Individual 1

• Earns $40,000 per annum
• Pays tax $7,640
• Effective tax rate 19.1%

Individual 2

• Earns $100,000 per annum
• Pays tax $29,540
• Effective tax rate 29.5%

Individual 2 earns 2.5 times more than individual 1 but pays nearly four times as much tax (50% more of their gross income than Individual 1). The standard justification is that the Individual 1 can’t afford to give up as much of their income as Individual 2. I could argue about this, but at the lower end of income earners it is probably a fair call.

However, people seem to have forgotten that the Labour Government increased tax in 1999 for those earning over $60,000 and proceeded to build up a huge surplus with the extra tax they apparently didn’t need. So when National makes a move to reduce the tax burden, surely it is those hit with the extra tax in 1999 who deserve the most relief? They’re the ones who have been paying more tax for the last ten years.

It is also noteworthy that a family with two children under 13 will receive $9,880 per annum in family tax credit payments. In other words, such a family effectively pays no tax at all. How do you give a tax cut to someone who doesn’t pay any tax?

National has given Individual 2 a tax break of $24 a week ($1,300 per annum) from 1 April 2009. This is reduces Individual 2’s overall effective tax rate to 28.24%, a reduction of 1.3%.

Individual 1, if they don’t have dependent children, gets $10 per week ($520 per annum). This is reduces Individual 1’s overall effective tax rate to 17.8%, also a reduction of 1.3%. Remember, if Individual 1 has two or more children under 13, they wouldn’t pay any tax at all.

So if Labour leader Phil Goff wants Individual 1 (with no dependent children) to also get a tax cut of $24 per week, they would have to get a 3.25% tax cut. So Mr Goff wants Individual 1 to get almost three times as much of a percentage tax cut as Individual 2 even though Individual 2 pays 50% more of their income to the government. How can that possibly be fair?

Getting Warmer?

Even if you don’t understand the science of climate change, you can understand this:

• Take a random sample of 45,000 molecules from the atmosphere and give one to each person seated in Eden Park watching the All Blacks win the 2011 Rugby World Cup (it could happen)
• Of those 45,000 people, only 17 would be holding a carbon dioxide molecule
• Of those 17 people, only one of them would be holding a molecule of carbon dioxide that was emitted as a result of human activity (actually it would be 0.6 of one person, but one is close enough)

Carbon dioxide does make a small difference to the Earth’s climate at a ratio of 17 out of 45,000 due to the solar radiation it absorbs, but not so much that it dominates other effects; it’s a minor contributor compared to water vapour. Then, if you see that the human contribution is 1 out of 45,000, you can easily see what a waste of time an money it is to try and reduce CO₂ emissions.

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that due to the atmosphere not being mixed evenly, especially at different altitudes, but these factors are not enough to swing the argument in favour of CO₂ causing global warming.

There are more factors to consider which put the final nails in the coffin of human induced global warming, and I will address these factors in future posts, but a solid grasp of just how small a player CO₂ is in the scheme of things is a good place to start.

The numbers demonstrate what an extreme claim it is to say that humans are causing global warming. If such a claim is believed, the evidence to support it needs to be strong. Fortunately for mankind, the evidence is not strong. Unfortunately for mankind, politicians and the media are blind to the evidence and environmentalists, by and large, don’t really care about the evidence as long as they are being successful in rallying people to their cause.

Just remember the numbers, less than 1 molecule in every 45,000, next time someone brings up [human induced] global warming and ask them if they really believe that could make a difference.

Early Season Snow. Turoa Ski Field - New Zealand - 2008

We live in a technologically advanced age yet the majority of people still seem to at least dabble, if not wholeheartedly embrace, the many pseudosciences, religions and superstitions that humans have invented. I believe that this tendency to look backwards places our western civilization in peril. This blog is my attempt to push the case for logic and intelligence over ignorance and blind faith.

My biggest current concern is the global warming scam being perpetrated by the IPCC and others such as Al Gore. I will attempt to show why I believe, based on the currently available scientific evidence, that AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is a false hypothesis.

However, I’m not a one issue guy, so I’ll also cover business, politics and social issues from time to time.