161–170 of 265 posts
Anyway, couldn't the aristocrats (10%ers) writing this do a better job with trade-offs? Like exempt it, but force them to buy carbon credits at a set discounted price?
Pretty sure the 1% knows they can't get away with this without a compromise.
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Private jets are completely irrelevant to global warming because there are not enough of them. They’re a convenient distraction from the problem that actually curbing global warming will require huge changes in the lifestyle of the global middle class. Not just the super-rich.
Why are they exempt? It's just blatant power flaunting by the wealthy at this point.
The EU has been completely bonkers for the last few years. Just staggeringly stupid policy I mean look at them literally banning encryption and then this I'm confused but the ppl running the eu are more confused
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And it's not even about forbidding them to so it. It's just about paying a little bit of taxes. Is the fuel taxes such a big part of the cost of flying a private jet? Is it just that those people hate paying taxes on principle (and manage to lobby for it)?
In Europe, people flying private are overlapping with those sitting in the parliaments.
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Honestly how much would this tax even affect the super rich? If you're rich enough to afford a private jet are you really scrutinizing your fuel bill?
A significant portion of the super-rich believe they are super-rich because they scrutinize bills and are thrifty/smart with money. "If only everyone else was as smart with their money they could be as rich as I am..."
Just goes to show fighting climate change is nothing but a power grab that makes life more miserable for regular people and making them more dependent on the rich and government.
Imagine if the world was just a little more complicated than that, and rich government elites were also representing the interests for downplaying climate change and doubling down on fossil fuels.
It might mean regular people died in unprecedented heat waves and got their houses burned down by wildfires. All while billionaires convince them that all carbon pricing is awful and corrupt, careful that they don't know too much about the option of revenue-neutral dividends.
Special interests rule the world, except where a recent revolution happened. Special interests by definition have a stronger desire than the general population for certain policies, and thus get them installed even when it harms most citizens. Thomas Jefferson said that a nation needs a revolution once a generation to keep it's freedom. Either that or there needs to be a constitutional clause that automatically sunse…
There was a nice study from Cato institute (somewhat surprisingly), a comparison between different U.S. states, that showed that tax measures established by direct democracy (referendums) have less loopholes than the ones established by representative democracy.
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Honestly how much would this tax even affect the super rich? If you're rich enough to afford a private jet are you really scrutinizing your fuel bill?
A significant portion of the super-rich believe they are super-rich because they scrutinize bills and are thrifty/smart with money. "If only everyone else was as smart with their money they could be as rich as I am..."
> Private jets will enjoy an exemption through classification of "business aviation" as the use of aircraft by firms for carriage of passengers or goods as an "aid to the conduct of their business", if generally considered not for public hire. > A further exemption is given for "pleasure" flights whereby an aircraft is used for "personal or recreational" purposes not associated with a business or professional use. Su…
That and it's also the most wasteful use of fuel, because you're lifting an entire jet and crew for more than likely a single rich jerk who feels too special to fly passenger jets like everyone else. On a carbon-per-person metric, private jets are literally the worst .
And the same people probably have several yachts that burn even more fuel per hour.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Private jets are completely irrelevant to global warming because there are not enough of them. They’re a convenient distraction from the problem that actually curbing global warming will require huge changes in the lifestyle of the global middle class. Not just the super-rich.
> Private jets are completely irrelevant to global warming because there are not enough of them. They probably are irrelevant, so why exempt them? > actually curbing global warming will require huge changes in the lifestyle of the global middle class. Not just the super-rich. I'm of the impression that "middle class lifestyle" itself isn't a big contributor to global warming but rather the manufacture and supply chai…
Manufacture and supply chains (and services for that matter) that provide to the middle class. At least that's my interpretation of the parent's point.