At least local ones. Always get an answering computer, where it's impossible or damned difficult to talk to a person, which is what I want to do. If I want to talk to a local business, I get in the car and drive to their place of business and walk in the door.
Don't answer calls, either, unless I know exactly who it is. Friends, businesses I have business with, I answer. Everyone else gets ignored. Rarely get a voicemail.
Easy solution to this - charge $0.50 / call for all calls, like mailing a letter. Problem solved overnight.
That particular solar flare will make most everyone dead. No electricity equals no more mechanization, farming with animals again, mass starvation when tractors don't make food and trucks don't deliver it, etc. Survivors will be the cannibals.
"The poor man needs a car to get to work. Want to pay $10,000 in taxes?? "
The poor buy used vehicles. Used goods are not taxed under the FairTax.
"The poor person needs to eat and pay rent."
The gov't is sending the poor person a monthly sum to pay The FairTax on his food and rent. The poor person with a job is also NOT paying payroll tax.
" Even if the poor man can't own his landlord pays high taxes on the buying of the apartment which he will pass on to his tenant."
The landlord is already paying just as much in income taxes, which would totally go away under the FairTax. The purchase of the aparment building would probably be a wash with respect to taxes paid if the apartment building was new, or it would be a huge win iunder the FairTax because the apartment building if bought as an existing structure would be deemed "used" and not taxed under the FairTax.
"That is why it is regressive."
So far, under your examples, the FairTax is much better for the poor person than the income taxes.
"Also, we had a minimalist government back in the 19th century funded by tariffs which is true. Today we are global and things are different. If we did tarrifs again it would cream us as other countries with NAFTA will retaliate by hitting us back on tariffs from the USA to their countries."
We won't need tariffs under the FairTax. Under the FairTax, US manufacturing would get a huge boost, from not having to pay income taxes, and their prices would plummet from savings of the tax monies, while foreign manufacturing would continue to need to charge the same prices they always did, because they would get no relief due to the US gov't abolishing income taxes. There would be nothing for foreign countries to retaliate against, since it is not required under any of our agreements like the World Trade Organization or NAFTA for member countries to deliberately damage themselves with an income tax.
"Chinese companies will take over as their products will be seen as even cheaper to American company products."
American companies will have the lower-priced products from not having to pay income taxes.
"Back then people bought from other farmers more and didn't need things outside our country as much."
With the FairTax, pretty much everything we need will be moving back to the US for the tax advantage, and we will once again not need much from foreigners.
" Infact railroads were funded by corporations and investors."
Still are. THe railroads' combined yearly maintenance budget is the size of NASA's entire budget. The extent of our private-industry-owned freight rail system is absolutely gargantuan.
"Today's jobs require advanced knowledge to be somewhat competent in the office. Outside the office? Not much opportunity. Machines and cheap foreignors work our fields. Our factories are in China. The only work is office for most people."
Our factories would be right back here where they used to be, because the US would be the cheapest, most profitable place to manufacture on the planet. There would be plenty of jobs for non-university people like welders, machinists, milwrights, pipefitters, electricians - everone you need to keep a factory running. Plus then there's the production guys that are tending 15 machines, keeping them supplied and adjusted while they knock out tax-free iPhones faster and cheaper than the Chinese can assemble them by hand with 1000's of workers.
"If you want to argue against taxes you need to cut government spending as well. The Republican party loves to make fun of tax and spend liberals but never cuts military spending. Reagan increased the size of government quite well."
One of the best ways to cut gov't spending is to reduce the number of people that need welfare. The return of factories will cause a massive labor shortage, which always causes wages to skyrocket. As the factories start paying more money, they will empty out the low-paying retailers and low-paying restaurants whose employes
We didn't have income taxes until 1913, and had armies, libraries, roads, hospitals, bridges, etc. Stealing from the people, which is what an income tax is, is totally unnecessary. And to that point, 1913, it was all done with consumption taxes, with the rich paying most of them because they were excise taxes on things the rich mostly bought. The rich got tired of paying for everything and hoodwinked congress, the states, and the American people into passing the income taxes. (If you think the rich control everything in Washington, then you have to ask yourself why we still have a supposedly "progressive" income tax that supposedly soaks the rich... if it did, wouldn't the rich move to abolish it? Sure they would, but they cling to it, and work against consumption taxes like the FairTax. If the rich really wanted the FairTax, we'd have it...)
How can a tax where the poor pay $0 be regressive? If you want regressive, note that the payroll tax hammers the out of the poor with a 15.3% tax (yes, employees actually pay the "employer's share" of the payroll tax), and stops taxing everyone as soon as they make in the neighborhood of $130K. The FairTax eliminates the payroll tax. The FairTax is the only truly progressive tax proposed to date. And, it will fully fund the USA to the level that the income taxes are funding it now, its designed that way.
The US economy was destined to be broken by the most siginficant event of the year 1913. That was the passage of the 16th Amendment enabling a US income tax.
50 years later, US President John F. Kennedy said, " "The largest single barrier to full employment of our manpower and resources and to a higher rate of economic growth is the unrealistically heavy drag of federal income taxes on private purchasing power, initiative and incentive.” John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963 "
Since then, it has only gotten worse. According to the proponents of a major competing financing mechanism, the Fair Tax, 22% of the price of any good manufactured in the USA is comprised of the cost of US income taxes. The US income taxes, not labor rates, are the real reason that manufacturing largely fled the USA. Don't believe it? Consider that, according to the auto companies who whined in 2008 when 2 out of 3 were going bankrupt that workers were costing $78 / hr in total compensation. Sound high? Consider that it takes 30 - 33 person-hours to build a car in the USA. Multiply that out to get about $2,500 labor cost. Then plug in the 22% cost of US income taxes to a $40K American-built SUV. That's $8,800. So, $2,500 in labor or $8,800 in tax expense. Which would be better to get rid of, enslaving the workers and paying them $0, or getting rid of the income taxes, which are simply legalized stealing of people's money by the gov't.
Looking at income taxes from an unconventional point of view, they are simple slavery. What did the old slave owners do to slaves? They stole the proceeds of the slave's labor for themselves. What does the gov't do? They steal the proceeds of the American people's labor for a portion of the year. We talk of tax freedom day, which this year is supposedly April 19. Last year it was April 23. A trend in the right direction, but woefully inadequate. The gov't is essentially the slave owner, we are the slaves, and the situation exists from January 1 to April 19 this year.
Tax freedom day should be January 1, the income taxes should be totally repealed, and I favor the FairTax to replace them. The FairTax is a consumption tax on new goods and services that occur above poverty level spending for each person's living situation. That is, if you're a family of 4 and the poverty level is $24,000, the gov't gives you enough money in a monthly check to pay the FairTax on $2,000 of spending per month. If you're single, and the poverty level is $12K, you get enough money from the gov't every month to pay the FairTax on $1000 of spending for that month.
Bill Archer, former head of the House Ways and Means committee, commissioned a survey to ask 500 foreign CEOs what they would do if the US passed the FairTax. 400 of them said that they would build their next factory in the USA. The other 100 said that they would move their company headquarters to the USA.
Sadly, we'll likely never get the FairTax passed because people have been successfully duped into believing that "corporate taxes" are paid by those mean old rich corporate executives who suffer mightily when they have to cough up those taxes out of their own pockets and thus diminish their playboy, high-living lifestyle to the delight of said unwashed, duped masses. The reality is that those mean old corporate executive simply raise the prices of the goods manufactured by the companies that they control, lower the wages of the workers in the companies that they control, and reduce dividends for the stocks the companies use for financing, all to take those monies saved to send the corporate taxes to the US gov't. Sadly, sometimes these price hikes, especially, make US products more expensive on the market than the foreign-made products built in countries with higher corporate income taxes (which was all other countries until earlier this year when Trump lowered the tax rates from 35%, where it had been since 1941, to 21%. Due to this reduction, the economy is "taking off." But it could be massively better if all the income taxes were lowered to $0.
Why? Because I saw almost everything anyway. My movie admission cost for January was about $85, when a lot of movies came out. Somewhat less in February, around $65 if I remember right. Moviepass is saving me a ton of money, but I don't expect it to last. I've got my annual $105.35 paid back already, and the rest is just gravy. I expect them to go belly-up in a few more months, the whole concept being impossible from the get-go. But I'll enjoy it while it last.
"I wouldn't want to put so many miles on my main vehicle anyway. I'd rather rent a car for that trip. Except 800 miles in a day is excessive anyway."
My main vehicle is fun to drive, so I don't want to be driving anything else.
As for 800 miles, I like to drive, and its only excessive if you can't do it. I'm 70 years old and can do it. 10 years ago I was 60 and went over 1000 miles the 1st day on the same trip. Yep, left Virginia at 4 AM and slept in Texas the same night.
Not everyone uses cars in the same way, and some won't buy an electric if it won't do what they want. The solution is to improve electrics until they will.
"Many countries achieve similar or even higher wealth with much less CO2 emissions per capita. The US (and Canada, Australia, UAE, Qatar) carbon-based economy is unsustainable."
We're fixing the problem way faster than the rest of the world. We were one of the very few that actually met the Kyoto Protocol requirements. Done with natural gas replacing coal, and new power being natural gas as well as solar and wind. Nobody is converting more rapidly. We will be zero-carbon, leave-it-in-the-ground before anyone else, I'm betting. Its just going to take some time. Meanwhile, we're not going to impoverish millions trying to do too much too soon.
Yeah, we do a lot of industry which takes a lot of power, and moving stuff around the country is expensive because its just big. We're working on it, tho. And we have a freight rail system that is unmatched anywhere else on the planet, and moves whatever it hauls with extremely little energy per ton. But there are trucks, like the rest of the world mostly uses, and they suck a lot of energy. But Tesla just came out with electric trucks, so there's hope for great improvement.
"It's not true anyway. A better designed house that maintains a pleasant temperature with less HVAC is going to save you money. Your life gets better because of it."
Maybe, maybe not. My geothermal heat/cool cost $31.5K. I'm 70, got it 2 years ago, probably not going to get good ROI, although going from heating oil bills of up to $630 for 1 month to $175 on the absolute worst month for _all_ the electricity I use, which is usually $65 - $85 without heating / cooling expense, is just about breaking even. I mean the loan I took to get the geo is about $220 / mo, so its probably not quite breaking even throughout the year. But its great to know that the oil prices going thru the roof is not going to affect me any more.
Of course the AGW alarmists will still be pissed at me 'cuz my house still uses fossil fuels, in part, for heat / cool. And of course, the objective of 0 fossil fuel use is still not happening here.
"Same with electric vehicles. They are getting very affordable now and will continue to get cheaper. The air you breathe gets cleaner, you spend less on healthcare and cleaning your house. Life gets better for you."
Electric vehicles are not yet practical, and won't be until they can do everything an internal combustion powered vehicle can do. Range / recharge time is preventing this right now. My recent vacation to Arizona involved an 800 mile drive the 1st day. Nope, no electric car will do that. Take an hour or 2 to recharge it and then I'm too tired to continue to 800 miles in the same day. It still takes gasoline to do that. There's the supercapacitor that may make this happen, since they can be recharged extremely rapidly, but its still made of unobtanium for now. Recent breakthroughs:
Today's "unhinged" will be tomorrow's mainstream commies, and you _will_ end up in a concentration camp and worked / starved to death to keep you from using fossil fuels. Never let these wack-jobs get the upper hand.
>If you need to drive a gas guzzler then you don't have a life.
Its not "gas guzzler", its using _any_ fossil fuels to heat, cool, or move. We have to get to zero if we want the CO2 to start coming down. We can't do it. Not yet. I think we'll get there, but maybe in 50 years. Doing it now will just bring poverty, death, communism and slavery / genocide due to the communism.
And after you insulate? You _still_ have to burn fossil fuels to heat and cool. Victory over AGW is burning _NO_ fossil fuels. "Less" doesn't mean shit, at least on the scale that a few extra inches of insulation will do for you.
Hell, my triple-pane heat-mirror Nu-Sash windows, plus my geothermal heating / cooling _still_ uses fossil fuels. My cars are ALWAYS going to use fossil fuels because I'm 70, and the magic battery is probably waaaay after my lifetime, and that will be the solution. Solar / wind electricity to supercapacitor or battery in the car, and the car moves faster and far more efficiently than any internal combustion power car. This is what we need to get this problem so at least the AGW alarmists have nothing to whine about. Then they'll invent something else to attempt to diminish the free world, and have an excuse to institute communism (slavery / genocide) but at least the AGW excuse will be gone. Then we can simply shoot the commies.
Yeah, OK, what's the alternative to burning those things in our power plants and cars? Answer is that there isn't any. For now, we HAVE to burn fossil fuels. There's just no other way to maintain our level of prosperity.
And prosperity is important. The current surge in prosperity is lifting a lot of people up into the middle class. That's a good thing. The poverty class is deadly. Smoking will take maybe 7 years off your life, but living in poverty is good for up to 10 years less life. The great objective is, or ought to be, to keep our people alive as long as possible. That's certainly what the people (electorate) want.
We're working as furiously as we can to NOT use fossil fuels, and it is being done completely without regard to some political stimulus such as a "Paris Accord", simply because those that actually find a solution will be rich beyond their dreams. OTOH, some cockeyed gov't program to penalize citizens for the fuels they must necessarily use for work and recreation will simply diminsh them all, and cause less prosperity and more poverty.
I say let the scientists who are seeking the bigger, more efficient wind turbine or the larger, more efficient solar farm or the much more efficient battery or supercapacitor work as quickly as possible, and come up with the solution sooner than if money for their research becomes tight because the general public cannot provide it because they are either in poverty or paying taxes to support those in poverty. I think this will all be solved within the next 50 years of scientific advancement, and will take place without the government attempting to make it happen. I think it could be retarded by gov't bumbling and doing expensive shit like cap and trade or some other hare-brained use of unnecessary force. Just keep the gov't the hell out of it, and let the greed-factor work. We will get our solution to this sooner rather than later that way.
I remember about 15 years ago where they alarmists were telling us that it would cost $50 Trillion to implement climate change mitigations. If it is only going to cause $20 T not to do so, it would appear to be a good deal just to do nothing.
Anyway, we can stop talking about it, because the proposed actions always involve diminishing everyone's lives - living in cold houses in winter and boiling houses in the summer, driving rollerskate cars that will not survive a collision with a squirrel, driving electric cars that are made of unobtanium for most people with average incomes, not driving except to go to work and back and not even then if you can stuff 18 people into one car - yeah, these are all exaggerations for effect, but the bottom line is an approach to make life less worth living, so will not happen as the general public won't put up with it, which is why this approach has failed so far.
And it doesn't matter that America has pulled out of the Paris deal, we will still continue to set records for clean energy and CO2 mitigation via natural gas and solar and wind. Someday we may even get a handle on electric cars. But what America will not be doing is shipping trillions of dollars out of the country to pay for somebody else's climate compliance. They can live in caves and drive rollerskates. The US will not.
They're not solving crimes. They're doing anti-terrorism intelligence. The idea is to find out stuff before it happens so as to prevent it. Different job. Different methods. Lying to everyone seems to be part of that job, at least the way they do it.
I think it's the same for any execution. Someone has to pull the switch, drip the pill, pull the lever on the gallows, charge the needle even if it is done later by machine, etc. With 1 empty rifle, those doing the firing are probably in a better situation than a lot of other sorts of execution.
...still probably the firing squad. 4 or 5 bullets invading the heart should be near-instantaneous, blindingly cheap, least survivable, and quickest. We've had the real solution to this for 100's of years. Don't mess with what works. Just do it.
I'm 70, and have been eating those fats all my life. Heartscan test early last week shows I have a 94th percentile of plaque buildup in my heart. Cardiologist says its from saturated fats, which he told me to cut down. But go ahead and eat all the fats you want, just count me out.
As for the calories, they do work. Eat less than you burn, and you'll lose weight. I can use the Nutrisystem foods to eat 1200 calories a day comfortably (without getting hungry) and step off 1300 calories on an elliptical crosstrainer at Gold's gym, and lose 1/2 lb any day I choose. These heat equations work.
And knowing the numbers is valuable. I ate at a famous Chicago-based pizzaria place and got an order of mac and cheese. Only after i got back did I find that the single order was 1800 calories. It was delicious, but it was 1800 calories, 100 more than I burn in normal activity all day. Its helpful to know the calories, I would have avoided that...
Or the retired. Me. I'm a big movie fan anyway, and generally see almost everything. I got the 1-year subscription because I figured this would happen. I've had the card about a month, it cost me $105.35, and I've already got my fee back in the equivalent saved movie ticket prices, even tho I get the $8.50 senior price.
We're entering a time when its less lucrative, the summer, when the big movie providers only provide 1 movie per week. OK, will buy them too. Am going to enjoy the next 11 months, and may or may not renew with Moviepass. Probably, if they still have a single price for 4 movies per month.
Hmmm... lotsa good flix, tho. And a few sci-fi to make it worthwhile. There was Maze Runner, Annihilation, Rampage (yeah, its an action flick too...), Pacific Rim (stupid, just use shore batteries), Ready Player One, Geostorm, Planet of the Apes series, Valarian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Colossal (maybe more fantasy than sci-fi), Arrival, The Space Between Us, Rogue One, Independence Day, Looper, and The 5th Wave, all within the last couple years.
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At least local ones. Always get an answering computer, where it's impossible or damned difficult to talk to a person, which is what I want to do. If I want to talk to a local business, I get in the car and drive to their place of business and walk in the door.
Don't answer calls, either, unless I know exactly who it is. Friends, businesses I have business with, I answer. Everyone else gets ignored. Rarely get a voicemail.
Easy solution to this - charge $0.50 / call for all calls, like mailing a letter. Problem solved overnight.
The electric car owners will be so happy with this...
That particular solar flare will make most everyone dead. No electricity equals no more mechanization, farming with animals again, mass starvation when tractors don't make food and trucks don't deliver it, etc. Survivors will be the cannibals.
"The poor man needs a car to get to work. Want to pay $10,000 in taxes?? "
The poor buy used vehicles. Used goods are not taxed under the FairTax.
"The poor person needs to eat and pay rent."
The gov't is sending the poor person a monthly sum to pay The FairTax on his food and rent. The poor person with a job is also NOT paying payroll tax.
" Even if the poor man can't own his landlord pays high taxes on the buying of the apartment which he will pass on to his tenant."
The landlord is already paying just as much in income taxes, which would totally go away under the FairTax. The purchase of the aparment building would probably be a wash with respect to taxes paid if the apartment building was new, or it would be a huge win iunder the FairTax because the apartment building if bought as an existing structure would be deemed "used" and not taxed under the FairTax.
"That is why it is regressive."
So far, under your examples, the FairTax is much better for the poor person than the income taxes.
"Also, we had a minimalist government back in the 19th century funded by tariffs which is true. Today we are global and things are different. If we did tarrifs again it would cream us as other countries with NAFTA will retaliate by hitting us back on tariffs from the USA to their countries."
We won't need tariffs under the FairTax. Under the FairTax, US manufacturing would get a huge boost, from not having to pay income taxes, and their prices would plummet from savings of the tax monies, while foreign manufacturing would continue to need to charge the same prices they always did, because they would get no relief due to the US gov't abolishing income taxes. There would be nothing for foreign countries to retaliate against, since it is not required under any of our agreements like the World Trade Organization or NAFTA for member countries to deliberately damage themselves with an income tax.
"Chinese companies will take over as their products will be seen as even cheaper to American company products."
American companies will have the lower-priced products from not having to pay income taxes.
"Back then people bought from other farmers more and didn't need things outside our country as much."
With the FairTax, pretty much everything we need will be moving back to the US for the tax advantage, and we will once again not need much from foreigners.
" Infact railroads were funded by corporations and investors."
Still are. THe railroads' combined yearly maintenance budget is the size of NASA's entire budget. The extent of our private-industry-owned freight rail system is absolutely gargantuan.
"Today's jobs require advanced knowledge to be somewhat competent in the office. Outside the office? Not much opportunity. Machines and cheap foreignors work our fields. Our factories are in China. The only work is office for most people."
Our factories would be right back here where they used to be, because the US would be the cheapest, most profitable place to manufacture on the planet. There would be plenty of jobs for non-university people like welders, machinists, milwrights, pipefitters, electricians - everone you need to keep a factory running. Plus then there's the production guys that are tending 15 machines, keeping them supplied and adjusted while they knock out tax-free iPhones faster and cheaper than the Chinese can assemble them by hand with 1000's of workers.
"If you want to argue against taxes you need to cut government spending as well. The Republican party loves to make fun of tax and spend liberals but never cuts military spending. Reagan increased the size of government quite well."
One of the best ways to cut gov't spending is to reduce the number of people that need welfare. The return of factories will cause a massive labor shortage, which always causes wages to skyrocket. As the factories start paying more money, they will empty out the low-paying retailers and low-paying restaurants whose employes
We didn't have income taxes until 1913, and had armies, libraries, roads, hospitals, bridges, etc. Stealing from the people, which is what an income tax is, is totally unnecessary. And to that point, 1913, it was all done with consumption taxes, with the rich paying most of them because they were excise taxes on things the rich mostly bought. The rich got tired of paying for everything and hoodwinked congress, the states, and the American people into passing the income taxes. (If you think the rich control everything in Washington, then you have to ask yourself why we still have a supposedly "progressive" income tax that supposedly soaks the rich... if it did, wouldn't the rich move to abolish it? Sure they would, but they cling to it, and work against consumption taxes like the FairTax. If the rich really wanted the FairTax, we'd have it...)
How can a tax where the poor pay $0 be regressive? If you want regressive, note that the payroll tax hammers the out of the poor with a 15.3% tax (yes, employees actually pay the "employer's share" of the payroll tax), and stops taxing everyone as soon as they make in the neighborhood of $130K. The FairTax eliminates the payroll tax. The FairTax is the only truly progressive tax proposed to date. And, it will fully fund the USA to the level that the income taxes are funding it now, its designed that way.
The US economy was destined to be broken by the most siginficant event of the year 1913. That was the passage of the 16th Amendment enabling a US income tax.
50 years later, US President John F. Kennedy said, " "The largest single barrier to full employment of our manpower and resources and to a higher rate of economic growth is the unrealistically heavy drag of federal income taxes on private purchasing power, initiative and incentive.” John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963 "
Since then, it has only gotten worse. According to the proponents of a major competing financing mechanism, the Fair Tax, 22% of the price of any good manufactured in the USA is comprised of the cost of US income taxes. The US income taxes, not labor rates, are the real reason that manufacturing largely fled the USA. Don't believe it? Consider that, according to the auto companies who whined in 2008 when 2 out of 3 were going bankrupt that workers were costing $78 / hr in total compensation. Sound high? Consider that it takes 30 - 33 person-hours to build a car in the USA. Multiply that out to get about $2,500 labor cost. Then plug in the 22% cost of US income taxes to a $40K American-built SUV. That's $8,800. So, $2,500 in labor or $8,800 in tax expense. Which would be better to get rid of, enslaving the workers and paying them $0, or getting rid of the income taxes, which are simply legalized stealing of people's money by the gov't.
Looking at income taxes from an unconventional point of view, they are simple slavery. What did the old slave owners do to slaves? They stole the proceeds of the slave's labor for themselves. What does the gov't do? They steal the proceeds of the American people's labor for a portion of the year. We talk of tax freedom day, which this year is supposedly April 19. Last year it was April 23. A trend in the right direction, but woefully inadequate. The gov't is essentially the slave owner, we are the slaves, and the situation exists from January 1 to April 19 this year.
Tax freedom day should be January 1, the income taxes should be totally repealed, and I favor the FairTax to replace them. The FairTax is a consumption tax on new goods and services that occur above poverty level spending for each person's living situation. That is, if you're a family of 4 and the poverty level is $24,000, the gov't gives you enough money in a monthly check to pay the FairTax on $2,000 of spending per month. If you're single, and the poverty level is $12K, you get enough money from the gov't every month to pay the FairTax on $1000 of spending for that month.
Bill Archer, former head of the House Ways and Means committee, commissioned a survey to ask 500 foreign CEOs what they would do if the US passed the FairTax. 400 of them said that they would build their next factory in the USA. The other 100 said that they would move their company headquarters to the USA.
Sadly, we'll likely never get the FairTax passed because people have been successfully duped into believing that "corporate taxes" are paid by those mean old rich corporate executives who suffer mightily when they have to cough up those taxes out of their own pockets and thus diminish their playboy, high-living lifestyle to the delight of said unwashed, duped masses. The reality is that those mean old corporate executive simply raise the prices of the goods manufactured by the companies that they control, lower the wages of the workers in the companies that they control, and reduce dividends for the stocks the companies use for financing, all to take those monies saved to send the corporate taxes to the US gov't. Sadly, sometimes these price hikes, especially, make US products more expensive on the market than the foreign-made products built in countries with higher corporate income taxes (which was all other countries until earlier this year when Trump lowered the tax rates from 35%, where it had been since 1941, to 21%. Due to this reduction, the economy is "taking off." But it could be massively better if all the income taxes were lowered to $0.
Why? Because I saw almost everything anyway. My movie admission cost for January was about $85, when a lot of movies came out. Somewhat less in February, around $65 if I remember right. Moviepass is saving me a ton of money, but I don't expect it to last. I've got my annual $105.35 paid back already, and the rest is just gravy. I expect them to go belly-up in a few more months, the whole concept being impossible from the get-go. But I'll enjoy it while it last.
"I wouldn't want to put so many miles on my main vehicle anyway. I'd rather rent a car for that trip. Except 800 miles in a day is excessive anyway."
My main vehicle is fun to drive, so I don't want to be driving anything else.
As for 800 miles, I like to drive, and its only excessive if you can't do it. I'm 70 years old and can do it. 10 years ago I was 60 and went over 1000 miles the 1st day on the same trip. Yep, left Virginia at 4 AM and slept in Texas the same night.
Not everyone uses cars in the same way, and some won't buy an electric if it won't do what they want. The solution is to improve electrics until they will.
"Many countries achieve similar or even higher wealth with much less CO2 emissions per capita. The US (and Canada, Australia, UAE, Qatar) carbon-based economy is unsustainable."
We're fixing the problem way faster than the rest of the world. We were one of the very few that actually met the Kyoto Protocol requirements. Done with natural gas replacing coal, and new power being natural gas as well as solar and wind. Nobody is converting more rapidly. We will be zero-carbon, leave-it-in-the-ground before anyone else, I'm betting. Its just going to take some time. Meanwhile, we're not going to impoverish millions trying to do too much too soon.
Yeah, we do a lot of industry which takes a lot of power, and moving stuff around the country is expensive because its just big. We're working on it, tho. And we have a freight rail system that is unmatched anywhere else on the planet, and moves whatever it hauls with extremely little energy per ton. But there are trucks, like the rest of the world mostly uses, and they suck a lot of energy. But Tesla just came out with electric trucks, so there's hope for great improvement.
"It's not true anyway. A better designed house that maintains a pleasant temperature with less HVAC is going to save you money. Your life gets better because of it."
Maybe, maybe not. My geothermal heat/cool cost $31.5K. I'm 70, got it 2 years ago, probably not going to get good ROI, although going from heating oil bills of up to $630 for 1 month to $175 on the absolute worst month for _all_ the electricity I use, which is usually $65 - $85 without heating / cooling expense, is just about breaking even. I mean the loan I took to get the geo is about $220 / mo, so its probably not quite breaking even throughout the year. But its great to know that the oil prices going thru the roof is not going to affect me any more.
Of course the AGW alarmists will still be pissed at me 'cuz my house still uses fossil fuels, in part, for heat / cool. And of course, the objective of 0 fossil fuel use is still not happening here.
"Same with electric vehicles. They are getting very affordable now and will continue to get cheaper. The air you breathe gets cleaner, you spend less on healthcare and cleaning your house. Life gets better for you."
Electric vehicles are not yet practical, and won't be until they can do everything an internal combustion powered vehicle can do. Range / recharge time is preventing this right now. My recent vacation to Arizona involved an 800 mile drive the 1st day. Nope, no electric car will do that. Take an hour or 2 to recharge it and then I'm too tired to continue to 800 miles in the same day. It still takes gasoline to do that. There's the supercapacitor that may make this happen, since they can be recharged extremely rapidly, but its still made of unobtanium for now. Recent breakthroughs:
https://news.nationalgeographi...
may yet pan out for electric cars, electrical grids powered by intermittent sources like solar and wind, etc.
Today's "unhinged" will be tomorrow's mainstream commies, and you _will_ end up in a concentration camp and worked / starved to death to keep you from using fossil fuels. Never let these wack-jobs get the upper hand.
>If you need to drive a gas guzzler then you don't have a life.
Its not "gas guzzler", its using _any_ fossil fuels to heat, cool, or move. We have to get to zero if we want the CO2 to start coming down. We can't do it. Not yet. I think we'll get there, but maybe in 50 years. Doing it now will just bring poverty, death, communism and slavery / genocide due to the communism.
Hey, here's one for $90 T:
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
If it's only going to cost $20T to fix the effects of AGW, why would be spend $44, $50, or $90 trillion to prevent it?
Here's one for $44 trillion, but that is 2014, just 4 years ago. The figure I heard was what the AGW alarmists were saying about 15 years ago.
https://www.technologyreview.c...
And after you insulate? You _still_ have to burn fossil fuels to heat and cool. Victory over AGW is burning _NO_ fossil fuels. "Less" doesn't mean shit, at least on the scale that a few extra inches of insulation will do for you.
Hell, my triple-pane heat-mirror Nu-Sash windows, plus my geothermal heating / cooling _still_ uses fossil fuels. My cars are ALWAYS going to use fossil fuels because I'm 70, and the magic battery is probably waaaay after my lifetime, and that will be the solution. Solar / wind electricity to supercapacitor or battery in the car, and the car moves faster and far more efficiently than any internal combustion power car. This is what we need to get this problem so at least the AGW alarmists have nothing to whine about. Then they'll invent something else to attempt to diminish the free world, and have an excuse to institute communism (slavery / genocide) but at least the AGW excuse will be gone. Then we can simply shoot the commies.
Yeah, OK, what's the alternative to burning those things in our power plants and cars? Answer is that there isn't any. For now, we HAVE to burn fossil fuels. There's just no other way to maintain our level of prosperity.
And prosperity is important. The current surge in prosperity is lifting a lot of people up into the middle class. That's a good thing. The poverty class is deadly. Smoking will take maybe 7 years off your life, but living in poverty is good for up to 10 years less life. The great objective is, or ought to be, to keep our people alive as long as possible. That's certainly what the people (electorate) want.
We're working as furiously as we can to NOT use fossil fuels, and it is being done completely without regard to some political stimulus such as a "Paris Accord", simply because those that actually find a solution will be rich beyond their dreams. OTOH, some cockeyed gov't program to penalize citizens for the fuels they must necessarily use for work and recreation will simply diminsh them all, and cause less prosperity and more poverty.
I say let the scientists who are seeking the bigger, more efficient wind turbine or the larger, more efficient solar farm or the much more efficient battery or supercapacitor work as quickly as possible, and come up with the solution sooner than if money for their research becomes tight because the general public cannot provide it because they are either in poverty or paying taxes to support those in poverty. I think this will all be solved within the next 50 years of scientific advancement, and will take place without the government attempting to make it happen. I think it could be retarded by gov't bumbling and doing expensive shit like cap and trade or some other hare-brained use of unnecessary force. Just keep the gov't the hell out of it, and let the greed-factor work. We will get our solution to this sooner rather than later that way.
I remember about 15 years ago where they alarmists were telling us that it would cost $50 Trillion to implement climate change mitigations. If it is only going to cause $20 T not to do so, it would appear to be a good deal just to do nothing.
Anyway, we can stop talking about it, because the proposed actions always involve diminishing everyone's lives - living in cold houses in winter and boiling houses in the summer, driving rollerskate cars that will not survive a collision with a squirrel, driving electric cars that are made of unobtanium for most people with average incomes, not driving except to go to work and back and not even then if you can stuff 18 people into one car - yeah, these are all exaggerations for effect, but the bottom line is an approach to make life less worth living, so will not happen as the general public won't put up with it, which is why this approach has failed so far.
And it doesn't matter that America has pulled out of the Paris deal, we will still continue to set records for clean energy and CO2 mitigation via natural gas and solar and wind. Someday we may even get a handle on electric cars. But what America will not be doing is shipping trillions of dollars out of the country to pay for somebody else's climate compliance. They can live in caves and drive rollerskates. The US will not.
They're not solving crimes. They're doing anti-terrorism intelligence. The idea is to find out stuff before it happens so as to prevent it. Different job. Different methods. Lying to everyone seems to be part of that job, at least the way they do it.
I think it's the same for any execution. Someone has to pull the switch, drip the pill, pull the lever on the gallows, charge the needle even if it is done later by machine, etc. With 1 empty rifle, those doing the firing are probably in a better situation than a lot of other sorts of execution.
...still probably the firing squad. 4 or 5 bullets invading the heart should be near-instantaneous, blindingly cheap, least survivable, and quickest. We've had the real solution to this for 100's of years. Don't mess with what works. Just do it.
I'm 70, and have been eating those fats all my life. Heartscan test early last week shows I have a 94th percentile of plaque buildup in my heart. Cardiologist says its from saturated fats, which he told me to cut down. But go ahead and eat all the fats you want, just count me out.
As for the calories, they do work. Eat less than you burn, and you'll lose weight. I can use the Nutrisystem foods to eat 1200 calories a day comfortably (without getting hungry) and step off 1300 calories on an elliptical crosstrainer at Gold's gym, and lose 1/2 lb any day I choose. These heat equations work.
And knowing the numbers is valuable. I ate at a famous Chicago-based pizzaria place and got an order of mac and cheese. Only after i got back did I find that the single order was 1800 calories. It was delicious, but it was 1800 calories, 100 more than I burn in normal activity all day. Its helpful to know the calories, I would have avoided that...
Or the retired. Me. I'm a big movie fan anyway, and generally see almost everything. I got the 1-year subscription because I figured this would happen. I've had the card about a month, it cost me $105.35, and I've already got my fee back in the equivalent saved movie ticket prices, even tho I get the $8.50 senior price.
We're entering a time when its less lucrative, the summer, when the big movie providers only provide 1 movie per week. OK, will buy them too. Am going to enjoy the next 11 months, and may or may not renew with Moviepass. Probably, if they still have a single price for 4 movies per month.
Hmmm... lotsa good flix, tho. And a few sci-fi to make it worthwhile. There was Maze Runner, Annihilation, Rampage (yeah, its an action flick too...), Pacific Rim (stupid, just use shore batteries), Ready Player One, Geostorm, Planet of the Apes series, Valarian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Colossal (maybe more fantasy than sci-fi), Arrival, The Space Between Us, Rogue One, Independence Day, Looper, and The 5th Wave, all within the last couple years.
Sure we need to export it. Why should we be the only one's saddled with the abominations.