubt, human intelligence is related to genetics more than anything else. Reproduction rates are inversely related to intelligence, which is pure human tragedy. (I will not discuss this topic further.)

[Newfie]

Right on Rocman,

Almost by virtue of being an American citizen you are in that too 10%, surely from a carbon footprint point of view. It’s all those “collective” use you cite: roads, airports, industry, hospitals, office buildings. They are shared resources apportioned to each and every one of us.

Some here linked to a wealth calculator, based on a world perspective every single one of us here is in the top 10%, most in the top 1%.

I’ve noted this before, an average human is roughly an average Guatemalan. And they don’t need heat or AC. But even that poor slob is living above the means of the planet because if we all created the average carbon we would still be at what, 2.3 Earths equivalent. So for a sustainable 7.5 billion we would have to live on 40% of an average Guatemalan energy budget. Except many of us would also have to heat our house.

That’s all just back of the envelope figures, but they are in the ball park. Good enough for beer night brawls. And that’s why there is no “solution” that does not involve a very substantive decrease in population.

You could take all Bill Gates bucks, if you could actually make those assets liquid, and distribute them evenly around the world and everyone would end up with a nice McDonalds meal. One. Pass it around just to those below average and they might get what, 3 McDonalds meals?

And I still contend that “wealth” aint real. It’s just digital fluff. I have no way to prove it or even a concept of what proof would look like but I’m betting real tangible wealth, stuff that actually exists in four dimensional physics is well under 10% of the claimed world wealth, perhaps much closer to 1%. That’s just my gut feeling.

[KaiserJeep]

Newfie, in the literal sense, money is not real, it's a symbol for recognized value.

I have often said here that after TSHTF, I would not trade food for any amount of gold, or any other currency, for that matter. That upsets some people, who believe in gold, but don't consider it in the same category as banknotes. Yet both are symbols, food has real value because you can eat it.

My personal plan for retaining as much value as possible for what I earned and inherited, is to put my money in high value real estate. There is a limited supply and increasing demand.

[Newfie]

4 apartment building in center city Philly.

[KaiserJeep]

4 apartment building in center city Philly.

That works, unless you believe that Philly will depopulate when oil gets expensive.

[Newfie]

Quite the contrary, people will flock in to beat high gas costs.

Now when the ghetto goes up in smoke, then things get interesting.

But I’m not worried as much about high fuel prices as a sudden financial collapse. Who knows how that will play out.

[KaiserJeep]

Quite the contrary, people will flock in to beat high gas costs.

Now when the ghetto goes up in smoke, then things get interesting.

But I’m not worried as much about high fuel prices as a sudden financial collapse. Who knows how that will play out.

Well, of course that's the whole point in owning real estate versus money. You CAN live in an unheated space in Winter, with just enough electricity to run an electric blanket. Not very comfortable, but better than freezing.

[Newfie]

We are in Grenada, the only thing frozen is my margarita.

[Ibon]

Most of you argue from a provincial domestic USA point of view since this is your experience. My experience regarding this topic comes from multiple decades of actually working, living and conducting business in developing countries. Those 90% , however poorly defined, are mostly the poor living in developing countries. As Dohboi points out ad naseum the rich countries is where these 10% live who consume so much more per capita vs the poor in developing countries. Furthermore, we often blame the super wealthy for inordinate amouonts of consumption.

Well, here is what is always overlooked when we discuss this topic and that is the disparity of wealth that you find within these poor developing countries themselves. That disparity is even more egregious than the disparity between the average consumer in a wealthy country and the poor in a developing country. The wealthy within developing countries are super wealthy. Think Carlos Slim of Mexico wealthy. Poor countries have oligarchies of super wealthy that control major industries. Again, the split between super wealthy and poor, the disparity in poor countries is far greater than between wealthy and poor countries. Should we talk social inequities? Well, the politics in most developing countries is so corrupt it makes Donald Trump seem like Ghandi or Jesus Christ. Just ask Sea Gypsy about politics in the Philippines. Just ask me the 20 years I won multi million dollar contracts in Latin America and how these business transactions were negotiated. Never mind.

If you consider the reality of the power structures within developing countries and the disparity that is found within developing countries why the hell would you waste your time ever concerning yourself with the disparity between wealthy countries and poor countries. Back to the USA, we are slowly becoming a 3RD world country ourselves, the erosion of the middle class is just taking us exactly where we are in developing countries. A small super wealthy elite with a broad base of poor consumers.

The possession of almost unlimited wealth is a PROBLEM, pure and simple, when it breeds contempt for our laws.

Bingo. Exactly, This is something Cog fails to consider. The super wealthy in the USA are just like the super wealthy in 3rd world country, are largely exempt from following the rule of law.

The wealthy are corrupt everywhere in the world in reference to the way they disregard the rule of law or even worse through the usage of lobbyists actually work their corruption within the law. I don't really know what is worse.

I have been there. I can state this and I am not a communist Cog!

[dohboi]

Thanks for the interesting discussion. Just one point (to add to my already apparently 'ad nauseum' comments ):

OS wrote: "...if we could easily get to a billion or less total population, that would be GREAT for dealing with fixing the biosphere."

Not if that billion consumed at the level of the current richest billion. In that case there would almost no change in the rate they are/we are destroying the biosphere.

It is highly unlikely that anything will cause the most powerful people on the planet (and yes, Ibon, they are not restricted to one country...I don't think I ever said they were, and I certainly never intended to imply it) to either give up their wealth/power or to significanly reduce their lion's share of the annihilation of the living planet and the systems that support it.

But I commend OS for trying to at least imagine a path forward.

[Newfie]

Dohboi,
Re: getting to 1 billion.
It doesn’t matter which 1 billion are left, they will then consume as the richest 1 billion now. We are all humans, we are all alike, we want the same things, have the same needs. So unless you are arguing that poor people are somehow genetically superior to rich people your argument makes no sense.

I suspect you are so entrenched in your dogma you can’t reason this out. This is where I usually point out that you are bigoted or something like that. Because you seem to proclaiming a superiority of one group over another. That’s where Cog gets his dander up, he hears this as suggesting wiping out some segment of the population based upon their wealth. I understand that, I hear the same message.

[dohboi]

"they will then consume as the richest 1 billion now."

That is an assumption that we are unlikely to ever live to test, but merely an assumption.

I don't presume to know exactly what is in the heart of every last one of my fellow humans on the planet, not to know exactly how they would respond to every conceivable circumstance.

Those who think they are, in fact, privy to such wondrous omniscience are free, of course, to make whatever claims the choose.

(Who is it that is claiming some sort of superiority again??? )

[KaiserJeep]

The only well-known historical figure who proclaimed the superiority of the working class was Karl Marx and his buddy Friedrich Engels.

In the USA the working class heroes were NOT revolutionaries, but were found in Horatio Alger stories.

Niether model - nor dohboi's peculiar ideas - are realisticly the behavior of human primates. NONE of the popular economic theories were developed or significantly modified by the knowledge gained through Anthropology. All the defective social theories originated before mid-20th Century Anthropological studies of the great apes, including humans.

Marx and Engels were so obviously wrong. Capitalism is now recognized - by every one except hard care, indoctrinated-since-birth Marxists, as apes doing what comes naturally. Which is why Capitalism has spontaneously replaced every version of Marxism ever tried, after every one of the variations on the same old theme failed. All 42+ variations.

Which of course, no true Social Justice Warrior can ever admit.

[ralfy]

The rich rely on the poor to consume more and for the population to continue growing because their wealth ultimately relies on continuous economic growth. Given that, what they want isn't so much a reduction of consumption and population but an increase in consumption while allowing population to level off and the magic of technology leads to one "game changer" after another.

Also, the type of lifestyle lead by the current richest one billion requires an industrial civilization, which in turn can only be supported by a sizable labor and consumer base. In which case, if population were to be reduced to a billion, they will likely live like the last billion did for thousands of years, unless of course the magic of technology via machines doing most of the work and the reversal of energy return decline kicks in.