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On February 06 2013 08:00 TheFrankOne wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2013 02:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On February 05 2013 16:45 oneofthem wrote:
sounds like an argument for non shortsighted, basic research.
btw, how could solar have started without subsidies, given the risk distribution Well you'd still have research being done. Solar would just need to wait until it was viable for its time in the sun. Yes, that would mean less solar now (at least in the US) but despite its growth solar is still an insignificant source of power. First of all, nice pun. Secondly, I really don't see research being at the same levels if the subsidies weren't there because the price point you would need to reach would be driven down, making the research need to cover much more ground before any pay off can be achieved. Fewer companies in the market, less interest in breaking into the market, less R&D going towards the product. I don't know enough about solar to say that this is absolutely true, plus counterfactuals are hard, but it makes sense to me. If we want more renewable energy, it should be subsidized, the market isn't pricing carbon at all so there is, in effect, a massive subsidy going towards coal/oil/natural gas producers. I don't think I like the word subsidy there, but they are getting away with externalizing a huge amount of environmental damage, and keeping solar/wind subsidies seems far more likely to me than a carbon tax. (I'd gladly trade the subsidies for the tax.)
Sure, I won't argue that some good comes from the subsidies. My problem with the subsidies is that they contain a lot of negative aspects and most people aren't aware of them all (directly benefit rich households and businesses while eroding the tax base). The subsidies also do little to address the external costs you mentioned and so in that respect energy is "too cheap" which means less interest in energy efficiency*.
Currently the main federal subsidy (30% tax credit) is set to expire at the end of 2016. That gives plenty of time to set up a carbon tax to carry the torch.
Edit: *Which government then tries to make up for by offering yet more tax credits... and then everyone wonders why the tax code is so complex and why the wealthy and corporations don't pay their fair share... /sigh...
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On February 06 2013 08:51 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
which means less interest in energy efficiency.
great point. is there a way you could promote energy efficiency? it seems hard to do. (that is, it's very easy for us to try to solve problems by consuming things, but not so easy for us to solve problems by not consuming things)
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On February 06 2013 08:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2013 08:51 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
which means less interest in energy efficiency. great point. is there a way you could promote energy efficiency? it seems hard to do. (that is, it's very easy for us to try to solve problems by consuming things, but not so easy for us to solve problems by not consuming things)
negawatts!
Edit: It is hard to do, but there's currently a lot of interest out there in finding ways to do just that. I'll have to dig out some notes I took at a NESEA conference last year and get back to you (assuming said notes aren't in the garbage!).
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Inflate the price of energy, carbon tax is an obvious choice. People respond to incentives.
Edit: Also, I need to stay the fuck out of that gun control thread. The people in there disturb me. We seem to have run out of proper conservatives in this thread though, Johnny's opinions have always seemed vaguely conservative but not proper right-wing opinions. bluepanther got banned for a couple weeks, xdaunt disappeared, DEB doesn't hang out much in here...
Conservatives! Come tell me I'm wrong! Please!
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Sometimes I feel like we could solve all our problems if we'd just put huge taxes on energy and gasoline
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On February 06 2013 08:59 TheFrankOne wrote:
Inflate the price of energy, carbon tax is an obvious choice. People respond to incentives.
As goods and services increase the cost of their production, from fertilizers to basic foodstuffs, the poor gets hardest hit and even more impoverished. The wealthy can afford their own bills going up; their businesses pass on the majority of the cost to the consumers (Taxes born by the middle class among others, surprise surprise) and lay off workers and halt expansion and development, leading to rising unemployment and less growth in jobs available. The true cost of enacting a carbon tax, affecting to increase energy efficiency by it, is widespread and large.
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On February 06 2013 09:02 sam!zdat wrote:
Sometimes I feel like we could solve all our problems if we'd just put huge taxes on energy and gasoline
It would help solve my eternal battle with potholes 
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On February 06 2013 09:05 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2013 08:59 TheFrankOne wrote:
Inflate the price of energy, carbon tax is an obvious choice. People respond to incentives. As goods and services increase the cost of their production, from fertilizers to basic foodstuffs, the poor gets hardest hit and even more impoverished. The wealthy can afford their own bills going up; their businesses pass on the majority of the cost to the consumers (Taxes born by the middle class among others, surprise surprise) and lay off workers and halt expansion and development, leading to rising unemployment and less growth in jobs available. The true cost of enacting a carbon tax, affecting to increase energy efficiency by it, is widespread and large.
Sorry I forgot about you Danglars, you're still around! Thank you for telling me I'm wrong. Also, there is a a huge cost to not pricing carbon, namely unmitigated climate change. The same methods can be used fix any regressive elements of a carbon tax that can be used to fix any regressive elements of sales and flat taxes.
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Every time somebody makes the "but then the poor people will have to pay the taxes" argument, a tiny puppy dies a horrible death 
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On February 06 2013 09:05 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2013 08:59 TheFrankOne wrote:
Inflate the price of energy, carbon tax is an obvious choice. People respond to incentives. As goods and services increase the cost of their production, from fertilizers to basic foodstuffs, the poor gets hardest hit and even more impoverished. The wealthy can afford their own bills going up; their businesses pass on the majority of the cost to the consumers (Taxes born by the middle class among others, surprise surprise) and lay off workers and halt expansion and development, leading to rising unemployment and less growth in jobs available. The true cost of enacting a carbon tax, affecting to increase energy efficiency by it, is widespread and large.
“... it must be borne in mind, that in every case exemption means a relief to A at the charge of B.”
By virtue of not taxing carbon we must tax other things (primarily income) more. Or to flip it around, if we tax carbon than we can tax income (or profits! Bwa-haha!) less. If I'm not mistaken that's what Australia did when a carbon tax was introduced - other taxes were reduced as an offset. Here in the US I'm imagining that we'd use the revenue to cut spending and raise taxes less that we would otherwise need to.
That said, your argument becomes more powerful as the tax rate on carbon gets increased. If it gets too high then I'd no longer support it.
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On February 06 2013 09:26 sam!zdat wrote:Every time somebody makes the "but then the poor people will have to pay the taxes" argument, a tiny puppy dies a horrible death
It seems very hypocritical from the Norquist republicans especially. I am not sure how they can make that argument with a straight face without being sarcastic? On the other hand it is an ironic statement from a democrat too since it implies that "the rich" do not pay any of the taxes at all which is not true at all!
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On February 06 2013 09:26 sam!zdat wrote:Every time somebody makes the "but then the poor people will have to pay the taxes" argument, a tiny puppy dies a horrible death
Every once in a while, a puppy must die. In this case, I think little Spike can be spared.
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On February 06 2013 08:59 TheFrankOne wrote:
Inflate the price of energy, carbon tax is an obvious choice. People respond to incentives.
Edit: Also, I need to stay the fuck out of that gun control thread. The people in there disturb me. We seem to have run out of proper conservatives in this thread though, Johnny's opinions have always seemed vaguely conservative but not proper right-wing opinions. bluepanther got banned for a couple weeks, xdaunt disappeared, DEB doesn't hang out much in here...
Conservatives! Come tell me I'm wrong! Please!
I'm conservative but all the good looking chicks around here are liberals so my ideology has been neutered 
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I like Jonny too much for him to be a real conservative, I don't think he counts. He's far too reasonable.
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So the Post Office is cancelling delivery of mail on Saturdays in an attempt to cut costs.
This is a consequence of the lame duck session of Congress in December of 2006, when in two days a Republican controlled Congress introduced and passed through both houses a law that has placed an unfair burden on, and essentially bankrupted, the postal service.
I have a question for some of the more frequent posters here. Why did the Republicans, who are the first ones to complain about government inefficiency, pass a bill that destroyed the postal service, an entity that doesn't even receive taxpayer dollars for their operation. They're having to pay billions of dollars each year into a fund for the retirement of people who aren't even working yet. It seems counter to the image of the Republican party.
Edit: Spelling is hard.
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On February 06 2013 23:49 Saryph wrote:
So the Post Office is cancelling delivery of mail on Saturdays in an attempt to cut costs.
This is a consequence of the lame duck session of Congress in December of 2006, when in two days a Republican controlled Congress introduced and passed through both houses a law that has placed an unfair burden on, and essentially bankrupted, the postal service.
I have a question for some of the more frequent posters here. Why did the Republicans, who are the first ones to complain about government inefficiency, pass a bill that destroyed the postal service, an entity that doesn't even receive taxpayer dollars for their operation. They're having to pay billions of dollars each year into a fun for the retirement of people who aren't even working yet. It seems counter to the image of the Republican party.
They're concerned with the vision for America the Founding Fathers had, specifically what they actually wrote in the Constitution, and...oh, whoops guess not this time
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On February 06 2013 23:49 Saryph wrote:
So the Post Office is cancelling delivery of mail on Saturdays in an attempt to cut costs.
This is a consequence of the lame duck session of Congress in December of 2006, when in two days a Republican controlled Congress introduced and passed through both houses a law that has placed an unfair burden on, and essentially bankrupted, the postal service.
I have a question for some of the more frequent posters here. Why did the Republicans, who are the first ones to complain about government inefficiency, pass a bill that destroyed the postal service, an entity that doesn't even receive taxpayer dollars for their operation. They're having to pay billions of dollars each year into a fund for the retirement of people who aren't even working yet. It seems counter to the image of the Republican party.
Edit: Spelling is hard.
It's a common Republican strategy. Push through random crap with the intent to break some department of the government, then complain that the department doesn't work, then push for the elimination of that department or other departments.
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On February 06 2013 23:49 Saryph wrote:
So the Post Office is cancelling delivery of mail on Saturdays in an attempt to cut costs.
This is a consequence of the lame duck session of Congress in December of 2006, when in two days a Republican controlled Congress introduced and passed through both houses a law that has placed an unfair burden on, and essentially bankrupted, the postal service.
I have a question for some of the more frequent posters here. Why did the Republicans, who are the first ones to complain about government inefficiency, pass a bill that destroyed the postal service, an entity that doesn't even receive taxpayer dollars for their operation. They're having to pay billions of dollars each year into a fund for the retirement of people who aren't even working yet. It seems counter to the image of the Republican party.
Edit: Spelling is hard.
Possible reasons:
1a. At the time the post office was making quite a bit of money. At the time it was not planned (as far as i know) to screw over the post office.
1b. Unfortunately email is kind of killing the post office. The lower mail volume is the more serious problem as congress can't make that go away.
2. The post office is the largest unionized employer in the United States. Republicans generally don't like unions.
3a. If the US were to sell the post office, having retirement benefits pre-funded would make it a lot easier. Retirement costs have been one of the bigger problems for a lot of businesses.
3b. With the post office having money problems it would be easier to sell (politically). Republicans just don't want the government to be in the mail business even if it was making money.
Of those reasons, the first is the given one, while the other 2 are the more conspiracy-y ones. Overall I don't see the post office getting sold off as congress likes to meddle with it to much (prevents closing of offices that private companies would close instantly, ect).
In the end, the post office is just skipping the retirement payments as it does not have the money and is trying to break even on operating costs. It would still be having problems without those payments.
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On February 06 2013 23:49 Saryph wrote:
So the Post Office is cancelling delivery of mail on Saturdays in an attempt to cut costs.
This is a consequence of the lame duck session of Congress in December of 2006, when in two days a Republican controlled Congress introduced and passed through both houses a law that has placed an unfair burden on, and essentially bankrupted, the postal service.
I have a question for some of the more frequent posters here. Why did the Republicans, who are the first ones to complain about government inefficiency, pass a bill that destroyed the postal service, an entity that doesn't even receive taxpayer dollars for their operation. They're having to pay billions of dollars each year into a fund for the retirement of people who aren't even working yet. It seems counter to the image of the Republican party.
Edit: Spelling is hard.
It's just accounting. From what I've read it was an attempt at resolving* the USPS's financial woes, though it was an imperfect attempt - and a, largely, inflexible one at that.
Something boring from the CBO here.
A nice Bloomberg article here.
Edit: As stated in both links about 25% of private companies voluntarily use this accounting treatment because they deem it appropriate - not because they are trying to destroy themselves!
*Edit 2: By resolve I do not mean fix. The underlying economic issues facing the USPS mean that pain must be felt. The legislation passed by Republicans was aimed at answering the question "who will will bear the pain and by what means?" and not aimed at reducing the pain - that's a task for the USPS itself.
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EPT
