Ummm, not so much. Indications are that warming/cooling has been gong on for billions of years before man started burning anything more than trees, and the levels of C02 in the atmosphere don't seem to have anything to do with those cycles.
Major logical fallacy here. If we know that A causes C, it doesn't automatically mean that B doesn't cause C as well.
So burning trees caused global warming back in the stone age?
That depends on what you mean by modified. The data have been adjusted to account for a sorts of things that cause problems with the temperature record such as changes in instrument, changes in weather station location, changes in the time of day of observations, changes in the environment around the weather stations. Scientists wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't account for and make adjustments for those issues.
If you think they modified the temperature records just to produce a result they wanted then it's up to you to prove it scientifically.
So you accept that the data is modified. Problem for your clean argument is that it seems that the data has been modified in such a way that increases the global warming trend, by increasing the bias of the data upwards as it gets newer. Without "correction" there is no global warming (or it is minimal at best). I would LOVE to see how that is justified.... I suspect that what we have is circular logic by the activists, mainly because the RAW data is not usually used by most of these studies...
So, it is really not my question to answer given that the unmodified data supports my view. Why was the data adjusted and what was the logic for these adjustments? My side hasn't adjusted the data, your side has, you have the burden of proof here.
Hmmmm... Guess I won't argue with you given your mind is made up but #6 is a bit dogy for some and #1 isn't exactly what's happening... But Ok..
The assumption you make at the end though is breathtaking.... Is the data showing global warming in a manor that equates it to man made C02? Ummm, not so much. Indications are that warming/cooling has been gong on for billions of years before man started burning anything more than trees, and the levels of C02 in the atmosphere don't seem to have anything to do with those cycles. (By your logic, they COULDN'T have anything to do with it.). Yet you just out and connect the dots here anyway.
Good luck and prepare for Armageddon, because if you think your huffing and puffing about the man made part of this will matter to the geopolitical realities of this world, you have some really harsh lessons coming. Global warming or no, Man made or no, you can bet that countries like Russia, China and the like who would rather see you dead anyway will simply not care about your proofs or your science and methods or the world's greater good. They are going to burn their fossil fuels at greater and greater rates, and even if the rest of the world stopped now (which is unlikely) there isn't anything you can do... Better start digging shelter and stocking it with food, water and ammo.
Or not. Depends on the distribution of the errors. If they truly are random errors that happen to be distributed around the actual value, then yes. But this distribution of errors is not always true.
Also, remember that we are discussing discrete measurements made on unique devices with unknown accuracy/errors which are NOT duplicated, but are for unique locations which we may or may not accurately know, at varying intervals, under conditions which can have huge impact on measurements. You may be able to normalize away some of these variables in some cases, but when you do this for multiple variables, your data set does not improve in accuracy.
Say you had 50 recorded measurements for the same time and place taken by 50 devices/methods you might be able to claim better accuracy than just one, but only if you have a reasonable distribution of measured values. If say 25 of your devices just gave you random numbers (didn't measure anything) your data set will still be corrupted.
But the issue here is NOT accuracy but TRENDS. Given that we are NOT using the same devices for the last 200 years, there will be little you can do with the data in regards to trend information. Through the years we have changed how and where we measure temperatures. This means that the absolute error in each data point will remain because it's about how much things have changed. Problem is, there are things that have changed which have nothing to do with the data. Locations, equipment, and techniques have all changed over the last 200 years, many of these changes are invisible in the data, but can change the trends you see in it.
For instance, Say you measured temperature data in the middle of a grassy field for 200 years. What happens when part of the field gets paved about 70 years ago? Now add in that the area around the field starts to see a lot of buildings and about 50 years ago light aircraft traffic (piston engines). Then in the late 60's that traffic switches over to jet turbines and a lot more of the field gets paved. Now, consider how many data points this might actually be in the USA data set given that a high percentage of "observations" are made at airports these days and tell me how much affect that has on your TREND or how you think you are going to normalize that out of the data?
But don't let the quality of the available data cloud your judgment. Just "normalize it" to suit your models, no need to justify your methods. After all, statistics are easy for the average environmentalist wacko to understand.
Does Deprecated mean ANYTHING? I used to write Perl programs, some 20 years ago, it was the thing. I wrote thousands of lines of KSH scripts too at that job. Perl it got replaced by a different tool, not that the new tool is better, but because it was new, just like KSH, CSH and BASH are no longer the tools of choice.
As you young whipper snappers exit my lawn, I offer you the following tidbit of knowledge : "Learn from what happened to Perl, and learn as many tools as you can. Where it's not the tools that make the programer good or bad, having the right tool in your toolbox can make a good programer a great one. Be the great one."
But don't hold your breath that the VRWC will allow the confirmation of any 'radical' jurist who dares question "Money is speech" Scalia.
For your cause, the problem you face is the advise and consent role of the Senate. Very soon, the Senate will change hands so confirmation of any new members of the Supreme Court will be hotly contested. (They already are, except that the party in power now dumped cloture to 50% vote so they can force what they want right now.) It will be interesting to watch how that would play out between the nominator and the Senate.
But this "money is speech" thing is a pretty thin argument from your side. Yea, money can talk, but the problem at the federal level is not really money being used in campaigns, but the use of the office held by the incumbent to line their pockets and campaign coffers.. It's obvious that money makes elections easier to win, but out spending your opponent does not win you an election. (Look at the Cantor loss to Brat where Canter out spent Brat by many times yet lost badly.) What we really need is term limits, so being a politician is not a career choice for the wealthy, but what it was supposed to be, something done to serve one's neighbors and country though public service.
What you cannot do is infringe on the first amendment of individuals. For example, if the Koch brothers want to spend billions, they get to spend billions. Just like if I want to put up a sign in my yard, or buy a billboard to put up my message, it has to be tolerated
Summary.... There really isn't that much different in tax law beyond stuff like acceleration in depreciation.... (Which is a good answer by the way, only that this doesn't only apply to energy companies, but to a lot of companies can do this. ) Which really means there are no major subsidies, tax credits etc to remove, at least any that are unique to energy companies.... That is, traditional energy companies... We all know we do a lot of subsidies for various renewable energy companies.
My solution to this type of thing would be to dump the corporate income tax entirely and raise dividend, capital gains, and estate taxes in a revenue-neutral way to make up the difference. We'll never get a corporate tax code that isn't full of bizarre exceptions for powerful industries, and corporations have huge financial flexibility to move money around and work around the laws, so I say we just let corporations act in an economically sensible way and tax the money when it's transferred to human owners.
You idea here is interesting. I'm not sure what you are really suggesting or how it applies to things like LLC's or just simple unincorporated businesses, but it does sound interesting.
They are going about this the wrong way... There are TWO things we should do to fix this...
1. FULL DISCLOSURE - Namely, make ALL political organizations, candidates and campaigns disclose the source of EVERY penny they receive. If the organization does advocacy for any political issue or candidate, it requires FULL disclosure. Disclosures need to be in a common format and available to the public and should identify by name and address every individual, company, etc who donated to the organization. Also make political candidates disclose their assets and tax returns for a minimum period before they ran for office. Once they are in office, the full disclosure rule applies for every dollar they earn or asset they obtain. This disclosure rule applies AFTER they leave office for a period of time equal to how long they where IN office.
2. TERM LIMITS - All elected offices at the state and federal level should have term limits. For instance, only allowing 12 years of service in congress (6 house terms or 2 senate).
Oh, so when did science become majority rule on things that are still in question? There ARE issues with your interpretation of the evidence (or at least on the Global Warming side of this). Not just, "we didn't land on the moon" kind of evidence, but some real valid questions about the data, it's collection and what it means. The article discusses some of the issues, but it boils down to this, the past predictions made by your side have not come true. Their "hard science" has failed to predict with any kind of accuracy what is happening. Call me when they have proven models that work for a decade or more. Until then, I'm laughing at you guys.
Ah yes, the "money buys lawsuits canard". If you give up, you loose. That much is true. But you are not required to give up and unless your case is flimsy to start with they will not be able to tie you up in legal knots forever.
Remember, if you have a valid case and they do this to you, just find a big law firm to take your case who has the resources to keep going. People invest in this kind of effort to make money and if your case is a sure thing they will come out if the woodwork to help. Yea you may be required to give up a share of the winnings, but the longer they delay, the more legal fees they rack up, the higher the award will be in the end because these are REAL damages which are EASY to collect.
A tax credit for a specific person, company or sector is pretty much a subsidy by definition.
The bulk of what these companies get in "tax breaks" are really just business expenses or common things like depreciation and the like. So, you are saying my "Child Tax Credit" is a subsidy of children? Hmmm... Maybe so. But the question is about energy companies (i.e. Big Oil) so you need to come up with EXACTLY what tax policy you think is "pretty much a subsidy" for energy companies. Because at this point we are discussing generalities. I say there are no tax breaks that amount to subsidies for big oil of any significance. You say they exist. So you need to produce the evidence of subsidies you claim exist.
So you blame Obama for leaving Iraq on Bush's schedule?
Sure, why not, but I'm pretty sure Bush didn't figure we would have ZERO assets left in country, but that we would turn control of Iraq back to the Iraq government. I seem to recall Bush saying that the war on terror would last for decades, Obama has surrendered on that war. Iraq is just the latest indication that Obama has failed to chart a reasonable course. Last year's "Arab spring" was just the start of some really bad actors taking control of large swaths of the world. We will pay for this here in the USA, maybe not today or next week, but though the next few decades. The people of the countries that we just stood by and did nothing when they needed help will pay dearly, more dearly than us. This is BAD, really BAD.
Social Security: Another 24 percent of the budget, or $814 billion, paid for Social Security, which provided monthly retirement benefits averaging $1,294 to 37.9 million retired workers in December 2013. Social Security also provided benefits to 2.9 million spouses and children of retired workers, 6.2 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers, and 11 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents in December 2013.
If you are planning to retire on Social Security, you are stupid. Of course, a lot of people live for now and don't save for retirement. Gee, I'm sorry you did that, but I'm not doing that. I put away over 10% of my income (plus the company match) into my 401K. When I retire (if I ever can) I will own my home and have a sizable retirement. Personally I'm shooting for being able to retire w/o Social Security, because by the time I get there, the demographics clearly tell me that I will not get much from them, because they simply cannot tax enough to pay me and my generation at the level they pay out now.
But, remember what Social Security is supposed to be. It's a safety net, not a retirement plan. It is designed to keep retired people from starving, not to have them live in luxury where they want to live. It is supposed to provide basic subsistence, much like welfare is supposed to.
Government Bonds are not the least risky investments. They could have bought gold or some mixture of commodities, which would have been safer.
But, the POINT here is that they have been spending more than they take in for a long time and although the bonds are backed "by the full faith and trust" of the federal government, there are really limits. In reality what they did is take the excess Social Security collected, and agreed to either tax or effectively print money when the debt came due. So we are printing money to pay off the debt now, all because it's in T-Bills...
This investment in one thing is STUPID, even if it is T-Bills. It's like my dad who had retired from a large airline. He had an early retirement package (meaning they paid him a monthly amount for leaving) plus monthly retirement from the underfunded retirement plan. He also had a large holding in company stock. They went bankrupt and he lost the majority of his retirement and a pile of money in his investments. All because he wasn't diverse in his investments. The Social Security Trust fund should have invested in a mixture of things, AND congress should have been raked over the coals for insisting they spend more than they took in because NOW we are having to pay the piper for taking from Peter to pay Paul.
Then, I think you are arguing with the Supreme Court and their interpretation of the constitution and not me at this point.... Good luck, you are going to need it.
Since we subsidize the energy sector with tax payer dollars already to the tune of $2.4B per year, why don't we simply reduce the subsidy to pay for new infrastructure?
Too easy?
Subsides? Don't you mean TAX CREDITS?
You do know that we collect BILLIONS from energy companies in taxes right? Exxon Mobil paid 24 BILLION in income taxes in 2013 on 57 Billion in profit according to their latest 10-K. I don't understand how that's being subsidized... Seems like they are paying lots of taxes to me, nearly 50%. And I just picked Exxon out of the air, knowing it was a US company. I'm sure the others paid similar amounts. On the other hand GE paid, according to their 10-K only 4.2% in income taxes, mainly because they move money offshore and do their business there.
I think your barking up the wrong subsidy tree myself.
No, you don't index it to inflation, you make it a percentage of the pre-tax cost, i.e. make it a sales tax.. So you set the gas tax to something like 6 cents on the dollar at the retail point of sale...
Yes, I know this changes the whole way we collect these taxes, but this way it's automatically adjusted from here on out and we can stop this political hand wringing exercise.
How about you just give the document escrow folks a one time use pad cypher and simply keep your "secure" documents encrypted using that pad. You can then "update" everybody electronically with an encrypted document that they cannot decrypt until they can obtain the one time pad from escrow.
While you are alive, you need to protect your copy of the pad, but its not hard to invent some classy way to do that given that the pad has absolutely no useful information in it...Like using a your favorite MP3 or something...
LOL... Didn't read the article or check out their sources eh? You may not agree with Forbes or enjoy reading the article, but their point is valid and well documented. Click though some of the links, you might learn something...
Slashdot Mirror
Such equipment records surely don't exist back to 1880.... So, my argument stands.
Ummm, not so much. Indications are that warming/cooling has been gong on for billions of years before man started burning anything more than trees, and the levels of C02 in the atmosphere don't seem to have anything to do with those cycles.
Major logical fallacy here. If we know that A causes C, it doesn't automatically mean that B doesn't cause C as well.
So burning trees caused global warming back in the stone age?
That depends on what you mean by modified. The data have been adjusted to account for a sorts of things that cause problems with the temperature record such as changes in instrument, changes in weather station location, changes in the time of day of observations, changes in the environment around the weather stations. Scientists wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't account for and make adjustments for those issues.
If you think they modified the temperature records just to produce a result they wanted then it's up to you to prove it scientifically.
So you accept that the data is modified. Problem for your clean argument is that it seems that the data has been modified in such a way that increases the global warming trend, by increasing the bias of the data upwards as it gets newer. Without "correction" there is no global warming (or it is minimal at best). I would LOVE to see how that is justified.... I suspect that what we have is circular logic by the activists, mainly because the RAW data is not usually used by most of these studies...
So, it is really not my question to answer given that the unmodified data supports my view. Why was the data adjusted and what was the logic for these adjustments? My side hasn't adjusted the data, your side has, you have the burden of proof here.
Hmmmm... Guess I won't argue with you given your mind is made up but #6 is a bit dogy for some and #1 isn't exactly what's happening... But Ok..
The assumption you make at the end though is breathtaking.... Is the data showing global warming in a manor that equates it to man made C02? Ummm, not so much. Indications are that warming/cooling has been gong on for billions of years before man started burning anything more than trees, and the levels of C02 in the atmosphere don't seem to have anything to do with those cycles. (By your logic, they COULDN'T have anything to do with it.). Yet you just out and connect the dots here anyway.
Good luck and prepare for Armageddon, because if you think your huffing and puffing about the man made part of this will matter to the geopolitical realities of this world, you have some really harsh lessons coming. Global warming or no, Man made or no, you can bet that countries like Russia, China and the like who would rather see you dead anyway will simply not care about your proofs or your science and methods or the world's greater good. They are going to burn their fossil fuels at greater and greater rates, and even if the rest of the world stopped now (which is unlikely) there isn't anything you can do... Better start digging shelter and stocking it with food, water and ammo.
Or not. Depends on the distribution of the errors. If they truly are random errors that happen to be distributed around the actual value, then yes. But this distribution of errors is not always true.
Also, remember that we are discussing discrete measurements made on unique devices with unknown accuracy/errors which are NOT duplicated, but are for unique locations which we may or may not accurately know, at varying intervals, under conditions which can have huge impact on measurements. You may be able to normalize away some of these variables in some cases, but when you do this for multiple variables, your data set does not improve in accuracy.
Say you had 50 recorded measurements for the same time and place taken by 50 devices/methods you might be able to claim better accuracy than just one, but only if you have a reasonable distribution of measured values. If say 25 of your devices just gave you random numbers (didn't measure anything) your data set will still be corrupted.
But the issue here is NOT accuracy but TRENDS. Given that we are NOT using the same devices for the last 200 years, there will be little you can do with the data in regards to trend information. Through the years we have changed how and where we measure temperatures. This means that the absolute error in each data point will remain because it's about how much things have changed. Problem is, there are things that have changed which have nothing to do with the data. Locations, equipment, and techniques have all changed over the last 200 years, many of these changes are invisible in the data, but can change the trends you see in it.
For instance, Say you measured temperature data in the middle of a grassy field for 200 years. What happens when part of the field gets paved about 70 years ago? Now add in that the area around the field starts to see a lot of buildings and about 50 years ago light aircraft traffic (piston engines). Then in the late 60's that traffic switches over to jet turbines and a lot more of the field gets paved. Now, consider how many data points this might actually be in the USA data set given that a high percentage of "observations" are made at airports these days and tell me how much affect that has on your TREND or how you think you are going to normalize that out of the data?
Thus the article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...
But don't let the quality of the available data cloud your judgment. Just "normalize it" to suit your models, no need to justify your methods. After all, statistics are easy for the average environmentalist wacko to understand.
But it seems to have stopped in the USA for that time... Globally might be another story.
Has the data been modified? Some have done that in the past and seem to be doing it now in some cases. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...
Does that invalidate your view? Perhaps not, but it does add to the case that you might be wrong.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10916086/The-scandal-of-fiddled-global-warming-data.html
OR for the article's sources you can look at.
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/author/stevengoddard/
Perl may not be "dead", but it's dead to me.
Does Deprecated mean ANYTHING? I used to write Perl programs, some 20 years ago, it was the thing. I wrote thousands of lines of KSH scripts too at that job. Perl it got replaced by a different tool, not that the new tool is better, but because it was new, just like KSH, CSH and BASH are no longer the tools of choice.
As you young whipper snappers exit my lawn, I offer you the following tidbit of knowledge : "Learn from what happened to Perl, and learn as many tools as you can. Where it's not the tools that make the programer good or bad, having the right tool in your toolbox can make a good programer a great one. Be the great one."
But don't hold your breath that the VRWC will allow the confirmation of any 'radical' jurist who dares question "Money is speech" Scalia.
For your cause, the problem you face is the advise and consent role of the Senate. Very soon, the Senate will change hands so confirmation of any new members of the Supreme Court will be hotly contested. (They already are, except that the party in power now dumped cloture to 50% vote so they can force what they want right now.) It will be interesting to watch how that would play out between the nominator and the Senate.
But this "money is speech" thing is a pretty thin argument from your side. Yea, money can talk, but the problem at the federal level is not really money being used in campaigns, but the use of the office held by the incumbent to line their pockets and campaign coffers.. It's obvious that money makes elections easier to win, but out spending your opponent does not win you an election. (Look at the Cantor loss to Brat where Canter out spent Brat by many times yet lost badly.) What we really need is term limits, so being a politician is not a career choice for the wealthy, but what it was supposed to be, something done to serve one's neighbors and country though public service.
What you cannot do is infringe on the first amendment of individuals. For example, if the Koch brothers want to spend billions, they get to spend billions. Just like if I want to put up a sign in my yard, or buy a billboard to put up my message, it has to be tolerated
.
Summary.... There really isn't that much different in tax law beyond stuff like acceleration in depreciation.... (Which is a good answer by the way, only that this doesn't only apply to energy companies, but to a lot of companies can do this. ) Which really means there are no major subsidies, tax credits etc to remove, at least any that are unique to energy companies.... That is, traditional energy companies... We all know we do a lot of subsidies for various renewable energy companies.
My solution to this type of thing would be to dump the corporate income tax entirely and raise dividend, capital gains, and estate taxes in a revenue-neutral way to make up the difference. We'll never get a corporate tax code that isn't full of bizarre exceptions for powerful industries, and corporations have huge financial flexibility to move money around and work around the laws, so I say we just let corporations act in an economically sensible way and tax the money when it's transferred to human owners.
You idea here is interesting. I'm not sure what you are really suggesting or how it applies to things like LLC's or just simple unincorporated businesses, but it does sound interesting.
They are going about this the wrong way... There are TWO things we should do to fix this...
1. FULL DISCLOSURE - Namely, make ALL political organizations, candidates and campaigns disclose the source of EVERY penny they receive. If the organization does advocacy for any political issue or candidate, it requires FULL disclosure. Disclosures need to be in a common format and available to the public and should identify by name and address every individual, company, etc who donated to the organization. Also make political candidates disclose their assets and tax returns for a minimum period before they ran for office. Once they are in office, the full disclosure rule applies for every dollar they earn or asset they obtain. This disclosure rule applies AFTER they leave office for a period of time equal to how long they where IN office.
2. TERM LIMITS - All elected offices at the state and federal level should have term limits. For instance, only allowing 12 years of service in congress (6 house terms or 2 senate).
Oh, so when did science become majority rule on things that are still in question? There ARE issues with your interpretation of the evidence (or at least on the Global Warming side of this). Not just, "we didn't land on the moon" kind of evidence, but some real valid questions about the data, it's collection and what it means. The article discusses some of the issues, but it boils down to this, the past predictions made by your side have not come true. Their "hard science" has failed to predict with any kind of accuracy what is happening. Call me when they have proven models that work for a decade or more. Until then, I'm laughing at you guys.
Ah yes, the "money buys lawsuits canard". If you give up, you loose. That much is true. But you are not required to give up and unless your case is flimsy to start with they will not be able to tie you up in legal knots forever.
Remember, if you have a valid case and they do this to you, just find a big law firm to take your case who has the resources to keep going. People invest in this kind of effort to make money and if your case is a sure thing they will come out if the woodwork to help. Yea you may be required to give up a share of the winnings, but the longer they delay, the more legal fees they rack up, the higher the award will be in the end because these are REAL damages which are EASY to collect.
A tax credit for a specific person, company or sector is pretty much a subsidy by definition.
The bulk of what these companies get in "tax breaks" are really just business expenses or common things like depreciation and the like. So, you are saying my "Child Tax Credit" is a subsidy of children? Hmmm... Maybe so. But the question is about energy companies (i.e. Big Oil) so you need to come up with EXACTLY what tax policy you think is "pretty much a subsidy" for energy companies. Because at this point we are discussing generalities. I say there are no tax breaks that amount to subsidies for big oil of any significance. You say they exist. So you need to produce the evidence of subsidies you claim exist.
So you blame Obama for leaving Iraq on Bush's schedule?
Sure, why not, but I'm pretty sure Bush didn't figure we would have ZERO assets left in country, but that we would turn control of Iraq back to the Iraq government. I seem to recall Bush saying that the war on terror would last for decades, Obama has surrendered on that war. Iraq is just the latest indication that Obama has failed to chart a reasonable course. Last year's "Arab spring" was just the start of some really bad actors taking control of large swaths of the world. We will pay for this here in the USA, maybe not today or next week, but though the next few decades. The people of the countries that we just stood by and did nothing when they needed help will pay dearly, more dearly than us. This is BAD, really BAD.
Social Security: Another 24 percent of the budget, or $814 billion, paid for Social Security, which provided monthly retirement benefits averaging $1,294 to 37.9 million retired workers in December 2013. Social Security also provided benefits to 2.9 million spouses and children of retired workers, 6.2 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers, and 11 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents in December 2013.
If you are planning to retire on Social Security, you are stupid. Of course, a lot of people live for now and don't save for retirement. Gee, I'm sorry you did that, but I'm not doing that. I put away over 10% of my income (plus the company match) into my 401K. When I retire (if I ever can) I will own my home and have a sizable retirement. Personally I'm shooting for being able to retire w/o Social Security, because by the time I get there, the demographics clearly tell me that I will not get much from them, because they simply cannot tax enough to pay me and my generation at the level they pay out now.
But, remember what Social Security is supposed to be. It's a safety net, not a retirement plan. It is designed to keep retired people from starving, not to have them live in luxury where they want to live. It is supposed to provide basic subsistence, much like welfare is supposed to.
Government Bonds are not the least risky investments. They could have bought gold or some mixture of commodities, which would have been safer.
But, the POINT here is that they have been spending more than they take in for a long time and although the bonds are backed "by the full faith and trust" of the federal government, there are really limits. In reality what they did is take the excess Social Security collected, and agreed to either tax or effectively print money when the debt came due. So we are printing money to pay off the debt now, all because it's in T-Bills...
This investment in one thing is STUPID, even if it is T-Bills. It's like my dad who had retired from a large airline. He had an early retirement package (meaning they paid him a monthly amount for leaving) plus monthly retirement from the underfunded retirement plan. He also had a large holding in company stock. They went bankrupt and he lost the majority of his retirement and a pile of money in his investments. All because he wasn't diverse in his investments. The Social Security Trust fund should have invested in a mixture of things, AND congress should have been raked over the coals for insisting they spend more than they took in because NOW we are having to pay the piper for taking from Peter to pay Paul.
Then, I think you are arguing with the Supreme Court and their interpretation of the constitution and not me at this point.... Good luck, you are going to need it.
Since we subsidize the energy sector with tax payer dollars already to the tune of $2.4B per year, why don't we simply reduce the subsidy to pay for new infrastructure?
Too easy?
Subsides? Don't you mean TAX CREDITS?
You do know that we collect BILLIONS from energy companies in taxes right? Exxon Mobil paid 24 BILLION in income taxes in 2013 on 57 Billion in profit according to their latest 10-K. I don't understand how that's being subsidized... Seems like they are paying lots of taxes to me, nearly 50%. And I just picked Exxon out of the air, knowing it was a US company. I'm sure the others paid similar amounts. On the other hand GE paid, according to their 10-K only 4.2% in income taxes, mainly because they move money offshore and do their business there.
I think your barking up the wrong subsidy tree myself.
No, you don't index it to inflation, you make it a percentage of the pre-tax cost, i.e. make it a sales tax.. So you set the gas tax to something like 6 cents on the dollar at the retail point of sale...
Yes, I know this changes the whole way we collect these taxes, but this way it's automatically adjusted from here on out and we can stop this political hand wringing exercise.
Say: "Social Security Trust Fund!" 100 times, then go count the IOU's that are in it... No dollars there, we spent it all.
I'm with you on this one... Come up with $100 or so and pay a lawyer. After all, they got to eat too.
How about you just give the document escrow folks a one time use pad cypher and simply keep your "secure" documents encrypted using that pad. You can then "update" everybody electronically with an encrypted document that they cannot decrypt until they can obtain the one time pad from escrow.
While you are alive, you need to protect your copy of the pad, but its not hard to invent some classy way to do that given that the pad has absolutely no useful information in it...Like using a your favorite MP3 or something...
LOL... Didn't read the article or check out their sources eh? You may not agree with Forbes or enjoy reading the article, but their point is valid and well documented. Click though some of the links, you might learn something...