The logic of supply and demand - for the sake of the environment?

i fail to understand the majority of your logic. let me go in order.

More roadspace = more cars = more pollution. i have no problem with the second part, but i don't see how adding additional roads will increase the number of cars. it seems that people buy as many cars as they need and can afford, i am fairly certain that the utility of the automobile is fairly fixed by now, adding additional roads does not seem as if it will make people buy more cars. what it does imply is a reduction in traffic, which means less time sitting idling and belching pollution into the air. so perhaps additional roads = less traffic = less pollution.

more houses = more people living in them = population growth. increasing the number of houses will lead to a decline in the price of housing (supply/demand). a decline in the price of housing will lead to three possible things. 1) perhaps population growth, though i doubt population is really held in check by the housing available. 2)a reduction in the number of new-home starts. if houses sell for less, people will be less inclined to build new ones. 3)decreased homelessness, cheaper housing = easier access to housing = less people on the street.

more parking spaces = more parked cars = more moving cars = more pollution. this is a possibility, but only to the degree that people refrain from buying cars now because they don't have anywhere to park them. if more houses are being built, and parking spaces built near them, i see no reason to believe that the ratio of parking spaces to change. are these houses being built with 6 car garages? there may be some gain in car ownership, but i don't think very much.

more hospital beds = more sick people in them = more sick people. hospital beds do not encourage people to become sick. access to adequate medical facilities encourages people to receive medical care. the more facilities there are, the lower the price of healthcare, and therefore the more people get to the doctor and get better, thus increasing the general health level, not decreasing it.

more doctors = more appointments = more sick people. again, people get sick, whether there are doctors or not. there are nowhere near enough doctors in africa, but people stubbornly insist on contracting AIDS and TB anyway. increasing the number of doctors only means that more people will be able to get medical care. more people getting medical care means that contagious people get better faster, thus infecting fewer people. it also means that people with conditions that may have persisted for a much longer time get better faster, again making the average person healthier.

more schools = more children. utterly ridiculous. people have children without regard for how many schools are available. thats why public education is so overcrowded in many places. more schools (and more teachers) means more children receive a better education, and better-educated people statistically have FEWER children. therefore more schools actually lead to fewer children in the long run.

more police = more arrests = more criminals. sadly, adding police does not increase the crime rate. it will increase the number of criminals who are prosecuted which will take criminals off the streets and make recurring crimes less prevalent, and encourage people to report crimes to the police if they feel that they have a better chance of resulting in a satisfactory resolution. this, combined with the deterrent effect of all these additional policemen, will lead to a reduction in crime rates.

Greg

Steve I presume you are talking particulalrly from a UK perspective. Greg is answering in the context of a country with a lot more space. I will comment based on a country which has less space but a lower population density.

First OK a lot of your equations can be applied worldwide but they need extra variables added on a country by country basis.

As an expat I have lived in the UK for about 50 years and return there regularly to visit relatives. I am struck by significant differences between the Netherlands and the UK in particular in: Roads / cars / transport, Housing / people density, Health care quality / illness level. What assaults my senses immediately I return to the UK and start my journey north from Dover via the torture that is the M25 -> M1 and later sometimes sample the delights of travelling thru' the midlands north on the M6, is the traffic density never lets up and there is a franticness about it all as though any relaxation would allow somebody to steal the space from under your vechicle, which just ain't there in the Netherlands in Belgium and Europe in general. This in spite of the typical shortage of road space which we all suffer from. Sure we have traffic packing and jams but it seems more civilsed and resigned rather than agressive. Somehow the concrete closes in on you in the UK in a way it does'nt on the continent.

This I am sure is to some extent the "an englishman's castle" effect. There are a lot more apartment dwellers in western europe per capita. Apartment living quality is a function of proper consideration for layout and density which done in a human oriented way makes it more acceptable. There is not the fanaticism about having to live in a HOUSE with what often turns into a grabage dump of a garden surrounding it, which charaterises a lot of the problem living areas in the UK. The UK tower block is not often seen over here BTW.

The transport infrastructure over here is europe wide, much superior and relatively user friendly. There was an acceptance that whilst it would always run at a loss it was better to have a system that encouraged use and pay for it thru public funding than privatize it in the hope that it would ever run at a profit. This does of course take cars off the roads. My company for example does not expect us to drive our company cars everywhere though it is perfectly feasible to do everything north of the italian border that way, with driver sharing etc. No we use trains quite often.

The Dutch health care system uses a form of National insurance but it is structured more like a private health insurance where you are treated and the cost are paid from indivdual insurance policies rather than out of a government pool. The standards of health care at the level where it matters the most, life saving or emergency treatment, appears to be more comprehensive and faster.

So far I have emphasised differences in environment and public funded support for living, but there are also social differences that stem from state of mind and attitude. There is a sad ammusment over here to the very UK syndrome of "Binge Drinking". They can't understand it. Bars and drinking establishments have been allowed to open and close when they like for so long over here that this whole "drink fast, we are on a timer" syndrome does'nt exist and young people in general will get merriliy drunk but still be able to ride home on their bicycles at 3am. Note this, the idea of using a car is not considered by the vast majority which is obviously beneficial.

Sure there is antisocial behaviour, yes it can be intimdating moving around on foot in town centers at night, but it is an order of magnitude less tense than in the UK. The young over here are not saints, there are rough tough areas, people do fight, violence and injury is everyday BUT is not as intense or widespread and does not involve death anywhere near as often as in the UK. Interestingly the Dutch approach to drugs seems to work in spite of the horror with which it is viewed in the UK.

Population growth is shouted as an opposite to your equation throughout Europe, the UK included. There are not enough young people to fund the pensions of the old and all european governments have that problem. The other big concern is the shortage of skills coming into the workplace to intially learn from the older employeees and then take over. Make people work longer seems to be the cry for both reasons so I am not sure at what level we shoudd worry about increased population growth in Western Europe. Of course the story is different in Asia.

I could go on making comparisons but sufficed to say I think I have illustrated that the bare equations you propose don't begin to describe social conditions which are so massively variable on a worldwide basis. They fall down immedaitely we think long enough about it. So for the record I don't agree with a lot of them and echo some of the points made by Greg from a third perspective.

regards
Geoff

A clue: all of the above in my first post are all completely illogical.

However, lots of people actually believe the first one.

quote:

More roadspace = more cars = more pollution. i have no problem with the second part, but i don't see how adding additional roads will increase the number of cars. it seems that people buy as many cars as they need and can afford, i am fairly certain that the utility of the automobile is fairly fixed by now, adding additional roads does not seem as if it will make people buy more cars. what it does imply is a reduction in traffic, which means less time sitting idling and belching pollution into the air. so perhaps additional roads = less traffic = less pollution.

Correct. The government, however, turns logic on its head.

we have a pretty different conception of more roads in the south in America. due to the slower economic growth of the south, development of major highways has been retarded to some degree. granted we have sufficient (far too many?) interstates in and around Atlanta, but many smaller cities are somewhat unserved by a major interstate. therefore additional road-building is seen in two different lights here. 1)the highway 'coming to town' will result in progress and additional economic development. 2)a highway which bypasses existing surface roads may actually lead to a decline in the local economy, as people who previously had to drive through a town may now see it as only an exit on the interstate. therefore interstates are seen sometimes as a political boon to an elected representative who can secure one to run to his district, but in small towns relying on through-traffic for their economy, they are viewed with a certain degree of distrust.

a really interesting book about race relations in the American south in the 1970's, Praying for Sheetrock, has a strong subtext of ruin coming to town due to the interstate. rural Mcintosh County, Georgia was a small town through which tourists from New York and Boston had to drive in order to vacation in Florida. The county's income was derived almost entirely from these tourists spending money along the way (or their money being taken from them by various schemes). when I-95 was built, bypassing the county almost entirely, the changes to the region were quite severe.

also a few thoughts on nationalized healthcare. first, i know little to nothing about the Dutch economy. what I can assume though, is that the gap between rich and poor is quite a bit narrower than in America, as we are often cited as having the widest gap among industrialized nations by those who are offended by such things. as such, i can assume (and various things i have learned and experienced confirm this) that there are a large number of americans who desire health care but for one reason or another cannot afford it.

i can also assume that the supply of doctors is fairly fixed over any reasonable time frame. the economic rewards of being a doctor are quite strong in America, and generous student loans are readily available to those who wish to enter medical school. also, MANY American TV shows glorify the medical profession to a degree to which i can assume that everyone who has the ability and desire to become a doctor is doing so. i fail to see any realistic way to vastly increase the number of doctors while holding their quality relatively stable.

now, if national free healthcare was provided, we can be sure that many people who were previously not going to a doctor for financial reasons will begin doing so. this is, in and of itself, a good thing. increasing access to medical care is advantageous no matter who you ask. the problem arises though, when this huge (and it will be huge, there are many, many people currently without insurance here) spike in demand for medical attention occurs. the existing doctor supply will be overwhelmed, with no way to increase supply.

doctors will then do what people always do in a fiercely capitalistic society like America. they will see a spike in demand without a corresponding raise in supply, and will raise prices. not the prices which they bill insurance mind you, but the doctors with the most knowledge will begin billing patients over and above what they bill national insurance. the wealthy will cough up the cash, since they were paying for healthcare in the form of insurance anyway. any good doctor will see how much more is to be made treating the wealthy and be able to charge more to do so. the number of doctors working for free will drop, and these will be the doctors who are too incompetent to charge extra. so the poor are unable to get an appointment to see their doctor, who will be a pretty poor doctor once they finally do get to see him. the resulting stratification will look a lot like it is today, with the wealthy getting all the healthcare they want, and the poor still unable to receive it, though for a different reason now.

i'm not saying the national healthcare proposition doesn't work elsewhere, i just have very very serious doubts about how well it would work in America.

It's not a matter of free medical health but of free service on demand. I think most Europeans pay a proportion of the price for their prescription drugs with varying allowances from the taxpayer. But help from a doctor or hospital is paid for indirectly from deductions from pay (in taxes) and only feels free at the time. There are a few problems (from country to country) with expensive drugs being not readily available. Alternatives (generics?) are usually the cheapest choice. But the consumer/patient can choose a more expensive drug provided they will pay the difference.
The British pay National Insurance on top of taxes while other countries just pay higher taxes. Denmark's is around 40-41% flat rate with higher taxes for higher earners. While I understand Americans pay practically no taxes at all (particularly the rich) so the American poor must do without a proper social security/health system.

The tax regime in the Netherlands is quite severe. The top rate is 52% and below that 42% kicks in a quite average income levels. This does include "health insurance" which as Nime describes is handled thru' insurance companies that have to charge fixed premiums so not competing. You get medical or Dental treatment, you get a bill, you pay it, send the receipt to the insurance company and get a refund, but this is all compulsory so no way to avoid paying.

I do agree that starting from scratch would be horrendously difficult to do in the circumstances pertaining in the US for example, but I doubt americans would accept the tax regimes involved even if this system could work immediately.

On a different aspect how would the average american feel about paying an environment tax on things the buy that is to cover the cost of disposal at the end of it's usable life. That happens in the Netherlands. It adds a significant amount to the cost of a car for example.

first, as to the wealthy Americans not paying taxes, this is a common argument that gets tossed around a lot and just isn't that factually based. the wealthiest of Americans have a 35% marginal tax rate on every dollar they make over around 325,000 dollars. it goes down from there, to about 10% for the poor. now it is quite possible to reduce one's taxable income either through donations to a variety of retirement plans, charitable donations, but the fact remains that the top 1% of income earners pay 21% of the nation's taxes. (http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1545&from=4&sequence=0)
The top 10% pay about half of the country's taxes. After taking all deductions out of the picture, the top 1% of income earners are, on average, taxed at a rate of about 34.4% of their income, compared to a little less than 5% for the lowest 20% Certainly lower than many other countries out there, but certainly nonzero as well.

as to the environmental disposal fees... you'd have rioting in the streets and dead congressmen hanging from the halls of the capital

http://walmartwatch.com/

The poor supplying the demands of the obscenely rich in many other ways than basic taxation?

35% over 1/3 million dollars is an absolute pittance!

The basic rate of income tax for a typical factory worker in Denmark is over 40% and everything they buy, with what little they have left after pension deductions, union subscriptions, property taxes, green taxes on all forms of energy, water supply, fuel, TV license, road taxes and refuse collection (amongst others) has a 25% sales tax.

The problem in the UK isn't so much levels of taxation but the fact that the government refuses to spend the money on anything useful like roads or doctors.

Instead they come up with either absurd logic as above or hairbrain schemes that meet targets without actually improving quality of service.

There was a problem with getting a doctor's appointment within a week (a problem that didn't exist until they came to power.) The fixed that problem by taking same-day appointments only so every morning at 8.30 am there is a mad scramble to the telephone in households across the land. Those that hear the engaged tone and fail to get an appointment at all are simply not recorded in the statistics.