Income Tax: how does it work?

I just noticed - you think I've got "the X Factor"? ;-)

"Tim" wrote

I'm beginning to wonder if I was actually wrong before, and that you are indeed that sad individual who would let his child go for 100. Perhaps I *should* be pitying you? Please don't let everyone think that...

Oh, just half the world then.

It doesn't quite work like that, because Mother Nature doesn't quite work like that. The shortages and consequent substantial price rises we have seen this year in really basic staple foods like rice and wheat just go to show how balanced food production and food consumption are worldwide. A poor harvest in somewhere like Australia tips the balance into scarcity. Another poor harvest will do the same, but the effects will be worse as time goes on because the world population will be bigger by the time the next one comes round. It's increasing every year by about the current population of Britain, and it doesn't take a genius to work out that that is just not sustainable for long.

Add to that really ridiculous requirements to grow crops just to burn as bio-diesel, and you have a disaster waiting to happen. The world only has a finite amount of arable farmland, and that is pretty well fully utilised at present, so just growing more isn't a realistic option.

Care to say why?

Because we are very wasteful with food and we eat too much anyway. Try working in a restaurant and see how much food people just leave. 18% is wasted overall:

The Tories are planning on reintroducing it, or rather transferrable personal allowances between husband and wife.

Next step is to extend it to children (like in France), then they can get rid of the daft tax credits system.

We in Britain haven't got a declining population despite what you might think. We in fact have a steeply rising population.

Yeah, because of immigration. People aren't going to immigrate if there's not enough food, are they?

I already have, and I've given my reasons.

It's all relative. Which would you rather have, an 80% diet or a 60% one?

And they're wrong, as I've shown Do the math again. The 73% is based on a stabilised population, ie no further immigration whatsoever.

I made another point. Find it and address it, instead of just snipping it, if you want to carry on this conversation.

"Andy Pandy" wrote

Do you mean like you address valid points when you are losing an argument? Ooops, I forgot - you just ignore it instead, then leave....

You presumably mean:

'Now substitute "actually consumes" with "needs". Most people could probably survive on 60% of the food they eat now. It'll solve the obesity epidemic, won't it?'

The answer to that is yes, it will. Initially. Then people will die.

If people consume just 10% more food than they need, they put on 2lb a month in weight, every month, or one and a half stone a year. That's inescapable maths.

Only a tiny percentage of the general population is doing that, which means on average that the excess consumed over what people need , if anything at all, is just a very small percentage, probably no more than 1%.

If you cut the food of someone whose weight is fairly constant to 73% of what he has been consuming, he will lose 5 stone of his body weight every year. Calculate for yourself how long you could sustain that.

And tell us again, this time with proper justification, why you think no-one will die.

Yup.

No they don't. The fatter you are the higher your metabolic rate. Pretty obvious really, the bigger your body the more energy it needs to keep going.

If a 10 stone person eats 20% more than they need, on a permanent basis, then they will put weight on until their metabolic rate equals their calorie intake. Then their weight will stabilise.

Such a person could eat 20% less, and be much fitter and heathier.

No he won't. He'll lose weight until his metabolic rate equals his calorie intake. It will only be a problem if he was underweight to start with.

Are you one of these people who wonder why temporary diets never result in permanent weight loss?

"Andy Pandy" wrote

Actually, apparently that's incorrect. Fatter people tend to have *slower* metabolic rates -- you should have watched an interesting documentary on TV recently....

Yes they do.

No it isn't. You clearly don't understand the term metabolic rate.

In part, yes of course. But you completely misunderstand the science here.

Not so. They will get bigger and bigger and bigger because the extra calories a larger person needs than a smaller one are in fact very few, and any excess over that goes to produce fat and therefore increased weight. If there is any stabilisation on a diet of 20% excess, it will be at a weight of several tons, by which time they will have crushed themselves to death.

Anyone who is fat can eat 20% less for a period and of course become fitter and healthier. That's because 20% less food than is actually required to maintain body processes leads to a loss of weight at a rate of 3 and a half stone a year. But it can't be continued for ever.

Nonsense. His weight will decrease and continue to decrease for as long as he takes in fewer calories than his body needs to maintain itself whatever its weight, and that's about 2500 to 2700 calories. That's really simple, fundamental science.

No. If a temporary diet does not result in permanent weight loss, it's because those who were on it resume eating more than they need for maintenance of body processes, ie they go back to the old habits that made them gain weight in the first place.

There's another waste factor involved, and that is that a high proportion of the grain crop is used to feed animals destined to be eaten, and this is inefficient in that the grain the animals eat could feed more people than the meat they give. Many of our diets contain too much meat, and so by switching to a healthier diet with less meat (not necessarily cutting it out entirely), we would be living more sustainably.

Yes,

Is it really? I find that hard to believe.

Another problem is that -these days- the actual carrying out of farming (and fishing too) is a highly wasteful activity in terms of the amounts of fuel consumed by the machinery involved. How many units of tractor diesel does it take to grow enough biomatter to make one unit of biodiesel?

I look forward to the future, when farmers will ditch their tractors in favour of oxen and horses, and when fishermen will return to using sails.

I note that even with low-tax red diesel, some fishermen are finding it too expensive to fill up their boats with fuel, relative to the prices they can get for their meagre catches from overfished waters. Perhaps fuel prices will succeed in letting fish stoscks recover where quotas have failed.

I suspect they reckon it was a mistake to scrap it but that they didn't want to be seen to do a U-turn, so they re-introduced something similar but gave it a different name.

I just happened to be looking into this earlier today. It seems that the heavier you get, the more calories you need to consume, to maintain the same weight.

There is a useful calculator at:

ISTM a bit unfair that the fatter you get, the more choccy bars and other junk you can eat without putting on more even weight.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

What's that then, which is similar but with a different name?

Until they see the cost of doing so.

Wot Gordon Brown's big idea.

tim