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from the spoiler-alert-its-the-president dept.
Imagine my surprise while surfing articles on ScienceMag.org site when I discover an article not paywalled, (how unusual). It soon became apparent this was probably because it was produced at tax payer expense.
In the paper, just about all the data that matters is laid out early:
CO2 emissions from the energy sector fell by 9.5% from 2008 to 2015, while the economy grew by more than 10%. In this same period, the amount of energy consumed per dollar of real gross domestic product (GDP) fell by almost 11%, the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of energy consumed declined by 8%, and CO2 emitted per dollar of GDP declined by 18%.
Basically the paper points out that costs of renewable energy is falling fast, from affordable only to experimental projects to competitive pricing in the every day world:
Renewable electricity costs also fell dramatically between 2008 and 2015: the cost of electricity fell 41% for wind, 54% for rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, and 64% for utility-scale PV.
Recovery Act investments and recent tax credit extensions have played a crucial role, but technology advances and market forces will continue to drive renewable deployment. The levelized cost of electricity from new renewables like wind and solar in some parts of the United States is already lower than that for new coal generation.
The paper looks all studious and sciency, with footnotes and charts and citations of all sorts of government publications, scholarly papers from universities, blogs and industrial press releases.
And even an admission at the end that several other "researchers" contributed to the researching, drafting, and editing of the article. All at tax payers expense, of course.
The record safely set straight, the government guy walks off into the sunset, to a retirement and a new career in publishing science papers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:53AM
How do you measure how well people's lives are doing, accounting for their ability to provide for themselves and their families while correcting for any individual-level issues that would wreck almost anybody's finances?
These days? With Facebook and similar. They have more data than ever about "how people are doing."
What I think we need is an online voting system with daily polls (secured, one citizen one vote), and ask questions like: "Are you satisfied with the job you have, are you earning enough to provide basic food, shelter, and medical care for you and the people you provide for?" The only problem I see with such a system is that cash based tax evaders will stick out like sore thumbs in the datastream. We need to find a way to bring them into compliance without threatening to ruin them financially in the process.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday January 17 2017, @02:47PM
If you come up with a solution, we could almost certainly do the same thing to international-bank-based tax evaders. Of course multinational corporations are privileged over ranchers, contractors, and other individuals that work in cash; their tax evasion is technically legal (the best kind of legal!). But the former is far more disastrous to public revenue.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 17 2017, @04:22PM
I think the solution is some kind of acknowledgment and maintenance of the status-quo in terms of revenue collection, but pierce the veils of secrecy. Fair is not the issue, things are the way they are - leave them there, but let's start getting a handle on what's really going on, get that out in the open so rational decisions can be made for the future - small, non-disruptive changes, hopefully for the better.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday January 17 2017, @08:41PM
But that's just the thing about international money not being brought home: we all know about it, it's not technically illegal where it is, and nobody likes the status quo. Yet we still don't have a way to get that money home. For some people the problem is that the money isn't taxed, so they want it taxed. For other people the problem is that the money is stuck abroad so they want a tax holiday. The problem may never be resolved without international cooperation.
Which brings us back to cash-based ta evaders. Even if you could bring it out into the open without disturbing the status quo (unlikely, since these evaders are small-time and aren't part of the power establishment that protects the international money), you'd just end up with the same situation: we all know about the situation, but there is no solution that everyone can agree upon because different groups are trying to solve different problems.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:49AM
The two classic motivators are the carrot and the stick. The IRS has a plenty big stick, big enough to make people very creative at hiding the proof of their income, and very arbitrary and unfair in terms of who does get enforcement action - they almost beg people to cheat so that enforcement can become a blackmail style coercion, we think you underpaid this year - if you disagree, how would you like to be audited for the previous seven? I think we all would be better off without this style of government.
About the international money - international is indeed at the root of the problem, what's good for one country is bad for another, even if it's a less than zero sum gain, where's the incentive for Scotland to benefit the US by 100 billion dollars if it is going to hurt Scotland by 1 billion? One easy answer is for the US to give Scotland 2 billion in exchange for their cooperation, then reap 98 billion - but such large moves are "bad for business" - so the tax hit needs to be ramped up slowly as to not upset quarterly accounting for the stock markets. To me, the money being out of circulation is far worse than any lost tax revenue, if the companies could have a "permanent reinvestment holiday" wherein monies returned from tax havens to be invested in increased research, development, process improvement, infrastructure, training, community outreach - all those "good things" that corporations do, but can't do too much of or they become unprofitable, let the money come back that way "tax free," but invested in things that benefit the company and everyone else too.
As for cash based tax evaders, the big time (250K/yr/person and up) evaders are mostly just cheaters/criminals and probably need to be dealt with as such, Big Brother/Big Data crawling inside their business processes will eventually shut down their loopholes. Closer to the bottom end of the scale - waitresses, shade tree mechanics, hair dressers, tutors, kids mowing lawns, etc. there should be some benefit to declaration of income, not just taxation of it. I'm not sure what's the appropriate carrot there, but, having lived that life for awhile (bagging groceries, busing tables), all I saw from declaration of tips was the stick of taxation - and in the case of busing tables, since tips were shared, if I declared by tips I would be in essence ratting out my servers who didn't declare theirs - so, peer pressure on top. As it is today, you're telling 18 year olds that paying their FICA today may, or may not, make them eligible for really crappy benefits 45 years in the future. Perhaps the first $250 per week of declared income could pay 10% dividends into an IRA account with the earner's name on it? (maybe ramp than down to lower dividend percentages as income rises, but always increasing the dividend at least a little for additional declared income.) At least there's something semi-tangible they can see a benefit from declaring income for, even if the IRA is restricted to investment in government issued bonds.
🌻🌻 [google.com]