There's no point in crippling the United States' economy when India and Asia are going to make CC happen anyway
First, it's not clear that it would actually cripple the economy. The price of renewables is already low enough that private industry is installing it without incentives. The problem is they're not moving fast enough to avert the worst problems.
Second, the best way to get "Asia" on board is to have the technology to sell to them. How else do you plan to "get them off coal"?
Sitting on our hands while pointing fingers at other countries accomplishes nothing in the short run, and in the long run it means those other countries get to develop the technology and get most of the jobs.
The debt problems in Greece were caused by two things: 1) Widespread tax evasion 2) A massive real estate bubble that collapsed, decimating the economy and thus tax receipts.
Government, by definition, does not contribute to GNP
However government employees do. It's not like you stop eating when you go work for the government.
The government should make it financially beneficial for energy companies to figure out how to supply green energy, even at night
If we are paying the money to develop it, why should we give it away for free? Shouldn't we, the people, own the technology we bought?
Nuclear should definitely be an option if the energy producers can make it economically viable.
What you describe is socialism. That never ended well for anyone.
As long as you ignore every developed nation other than the US. It's amazing that something which can't possibly work is working very successfully in, say, all of Western Europe.
Well "other people" just means themselves, always
Nope. I would get nothing directly from any of these programs, nor a tax cut.
If you want the government to have more of my money then I have two words for you, and they aren't "happy birthday"
If you wish to live in our society yet don't want to pay the costs of that society, you're an asshole. Btw, adults aren't afraid to cuss.
Go make it happen in the private sector, you don't need government to make it happen
Unfortunately, folks who think like you currently run the private sector. Your incredibly short-sighted view of the world has resulted in the private sector not caring about anything beyond the next couple quarters. Since this is a program that would require decades to pay off, the private sector won't do it in order to keep servicing your incredibly short worldview.
Also, the private sector wouldn't want to do this in the places where we'd like to create these jobs. We want to create the jobs for this program in places with high unemployment. They have high unemployment because there's no particular reason to build new factories in these places. But we'd like to avoid the damage caused by these places falling further into disrepair, and that requires doing the work in the rust belt and former coal mining areas. As an added bonus to your selfish ass, the jobs would reduce the spending on law enforcement and medical care. I'd bring up the beneficial social effects, but you're far, far to self-centered to care about them.
In other words, private industry's incentives are currently fucked up by stupidity such as yours, and we need to do this in a particular way to start fixing the damage your ideology has caused.
Unfortunately, that nuclear winter would be fairly brief. Also, an enormous amount of CO2 would be released from incinerating so much carbon. Since forests will have been part of that incinerating, and also harmed by that nuclear winter, you'd probably end up with a worse greenhouse effect for at least several decades.
Eventually you'd reduce atmospheric CO2, but that's also the case with a GND program.
What was the project behind Obama's stimulus? I mean, we all heard about the stimulus, but I cannot tell where the money went.
Mostly repairing existing roads and similar "shovel ready" projects. Which is why there isn't a single thing that can be conveniently cited as "where the money went".
Frequently, people erroneously conflate the stimulus program with the program that backed Solyndra's loans so that they can point to that as a waste of money. They leave out that the loans to Solyndra were made under the W administration, and that the overall program netted a $4B profit. There were a lot more companies like Tesla that paid back their loans compared to Solyndras that failed.
Cutting air traffic would mean no engineering design for new aircraft, no manufacturing for those durable goods, no mechanics, no ground crew, no aircrews, no fuel transport, no air traffic control, no airports generating jobs in food service, maintenance, and general hospitality
Uh...."Cut" does not mean "completely eliminate". But it is a lovely strawman. I like what you did with the hat.
Funding the military is a constitutionally mandated function of the federal government, energy policy is not.
First, there's no requirement that the military be funded at a particular level. Just that a military exists. The Constitutional mandate would be met with a much, much, much smaller and cheaper force.
Second, I really want to see your argument that the electrical grid does not cross state lines.
If what you say is such a good idea then it should not take the force of the government to make happen
It's already happening. New solar and wind power installation is massively outstripping everything else at the moment. However, it's not happening fast enough to prevent Miami from going underwater. Because electric companies don't particularly care if Miami goes underwater, so that's not part of their analysis (at least all of those that are not literally in Miami). The government does have to care about protecting cities, so they have a reason to pay for a faster timetable.
I want to see more nuclear power but the problem is that the federal government placed itself in the position that they are the one and only place where anyone in the USA can go to get a license
Uh...no, the main problem is it is way more expensive per kwh, even in countries that are far more nuclear-friendly. The other enormous problem is there is still no place to store the waste, and the cost of processing and storing it is currently calculated at $0.....and even with that nuclear is way more expensive per kwh than pretty much every other generation method.
I want the federal government out of my business. You should too
Yeah, lack of oversight of private industry has never lead to massive disasters. Just what one wants with nuclear power.
What happens to the energy supply the next time the federal government shuts down because it couldn't pass a budget?
Nothing. Just like the power plants owned by the TVA didn't shut down during the shutdown.
The government does not have to be the operator of the infrastructure it funds.
There was an interesting idea of bubbling CO2 from a power plant through algea pits to make bio fuel for example, but that was ages ago and it's not happening, so I doubt it meets expectations.
Basically, it couldn't scale up enough. Especially when compared to the effort of just planting trees to capture the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Any common sense reading of net zero greenhouse gasses includes manufacturing though, why would you assume it doesn't?
The final waste, steam sterilised (waste heat from the gas turbines) and packaged as sterile fertilizer
FYI, you don't need to sterilize the sludge to use it as fertilizer. Drying it out a bit is sufficient, and what many municipalities already do.
Also, you vastly overestimate a nuclear plant's resistance to natural disasters, and vastly underestimate the durability of solar panels. They're not covered in plate glass.
That's just stupid - is the claim that zero-rating doubles the cost of the data service?
That would be a moronic claim to make.
Report: "Poor people can't pay 2X for wireless and home Internet service, so they pay X and only get wireless." You: "Does that mean wireless Internet costs 2X?!?!"
No, because they can't afford 2X. If it actually cost 2X, they wouldn't be able to buy it. So it costs X+(some amount).
What is the impact o zero-rating services, as discovered by this report? It doesn't say.
Golly, it's almost like Internet service costs different amounts in different countries within the EU, making any statement like "It costs 12.87 euros more" meaningless because nobody would actually pay 12.87 more.
In other words, low-income, people of color, consumers are better off being forced to upgrade their data plans to more expensive tiers to accommodate their streaming needs, rather than subscribe to a lower priced tier that includes free (zero-rated) music and video streaming?
So.....did you fall on your head between the beginning of your reply and this point? Because the entire point of this report is zero-rated networks end up costing consumers more money. Meaning this report shows that in the real world, those "free" services end up increasing user's bills.
As in the "choice" you are claiming here does not actually exist. It costs more when some services are labeled "free". Because "free" music streaming from a shitty small catalog doesn't save you any money when you want to watch YouTube. But they're charging more per bit for YouTube's data by hiding behind "but this part you don't use is free!!!!".
in the end, but their supporters at the beginning all were.
[Citation Required]
only a conservative is less likely to believe the lie
Conservatives literally believe a wall must be built on the southern border to stem a massive wave of violence that does not exist. Violent crime has not been this low since the 1940s. And undocumented immigrants commit violent crimes at a rate far below the native population.
Conservatives literally believe that immigrants are simultaneously going to steal their jobs, and so incredibly lazy that they will not do any work.
Conservatives appear to believe the people of Latin America do not know what a ladder is. Or an abrasive cut-off saw. Or a boat.
Conservatives literally believe that many women are very interested in aborting in the 8th month of a pregnancy. Pointing out things like Oregon has no laws restricting abortion but also has no significant number of 3rd trimester abortions does not dissuade this belief.
Conservatives literally believe that there are millions of people voting illegally in the US, despite the fact that no one has been able to actually find more than a handful. Including Republican politicians and law enforcement that have dedicated their career to finding one of these millions. And they keep lying about this, most recently in TX where they managed to forget people can become US citizens in order to maintain their belief in voter fraud.
Conservatives literally believe that the deficit is going to destroy the Republic....unless the deficit was caused by tax cuts for rich people. Despite the fact that in the 80 years since supply-side economics was formalized, it has never successfully predicted any real-world result.
Conservatives literally believe that children are being trafficked out of a non-existent basement at a pizza parlor by people who have so much wealth and power they have no reason to use such a public and easily found place for their nefarious crimes......and that they still use this non-existent basement even after this story became widely-known.
Conservatives literally believe that Trump is going to mass-arrest people any day now because someone on the Internet claimed to have a "Q" security clearance and thus knew about it because of all that level of clearance reveals. Despite the fact that a "Q" security clearance is a DoE clearance involving the knowledge of how nuclear weapons work....and that's it. Also, they literally believe that this massive cabal is somehow not able to read public messages on the Internet where they talk about this.
Conservatives literally believe that one billionaire is more powerful than all the world's governments (when he's a liberal), while simultaneously believing other billionaires that have far more money are utterly helpless in the face of government (when they're conservative).
Conservatives literally believe the bible literally telling you to feed the poor and heal the sick means you must shun the poor and sick while shoveling money at a preacher with two private jets and 4 mansions to "receive God's blessing".
Conservatives believe many, many, many lies. And it is so very, very easy to add more lies. For example, that NAZIs were leftists.
Using the highest tax bracket isn't useful in determining what the rich paid then and now
So, you were aware that you were lying when you did that above? And used as evidence an article that used the same lie?
I am not convinced by this.
You don't have to believe in reality. But it exists regardless of what you believe.
Even if I was convinced by it the problems that are facing the poor are not going to be solved by raising taxes.
As I said above, it's one tool we have that is available. The money can be used to fund programs that do make a massive improvement in the lives of the poor. Such as expanding Medicaid.
I can say that raising taxes will lead to Yellow Vests.
The proposal for raising taxes on incomes greater than $10M will affect 1500 people. I would be very, very interested to watch that particular 1500 people riot. It would be fucking hilarious.
I am not sure you have a basis to predict any revolution in the US based on income inequality.
Based on what? Our entirely peaceful history? Or how it nearly happened during the depression, and was stopped by the New Deal (which raised taxes and *gasp* gave money to those people).
I don't think it's that simple and I don't think income inequality is a good predictor of revolutions.
History demonstrates otherwise. But again, you do not have to believe in reality. It's going to happen anyway.
Projection much? You have no idea what my life is or has been.
I know exactly what your life has been. It shows in your writing.
I quoted an average. Because as the article pointed out that few people do pay the top marginal rate because of avoidance and other factors.
No, you are wrong on how marginal rates work.
Let's make a simple example. One tax bracket at $100,000, where you pay 50%, no deductions or credits.
Someone makes $50,000. They pay $0 in taxes, 0/50000 = 0% tax rate. Someone makes $99,999. They pay $0 in taxes, 0/99999 = 0% tax rate.
Someone makes $100,000. How much do they pay? 50 cents. Because the tax rate on dollar 1 through dollar 99,999 is 0. The tax rate on dollar 100,000 is 50%. This means their tax rate is 0.5/100000 or 0.0005%.
Someone makes $10,000,000. They pay (10,000,000 - 99,999) * 0.5 in taxes. Or $4,950,000.5. Yielding a tax rate of 4,950,000.5/10,000,000 or ~49.5%.
Marginal tax rates mean no one ever pays the same tax rate as their tax bracket. Everyone pays less than their tax bracket. The author of that article is exploiting you not understanding this to make their argument.
Amazon is worth a lot of money that has no bearing on a poor persons house being worth 50k
Income and wealth inequality lead to massive societal problems. Those societal problems lead to unrest. That unrest leads to revolution, violent or otherwise. The currently level of wealth inequality is above the inequality that lead to the French revolution, all communist revolutions, and the rise of fascist governments in Spain, Germany and Italy.
It would be good to avoid that.
In addition, we as a society advance technologically and economically much faster with a lower level of income and wealth inequality. It would be good to have that.
Why does it matter if the rich are doing better if the poor are doing better as well?
The poor aren't doing better. That's the point.
The frequently tossed out metrics like "they have refrigerators!!!" demonstrate just how caustic inequality can be to a society - you see it as an improvement over the past while I'm aware landlords are legally required to provide one (in most states). "They have a cell phone!!!!" implying it's the latest iPhone with your pricey unlimited plan when it's actually a cheap-ass used phone with a cheap prepaid plan, and they have it because that is less expensive than a land-line.
You are so removed from the people you are talking about that you have a fundamentally different experience in life. Which means you will not understand their problems. Which means you shove your fingers into your ears and say "everything is great" right up until you're surprised by the appearance of guillotines.
It would be good to avoid that.
It sounds like class warfare type rhetoric.
You're already spouting class warfare rhetoric. Just on behalf of the upper class. The current war has been going on since the late 1970s, you just only notice when the rhetoric goes in one direction.
It is much easier for capital to move around than in the 1950's. Even the SPLC [washingtontimes.com] moved millions to offshore tax havens. Money moves faster (hello bitcoin). Faster than a government can tax. Even if a government taxes more doesn't mean increase revenue [freebeacon.com]. It's a great talking point to hear about when we had a higher tax rate but many things have changed since then but many things are still the same (raising taxes doesn't mean raising revenue).
So, in Chicago economic theory, high marginal tax rates are massively destructive to an economy, while low marginal tax rates are supposed to create an economic boom.
The fact that it was harder to escape the high marginal tax rates in the 1950s, yet the economy was not crippled by those tax rates, indicates the Chicago school has a wee bit of a problem with their theories. But we already knew that since their theories claimed the 2008 collapse couldn't happen.
The fact that tax avoidance is easier today doesn't actually say anything about the failure of supply-side economics to fit with reality.
The rich, right now, represent roughly half of all revenue for government. Why is that not enough?
Because the top 0.1% own more than the bottom 50% combined. Income taxes aren't the best way to deal with wealth and income inequality, but they're a tool we actually have.
The 1% do not face usually low tax burden by historical standards.
....we were just talking about a 90% top marginal rate. The top marginal rate right now is what, 39%?
Also, the average tax paid for the top 1 percent in the 1950's was 42% not 90.
So, you appear to not understand how marginal tax rates work, and have found an article designed to exploit that. The "tax rate" is based on total income. The top marginal tax bracket is defined by their last dollar of income.
If we take the current 70% for over $10M proposal, that doesn't mean they pay 70% of their first dollar of income. They pay 0% on their first dollar, just like everyone else. 70% is only paid on the income over $10M. Which means their tax rate is going to be way below 70%.
That article was written to exploit you not understanding this.
If failing to deliver automatically makes one right wing, then no far left regime qualifies as far left. They don't get off that easily
When you have absolute power over a country, you get to "deliver" the policies that you actually want. Failure to deliver on those early promises indicates the NAZIs didn't actually want those policies.
You are aware that right now you're basically sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALALALA about the whole 90% marginal tax rate thing, right? As another poster already pointed out, the effective tax rate for those in the 90% income bracket in the 50s was 42%.
You do realize that "effective tax rate" is over someone's entire income, right? And that a 90% top marginal rate does not mean that all of their income is taxed at 90%, right?
But I bet your effective tax rate isn't less than half of your income tax bracket.
You lost that bet, quite badly. Again, effective tax rate is over the entire income, "income tax bracket" is only determined by the last $1.
You might be able to convince a bunch of low information idiots, but when you make arguments like you did in your above post, you just make those of us familiar with history think you're a blithering idiot.
You appear to not understand how marginal tax rates work. Best be careful when claiming others are uninformed.
And a study of ultra high tax rates in Europe showed that typically for every 1% increase in income tax rate, a 3% decrease in taxable assets was shown among those who were effective.
And assets are the same thing as income, right? Oh wait....
Also, perhaps one of the points of massive top marginal tax rates is to reduce the assets held by the 0.1%......
Additionally, there have been more than enough Democrats in power over time to have solved this problem as well.
You seem to not understand the basics of our system of government. Congress has to pass legislation through both houses of Congress. And thanks to filibuster abuse, not a whole lot passed through the Senate while the Democrats had control.
The problems could have been fixed a long time ago.
Ok, describe how. And remember, you have to get McConnell to agree to your fix.
We have nearly had almost a Century of Telecom regulations and guess what... the monopolies are still here and there is an endless supply of ignorant apologist's to defend these morons.
Hmmm....I wonder if there was some famous president in the 1980s who massively rolled back regulations and enforcement.....followed by his vice president.....followed by a DLC "we love deregulation" who couldn't keep his dick in his pants.....followed by another president that massively cut those regulations again......followed by one party in Congress stopping any efforts at regulation.
It's almost like you haven't actually paid much attention to politics.
And don't forget, NN still has loopholes called Zerorating
No, it was converting Internet service to a Title II service.
and I still saw Netflix and several services throttled anyways while NN was in effect
Good news! As a Title II service, you could have filed a complaint and made that stop. And gotten paid from the fine. You did file a complaint, right? Or was that up to someone else to do for you?
Pre-election polls had you gaining 6 seats. You gained 4. And those 4 were quite close instead of the forecasted blow-out. The Democrats were defending twice as many seats, and many in "red" states, so we lost some. But good news! That flips in 2020, and Republicans will be defending far more seats, many in "blue" states.
Also, you seem to have forgotten that the House had the largest swing since Watergate. How'd that happen if the public OVERWHELMINGLY voted for Republicans?
Almost like it wasn't actually a Republican wave election.....
Remind me again....that was a massive economic wasteland for the US, right? It must have been from that tax rate. Why, if something else happened it might indicate a particular school of economics isn't actually based in reality.....
Legalized post-birth abortion?
Nah, that's you folks and your gun fetish. So many dead, but it'll be worth it when you get to re-enact Red Dawn. Any day now. Any day. Real soon now....
Geez, you'd think the Democrats would be forced to call their opponents "Hitler!" and "Nazis", those ideas are so fucking lame.
You need to catch up on your talking points. You're supposed to pretend the NAZIs were left-wing. Remembering that they were a right-wing party is double plus ungood.
Well, it's quicker than citing every single history book written on the subject.
Oh, and if you actually bother reading the Snopes article, they all but admit that yes, the Nazis were left-wing socialists
You really need to work on your literacy. The only parts that make this claim are the ones being debunked, as well as the things the NAZIs promised early in the party's history, but failed to deliver once they were actually in power. Who'd have thunk you couldn't trust NAZIs to deliver on campaign promises. (That last sentence is sarcasm BTW. Just making sure to label it since you're having trouble understanding simple English).
But since it's not written in your native language, I suppose we should give you some leeway in your inability to understand it.
It's one of the reasons why they're no longer considered a trusted fact checker by Facebook.
You got the direction backwards there. They left Facebook, not the other way around.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no point in crippling the United States' economy when India and Asia are going to make CC happen anyway
First, it's not clear that it would actually cripple the economy. The price of renewables is already low enough that private industry is installing it without incentives. The problem is they're not moving fast enough to avert the worst problems.
Second, the best way to get "Asia" on board is to have the technology to sell to them. How else do you plan to "get them off coal"?
Sitting on our hands while pointing fingers at other countries accomplishes nothing in the short run, and in the long run it means those other countries get to develop the technology and get most of the jobs.
note the debt problems in Greece
The debt problems in Greece were caused by two things:
1) Widespread tax evasion
2) A massive real estate bubble that collapsed, decimating the economy and thus tax receipts.
Government, by definition, does not contribute to GNP
However government employees do. It's not like you stop eating when you go work for the government.
The government should make it financially beneficial for energy companies to figure out how to supply green energy, even at night
If we are paying the money to develop it, why should we give it away for free? Shouldn't we, the people, own the technology we bought?
Nuclear should definitely be an option if the energy producers can make it economically viable.
Then it's not an option.
What you describe is socialism. That never ended well for anyone.
As long as you ignore every developed nation other than the US. It's amazing that something which can't possibly work is working very successfully in, say, all of Western Europe.
Well "other people" just means themselves, always
Nope. I would get nothing directly from any of these programs, nor a tax cut.
If you want the government to have more of my money then I have two words for you, and they aren't "happy birthday"
If you wish to live in our society yet don't want to pay the costs of that society, you're an asshole. Btw, adults aren't afraid to cuss.
Go make it happen in the private sector, you don't need government to make it happen
Unfortunately, folks who think like you currently run the private sector. Your incredibly short-sighted view of the world has resulted in the private sector not caring about anything beyond the next couple quarters. Since this is a program that would require decades to pay off, the private sector won't do it in order to keep servicing your incredibly short worldview.
Also, the private sector wouldn't want to do this in the places where we'd like to create these jobs. We want to create the jobs for this program in places with high unemployment. They have high unemployment because there's no particular reason to build new factories in these places. But we'd like to avoid the damage caused by these places falling further into disrepair, and that requires doing the work in the rust belt and former coal mining areas. As an added bonus to your selfish ass, the jobs would reduce the spending on law enforcement and medical care. I'd bring up the beneficial social effects, but you're far, far to self-centered to care about them.
In other words, private industry's incentives are currently fucked up by stupidity such as yours, and we need to do this in a particular way to start fixing the damage your ideology has caused.
The goal is to hold a vote that can be used as a point of debate in future elections.
AKA, moving the Overton Window.
What is the USA going to do at night, every night?
Wow! You're the first person to have thought of this!!!! Oh noes! Whatever shall we do!!!!!
Oh wait, we'll just ignore your vomit of stupid 'cause we already know night exists, and plan on dealing with it.
Unfortunately, that nuclear winter would be fairly brief. Also, an enormous amount of CO2 would be released from incinerating so much carbon. Since forests will have been part of that incinerating, and also harmed by that nuclear winter, you'd probably end up with a worse greenhouse effect for at least several decades.
Eventually you'd reduce atmospheric CO2, but that's also the case with a GND program.
What was the project behind Obama's stimulus? I mean, we all heard about the stimulus, but I cannot tell where the money went.
Mostly repairing existing roads and similar "shovel ready" projects. Which is why there isn't a single thing that can be conveniently cited as "where the money went".
Frequently, people erroneously conflate the stimulus program with the program that backed Solyndra's loans so that they can point to that as a waste of money. They leave out that the loans to Solyndra were made under the W administration, and that the overall program netted a $4B profit. There were a lot more companies like Tesla that paid back their loans compared to Solyndras that failed.
Cutting air traffic would mean no engineering design for new aircraft, no manufacturing for those durable goods, no mechanics, no ground crew, no aircrews, no fuel transport, no air traffic control, no airports generating jobs in food service, maintenance, and general hospitality
Uh...."Cut" does not mean "completely eliminate". But it is a lovely strawman. I like what you did with the hat.
Funding the military is a constitutionally mandated function of the federal government, energy policy is not.
First, there's no requirement that the military be funded at a particular level. Just that a military exists. The Constitutional mandate would be met with a much, much, much smaller and cheaper force.
Second, I really want to see your argument that the electrical grid does not cross state lines.
If what you say is such a good idea then it should not take the force of the government to make happen
It's already happening. New solar and wind power installation is massively outstripping everything else at the moment. However, it's not happening fast enough to prevent Miami from going underwater. Because electric companies don't particularly care if Miami goes underwater, so that's not part of their analysis (at least all of those that are not literally in Miami). The government does have to care about protecting cities, so they have a reason to pay for a faster timetable.
I want to see more nuclear power but the problem is that the federal government placed itself in the position that they are the one and only place where anyone in the USA can go to get a license
Uh...no, the main problem is it is way more expensive per kwh, even in countries that are far more nuclear-friendly. The other enormous problem is there is still no place to store the waste, and the cost of processing and storing it is currently calculated at $0.....and even with that nuclear is way more expensive per kwh than pretty much every other generation method.
I want the federal government out of my business. You should too
Yeah, lack of oversight of private industry has never lead to massive disasters. Just what one wants with nuclear power.
What happens to the energy supply the next time the federal government shuts down because it couldn't pass a budget?
Nothing. Just like the power plants owned by the TVA didn't shut down during the shutdown.
The government does not have to be the operator of the infrastructure it funds.
There was an interesting idea of bubbling CO2 from a power plant through algea pits to make bio fuel for example, but that was ages ago and it's not happening, so I doubt it meets expectations.
Basically, it couldn't scale up enough. Especially when compared to the effort of just planting trees to capture the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Any common sense reading of net zero greenhouse gasses includes manufacturing though, why would you assume it doesn't?
Because it's easier to attack that way.
The final waste, steam sterilised (waste heat from the gas turbines) and packaged as sterile fertilizer
FYI, you don't need to sterilize the sludge to use it as fertilizer. Drying it out a bit is sufficient, and what many municipalities already do.
Also, you vastly overestimate a nuclear plant's resistance to natural disasters, and vastly underestimate the durability of solar panels. They're not covered in plate glass.
That's just stupid - is the claim that zero-rating doubles the cost of the data service?
That would be a moronic claim to make.
Report: "Poor people can't pay 2X for wireless and home Internet service, so they pay X and only get wireless."
You: "Does that mean wireless Internet costs 2X?!?!"
No, because they can't afford 2X. If it actually cost 2X, they wouldn't be able to buy it. So it costs X+(some amount).
What is the impact o zero-rating services, as discovered by this report? It doesn't say.
Golly, it's almost like Internet service costs different amounts in different countries within the EU, making any statement like "It costs 12.87 euros more" meaningless because nobody would actually pay 12.87 more.
In other words, low-income, people of color, consumers are better off being forced to upgrade their data plans to more expensive tiers to accommodate their streaming needs, rather than subscribe to a lower priced tier that includes free (zero-rated) music and video streaming?
So.....did you fall on your head between the beginning of your reply and this point? Because the entire point of this report is zero-rated networks end up costing consumers more money. Meaning this report shows that in the real world, those "free" services end up increasing user's bills.
As in the "choice" you are claiming here does not actually exist. It costs more when some services are labeled "free". Because "free" music streaming from a shitty small catalog doesn't save you any money when you want to watch YouTube. But they're charging more per bit for YouTube's data by hiding behind "but this part you don't use is free!!!!".
in the end, but their supporters at the beginning all were.
[Citation Required]
only a conservative is less likely to believe the lie
Conservatives literally believe a wall must be built on the southern border to stem a massive wave of violence that does not exist. Violent crime has not been this low since the 1940s. And undocumented immigrants commit violent crimes at a rate far below the native population.
Conservatives literally believe that immigrants are simultaneously going to steal their jobs, and so incredibly lazy that they will not do any work.
Conservatives appear to believe the people of Latin America do not know what a ladder is. Or an abrasive cut-off saw. Or a boat.
Conservatives literally believe that many women are very interested in aborting in the 8th month of a pregnancy. Pointing out things like Oregon has no laws restricting abortion but also has no significant number of 3rd trimester abortions does not dissuade this belief.
Conservatives literally believe that there are millions of people voting illegally in the US, despite the fact that no one has been able to actually find more than a handful. Including Republican politicians and law enforcement that have dedicated their career to finding one of these millions. And they keep lying about this, most recently in TX where they managed to forget people can become US citizens in order to maintain their belief in voter fraud.
Conservatives literally believe that the deficit is going to destroy the Republic....unless the deficit was caused by tax cuts for rich people. Despite the fact that in the 80 years since supply-side economics was formalized, it has never successfully predicted any real-world result.
Conservatives literally believe that children are being trafficked out of a non-existent basement at a pizza parlor by people who have so much wealth and power they have no reason to use such a public and easily found place for their nefarious crimes......and that they still use this non-existent basement even after this story became widely-known.
Conservatives literally believe that Trump is going to mass-arrest people any day now because someone on the Internet claimed to have a "Q" security clearance and thus knew about it because of all that level of clearance reveals. Despite the fact that a "Q" security clearance is a DoE clearance involving the knowledge of how nuclear weapons work....and that's it. Also, they literally believe that this massive cabal is somehow not able to read public messages on the Internet where they talk about this.
Conservatives literally believe that one billionaire is more powerful than all the world's governments (when he's a liberal), while simultaneously believing other billionaires that have far more money are utterly helpless in the face of government (when they're conservative).
Conservatives literally believe the bible literally telling you to feed the poor and heal the sick means you must shun the poor and sick while shoveling money at a preacher with two private jets and 4 mansions to "receive God's blessing".
Conservatives believe many, many, many lies. And it is so very, very easy to add more lies. For example, that NAZIs were leftists.
Using the highest tax bracket isn't useful in determining what the rich paid then and now
So, you were aware that you were lying when you did that above? And used as evidence an article that used the same lie?
I am not convinced by this.
You don't have to believe in reality. But it exists regardless of what you believe.
Even if I was convinced by it the problems that are facing the poor are not going to be solved by raising taxes.
As I said above, it's one tool we have that is available. The money can be used to fund programs that do make a massive improvement in the lives of the poor. Such as expanding Medicaid.
I can say that raising taxes will lead to Yellow Vests.
The proposal for raising taxes on incomes greater than $10M will affect 1500 people. I would be very, very interested to watch that particular 1500 people riot. It would be fucking hilarious.
I am not sure you have a basis to predict any revolution in the US based on income inequality.
Based on what? Our entirely peaceful history? Or how it nearly happened during the depression, and was stopped by the New Deal (which raised taxes and *gasp* gave money to those people).
I don't think it's that simple and I don't think income inequality is a good predictor of revolutions.
History demonstrates otherwise. But again, you do not have to believe in reality. It's going to happen anyway.
Projection much? You have no idea what my life is or has been.
I know exactly what your life has been. It shows in your writing.
I quoted an average. Because as the article pointed out that few people do pay the top marginal rate because of avoidance and other factors.
No, you are wrong on how marginal rates work.
Let's make a simple example. One tax bracket at $100,000, where you pay 50%, no deductions or credits.
Someone makes $50,000. They pay $0 in taxes, 0/50000 = 0% tax rate.
Someone makes $99,999. They pay $0 in taxes, 0/99999 = 0% tax rate.
Someone makes $100,000. How much do they pay? 50 cents. Because the tax rate on dollar 1 through dollar 99,999 is 0. The tax rate on dollar 100,000 is 50%. This means their tax rate is 0.5/100000 or 0.0005%.
Someone makes $10,000,000. They pay (10,000,000 - 99,999) * 0.5 in taxes. Or $4,950,000.5. Yielding a tax rate of 4,950,000.5/10,000,000 or ~49.5%.
Marginal tax rates mean no one ever pays the same tax rate as their tax bracket. Everyone pays less than their tax bracket. The author of that article is exploiting you not understanding this to make their argument.
Amazon is worth a lot of money that has no bearing on a poor persons house being worth 50k
Income and wealth inequality lead to massive societal problems. Those societal problems lead to unrest. That unrest leads to revolution, violent or otherwise. The currently level of wealth inequality is above the inequality that lead to the French revolution, all communist revolutions, and the rise of fascist governments in Spain, Germany and Italy.
It would be good to avoid that.
In addition, we as a society advance technologically and economically much faster with a lower level of income and wealth inequality. It would be good to have that.
Why does it matter if the rich are doing better if the poor are doing better as well?
The poor aren't doing better. That's the point.
The frequently tossed out metrics like "they have refrigerators!!!" demonstrate just how caustic inequality can be to a society - you see it as an improvement over the past while I'm aware landlords are legally required to provide one (in most states). "They have a cell phone!!!!" implying it's the latest iPhone with your pricey unlimited plan when it's actually a cheap-ass used phone with a cheap prepaid plan, and they have it because that is less expensive than a land-line.
You are so removed from the people you are talking about that you have a fundamentally different experience in life. Which means you will not understand their problems. Which means you shove your fingers into your ears and say "everything is great" right up until you're surprised by the appearance of guillotines.
It would be good to avoid that.
It sounds like class warfare type rhetoric.
You're already spouting class warfare rhetoric. Just on behalf of the upper class. The current war has been going on since the late 1970s, you just only notice when the rhetoric goes in one direction.
It is much easier for capital to move around than in the 1950's. Even the SPLC [washingtontimes.com] moved millions to offshore tax havens. Money moves faster (hello bitcoin). Faster than a government can tax. Even if a government taxes more doesn't mean increase revenue [freebeacon.com]. It's a great talking point to hear about when we had a higher tax rate but many things have changed since then but many things are still the same (raising taxes doesn't mean raising revenue).
So, in Chicago economic theory, high marginal tax rates are massively destructive to an economy, while low marginal tax rates are supposed to create an economic boom.
The fact that it was harder to escape the high marginal tax rates in the 1950s, yet the economy was not crippled by those tax rates, indicates the Chicago school has a wee bit of a problem with their theories. But we already knew that since their theories claimed the 2008 collapse couldn't happen.
The fact that tax avoidance is easier today doesn't actually say anything about the failure of supply-side economics to fit with reality.
The rich, right now, represent roughly half of all revenue for government. Why is that not enough?
Because the top 0.1% own more than the bottom 50% combined. Income taxes aren't the best way to deal with wealth and income inequality, but they're a tool we actually have.
The 1% do not face usually low tax burden by historical standards.
....we were just talking about a 90% top marginal rate. The top marginal rate right now is what, 39%?
Also, the average tax paid for the top 1 percent in the 1950's was 42% not 90.
So, you appear to not understand how marginal tax rates work, and have found an article designed to exploit that. The "tax rate" is based on total income. The top marginal tax bracket is defined by their last dollar of income.
If we take the current 70% for over $10M proposal, that doesn't mean they pay 70% of their first dollar of income. They pay 0% on their first dollar, just like everyone else. 70% is only paid on the income over $10M. Which means their tax rate is going to be way below 70%.
That article was written to exploit you not understanding this.
If failing to deliver automatically makes one right wing, then no far left regime qualifies as far left. They don't get off that easily
When you have absolute power over a country, you get to "deliver" the policies that you actually want. Failure to deliver on those early promises indicates the NAZIs didn't actually want those policies.
It's almost like there are different committees that have oversight of different parts of the government....
You are aware that right now you're basically sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALALALA about the whole 90% marginal tax rate thing, right? As another poster already pointed out, the effective tax rate for those in the 90% income bracket in the 50s was 42%.
You do realize that "effective tax rate" is over someone's entire income, right? And that a 90% top marginal rate does not mean that all of their income is taxed at 90%, right?
But I bet your effective tax rate isn't less than half of your income tax bracket.
You lost that bet, quite badly. Again, effective tax rate is over the entire income, "income tax bracket" is only determined by the last $1.
You might be able to convince a bunch of low information idiots, but when you make arguments like you did in your above post, you just make those of us familiar with history think you're a blithering idiot.
You appear to not understand how marginal tax rates work. Best be careful when claiming others are uninformed.
And a study of ultra high tax rates in Europe showed that typically for every 1% increase in income tax rate, a 3% decrease in taxable assets was shown among those who were effective.
And assets are the same thing as income, right? Oh wait....
Also, perhaps one of the points of massive top marginal tax rates is to reduce the assets held by the 0.1%......
In the 50's you were able to deduct all kinds of things.
Having just completed my Schedule A, I can assure you that you can still deduct all kinds of things.
Almost nobody EVER paid those rates.
That is always true of the top marginal rate.
Repealed two-earner deduction
Married filing separately
long-term capital gains exclusion
Instead, we now have a different rate.
state and local sales tax deduction
Was repealed last year.
income averaging
Instead, you can carry expenses forward via an easy-to-create shell company.
income averaging
Very few extremely rich people made wildly different incomes year-to-year.
and exclusion of unemployment benefits
.....you really think the top 10% of the income distribution was collecting unemployment? And that it was a significant part of their income?
Limited IRA eligibility
...still exists, in that there's a rather low cap on IRA contributions. That's why the 401k was invented.
medical expenses deductions
Is the first section of the 2018 Schedule A.
Got bored here.
Seriously, it's almost like you get tax advice from idiots on the radio and TV instead of accountants.
Are you seriously attempting to argue that telecommunications does not cross state lines?
Additionally, there have been more than enough Democrats in power over time to have solved this problem as well.
You seem to not understand the basics of our system of government. Congress has to pass legislation through both houses of Congress. And thanks to filibuster abuse, not a whole lot passed through the Senate while the Democrats had control.
The problems could have been fixed a long time ago.
Ok, describe how. And remember, you have to get McConnell to agree to your fix.
We have nearly had almost a Century of Telecom regulations and guess what... the monopolies are still here and there is an endless supply of ignorant apologist's to defend these morons.
Hmmm....I wonder if there was some famous president in the 1980s who massively rolled back regulations and enforcement.....followed by his vice president.....followed by a DLC "we love deregulation" who couldn't keep his dick in his pants.....followed by another president that massively cut those regulations again......followed by one party in Congress stopping any efforts at regulation.
It's almost like you haven't actually paid much attention to politics.
And don't forget, NN still has loopholes called Zerorating
No, it was converting Internet service to a Title II service.
and I still saw Netflix and several services throttled anyways while NN was in effect
Good news! As a Title II service, you could have filed a complaint and made that stop. And gotten paid from the fine. You did file a complaint, right? Or was that up to someone else to do for you?
We OVERWHELMINGLY voted for the Republicans
2% is not OVERWHELMINGLY.
who gained a LOT of seats in the senate
Pre-election polls had you gaining 6 seats. You gained 4. And those 4 were quite close instead of the forecasted blow-out. The Democrats were defending twice as many seats, and many in "red" states, so we lost some. But good news! That flips in 2020, and Republicans will be defending far more seats, many in "blue" states.
Also, you seem to have forgotten that the House had the largest swing since Watergate. How'd that happen if the public OVERWHELMINGLY voted for Republicans?
Almost like it wasn't actually a Republican wave election.....
90% marginal tax rates?
You mean like the 1950s?
Remind me again....that was a massive economic wasteland for the US, right? It must have been from that tax rate. Why, if something else happened it might indicate a particular school of economics isn't actually based in reality.....
Legalized post-birth abortion?
Nah, that's you folks and your gun fetish. So many dead, but it'll be worth it when you get to re-enact Red Dawn. Any day now. Any day. Real soon now....
Geez, you'd think the Democrats would be forced to call their opponents "Hitler!" and "Nazis", those ideas are so fucking lame.
You need to catch up on your talking points. You're supposed to pretend the NAZIs were left-wing. Remembering that they were a right-wing party is double plus ungood.
Really? Snopes? That's your rebuttal?
Well, it's quicker than citing every single history book written on the subject.
Oh, and if you actually bother reading the Snopes article, they all but admit that yes, the Nazis were left-wing socialists
You really need to work on your literacy. The only parts that make this claim are the ones being debunked, as well as the things the NAZIs promised early in the party's history, but failed to deliver once they were actually in power. Who'd have thunk you couldn't trust NAZIs to deliver on campaign promises. (That last sentence is sarcasm BTW. Just making sure to label it since you're having trouble understanding simple English).
But since it's not written in your native language, I suppose we should give you some leeway in your inability to understand it.
It's one of the reasons why they're no longer considered a trusted fact checker by Facebook.
You got the direction backwards there. They left Facebook, not the other way around.