Wrong, another example, Germany. Germany has no minimum wage and in fact there is this concept of hunger wages. This means a person is working full time, and does not even come close to making enough money to support their family. I am talking wages of about 1 euro per hour. The government kicks in social help to make ends meet. Germany has shown that to survive you will take work below your pay because you need to do something.
Actually, they are correct. Look at Australia for example. It has a minimum wage that is a little over 2x that of the US. Not surprisingly, _everything_ costs heaps more - there are even products that are cheaper in the US because the middlemen don't have to levy as much to cover their employees. In the US, the minimum wage along with the "safety net" suppresses legal employment. There are plenty of people that would rather let the govt provide for them. They do not have the skills to get anything other than a min. wage job and they would rather sit around that work (ex: all the in-laws of a friend of mine). Likewise, there are plenty of employers who do not want to pay high wages and hire people that are here illegally instead. Somewhat like Germany, if someone is working at a minimum wage job, they can get numerous government benefits that greatly boost their spending power. One study showed that in MS, for example, that for the 'typical family of four', one has to earn more than $60K/year in order to have more spending power than minimum wage+govt benefits. No wonder the Feds and states are accumulating huge amounts of debt!
Yes, things do indeed cost more in Australia and that is certainly contributed to by the cost of labor. To some extent, this will simply be the market having adjusted for the 'real cost' of the products. It's nice when things are cheap, but at some point they can only become cheaper because someone is suffering as a result and at that point they are 'too cheap'.
First, I'd like to point out that although you can provide examples where 'a race to the bottom' has not occurred, that doesn't actually mean that a race to the bottom doesn't or can't occur. Second, I'd like to point out that technology can take away jobs. That doesn't mean technology should be avoided, but it does mean that the impact on employment needs to be taken into consideration in terms of how to manage the social impacts of labor-replacing technology. Third, although I am willing to acknowledge that a minimum wage could indeed reduce employment, that may be better than the alternative.
I'll get to tarrifs later.
As for the first one, even if new technology doesn't create new jobs while getting rid of the old ones but in the short term results in layoffs, in the long run the demand for labor continues to rise.
This is a theoretical rather than an empirical argument (which my race-to-the-bottom was too, to be fair). There is no reason that demand for labor should increase. As an example, let's say a company which manufactures widgets current does so by hand. They find a great way to do it automatically using machines, and switch to it. First, we need to assume that the cost of production using machines is lower than the cost of production using people, taking into account the initial outlay for the machines depreciated over a period of time. This assumption is based on the idea that the company would not have switched to the new production system if it were not predicted to be cheaper. Perhaps a subset of the people who used to make widgets are able to do maintenance on the machines, so some of them switch to doing that. (This is a dubious assumption because the skills may be very different, or higher skills may be necessary to work on the equipment). Because there is new equipment, someone needs to build it, so there are some jobs there. The equipment requires materials, which have to be mined, so there is perhaps a little more employment there. However, if the company making widgets has higher profits as a result, then either there are less people employed for the same (or more) pay, or more people employed for less pay. Why? Because that extra profit has to come from somewhere, and if previously the full expenditure was on employment and the expenditure has dropped, then less expenditure must be going on employment. (That is, unless I've tripped over a logic flaw here somewhere). Perhaps some of that extra profit gets spent on consumables, which need to be produces and so there is some extra employment there, or on services which likewise require some employment. However, so long as the original expenditure was on employment, there can be at absolute most an equal $ value of employment as there was before.
So really, there is nothing in the move to new technology (for manufature at least) which necessarily leads to greater demand for labor.
As for the second - the argument that we need to reduce working hours is often tried, and instead of getting reduced unemployment, you get the opposite. Every single time. Counter-intuitive I realize, but it is a fact nonetheless. The reasoning for this is rather simple:
I'll start by pointing out a section from that very Wikpedia article: 'This common argument against the use of restricted working hours to reduce unemployment has recently been questioned, with one scholar arguing that "substituting a dubious fallacy claim for an authentic economic theory may have obstructed fruitful dialogue about working time and the appropriate policies for regulating it". Tom Walker holds that the lump of labour idea is a straw man, arguing that most proponents of restriction on working hours do not hold the simplistic view. He argues that a reduction of working hours can have
Welfare is a way of life, not a safety net. Wild animals that receive handouts become lazy and dependent on those handouts, and humans are no different.
Because an example of wild animal behaviour provides clear evidence of inexorable human destiny?
If you accept the assumption that the money would be spent on the company putting growth back into the business, and that such growth would beneficial outside the company and the shareholders, and there is not an increase in supporting costs (e.g. roads and other infrastructure costs) that exceed the increased tax as a result of the growth then sure, having the extra tax is not necessarily a good thing.
If you accept the assumption that effective tax policing would make it no longer cost effective to spend large on tax avoidance and so the company simply paid the tax, then the government can spend the tax on infrastructure, social supports, etc AND the company can spend the profits it does get on growth.
In my view, the solution to corporations avoid tax is to (1) consider whether corporation taxes are a good way to tax, but then assuming the conclusion is that they are then (2) brutally enforce them - not to roll over and drop the corporate tax rate to 0 on the assumption that the money will go to into growing the company which will somehow be good for the people and society of the country.
In some countries they then wind up the targets of investigation and receive tax bills and fines.
... and other corporations notice that, and locate their new facilities someplace more welcoming.
There is a level of 'welcoming' at which the benefit of keeping the corporations is outweighed by the cost.
I don't think your comment supports dropping the corporate tax rate to zero, but rather better policing and tax law management.
Every dollar the government spends on better policing and better tax law management is one dollar less for something else. Likewise with every dollar that corporations spend on tax avoidance. US corporations already spend about $200 billion per year on tax avoidance. If the corporate income tax was cut to zero, all of that money could go into something productive, and the end result would be higher overall tax revenues from payroll taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes etc.
Yes and no. If the government can get a $1 return on a $0.50 investment in policing tax then they have recovered additional money, so it was a good investment. If a company can only save $0.50 on tax by investing $1 in tax avoidance, then there is no benefit to them engaging in tax avoidance. As the ROI of tax avoidance drops, tax avoidance drops, and the ROI of government investment in tax policing drops. End result: less money being spend on taxation itself, and more on other things by both company and government.
I've seen the claim that corporate income taxes inhibit job creation, but I've not seen convincing evidence that it does.
When a company moves its headquarters overseas, the executive and administrative jobs go with it. When American businesses spend hundreds of billions on accountants and tax attorneys, that is just dead end spending that results in no useful goods or services, and no job growth.
I agree, but I disagree with you on the solution to this problem (see above).
But because of the power differential, they may well be able to get people who will do the job with even less leave and sick days. In a high unemployment environment, as long as they can out-wait the individuals who need to put food on the table then they're set.
i.e. If someone provides an example of where free trade is not mutually beneficial then claiming it is not an example of free trade, because "Free trade means two people decide to engage in a mutually beneficial economic transaction, so it benefits both parties. That's a fact."
Yep, many corporations do ay little or no corporate tax. In some countries they then wind up the targets of investigation and receive tax bills and fines. I don't think your comment supports dropping the corporate tax rate to zero, but rather better policing and tax law management.
I've seen the claim that corporate income taxes inhibit job creation, but I've not seen convincing evidence that it does. I've also not seen convincing evidence that it doesn't, mind you.
The problem with a VAT system is that it is a flat tax, which means all individuals are taxes equally on what they buy irrespective of income. Some have argued that this is fine, since higher-income individuals consume more and thus pay higher taxes. In practice, though, this is not what happens - the proportion of income which is saved or stashed increases with income. Someone on $20k a year will be spending essentially all their income; someone on $200k a year is much less likely to be. It is the same reason that (some have argued) having a means test on a stimulus package is a good idea because those on lower incomes are more likely to spend it. I should note others have argued that the opposite is true and low income earners will save the 'free cash'.
Yes. It's called "competition". It's what keeps markets efficient and prices low. It's what makes people better off over time.
Sure, I'll acknowledge competition can encourage market efficiency and prices low. It's a bit of a stretch to claim that a race to the bottom makes people better off over time. It makes some people better off over time, but I think you're overreaching an awful lot to claim it 'makes people better off over time' more generally than that.
e.g. it is 'efficient', temporarily, for companies to use as close to slave labor as they can obtain with the minimum safety standards that prevent loss due to injured or killed workers that exceeded the cost of having safety equipment and protocols. It reduces production cost to a minimum, which makes things cheaper.
Pretty much precisely. They'll definitely get used to it, especially if it's done slowly enough.
Unfortunately, it does look that way, and it is a huge problem. Getting an politically apathetic population to get angry enough to protest about something like this is sadly very difficult.
False positive or not, it does make apparent the issue that blocking is happening. That itself is something which warrants consideration, particularly about who makes the decisions, what the recourse is for those affected, how appeal and review are conducted, and how public accountability is handled.
If the block list is secret, then it is difficult to know if political material, 'morally questionable' material, etc is being blocked. That should be a cause for concern.
(By the way, I'm not anti-gun-control, anti-taxation, pro-revolution, libertarian or convinced Australia is on a long slow march to authoritarianism).
Thankfully because of the lessons of history, we can hopefully change the course this time around. For example, perhaps we could have the positive benefits of government (gun control, progressive taxation used to fund public services, telling people what they can do with their private property - 'no, you can't build a rubbish tip in suburbia, sorry') and actually intervene in the problem of creeping power (such as this).
Somehow people manage to keep bringing this back to gun control - "when we gave up our guns we lost our ability to fight". However, gun control is widely supported in Australia, and I'm pretty sure that pretending we'd be able to overthrow the government with our guns wouldn't aid the cause of social change. Clearly having a profusion of crazy (and sane) people will guns in the U.S. has stopped your problem of creeping government overreach, right?
Yes, there is a need to monitor government and work to ensure their are limits on their powers, but can we stop pretending that progressive social policies are part of an inexorable creeping towards totalitarianism? I understand that may be hard for some people who need to justify their access to guns and their anger at paying tax, but please do try.
1. Because it is a race to the bottom: if you're getting companies in there because of your 'near zero' corporate tax, don't be surprised if they move to another country with 'nearer zero' corporate tax, and lower payroll tax as well, and maybe poorer working conditions. 2. Because if a company isn't paying corporate tax, then it is much harder for it to be worth having them in the country (the cost of servicing their existence may exceed their return to society/government)
Here in Australia, the limit is 0.05, and the stigmatisation is still pretty strong. Being over 0.7 means losing your driver's licence for 6+ months. People remember that. We also have jail terms for repeatedly driving without a licence or repeatedly driving an unregistered vehicles (to address the problem of people ignoring the law), so the 'headache' has a cost high enough to be hard to not care about.
My understanding is also that every police car carries a breath testing device, and so any time someone is pulled over they can be tested. In addition, we have breath-testing roadblocks ('booze buses' - see here) which are often accompanied by one or two random roving police cars which test drivers in nearby backstreets to catch people turning off to avoid the booze bus.
Generally, those laws are viewed in a pretty positive light here. I mean, people grumble about it on an individual level at times but in my (limited) experience there is generally wide societal support for it.
It's about as feasible as lowering the BAC to.05% and would probably save more lives.
One would remove the ability to drive legally for everyone for an additional three years, and the other would remove the ability to drive legally for as long as it took for one's BAC to drop below 0.05 and only if they consumed alcohol in the first place.
I'm fairly certain the only sense in which lowering the BAC to.05% and increasing the driving age to 21 are similar in terms of feasibility is that police can equally apply different road laws.
Similarly, I've tested as 0.04 and I certainly don't think I would have been safe to drive. (Here in Australia, the limit is 0.05, unless you are a probationary or learning driver in which case you must have 0.00. I think that applies to the driver supervising the learner as well).
Taking your alcohol that way will not give you a BAC around zero, because your BAC results from alcohol vaporisation in your lungs. On the upside, alcohol taken that way will get you much more drunk.
You're saying that you care about the impact the planet has on you, not vice versa. It's time to recognise that 'harm to the Earth' isn't abstract and you (and your grandchildren) are co-dependant upon the Earth for your survival.
Caring about the effects of environmental changes (and so, the resulting conditions of the planet) on humans and caring about the environment per se are not mutually exclusive.
The derision at the end of your post does you and the environment a disservice.
The derision at the end of my post is based on my reflections on your previous posts, the posting of which did the world a disservice.
It is possible to be concerned about the impact of environmental changes because of the impact they will have on one's grandchildren, rather than because of some abstract conception of 'harm to the Earth'.
Yet we make decisions based on predictions constantly. When someone had a tumor identified, it is predicted that unless treated it will kill them. We don't sit around waiting to find out if we're right; we commence treatment.
Your argument is no more convincing than 'but evolution is just a theory'.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong, another example, Germany. Germany has no minimum wage and in fact there is this concept of hunger wages. This means a person is working full time, and does not even come close to making enough money to support their family. I am talking wages of about 1 euro per hour. The government kicks in social help to make ends meet. Germany has shown that to survive you will take work below your pay because you need to do something.
Actually, they are correct. Look at Australia for example. It has a minimum wage that is a little over 2x that of the US. Not surprisingly, _everything_ costs heaps more - there are even products that are cheaper in the US because the middlemen don't have to levy as much to cover their employees. In the US, the minimum wage along with the "safety net" suppresses legal employment. There are plenty of people that would rather let the govt provide for them. They do not have the skills to get anything other than a min. wage job and they would rather sit around that work (ex: all the in-laws of a friend of mine). Likewise, there are plenty of employers who do not want to pay high wages and hire people that are here illegally instead. Somewhat like Germany, if someone is working at a minimum wage job, they can get numerous government benefits that greatly boost their spending power. One study showed that in MS, for example, that for the 'typical family of four', one has to earn more than $60K/year in order to have more spending power than minimum wage+govt benefits. No wonder the Feds and states are accumulating huge amounts of debt!
Yes, things do indeed cost more in Australia and that is certainly contributed to by the cost of labor. To some extent, this will simply be the market having adjusted for the 'real cost' of the products. It's nice when things are cheap, but at some point they can only become cheaper because someone is suffering as a result and at that point they are 'too cheap'.
Thanks for the detailed answer.
First, I'd like to point out that although you can provide examples where 'a race to the bottom' has not occurred, that doesn't actually mean that a race to the bottom doesn't or can't occur.
Second, I'd like to point out that technology can take away jobs. That doesn't mean technology should be avoided, but it does mean that the impact on employment needs to be taken into consideration in terms of how to manage the social impacts of labor-replacing technology.
Third, although I am willing to acknowledge that a minimum wage could indeed reduce employment, that may be better than the alternative.
I'll get to tarrifs later.
As for the first one, even if new technology doesn't create new jobs while getting rid of the old ones but in the short term results in layoffs, in the long run the demand for labor continues to rise.
This is a theoretical rather than an empirical argument (which my race-to-the-bottom was too, to be fair). There is no reason that demand for labor should increase. As an example, let's say a company which manufactures widgets current does so by hand. They find a great way to do it automatically using machines, and switch to it. First, we need to assume that the cost of production using machines is lower than the cost of production using people, taking into account the initial outlay for the machines depreciated over a period of time. This assumption is based on the idea that the company would not have switched to the new production system if it were not predicted to be cheaper. Perhaps a subset of the people who used to make widgets are able to do maintenance on the machines, so some of them switch to doing that. (This is a dubious assumption because the skills may be very different, or higher skills may be necessary to work on the equipment).
Because there is new equipment, someone needs to build it, so there are some jobs there. The equipment requires materials, which have to be mined, so there is perhaps a little more employment there. However, if the company making widgets has higher profits as a result, then either there are less people employed for the same (or more) pay, or more people employed for less pay. Why? Because that extra profit has to come from somewhere, and if previously the full expenditure was on employment and the expenditure has dropped, then less expenditure must be going on employment. (That is, unless I've tripped over a logic flaw here somewhere).
Perhaps some of that extra profit gets spent on consumables, which need to be produces and so there is some extra employment there, or on services which likewise require some employment. However, so long as the original expenditure was on employment, there can be at absolute most an equal $ value of employment as there was before.
So really, there is nothing in the move to new technology (for manufature at least) which necessarily leads to greater demand for labor.
As for the second - the argument that we need to reduce working hours is often tried, and instead of getting reduced unemployment, you get the opposite. Every single time. Counter-intuitive I realize, but it is a fact nonetheless. The reasoning for this is rather simple:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
I'll start by pointing out a section from that very Wikpedia article:
'This common argument against the use of restricted working hours to reduce unemployment has recently been questioned, with one scholar arguing that "substituting a dubious fallacy claim for an authentic economic theory may have obstructed fruitful dialogue about working time and the appropriate policies for regulating it". Tom Walker holds that the lump of labour idea is a straw man, arguing that most proponents of restriction on working hours do not hold the simplistic view. He argues that a reduction of working hours can have
Welfare is a way of life, not a safety net. Wild animals that receive handouts become lazy and dependent on those handouts, and humans are no different.
Because an example of wild animal behaviour provides clear evidence of inexorable human destiny?
Wow, I hadn't realised that /. had slipped to the point where clearly pointing out a potential issue in definitions used for argument was 'trolling'.
If you accept the assumption that the money would be spent on the company putting growth back into the business, and that such growth would beneficial outside the company and the shareholders, and there is not an increase in supporting costs (e.g. roads and other infrastructure costs) that exceed the increased tax as a result of the growth then sure, having the extra tax is not necessarily a good thing.
If you accept the assumption that effective tax policing would make it no longer cost effective to spend large on tax avoidance and so the company simply paid the tax, then the government can spend the tax on infrastructure, social supports, etc AND the company can spend the profits it does get on growth.
In my view, the solution to corporations avoid tax is to (1) consider whether corporation taxes are a good way to tax, but then assuming the conclusion is that they are then (2) brutally enforce them - not to roll over and drop the corporate tax rate to 0 on the assumption that the money will go to into growing the company which will somehow be good for the people and society of the country.
The latter sounds like the Tobin Tax.
In some countries they then wind up the targets of investigation and receive tax bills and fines.
... and other corporations notice that, and locate their new facilities someplace more welcoming.
There is a level of 'welcoming' at which the benefit of keeping the corporations is outweighed by the cost.
I don't think your comment supports dropping the corporate tax rate to zero, but rather better policing and tax law management.
Every dollar the government spends on better policing and better tax law management is one dollar less for something else. Likewise with every dollar that corporations spend on tax avoidance. US corporations already spend about $200 billion per year on tax avoidance. If the corporate income tax was cut to zero, all of that money could go into something productive, and the end result would be higher overall tax revenues from payroll taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes etc.
Yes and no. If the government can get a $1 return on a $0.50 investment in policing tax then they have recovered additional money, so it was a good investment. If a company can only save $0.50 on tax by investing $1 in tax avoidance, then there is no benefit to them engaging in tax avoidance. As the ROI of tax avoidance drops, tax avoidance drops, and the ROI of government investment in tax policing drops. End result: less money being spend on taxation itself, and more on other things by both company and government.
I've seen the claim that corporate income taxes inhibit job creation, but I've not seen convincing evidence that it does.
When a company moves its headquarters overseas, the executive and administrative jobs go with it. When American businesses spend hundreds of billions on accountants and tax attorneys, that is just dead end spending that results in no useful goods or services, and no job growth.
I agree, but I disagree with you on the solution to this problem (see above).
But because of the power differential, they may well be able to get people who will do the job with even less leave and sick days. In a high unemployment environment, as long as they can out-wait the individuals who need to put food on the table then they're set.
That is getting very close to the 'no true scotsman' fallacy: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman
i.e. If someone provides an example of where free trade is not mutually beneficial then claiming it is not an example of free trade, because "Free trade means two people decide to engage in a mutually beneficial economic transaction, so it benefits both parties. That's a fact."
Yep, many corporations do ay little or no corporate tax. In some countries they then wind up the targets of investigation and receive tax bills and fines.
I don't think your comment supports dropping the corporate tax rate to zero, but rather better policing and tax law management.
I've seen the claim that corporate income taxes inhibit job creation, but I've not seen convincing evidence that it does. I've also not seen convincing evidence that it doesn't, mind you.
The problem with a VAT system is that it is a flat tax, which means all individuals are taxes equally on what they buy irrespective of income. Some have argued that this is fine, since higher-income individuals consume more and thus pay higher taxes. In practice, though, this is not what happens - the proportion of income which is saved or stashed increases with income. Someone on $20k a year will be spending essentially all their income; someone on $200k a year is much less likely to be. It is the same reason that (some have argued) having a means test on a stimulus package is a good idea because those on lower incomes are more likely to spend it. I should note others have argued that the opposite is true and low income earners will save the 'free cash'.
Yes. It's called "competition". It's what keeps markets efficient and prices low. It's what makes people better off over time.
Sure, I'll acknowledge competition can encourage market efficiency and prices low. It's a bit of a stretch to claim that a race to the bottom makes people better off over time. It makes some people better off over time, but I think you're overreaching an awful lot to claim it 'makes people better off over time' more generally than that.
e.g. it is 'efficient', temporarily, for companies to use as close to slave labor as they can obtain with the minimum safety standards that prevent loss due to injured or killed workers that exceeded the cost of having safety equipment and protocols. It reduces production cost to a minimum, which makes things cheaper.
Pretty much precisely. They'll definitely get used to it, especially if it's done slowly enough.
Unfortunately, it does look that way, and it is a huge problem. Getting an politically apathetic population to get angry enough to protest about something like this is sadly very difficult.
False positive or not, it does make apparent the issue that blocking is happening. That itself is something which warrants consideration, particularly about who makes the decisions, what the recourse is for those affected, how appeal and review are conducted, and how public accountability is handled.
If the block list is secret, then it is difficult to know if political material, 'morally questionable' material, etc is being blocked. That should be a cause for concern.
(By the way, I'm not anti-gun-control, anti-taxation, pro-revolution, libertarian or convinced Australia is on a long slow march to authoritarianism).
Thankfully because of the lessons of history, we can hopefully change the course this time around.
For example, perhaps we could have the positive benefits of government (gun control, progressive taxation used to fund public services, telling people what they can do with their private property - 'no, you can't build a rubbish tip in suburbia, sorry') and actually intervene in the problem of creeping power (such as this).
Somehow people manage to keep bringing this back to gun control - "when we gave up our guns we lost our ability to fight". However, gun control is widely supported in Australia, and I'm pretty sure that pretending we'd be able to overthrow the government with our guns wouldn't aid the cause of social change. Clearly having a profusion of crazy (and sane) people will guns in the U.S. has stopped your problem of creeping government overreach, right?
Yes, there is a need to monitor government and work to ensure their are limits on their powers, but can we stop pretending that progressive social policies are part of an inexorable creeping towards totalitarianism? I understand that may be hard for some people who need to justify their access to guns and their anger at paying tax, but please do try.
1. Because it is a race to the bottom: if you're getting companies in there because of your 'near zero' corporate tax, don't be surprised if they move to another country with 'nearer zero' corporate tax, and lower payroll tax as well, and maybe poorer working conditions.
2. Because if a company isn't paying corporate tax, then it is much harder for it to be worth having them in the country (the cost of servicing their existence may exceed their return to society/government)
Here in Australia, the limit is 0.05, and the stigmatisation is still pretty strong. Being over 0.7 means losing your driver's licence for 6+ months. People remember that.
We also have jail terms for repeatedly driving without a licence or repeatedly driving an unregistered vehicles (to address the problem of people ignoring the law), so the 'headache' has a cost high enough to be hard to not care about.
My understanding is also that every police car carries a breath testing device, and so any time someone is pulled over they can be tested. In addition, we have breath-testing roadblocks ('booze buses' - see here) which are often accompanied by one or two random roving police cars which test drivers in nearby backstreets to catch people turning off to avoid the booze bus.
Generally, those laws are viewed in a pretty positive light here. I mean, people grumble about it on an individual level at times but in my (limited) experience there is generally wide societal support for it.
Be fair, we are drunken corkhat wearing bushmen. We just know better than to pretend it is a good idea to be driving drunken corkhat wearing bushmen.
(Actually, I'm lying about the corkhat and bushmen).
It's about as feasible as lowering the BAC to .05% and would probably save more lives.
One would remove the ability to drive legally for everyone for an additional three years, and the other would remove the ability to drive legally for as long as it took for one's BAC to drop below 0.05 and only if they consumed alcohol in the first place.
I'm fairly certain the only sense in which lowering the BAC to .05% and increasing the driving age to 21 are similar in terms of feasibility is that police can equally apply different road laws.
Similarly, I've tested as 0.04 and I certainly don't think I would have been safe to drive.
(Here in Australia, the limit is 0.05, unless you are a probationary or learning driver in which case you must have 0.00. I think that applies to the driver supervising the learner as well).
Taking your alcohol that way will not give you a BAC around zero, because your BAC results from alcohol vaporisation in your lungs.
On the upside, alcohol taken that way will get you much more drunk.
Another possibility is that I have been severely sarcasm-impaired while reading your other posts.
You're saying that you care about the impact the planet has on you, not vice versa. It's time to recognise that 'harm to the Earth' isn't abstract and you (and your grandchildren) are co-dependant upon the Earth for your survival.
Caring about the effects of environmental changes (and so, the resulting conditions of the planet) on humans and caring about the environment per se are not mutually exclusive.
The derision at the end of your post does you and the environment a disservice.
The derision at the end of my post is based on my reflections on your previous posts, the posting of which did the world a disservice.
It is possible to be concerned about the impact of environmental changes because of the impact they will have on one's grandchildren, rather than because of some abstract conception of 'harm to the Earth'.
Of course, realising that would require thinking.
Yet we make decisions based on predictions constantly. When someone had a tumor identified, it is predicted that unless treated it will kill them. We don't sit around waiting to find out if we're right; we commence treatment.
Your argument is no more convincing than 'but evolution is just a theory'.