Originally Posted by
NewbieRunner
There is already such a tax called Air Passenger Duty (APD), which is due to rise from the current £10-£80 to £12-£170 by November 2010. If you are interested in reading how unfair proposed changes to APD are I can recommend
this article.
That sounds poorly implemented and very likely very much ineffective, but what's unfair about it? The lack of coverage for private and freight?
The most reasonable way I can think of for simplicity, likely effectiveness, and fairness is simply taxing aviation fuel and then letting the airlines figure out how best to pay for it (mostly in fare increases, although in a competitive enough market some might come out of reduced profits.)
Originally Posted by
noiseboy
Can't say I've picked up on this either.
If this is implimented, I will just go on the Eurostar and fly from Paris or Bruxelles.
Is that under the assumption that the total cost is going to be cheaper to do that, or would you be willing to pay more to avoid the tax out of a matter of principle?
Originally Posted by
ralfp
Even then rationing can do more harm than good if applied for anything other than temporary situations (e.g. wartime, huge drought), as rationing keeps demand and prices down, thus reducing incentives to create more production capacity. Ration food and you reduce the incentives that would lead farmers to plant more crops.
Granted, at least under normal economic conditions. There are certainly other ways to incentivize production-side prices (ie subsidies); they're undesireable in the long term, but might be necessary in a case of bad enough shortage where it was life or death.