mbohu

Like I said, I have no data on this particular article, but yes, of course, if you start a complex process with exponential components, it is likely that the time that you can (at relatively low cost) do something to stop the thing from expanding to a state where change is impossible or very costly, would be at a much earlier time than when you will see the eventual consequences. In other words: So the dire consequences may or may not materialize in the next minute or two, but our drop dead date to keep ourselves from dying is one minute earlier, when we decided to jump out the plane without a chute? ...or So the dire consequences may or may not materialize in the next century or two, but our drop dead date to fix the problem is two million years in the past, when the asteroid broke apart in the asteroid belt and started on its current course towards earth? The timing mentioned in the article may be off--I certainly hope so. But it is clear that the time to do something about a complex problem like this, would have to be WAY earlier than when you see dire consequences like coastlines disappearing and entire continents' ice sheets melting. At that point, if there were any solutions available at all, they would be unbelievably expensive, not only in terms of money and economy but in terms of lost lives and in countless other ways. This is really not that hard to understand. This is why we have to rely on scientific data (the canary in the coal mine), and referring to "I don't see anything bad happening right now" is simply not a good argument. By the time you see something happening that you would consider bad enough to actually do something, it will be MUCH too late.

If you are referring to the AP article that you linked, you keep making the same mistake over and over again (in other references as well) and the question does pose itself, if that is on purpose, or if you are really mis-reading these predictions. There is nothing in the article that says that the dire consequences would be visible by the turn of the century. The article says that if the trend would not be REVERSED by 2020 then dire consequences would EVENTUALLY appear. It does not give a time horizon for WHEN these consequences would appear. Here is the relevant quote that mentions the date: "... if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000." IF IT IS NOT REVERSED BY 2000 NOT BY 2000 ENTIRE NATIONS WILL BE WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH Now: I can't say anything about the accuracy of this article. Personally I think and hope we still have time. The article does not seem extremely well-supported as it only says "A senior U.N. environmental official says..." Who is that official? What did other senior officials say?...

I have to admit, I don't know too much about Ethanol. I've never really thought of it as a good solution. I thought it was at most a small stop-gap solution to reduce emissions in traditional gas by a small amount. I am pretty certain though that Ethanol isn't pushed very much by "progressives" but instead by big agri-business lobbyists (who almost certainly lean conservative, along with their employers.) In any case: I don't really care about conservative versus progressive on this issue. What is THIS progressive idea? I may have missed something here. I thought we were discussing what the guy in your video said (and I DID jump to the time mark you indicated, so I'm talking about his rant on China and how we shouldn't be doing ANYTHING, because China is a bigger polluter than us) Again, my current comments are all about the video you posted, of what seems like a conservative talk-show, and how the argument of the host seems disingenuous at best. You may be referring to a video I posted, exploring benefits of electric cars in terms of CO2 emissions over the entire production cycle and lifetime of the car, compared to gas vehicles. Yeah, if they compared a Leaf to a Ford 150, that's a little strange (although, in the US, I bet there are many people who buy a Ford 150 who could easily drive a Leaf--such a strange thing here, people driving trucks who never use it as a truck...so now we have to build cabs that fit 5 people ...but I really shouldn't judge. I dreamt all day yesterday about owning a Mercedes GT Coupe--and no one NEEDS that kind of car either) I am pretty sure though, the video mostly made relevant and accurate comparisons--that's why I chose it over other similar ones, all coming to the same general conclusion. Happy Turkey-Day!

What counts as "income" in the UK? Does it include investment income? (only when the assets are turned into cash or at the moment they appreciate on paper?) How about inheritance? Generally speaking, the US also has a progressive taxation system.

We are all temporarily inconvenienced billionaires.

The people who compensated you did not individually have a choice and could not negotiate the price with you according to supply and demand (or may not even have been interested in that service at all) That is always the argument that is made against taxes by the libertarian leaning crowd. Otherwise, taxes are perfectly capitalist. The state provides a service and gets compensated for it--but not every individual has a choice in if they want to pay for that particular service. If we're talking about democratic socialism, such as practiced in many European countries, then socialism and capitalism are really intricately linked. There is no one without the other.

100% agreed. I think there are better options than using taxes. I prefer implementing solutions directly instead. For example, instead of 401k I preferred the "old" way of actual pensions, not putting the onus on regular people to either become investment experts, or rely on (and pay for) others to manage their retirement savings and risk (and then loosing it all just because the economy goes down or you didn't notice that your company invested all your money into its own stocks, etc.) just to have a proper retirement (the fact they gave their best years to a company or government agency should be enough to guarantee them the right to live out their old age.)

Excellent comparison. What I would add is: Just as you should try to consume some of the better foreign brands of beer every now and then, to complete your beer experience, it is really helpful to consume some foreign news channels to get a more complete perspective. Sure, the BBC is an excellent option, but if you speak another language, I'd also venture outside the English speaking part of the world

Do you think this is something that government SHOULD be doing? I am usually a very passionate critic of the "libertarian" arguments, but in this case, I'm not sure if tax policy should be used to achieve moral/behavioral goals like this. I think there is a difference between using a tax to pay for costs that something directly creates (taxes on fuel to pay for the costs of the environmental impact, taxes on cigarettes to pay for government expenses on healthcare, etc.) and using taxes to steer behavior in certain directions. My mind isn't completely made up on this, and maybe it's not a complete yes-or-no thing; but generally I think I'd be ok if we weren't doing that at all. What do you think?

Yes and No: This has nothing to do with progessivism, in my opinion. I have lived in places MUCH more progressive than any state in the US, including California, where I have lived for over 20 years--and enjoyed it!) Many of these "progressive" places are extremely nice places to live. The issue you are alluding to ("Let's DO SOMETHING!") has much more to do with the political climate in a social media and 24-hour news cycle world: It happens on both sides (example for the conservative side: "Let's build a wall to keep immigrants out", even though hardly any percentage of immigrants enter by foot where the wall would be built) It is clear that there are good solutions and bad solutions to any problem. It is also clear that almost ALL good solutions will also have some drawbacks in other areas. Let's discuss which solutions are best, and which side-effects we want to tolerate, or how we can mitigate those. Let's put our best minds together on this. But this clearly isn't what the guy in the middle was talking about.

I wonder, if this is an accepted thing in the US. I know that in most European countries this is accepted and the discussion usually centers around which WAY you want to shape behavior. I don't find that, in the US, most politicians would even admit to wanting to do this, would they? (you know: "nanny state" and such!) ...even though, of course it is done! ("Let's just throw another tax on cigarettes so we can afford to keep our schools open, because we all hate smokers and they aren't a large enough voting block anyway")

In all fairness though, I agree with at least one thing that is probably behind your suggestion for a "flat tax": We should find a way to radically simplify the tax code. I don't know HOW this can be done, without allowing loopholes and taking advantage by some (usually rich) people, but making the tax code more and more complex to supposedly close the loopholes (while lobbying at the same time creates even more loopholes and complexity) hasn't worked--so simplifying may be something we need to give a try.

There are also other issues to take into account. When you say "10%", I assume you mean 10% of income, right? But what is defined as income? For most poor and middle-class people this is pretty simple: They generally have all or most of their income from a "job" and it is easy to base taxes on their paycheck. However, most wealthy people have almost none of their wealth come from a "job". Now you could say, it doesn't matter and you will just tax all investment income and everything else the same way. But how do you do this? How do you even calculate this? Let's say the rich person owns billions of dollars in real estate. The real estate appreciates in value and that essentially means he just made hundreds of millions. So: He should pay taxes on those, right? If he does not have the liquidity to pay those taxes, he can always sell off SOME of that real estate to cover his tax bill. But, if you just make that a general rule that applies to everyone then what about the middle-class guy who just bought his first home and is paying 50% of his salary on the mortgage? His home just appreciated in value (on paper!) and now he owes more taxes than he has cash available, and has to sell the home his family lives in, just to cover the tax bill. Is that fair? So you say: No one should owe taxes, when something appreciates in value but isn't cashed out? Well: MOST of the wealth for rich people gets created that way, and then they pay NO taxes, but reap the benefits anyway (their assets appreciate, which they can leverage in countless ways, without showing any actual cash income.) So in their case their net worth can increase from 100 million to one billion, without ever showing a penny of "income"--so they'll simply owe no taxes at all? Is THAT fair?

At least not on purpose...but I always thought he could be a beat-poet or something like that. His most non-sensical statements have definitely an off-beat poetry kind of feel--maybe dadaist. With the added music, it's pure genius! --STABLE genius, of course.

Who? The Swedish guy who made that video?

Right. So what's his point then...the guy in the middle, in your video?

A simple Google search reveals: China (30%) The world's most populated country has an enormous export market, which has seen its industry grow to become a serious danger to the planet. ... United States (15%) The world's biggest industrial and commercial power. ... India (7%) ... Russia (5%) ... Japan (4%) But more importantly: So, does the guy in the middle actually fight for reducing plastic pollution by organizing in China or India? I am sure there are many ways to do that. In fact most actual environmental organizations are doing exactly that. (Along with fighting it right here, at home, where we can probably have the most influence) If that's what he is concerned about, I am certain the environmentalists would be thrilled to have him work on that side of the problem. This argument: "This other guy is throwing much more trash on the road than I am, so why are you asking me to not throw my trash on the road?" is extremely disingenuous. Didn't our parents teach us way back when that we should start in our own backyard? Wasn't there some guy over 2000 years ago who talked about something along the lines of taking out the beam in our own eye? (or was that even longer ago? Not sure which testament it's a part of)

Maybe you are right with your earlier comment that "rich" is too subjective. It makes a huge difference, if by "rich" we mean our neighbor in his 5 bedroom house driving his 5 series BMW (or Hummer as the case may be) or if we are talking about wealth on the order of small countries. If we don't keep in mind what we mean by "rich" it's easy to get the impression we want to take from those who are just a bit better off than ourselves. Personally, I am all for differences in wealth--I'm even of the opinion that some people should be able to have silly-money without being "penalized" by taxes or in other ways--as long as they do contribute proportionally (If we all can't have it, at least SOME on this earth should be able to have the experiences that such wealth enables them to have) But there is definitely a point where it becomes so crazy out of whack that this inequality threatens the stability of the entire system as well as the concept of democracy.

"This came up on FB today???" Without any further reference to what source this came from, that's like saying "This is what grandpa mumbled this morning:" Or: "Newsflash! Some dude just said:"

Of course, the picture above only represents the "poorest" billionaire. I didn't want to make everyone scroll too much by making the red bar up to 110 times as high as it is above.

Here is an image of the difference between the median net worth of all Americans ($97,300; and remember: "median" means half of all Americans have LESS!) and that of a billionaire. The Billionaire is on the right in red, the rest are on the left in blue. In case you cannot make out the blue bar, it is one pixel high (versus 10,277 pixels for the red bar)

Russian?

Maybe my understanding of the US legal system is completely wrong, but I thought that is the very point of the system. It is not about anyone wanting to find the truth, but it is purposefully set up to be adversarial: Both sides are supposed to ONLY care about winning, and somehow in the end that should magically make the truth emerge. Similarly to the belief in selfishness as the only valid driver of the "free market": If everyone only cares about their own personal advantage and nothing else, somehow, magically, the best and fairest outcomes will emerge.

I find that there are 2 different types of coaches and prices/business models connected to them: 1. USPA coaches, who, at least at the DZs I know, mostly work with new jumpers. At my home DZ you are actually required to jump with a coach after your AFF is complete, and before you have your A-License. You pay the DZ for these jumps and the coaches get paid by the DZ. These are people with a USPA coach rating, and they may have as few as 200 jumps (or many more). There are generally 2 reasons these coaches do what they do: a) They just like teaching and find it interesting to jump with newbies and challenge their skills that way, and they like being able to do some jumps and get paid a little. b) They want to get an AFF Instructor rating and become a professional skydiver, and this is a great way to get their jump numbers up quickly (which they need for the instructor rating) and make a little money on the side while doing lots of skydiving. These kinds of coaches may do some personal coached jumps that you pay them directly for, but at my DZ that is actually quite rare. They certainly don't rely on that for their primary income. (And since jump-numbers and skill levels vary greatly, you'd want to know a bit more about that specific coach, other than that they have a coach rating) 2. Coaches, who get paid to coach competitive skydiving teams (4-way, 8-way, VFS, etc). They are usually competitive skydivers themselves. They MAY have ratings (USPA-coach, Instructor, etc) but they may NOT have any official USPA ratings at all. Nevertheless they are usually VERY MUCH worth their fees, as their experience comes from their own participation in competitive skydiving. They may coach in the air, in the tunnel, or (most likely) both. They set their own rates and, as much as I can tell, usually charge more than a regular USPA coach would charge to jump with you at the DZ. Their coaching also includes much more than just the jumps (and they may not jump with you at all, but coach on the ground and do video reviews, etc.)--and sometimes you can get some time/advice from them for free. Count yourself extra-lucky, if you do--and show your gratitude however you can (at a minimum, with your attitude towards them! ) Everything else, I have found so far (and at my level and in my locality,) you CAN get without paying for in hard cash--and I don't think that is a problem for either category of coaches--and it makes our sport a welcoming place for anyone wanting to learn more (and builds new friendships as a side benefit.)