Taxes are the problem because the promote the offshoring of US jobs. Eliminating income taxes would cause the world's manufacturers to stampede to build factories here, in a no-income-tax environment, and quickly employ everyone who ever thought that he might, maybe, someday want a job. Prosperity would return to the USA if we got rid of income taxes. The FairTax would let us get rid of income taxes.
"I didn't see what this is replying to, but anyway. The progressive tax system works, such that the higher the income the more you get taxed as a percentage."
Except the income taxes are not progressive, they're highly regressive.
Since the payroll taxes are part of the income taxes, and since they stop taxing when income reaches the low $100k's, they end up taxing the snot out of the poor, and essentially letting the rich off scot free, except for that small amount that is less than the lower-$100K's cutoff."
The FairTax is actually the progressive tax that we could have, since it taxes the more you SPEND. The rich spend out the wazoo, but when the poor and near-poor spend, it is often on non-taxed stuff - used items aren't taxed, so the poor or near-poor that buys a used car isn't taxed on that purchase, and the poor or near-poor that buys a house almost always buys and existing house, which is classified as a "used" item which is not taxed, and poor and near poor are great patrons of pawn shops, 2nd-hand / thrift stores, etc. which sell used items, and therefore those things aren't taxed.
The FairTax is progressive, the income taxes are very regressive.
"Is it "fair"? Certainly not, but it does product good results for the economy. "
The income taxes have produced terrible results for the economy. Our manufacturing jobs have left the country in large part, and this is the result of income tax burden on industry. I remember seeing interviews with business executives on TV after they had sent jobs overseas, and this was way back in the 1980's, and they would say things like, "Well, if the USA didn't have a tax system that incentivizes leaving the country..." I didn't have a clue what these business executives were talking about at the time, but now I know they were talking about getting hammered by income taxes at every turn, and that many foreign countries had far lower taxes than we do for manufacturing. Up until Trump's tax cut, that cut the corporate income taxes from 35% to 21% for the 1st time since 1941, we had the highest corporate tax rates in the world. We didn't have the highest corporate taxes in the world from 1941 on, but we acquired them as other countries lowered their corporate taxes, and we bacame the most expensive. Japan was the last one to lower theirs from their 39%, which gave us the "highest" status for a while, but now that's fixed. Still, we could easily over-compete with the rest of the world, and get most of the manufacturing back in the USA, but abolishing income taxes.
"Everyone has an incentive to work,"
They do, but it's called "not starving", and has nothing to do with our income taxes. Our income taxes actually disincentivize work, as you get taxed more if you work more and therefore make more money. My Dad used to work overtime in a factory and was very upset with the sabotaged compensation that he earned for his extra effort because they tax rates were increased for the jump to the next bracket.
WTF? Troll? This speaks to the heart of the problem, which is our taxes. We've been damaging ourselves with income taxes for over 100 years. We need to stop, and gain great advantage over our international trading partners.
Instead, we damage ourselves continuously by taxing the hell out of US manufacturing, mining, and agriculture with income taxes that harm nearly every aspect of US production. We have individual income taxes and payroll taxes that make labor much more expensive than it should be, we have capital gains taxes that make investing more expensive, we have corporate income taxes that harm our businesses by making products more expensive, we have estate taxes that especially harm agriculture when family farms are taxed when the owner dies, we have gift taxes and alternative minimum taxes and these all just hurt everyone.
What we should do instead is to pass the FairTax. The FairTax completely repeals ALL Federal income taxes in the USA and replaces them with a retail sales tax on new goods and services - used items aren't taxed - and prevents taxing the poor by giving every legal resident of the USA a check from the gov't to pay for the FairTax on all their spending up to the poverty level - $230/month for a single person making $12K a year.
Untaxing US manufacturing, mining, and agriculture in this manner would put rocket engines on the economy, and further allowing citizens to set their level of taxation by deciding how much tax they want to pay by either buying or not buying taxed items. The FairTax is essentially a luxury tax, then, since it only taxes non-essential items - items purchased above the poverty level - so it really nails the big spenders (the rich) and gives a pass to the really poor and very frugal.
The FairTax would "Make America Great Again" by putting rocket engines on the economy, and untaxing our exports while greatly incentivizing both foreign and domestic manufacturing to come here or stay here. Jobs available would go up dramatically as would wages when the labor shortage hits.
The Fair Tax would be a winner for everyone in the USA, and a horror for foreign economic competitors.
As much as I'd love to skewer the bittorent guys and the video-over-internet data hogs, it'd be totally unworkable since even that tiny amount would be unaffordable by millions of people, starting with kids and going to the aboriginals in all parts of the world. Elon Musk is about to put 800 low earth orbiting satellites into the sky to make the internet available, and this would just make it unavailable to large masses of people. Its the same concept for which the NRA fights every "tax" or other expense on guns, which makes the poor people of the USA defenseless when there's a $49 gun they can use to ward off evil, but the politicians want to raise money and deprive them of protection by having a $150 registration fee per gun. No, it isn't fair to assume that every poor person that wants to buy a gun is a criminal so depriving them would be a good thing. Even among the poor, the criminals are a small minority.
Nope, nobody wins because the internet would be effectively unusable. We'd all have to go back to the library for our information. Nobody would have enough money to pay the bastards whatever they wanted for the DRM unlock, so... the internet would be unusable.
Since there is no 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear cell phones, you must turn all of your cell phones in by the end of the day. Cell towers will all be deactivated at midnight. Further, wifi will be outlawed, and all those methods of connecting computers will be required to use ethernet cables forthwith. We can't have this public health menace killing millions on a regular basis, we must act. We're going back to land lines and other wire-based solutions where these signals don't radiate through our bodies. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, the television and radio station transmitters will be limited to 5 watts, resulting in a range of probably 2.5 miles with a poor signal. If you want TV and radio, you will have to get it through a cable, no more broadcasting. In your car? Tough, stop somewhere and get an update on a wired TV or radio. Meanwhile, play "Boston" or an audiobook on the radio, since there won't be any useful signals outside of the sight of a transmitting tower that is running... 5 watts.
Its not out of the norm, lots and lots of people take driving vacations involving hundreds of miles a day of travel. Its the USA, which is huge. If you're going to start in the midwest and visit Yellowstone, Devil's Tower, maybe Pikes Peak, swing down to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, etc. you're going to be traversing 100's of miles a day. Recharging for hours after 300 miles or so just doesn't work.
My Subaru WRX isn't a "rally car", its a STOCK Subaru WRX. I just happen to use it for a rather sedate form of road rally, where sudden acceleration bursts are still an advantage. But it ain't the races you see on TV.
Anyway, if the car I'm considering requires a lot of time to "refuel", then I don't consider it. A lot of people won't - I've been doing these long distance drives my whole life. Friend of my was stationed in Georgia in the Army, and would drive up to Ohio on weekends to visit his family - that's probably 600 miles. Hours to recharge after 300 miles wouldn't work for that either.
Pretty much everyone has some occasion to drive 100's of miles, and won't consider something that won't do that when forking over $30K+ or better for the only car they can afford.
The strategy here is that WE have the strongest military, and y'all have little to none, so 1) You can't threaten US effectively and 2) You can't start fighting each other again. Fuck, after 2 times in the 20th century y'all find reason to go invading each other, and WE have to climb in boats and come over there to put a stop to it at great expense and loss of life, WE figure it's a great thing if y'all aren't using your money to build bombs and tanks to be rolling across each other's borders and starting more wicked shit. The Soviet Union / Russians have been obliging enough to provide a common enemy to focus our efforts in a common interest, but WE need to stop providing the lion's share of the $$$ 'cuz we're just at the point that we can't afford it any more.
I almost bought a Volt at one time. They were a little under-performing when compared to my Subaru WRX. The reason for my road trips is that I road rally with the Sports Car Club of America, and although road rallies are not the races you see on TV on regular roads, but instead more of a game of Simon Says done with cars at fairly low speeds, there are still some advantages to be had with a "quick" car. Even I didn't used to believe it, and considering the rallies I was running it didn't make sense, but the facts were that my driver and I tried for several years to win the championship with my Jeep Cherokee, and just couldn't. Then I bought a 2005 Subaru WRX and won the championship the next year. The quickness was the factor - you're looking for a turn, find an intersection you think is right and look down there and it says, "dead end", so have to speed up again suddenly because the checkpoint is down the road in the other direction and you have to get there "right now." The Subaru did "right now" much better than the Jeep. So we won the championship. We weren't any better at it than in the previous 4 years, it was the car. And the Volt would have been unlikely to win.
Other consideration was the cargo carrying capacity of the Volt, I wanted something a little bigger with 4 doors.
They make an electric I can use, I'll be right there...
Well, they can't. If they do, that car will necessarily cost more and probably perform less well, so customers will buy the car that costs less and performs better. So, if they make a "clean" car without such a law requiring it, their competitors will make a car that pleases customers more by being cheaper or running better, and the clean car maker will profit less.
Yep, no company can make a "clean" anything if customers prefer the cheaper, better performing thing.
"get rid of those burdensome regulations so companies can keep making money..."
Hey, when (American) companies make money, then American workers make money, and prosperity increases. The more people beat up on (American) companes, the more Americans live in poverty. Poverty kills. While smoking will take up to 7 years off your life, living in poverty will take up to 10 years off your life. You freeze to death under a bridge while living in a refrigerator carton, or get attacked by criminals while under the bridge, or just can't afford to support yourself sufficiently to have health insurance that will allow you to get your cancer diagnosed early enough to have it excised, etc. Yeah, lets let American companies make money, so Americans can be prosperous, and live longer.
" A lot of countries spent far less on defense, and remain oddly uninvaded."
Because WE are protecting them with OUR (very expensive) military. Before he was elected, before he was even running for election, Donald Trump mentioned in interviews that some big benficiaries of our defense spending should start coughing up for its creation and maintenance. I favor that. If you're in such a situation that you're in danger if the US military goes home, then you should be paying for it.
No, not "only because." Another big reason is because of these new laws requiring child safety seats. Try getting your triplets into a regular car. Ain't happenin'. You need an SUV or van for all those huge child safety seats, esp. when you can't put any in the front because of the accursed air bag (I've NEVER been in a situation where an air bag would have done me the slightest bit of good, and I've been driving for 54 years.) So, you get kids, and want to go somewhere as a family all in the same vehicle, can you say "SUV?" I knew you could...
If not relaxed, these fuel economy standards will require electric cars or hybrid cars whether the customer wants them, or in the case of electric care whether they are viable in the USA or not.
The USA is huge, so we need cars capable of long ranges and quick recharges. 1st leg of my vacation a few weeks ago was about 800 miles. A few years ago, the same destination's 1st leg was 1100 miles, starting in Virginia and I slept in Texas the same night. Try that with the electrics available now. You try to prohibit the sale of the sort of car I need, that just means that I keep the car I have now, and repair the out of it for as long as it takes the electrics to catch up with its performance, which may be never. IOW, I ain't buyin' no electric until it meets my needs. (I drive these long distances rather than flying for several reasons, the main one being the TSA and airline nonsense - if the TSA wants to feel me up, or the airlines want to beat me up, they're going to have to chase me down at 80 mph on Interstate 10 to do it, I'm not showing up at an airport and volunteering for it...)
I'm all for electrics when they're actually ready. When they do what I need them to, I'll be first in line. Why? Because, getting 3 - 4 miles per KwH, and with power here in Virginia coming it at 12.5 cents per KwH, driving an electric will be like driving my present car on about 95 cents per gallon gasoline. Plus, I won't need to get the timing belt changed ($1,100), the clutch changed ($2300), brakes as often ($400), and a series of oil changes at about $60 - $70 each (I use synthetic oil for the turbo...) And I saw recently an article on supercapacitors that promises / threatens to make electric cars viable with greater storage and faster charge times (10 minutes) than the current batteries, and yes, probably able to meet my needs. Build it, and they (I) will come.
But passing some half-assed law saying 55 mpg isn't going to make it happen any faster, its just going to screw up the market. I just start repairing... and repairing... and repairing if I can't buy the car I need...
...when we estimate the need for future electrical energy usage by using historical electrical energy usage. Why? Electric cars. The demand for electrical energy should rise sharply if and when we get viable (cheap enough, with enough range and a short enough recharge time) electric cars. Converting all cars, trucks, ships, airplanes, and locomotives to battery power means an enormous activity in charging those batteries. We will be building wind generators to the point that absolutely every horizon in the country will look like fur, with wind generators taking the part of individual hairs. Its fortunate that they are beautiful / majestic, but still hoping to keep them off some of the notable scenic areas such as the Grand Canyon, half-dome, painted desert, etc.
You need to read your levelized cost of energy link more carefully. Those big numbers you're talking about are for solar-thermal and offshore wind, both admittedly the most expensive ways to use their respective power sources.
Look on the right end of the spectrum and you'll see onshore wind as being extremely cheap. Solar PV is still cost challenged, but there's hope for improvement. For some reason, people still keep building solar PV collection systems, so apparently its viable.
Was reading one of those Facebook "lists", this one about the world's worst 15 disasters. Those things are fun to read, but one is pertinent to this. One notch on the list was some poor Brit that bought bitcoin early and amassed a fortune of 7.5 million (dollars? pounds?) and lost it all when he lost the hard drive (discarded it, I think) in his computer.
I'm not sure we want to be using a currency that is quite so fragile. You have $7.5M, you're looking for a fork lift to move it around (just weighed a dollar bill at about 1 gram, so $7.5 M would be 7,500 Kg, or 16,500 lbs), and losing it would be a chore. I hereby vote to keep the current currency...
Yeah, I tend to leave out solar because it is inoperable or diminished so often because the sun isn't always available. I like solar, but it doesn't do a thing for you at night, and when it is available, it is too available, and produces more power than is being used, and so can't be fully exploited without batteries big enough and cheap enough for us to use. And since solar is over-available on sunny days, the power is sold for such a low price, due to supply and demand, that it's a profitability problem for the electric grid industries. No, I don't want solar at home, its just something else to go wrong and need repair and insuring for yet another insurance payment.
We really, really, really need that magic battery that makes the intermittent sources of power, as well as electric cars, practical. Or maybe a supercapacitor:
...are we going to do about it? I mean what effective thing are we going to do about it? Not a damned thing. We absolutely, positively have to burn fossil fuels or we're going to go back to living in caves... after about 95% of the population eats each other until it is small enough to be supported by farming with animals for power.
Eventually - 50, 100 years, maybe more, we'll have nuclear fusion and or sufficient wind turbines or geothermal or something AND we'll have a really effective battery or supercapacitor that will power everything that internal combustion engines do now all the way up to fighter jets, and then we will have arrived at a solution. And we'll still need oil for petrochemicals for their material value - building things out of plastics, and so forth. But in our lifetimes? Doubtful.
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Taxes are the problem because the promote the offshoring of US jobs. Eliminating income taxes would cause the world's manufacturers to stampede to build factories here, in a no-income-tax environment, and quickly employ everyone who ever thought that he might, maybe, someday want a job. Prosperity would return to the USA if we got rid of income taxes. The FairTax would let us get rid of income taxes.
"I didn't see what this is replying to, but anyway. The progressive tax system works, such that the higher the income the more you get taxed as a percentage."
Except the income taxes are not progressive, they're highly regressive.
Since the payroll taxes are part of the income taxes, and since they stop taxing when income reaches the low $100k's, they end up taxing the snot out of the poor, and essentially letting the rich off scot free, except for that small amount that is less than the lower-$100K's cutoff."
The FairTax is actually the progressive tax that we could have, since it taxes the more you SPEND. The rich spend out the wazoo, but when the poor and near-poor spend, it is often on non-taxed stuff - used items aren't taxed, so the poor or near-poor that buys a used car isn't taxed on that purchase, and the poor or near-poor that buys a house almost always buys and existing house, which is classified as a "used" item which is not taxed, and poor and near poor are great patrons of pawn shops, 2nd-hand / thrift stores, etc. which sell used items, and therefore those things aren't taxed.
The FairTax is progressive, the income taxes are very regressive.
"Is it "fair"? Certainly not, but it does product good results for the economy. "
The income taxes have produced terrible results for the economy. Our manufacturing jobs have left the country in large part, and this is the result of income tax burden on industry. I remember seeing interviews with business executives on TV after they had sent jobs overseas, and this was way back in the 1980's, and they would say things like, "Well, if the USA didn't have a tax system that incentivizes leaving the country..." I didn't have a clue what these business executives were talking about at the time, but now I know they were talking about getting hammered by income taxes at every turn, and that many foreign countries had far lower taxes than we do for manufacturing. Up until Trump's tax cut, that cut the corporate income taxes from 35% to 21% for the 1st time since 1941, we had the highest corporate tax rates in the world. We didn't have the highest corporate taxes in the world from 1941 on, but we acquired them as other countries lowered their corporate taxes, and we bacame the most expensive. Japan was the last one to lower theirs from their 39%, which gave us the "highest" status for a while, but now that's fixed. Still, we could easily over-compete with the rest of the world, and get most of the manufacturing back in the USA, but abolishing income taxes.
"Everyone has an incentive to work,"
They do, but it's called "not starving", and has nothing to do with our income taxes. Our income taxes actually disincentivize work, as you get taxed more if you work more and therefore make more money. My Dad used to work overtime in a factory and was very upset with the sabotaged compensation that he earned for his extra effort because they tax rates were increased for the jump to the next bracket.
WTF? Troll? This speaks to the heart of the problem, which is our taxes. We've been damaging ourselves with income taxes for over 100 years. We need to stop, and gain great advantage over our international trading partners.
FairTax isn't Universal Basic Income, its simply not taxing the poor. UBI _is_ a dumb idea, but this ain't that.
Instead, we damage ourselves continuously by taxing the hell out of US manufacturing, mining, and agriculture with income taxes that harm nearly every aspect of US production. We have individual income taxes and payroll taxes that make labor much more expensive than it should be, we have capital gains taxes that make investing more expensive, we have corporate income taxes that harm our businesses by making products more expensive, we have estate taxes that especially harm agriculture when family farms are taxed when the owner dies, we have gift taxes and alternative minimum taxes and these all just hurt everyone.
What we should do instead is to pass the FairTax. The FairTax completely repeals ALL Federal income taxes in the USA and replaces them with a retail sales tax on new goods and services - used items aren't taxed - and prevents taxing the poor by giving every legal resident of the USA a check from the gov't to pay for the FairTax on all their spending up to the poverty level - $230/month for a single person making $12K a year.
Untaxing US manufacturing, mining, and agriculture in this manner would put rocket engines on the economy, and further allowing citizens to set their level of taxation by deciding how much tax they want to pay by either buying or not buying taxed items. The FairTax is essentially a luxury tax, then, since it only taxes non-essential items - items purchased above the poverty level - so it really nails the big spenders (the rich) and gives a pass to the really poor and very frugal.
The FairTax would "Make America Great Again" by putting rocket engines on the economy, and untaxing our exports while greatly incentivizing both foreign and domestic manufacturing to come here or stay here. Jobs available would go up dramatically as would wages when the labor shortage hits.
The Fair Tax would be a winner for everyone in the USA, and a horror for foreign economic competitors.
As much as I'd love to skewer the bittorent guys and the video-over-internet data hogs, it'd be totally unworkable since even that tiny amount would be unaffordable by millions of people, starting with kids and going to the aboriginals in all parts of the world. Elon Musk is about to put 800 low earth orbiting satellites into the sky to make the internet available, and this would just make it unavailable to large masses of people. Its the same concept for which the NRA fights every "tax" or other expense on guns, which makes the poor people of the USA defenseless when there's a $49 gun they can use to ward off evil, but the politicians want to raise money and deprive them of protection by having a $150 registration fee per gun. No, it isn't fair to assume that every poor person that wants to buy a gun is a criminal so depriving them would be a good thing. Even among the poor, the criminals are a small minority.
Nope, nobody wins because the internet would be effectively unusable. We'd all have to go back to the library for our information. Nobody would have enough money to pay the bastards whatever they wanted for the DRM unlock, so... the internet would be unusable.
Since there is no 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear cell phones, you must turn all of your cell phones in by the end of the day. Cell towers will all be deactivated at midnight. Further, wifi will be outlawed, and all those methods of connecting computers will be required to use ethernet cables forthwith. We can't have this public health menace killing millions on a regular basis, we must act. We're going back to land lines and other wire-based solutions where these signals don't radiate through our bodies. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, the television and radio station transmitters will be limited to 5 watts, resulting in a range of probably 2.5 miles with a poor signal. If you want TV and radio, you will have to get it through a cable, no more broadcasting. In your car? Tough, stop somewhere and get an update on a wired TV or radio. Meanwhile, play "Boston" or an audiobook on the radio, since there won't be any useful signals outside of the sight of a transmitting tower that is running... 5 watts.
That is all...
Its not out of the norm, lots and lots of people take driving vacations involving hundreds of miles a day of travel. Its the USA, which is huge. If you're going to start in the midwest and visit Yellowstone, Devil's Tower, maybe Pikes Peak, swing down to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, etc. you're going to be traversing 100's of miles a day. Recharging for hours after 300 miles or so just doesn't work.
My Subaru WRX isn't a "rally car", its a STOCK Subaru WRX. I just happen to use it for a rather sedate form of road rally, where sudden acceleration bursts are still an advantage. But it ain't the races you see on TV.
Anyway, if the car I'm considering requires a lot of time to "refuel", then I don't consider it. A lot of people won't - I've been doing these long distance drives my whole life. Friend of my was stationed in Georgia in the Army, and would drive up to Ohio on weekends to visit his family - that's probably 600 miles. Hours to recharge after 300 miles wouldn't work for that either.
Pretty much everyone has some occasion to drive 100's of miles, and won't consider something that won't do that when forking over $30K+ or better for the only car they can afford.
The strategy here is that WE have the strongest military, and y'all have little to none, so 1) You can't threaten US effectively and 2) You can't start fighting each other again. Fuck, after 2 times in the 20th century y'all find reason to go invading each other, and WE have to climb in boats and come over there to put a stop to it at great expense and loss of life, WE figure it's a great thing if y'all aren't using your money to build bombs and tanks to be rolling across each other's borders and starting more wicked shit. The Soviet Union / Russians have been obliging enough to provide a common enemy to focus our efforts in a common interest, but WE need to stop providing the lion's share of the $$$ 'cuz we're just at the point that we can't afford it any more.
I almost bought a Volt at one time. They were a little under-performing when compared to my Subaru WRX. The reason for my road trips is that I road rally with the Sports Car Club of America, and although road rallies are not the races you see on TV on regular roads, but instead more of a game of Simon Says done with cars at fairly low speeds, there are still some advantages to be had with a "quick" car. Even I didn't used to believe it, and considering the rallies I was running it didn't make sense, but the facts were that my driver and I tried for several years to win the championship with my Jeep Cherokee, and just couldn't. Then I bought a 2005 Subaru WRX and won the championship the next year. The quickness was the factor - you're looking for a turn, find an intersection you think is right and look down there and it says, "dead end", so have to speed up again suddenly because the checkpoint is down the road in the other direction and you have to get there "right now." The Subaru did "right now" much better than the Jeep. So we won the championship. We weren't any better at it than in the previous 4 years, it was the car. And the Volt would have been unlikely to win.
Other consideration was the cargo carrying capacity of the Volt, I wanted something a little bigger with 4 doors.
They make an electric I can use, I'll be right there...
Well, they can't. If they do, that car will necessarily cost more and probably perform less well, so customers will buy the car that costs less and performs better. So, if they make a "clean" car without such a law requiring it, their competitors will make a car that pleases customers more by being cheaper or running better, and the clean car maker will profit less.
Yep, no company can make a "clean" anything if customers prefer the cheaper, better performing thing.
"get rid of those burdensome regulations so companies can keep making money..."
Hey, when (American) companies make money, then American workers make money, and prosperity increases. The more people beat up on (American) companes, the more Americans live in poverty. Poverty kills. While smoking will take up to 7 years off your life, living in poverty will take up to 10 years off your life. You freeze to death under a bridge while living in a refrigerator carton, or get attacked by criminals while under the bridge, or just can't afford to support yourself sufficiently to have health insurance that will allow you to get your cancer diagnosed early enough to have it excised, etc. Yeah, lets let American companies make money, so Americans can be prosperous, and live longer.
" A lot of countries spent far less on defense, and remain oddly uninvaded."
Because WE are protecting them with OUR (very expensive) military. Before he was elected, before he was even running for election, Donald Trump mentioned in interviews that some big benficiaries of our defense spending should start coughing up for its creation and maintenance. I favor that. If you're in such a situation that you're in danger if the US military goes home, then you should be paying for it.
No, not "only because." Another big reason is because of these new laws requiring child safety seats. Try getting your triplets into a regular car. Ain't happenin'. You need an SUV or van for all those huge child safety seats, esp. when you can't put any in the front because of the accursed air bag (I've NEVER been in a situation where an air bag would have done me the slightest bit of good, and I've been driving for 54 years.) So, you get kids, and want to go somewhere as a family all in the same vehicle, can you say "SUV?" I knew you could...
If not relaxed, these fuel economy standards will require electric cars or hybrid cars whether the customer wants them, or in the case of electric care whether they are viable in the USA or not.
The USA is huge, so we need cars capable of long ranges and quick recharges. 1st leg of my vacation a few weeks ago was about 800 miles. A few years ago, the same destination's 1st leg was 1100 miles, starting in Virginia and I slept in Texas the same night. Try that with the electrics available now. You try to prohibit the sale of the sort of car I need, that just means that I keep the car I have now, and repair the out of it for as long as it takes the electrics to catch up with its performance, which may be never. IOW, I ain't buyin' no electric until it meets my needs. (I drive these long distances rather than flying for several reasons, the main one being the TSA and airline nonsense - if the TSA wants to feel me up, or the airlines want to beat me up, they're going to have to chase me down at 80 mph on Interstate 10 to do it, I'm not showing up at an airport and volunteering for it...)
I'm all for electrics when they're actually ready. When they do what I need them to, I'll be first in line. Why? Because, getting 3 - 4 miles per KwH, and with power here in Virginia coming it at 12.5 cents per KwH, driving an electric will be like driving my present car on about 95 cents per gallon gasoline. Plus, I won't need to get the timing belt changed ($1,100), the clutch changed ($2300), brakes as often ($400), and a series of oil changes at about $60 - $70 each (I use synthetic oil for the turbo...) And I saw recently an article on supercapacitors that promises / threatens to make electric cars viable with greater storage and faster charge times (10 minutes) than the current batteries, and yes, probably able to meet my needs. Build it, and they (I) will come.
But passing some half-assed law saying 55 mpg isn't going to make it happen any faster, its just going to screw up the market. I just start repairing... and repairing... and repairing if I can't buy the car I need...
...when we estimate the need for future electrical energy usage by using historical electrical energy usage. Why? Electric cars. The demand for electrical energy should rise sharply if and when we get viable (cheap enough, with enough range and a short enough recharge time) electric cars. Converting all cars, trucks, ships, airplanes, and locomotives to battery power means an enormous activity in charging those batteries. We will be building wind generators to the point that absolutely every horizon in the country will look like fur, with wind generators taking the part of individual hairs. Its fortunate that they are beautiful / majestic, but still hoping to keep them off some of the notable scenic areas such as the Grand Canyon, half-dome, painted desert, etc.
You need to read your levelized cost of energy link more carefully. Those big numbers you're talking about are for solar-thermal and offshore wind, both admittedly the most expensive ways to use their respective power sources.
Look on the right end of the spectrum and you'll see onshore wind as being extremely cheap. Solar PV is still cost challenged, but there's hope for improvement. For some reason, people still keep building solar PV collection systems, so apparently its viable.
Was reading one of those Facebook "lists", this one about the world's worst 15 disasters. Those things are fun to read, but one is pertinent to this. One notch on the list was some poor Brit that bought bitcoin early and amassed a fortune of 7.5 million (dollars? pounds?) and lost it all when he lost the hard drive (discarded it, I think) in his computer.
I'm not sure we want to be using a currency that is quite so fragile. You have $7.5M, you're looking for a fork lift to move it around (just weighed a dollar bill at about 1 gram, so $7.5 M would be 7,500 Kg, or 16,500 lbs), and losing it would be a chore. I hereby vote to keep the current currency...
Yeah, sending thru mail back and forth to Canada may not be an option, don't know.
And 123 has an extra-cost option to rip blue-rays, too, if you really want HD.
Er... DVD, not CD... oops...
Solution is:
Rent the CD with the movie you want to see from Netflix.
Use the program 123 Copy DVD Platinum to rip it to your disk.
Watch the movie from your disk. No buffering.
Simple.
Yeah, I tend to leave out solar because it is inoperable or diminished so often because the sun isn't always available. I like solar, but it doesn't do a thing for you at night, and when it is available, it is too available, and produces more power than is being used, and so can't be fully exploited without batteries big enough and cheap enough for us to use. And since solar is over-available on sunny days, the power is sold for such a low price, due to supply and demand, that it's a profitability problem for the electric grid industries. No, I don't want solar at home, its just something else to go wrong and need repair and insuring for yet another insurance payment.
We really, really, really need that magic battery that makes the intermittent sources of power, as well as electric cars, practical. Or maybe a supercapacitor:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/...
...are we going to do about it? I mean what effective thing are we going to do about it? Not a damned thing. We absolutely, positively have to burn fossil fuels or we're going to go back to living in caves... after about 95% of the population eats each other until it is small enough to be supported by farming with animals for power.
Eventually - 50, 100 years, maybe more, we'll have nuclear fusion and or sufficient wind turbines or geothermal or something AND we'll have a really effective battery or supercapacitor that will power everything that internal combustion engines do now all the way up to fighter jets, and then we will have arrived at a solution. And we'll still need oil for petrochemicals for their material value - building things out of plastics, and so forth. But in our lifetimes? Doubtful.