Now it's an "occupancy tax" for single people's homes

[xenon]

Yep. make "big business" clean up. But individuals still have an impact. It's not one or the other.

 

[poster342002]

Yep. make "big business" clean up. But individuals still have an impact. It's not one or the other.

Once they've had the gumption to tackle "the big men", then - and only then - do they have the right to even dare lecture the poor on using to much heat to stay alive.

 

[Belushi]

"Let them wear jumpers..."



Here's another idea: force polluting big business to reduce pollutions instead of dumping these things on the less well-off?

I couldnt agree more.

But seeing as the Government isnt proposing 'dumping these things on the less off' I wont get my knickers into a twist about it.

 

[Belushi]

Once they've had the gumption to tackle "the big men", then - and only then - do they have the right to even dare lecture the poor on using to much heat to stay alive.

Except of course the government havent done that.

 

[TAE]

Oh look - another way of draining money from ordinary people (we obviosuly aren't quite poor enough already):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5232028.stm

Surely it makes more sense to tax the electricity someone actually uses!

 

[kyser_soze]

Storm in a teacup poster.

NOWHERE does it mention targeting low energy use homes, or the poor. What it talks about is the amount of energy single men in one specific age bracket use, largely as a result of all the toys they posess. You maybe need to calm down a bit here.

 

[Falcon]

I don't know. They recently spent 10 million pounds on art for the local children's hospital. Perhaps if we reduced the public sector's demand for cash, we wouldn't have to keep devising all these means for increasing the supply of it ...

 

[Belushi]

I don't know. They recently spent 10 million pounds on art for the local children's hospital. Perhaps if we reduced the public sector's demand for cash, we wouldn't have to keep devising all these means for increasing the supply of it ...

Have you actually read the news report? Its a suggestion by researchers at UCL on how energy use among single young men living alone might be reduced; nothing to do with the Government and nothing to do with raising taxes.

 

[kyser_soze]

single young men

Not even young men - middle aged men living alone!

 

[Belushi]

Not even young men - middle aged men living alone!

Now that I'm in only a year away from that demographic I'm going for young!

 

[pinkmonkey]

This thread made me think about those car pool lanes in LA where people put inflatable dummies in the passenger seat to fool the cameras. Hmm.....

 

[poster342002]

Storm in a teacup poster.

NOWHERE does it mention targeting low energy use homes, or the poor. What it talks about is the amount of energy single men in one specific age bracket use, largely as a result of all the toys they posess. You maybe need to calm down a bit here.

It makes no distinction between RICH single young men living alone and POOR single young men living alone.

You can't equate a millionaire bachelor living alone in a mansion, pissing umpteen watts of electricity and gas up the wall with a poor working class man sitting in a one-room flat trying to keep the place warm enough to survive. You simply can't. Problem is: the modern-day left/green movement does becuase it is now completely bereft of any class-based analysis of such issues.

So instead the left lectures such poor in a pathetically elitist maner, calls them daily mailers (even though the person may have been a socialist all their life), tells them to put on a wooly jumper and hectors that they just don't know what's good for them.

 

[dennisr]

Problem is: the modern-day left/green movement does becuase it is now completely bereft of any class-based analysis of such issues.

The 'left ate my hamster'.

How long you going to keep up this tedious crap poster

Have you been out campaigning against social housing selloffs, nhs cuts, attacks on pensions etc etc etc etc recently??? if not, fuck off

 

[kyser_soze]

It makes no distinction between RICH single young men living alone and POOR single young men living alone.

You can't equate a millionaire bachelor living alone in a mansion, pissing umpteen watts of electricity and gas up the wall with a poor working class man sitting in a one-room flat trying to keep the place warm enough to survive. You simply can't. Problem is: the modern-day left/green movement does becuase it is now completely bereft of any class-based analysis of such issues.

Sole occupancy households in England and Wales are said to use the most space and power per capita - with males aged 35-45 the worst offenders.

"Previously, the typical one-person householder was the widow, often on a tight budget and thrifty," said Dr Jo Williams, of UCL's Bartlett School of Planning.

"The rise in younger, wealthier one-person households is having an increasingly serious impact on the environment."

According to a report published in the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability, unmarried men in the 35-44 age group consume 13% more energy and use about 6% more space than one person householders aged over 60.

Looks like a pretty clear distinction to me, and a pretty damn discrete group of people they are talking about, who are consuming a disproportionate amount of energy. This is talking about incentivising people to switch to lower energy alternatives, more communal living (which can also be far healthier for people psychologically) and suggests that an occupancy tax could be used as a stick to do this - the carrot presumably being lower bills and the sociability of more communal living; something that as a w/c person concerned with establishing communities and ties I'd have thought would have caught your eye as a good idea...

 

[poster342002]

How long you going to keep up this tedious crap poster

When the left bucks it's ideas up and starts showing more interest and less contempt towards what shoud be it's natuaral constuency.

And yes - I've been invovled in campaign work.

 

[dennisr]

something that as a w/c person concerned with establishing communities and ties I'd have thought would have caught your eye as a good idea...

good points kyser. I get the impression though that poster is not actually much concerned with anything beyond the very, very weak link to his real issue which is to prove his 'the left are crap' regardless of the evidence. He's repeated it for every single post on this thread. it would be a little bitmore valid if it had any link to the OP and if poster actually demonstrated any alternative to this sell out left himself...

 

[poster342002]

Looks like a pretty clear distinction to me, and a pretty damn discrete group of people they are talking about, who are consuming a disproportionate amount of energy. This is talking about incentivising people to switch to lower energy alternatives, more communal living (which can also be far healthier for people psychologically) and suggests that an occupancy tax could be used as a stick to do this - the carrot presumably being lower bills and the sociability of more communal living; something that as a w/c person concerned with establishing communities and ties I'd have thought would have caught your eye as a good idea...

Empty statistics prove nothing. Nowhere (as far as I can see) is there nay sort of breakdown on the base of wealth. It just treats everyone alike with no class-based analysis.

And communal living suits some people and not others, for a variety of reasons. But that shoud be a choice. Forcing the poor into overcrowded communal ghettos isn't the answer (well, it probably is for the neocons...)

 

[dennisr]

When the left bucks it's ideas up and starts showing more interest and less contempt towards what shoud be it's natuaral constuency.

And yes - I've been invovled in campaign work.

Go on then, elighten me as to your alternative to this fantasy 'left' of yours and what you have actually done yourself???

maybe you can get me to buck my ideas up...

 

[poster342002]

Go on then, elighten me as to your alternative to this fantasy 'left' of yours and what you have actually done yourself???

maybe you can get me to buck my ideas up...

Well the IWCA (which I'm not a member of) has made a far better effort than anything else I've seen on the left. Not perfect, but a step in the rigth direction. At least they've retained a class-based analysis and tactics to society's problems instead of just tailing any bougeoise middle-class bandwagon going.

 

[kyser_soze]

Empty statistics prove nothing. Nowhere (as far as I can see) is there nay sort of breakdown on the base of wealth. It just treats everyone alike with no class-based analysis.

And communal living suits some people and not others, for a variety of reasons. But that shoud be a choice. Forcing the poor into overcrowded communal ghettos isn't the andwer (well, it probably is for the neocons...)

Jesus, you got ALL THIS from one fairly loosely written report on a think tank, and suddenly the poor are being herded into overcrowded communal ghettos...

Don't you think you've slightly over-extrapolated here?

And what do you expect in a BBC online news article? Why don't you go and find the actual fucking report and see how it's broken down, because I bet you any money that there will be very clear references to income/energy use/accomodation type and other economic and social factors. And where ANYWHERE did I or anyone else say anyone would be forced to do anything?

FFS - this makes you come over as if you're as paranoid and fruitloop as the 9/11-7/7 crew...

 

[dennisr]

Come on poster - you set up the straw man - lets see how easy it is for you to knock down the real thing.

 

[poster342002]

FFS - this makes you come over as if you're as paranoid and fruitloop as the 9/11-7/7 crew...

Oh dear. The modern-day equivalent of "WITCH! WITCH!" is wheeled out.

 

[poster342002]

Come on poster - you set up the straw man - lets see how easy it is for you to knock down the real thing.

It has been knocked down - you just refuse to accept it.

 

[kyser_soze]

Oh der. The modern-day equivalent of "WITCH! WITCH!" is wheeled out.

Well you're the one who's managed to turn an news article about some analysis and ideas a think tank has come up with into government policy that contributes to the war on the poor, slaps down the common man and will eventually lead to all of them having to live in communal ghettos, not me.

Makes you look a wee bit paranoid poster. And they're all strawmen you set up on your own.

 

[Wilson]

Or maybe we should all just live in some eutopien Kibutz type set up.

Maybe the government could set up the ultimate scientific dating agency as part of its ID card project

now we're getting somewhere

empty the cities and make the people live in dormitories in the countryside, they could work the land by hand, the fittest and strongest could be chosen and paired off to produce the next generation of workers...

 

[poster342002]

now we're getting somewhere

empty the cities and make the people live in dormitories in the countryside, they could work the land by hand, the fittest and strongest could be chosen and paired off to produce the next generation of workers...

Didn't someone by the name of Mr Pot try this?

 

[dennisr]

Well the IWCA (which I'm not a member of) has made a far better effort than anything else I've seen on the left. Not perfect, but a step in the rigth direction. At least they've retained a class-based analysis and tactics to society's problems instead of just tailing any bougeoise middle-class bandwagon going.

Ohh fuck - another IWCA 'cheerleader'. If the IWCA had as many active members as they had talk the talk cheerleaders - like you - they might be able to achieve something. If you understood that the IWCA are serious in the points they make about certain tendencies among certain groups who claim to be on the left you might not make thier ideas look so foolish by your own purile half-digested version of thier arguements.

They are a very small and localised (in terms of influence) group. I don't think they would disagree with these points. Do you seriously believe that the thousands of other 'lefts' working day in and day out with and among working class communities on the issues affecting those communities (some of which I have mentioned above) can simply be dismissed by yet another completely superficial, unproven 'the left are no longer class based' comment by a internet 'class warrior' like you you fool?

You did not mention what you had campaigned for yourself - or is it limited to uninformed comments on bulletin boards as a replacement for genuine class struggle???

 

[dennisr]

It has been knocked down - you just refuse to accept it.

The only thing you 'knocked down' - without any proof beyond your seemingly limited 'opinion' was a fantasy in your own head. Come on poster - what issues have you been 'campaigning' on recently???

 

[xenon]

now we're getting somewhere

empty the cities and make the people live in dormitories in the countryside, they could work the land by hand, the fittest and strongest could be chosen and paired off to produce the next generation of workers...

As long as there's plenty of Soma.

Bugger. That's me fucked. I get hay feiver.

 

[Fullyplumped]

There is, as usual, a Simple Solution. The poorer ones can be taken on by the richer ones as Personal Gentlemens' Gentlemen.

PG Wodehouse was a true visionary.