Which supports my point: People will pay out the ass for what they want in life.
I concur. Carrot and stick don't work. We need legislation. We need it yesterday. And it better go all the way.
Eh? Legislation is either carrot or stick; that's what it is.
If you're talking about tax legislation, sure.
If you're talking about jail time legislation, people tend to not refer to that as 'the stick', since unless you're a sociopath, compliance is not optional.
I'd say "you'll go to jail if you do" is pretty much the stick..
Maybe we can agree on "bigger stick than has thus far been considered".
I don't know what sense of 'nebulous' you intend when you call global warming 'nebulous.' If what you mean to say by "global warming is nebulous" is that we can burn fossil fuels indefinitely without tangibile consequence, then you're just wrong.
An huge, untapped source of oil is certainly dandy, but not cureall.
I wish they would add skytrain routes to the black lines I skillfully mspainted onto there. It took me an hour and a half to get to Capilano College when I went there and the drive was 10 minutes from my house. You'd have seriously reduced traffic along Marine Drive through West/North Van, it would link up to the Horsehoe Bay Ferry terminal, and you could get to the airport all via Skytrain with the new RAV line. Plus it would connect to UBC instead of having to take the express bus, which isn't bad but its not as nice as a skytrain for time and convenience.
Thinking ahead they could have added a skytrain track onto the Lions Gate Bridge (sidestepping the whole 3 lane-retardedness of said bridge), and linked it up with my hypothetical North Shore track, and connected it to a Maglev train that would go straight to Whistler in like 15 minutes! It would have been possible under the guise of 2010 Olympics funding, and that would open up the whole area up there, Squamish etc, and would have drastically reduced the need for a project with as much scope and funding as the new Sea to Sky highway currently being paved over what used to be some pretty pristine greenspace.
Sorry for the very city specific post .
They're doing a lot at the moment, aren't they? I thought I saw Skytrain construction at the airport when I was there (Feb), and I thought they were constructing a line that goes out to UBC too. The skytrain's a good system - pretty reliable, fast, not too expensive.
Well they're adding the Canada line which goes from downtown to the airport, but that's all I've heard. You might wanna glance back at my post to for my edited picture since without it, it probably didn't make as much sense . I figured adding something onto Broadway all the way to UBC, and then something on the North Shore in West/North Van, would go a long way to finishing off an otherwise pretty nice system.
They're building a line out to Richmond Centre which hits the airport as well, and making a hell of a mess while they're at it. There are no plans to extend the line out to UBC because they're spending all their post-2010 money on highways.
Oh I know that real economics considers psychological aspects. But there was a lot of "People will be happy to live in a tiny box so long as it means they have more money" earlier.
I would think the very existance of mansions would make this bleedingly obviously wrong, but eh.
Who was saying people should live in tiny boxes. There's more available in cities than studios. Want me to get some floorplans of entire floors of skyscrapers being 1 guys house? The only difference would be the lack of an estate to go with it but having incredible views to counteract that. Besides, McMansions don't have 'estates' anyway so the options aren't so far apart.
"Rich people benefit more and can afford it and should pay more" is fallacious logic, if and when it doesn't address it's own fallacy.
The problem is that it can applied in every circumstance, if you want. Jeff's bike lock example, food, energy, taxes, everything. The more things you apply that logic to, the more it defeats itself, because gradually everything costs more for rich people, and therefore they aren't rich anymore.
"You have $100 and I only have $10. Therefore ____ should be ten times as expensive for you. It's only fair."
"Why don't you just take $45 from me and let's not bother complicating price scales. The result is the same."
In other words, no matter how you slice it, calling it "you can afford more" or "you gain more from it" is all a bullshit smokescreen for "mandatory wealth redistribution." Raising prices on someone necessarily means they can afford less, meaning your solution defeats its own justification. Regardless of what you call it, you're simply making the rewards of successsful capitalism less rewarding. Right or wrong, for better or for worse, that is all you are doing when you charge someone more for the same thing simply because they have more money.
So when you make the wealth redistribution argument, you need to either accept it at face value, that you believe in wealth redistribution in general, or you need to specify why exactly _____ (i.e., energy) needs to be a vehicle for that redistribution.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say a $10 bike lock has less opportunity cost for a rich person?
As for why rich people get taxed more. Isn't it quite simply because they can be. If it was feasible to tax everyone 50% of their income, it would happen.
As for why rich people get taxed more. Isn't it quite simply because they can be. If it was feasible to tax everyone 50% of their income, it would happen.
Pretty much. I just prefer to espouse it in terms of pragmatism as opposed to blathering about how no, really, see they're actually paying less because they're getting more so it would actually be unjust to not gouge them regardless of the efficiency issue and yadda yadda screw the rich.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
As for why rich people get taxed more. Isn't it quite simply because they can be. If it was feasible to tax everyone 50% of their income, it would happen.
Pretty much. I just prefer to espouse it in terms of pragmatism as opposed to blathering about how no, really, see they're actually paying less because they're getting more so it would actually be unjust to not gouge them regardless of the efficiency issue and yadda yadda screw the rich.
Oh, I thought that having them pay more was simply a way to try and level off the opportunity cost associated with the tax. That is, we would just tax everyone half of their income, but the opportunity cost associated with that amount of money is much higher for the poor than it is for the rich. So, they have a progressive system such that we don't tax people in a way that would remove all opportunities they could have afforded.
Looking back, I see what you are talking about. People are only taxed more if they use more in a use tax. I'm not exactly a fan of use taxes, though. Hasn't it been shown countless times that they aren't that effective? (Seriously asking.)
I really couldn't care less about issues of equity on this front. Care needs to be taken not to crush lower income people, because by definition they are less financially robust and capable of adjustment, but beyond that - whatever.
What I do care about is curbing global warming and freeing U.S. foreign policy from the death grip of energy insecurity. And I would very much hate to see wrangling about equity producing a roadblock to getting things done in that arena.
"Rich people benefit more and can afford it and should pay more" is fallacious logic, if and when it doesn't address it's own fallacy.
The problem is that it can applied in every circumstance, if you want. Jeff's bike lock example, food, energy, taxes, everything. The more things you apply that logic to, the more it defeats itself, because gradually everything costs more for rich people, and therefore they aren't rich anymore.
"You have $100 and I only have $10. Therefore ____ should be ten times as expensive for you. It's only fair."
Except in one case, you're paying for a bike lock, which consists mainly of labor and raw materials. And in another case, you're paying for infrastructure.
So when you make the wealth redistribution argument, you need to either accept it at face value, that you believe in wealth redistribution in general, or you need to specify why exactly _____ (i.e., energy) needs to be a vehicle for that redistribution.
Big consumers who spend more money and who make money money tend to use more energy, directly or indirectly, and thus, will benefit a lot more from a stable and consistent energy supply. Even if you make all your money from, say, shares of Coca-Cola, you're still going to be dependent on the production/shipping costs based on energy for your profits. The best way to achieve this type of stability and consistency is not from the (government subsidized) de-regulated "free market" like big oil and Enron, which tends to fluctuate rapidly, and which can and will use any chance they can get to gouge consumers.
The best way would be by investing in long term infrastructure that will allow reliable and renewable alternative energies that get cheaper as time goes on as a result of economies of scale, rather than getting more expensive as time goes on as a result of economies of scarcity. It would also be achieved by investing in technologies and infrastructure that will get us more "bang for the buck," such as improved public transportation, energy star appliances, etc.
Posts
Maybe we can agree on "bigger stick than has thus far been considered".
no, you didnt.
I don't know what sense of 'nebulous' you intend when you call global warming 'nebulous.' If what you mean to say by "global warming is nebulous" is that we can burn fossil fuels indefinitely without tangibile consequence, then you're just wrong.
An huge, untapped source of oil is certainly dandy, but not cureall.
Who was saying people should live in tiny boxes. There's more available in cities than studios. Want me to get some floorplans of entire floors of skyscrapers being 1 guys house? The only difference would be the lack of an estate to go with it but having incredible views to counteract that. Besides, McMansions don't have 'estates' anyway so the options aren't so far apart.
The problem is that it can applied in every circumstance, if you want. Jeff's bike lock example, food, energy, taxes, everything. The more things you apply that logic to, the more it defeats itself, because gradually everything costs more for rich people, and therefore they aren't rich anymore.
"You have $100 and I only have $10. Therefore ____ should be ten times as expensive for you. It's only fair."
"Why don't you just take $45 from me and let's not bother complicating price scales. The result is the same."
In other words, no matter how you slice it, calling it "you can afford more" or "you gain more from it" is all a bullshit smokescreen for "mandatory wealth redistribution." Raising prices on someone necessarily means they can afford less, meaning your solution defeats its own justification. Regardless of what you call it, you're simply making the rewards of successsful capitalism less rewarding. Right or wrong, for better or for worse, that is all you are doing when you charge someone more for the same thing simply because they have more money.
So when you make the wealth redistribution argument, you need to either accept it at face value, that you believe in wealth redistribution in general, or you need to specify why exactly _____ (i.e., energy) needs to be a vehicle for that redistribution.
As for why rich people get taxed more. Isn't it quite simply because they can be. If it was feasible to tax everyone 50% of their income, it would happen.
Pretty much. I just prefer to espouse it in terms of pragmatism as opposed to blathering about how no, really, see they're actually paying less because they're getting more so it would actually be unjust to not gouge them regardless of the efficiency issue and yadda yadda screw the rich.
Oh, I thought that having them pay more was simply a way to try and level off the opportunity cost associated with the tax. That is, we would just tax everyone half of their income, but the opportunity cost associated with that amount of money is much higher for the poor than it is for the rich. So, they have a progressive system such that we don't tax people in a way that would remove all opportunities they could have afforded.
Looking back, I see what you are talking about. People are only taxed more if they use more in a use tax. I'm not exactly a fan of use taxes, though. Hasn't it been shown countless times that they aren't that effective? (Seriously asking.)
What I do care about is curbing global warming and freeing U.S. foreign policy from the death grip of energy insecurity. And I would very much hate to see wrangling about equity producing a roadblock to getting things done in that arena.
Except in one case, you're paying for a bike lock, which consists mainly of labor and raw materials. And in another case, you're paying for infrastructure.
Big consumers who spend more money and who make money money tend to use more energy, directly or indirectly, and thus, will benefit a lot more from a stable and consistent energy supply. Even if you make all your money from, say, shares of Coca-Cola, you're still going to be dependent on the production/shipping costs based on energy for your profits. The best way to achieve this type of stability and consistency is not from the (government subsidized) de-regulated "free market" like big oil and Enron, which tends to fluctuate rapidly, and which can and will use any chance they can get to gouge consumers.
The best way would be by investing in long term infrastructure that will allow reliable and renewable alternative energies that get cheaper as time goes on as a result of economies of scale, rather than getting more expensive as time goes on as a result of economies of scarcity. It would also be achieved by investing in technologies and infrastructure that will get us more "bang for the buck," such as improved public transportation, energy star appliances, etc.