401–410 of 578 posts
Why are Americans so obsessed with religion, devil and sins?! Taxes exist to capture money and finance the externalities that are ignored by corporations. If corporations were more responsible countries would not have to tax these issues. In this case France is using the money to improve an already pretty good rail system. Compare this to the US and the California train line?
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They get rich because they provide value for the people. The more value they prove the richer they get.
Hah, no. They get rich, because the more wealth you have, the easier it is to increase it. Why? Because this is how the rich and powerful have set up the rules of the game. Personal wealth does not correlate with any sort of "value" you have personally created.
The more wealth you have the easier it is to provide value to other people. That's known as capital investment, and it's how wealth begets more wealth.
Or they could just spend all that wealth they've saved on themselves. People inclined to do that generally don't become wealthy in the first place, however, barring abnormal circumstances such as winning the lottery. A habit of frivolous, conspicuous consumption is a good way to ensure that you don't stay wealthy for long.
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It seems like regulators could just tax planes based on how much fuel they leave with, regardless of the source?
That would incentivize planes to fly with as little fuel as possible. That could lead to some flights running out of fuel when unforeseen issues arise. No matter how you tax the fuel, there are going to be some perverse incentives.
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Nuclear trains sounds badass but no I'm not aware of them existing. The two nuclear powered vehicles in the USA are carriers and submarines. Owned by the US military. All other nuclear generators are static and surrounded by metric fucktons of concrete.
Nuclear trains sound pointless. Unlike ships, you can power trains with catenaries.
Why are they taxing flights rather than fuel? There's nothing wrong with "flying"! What's wrong is how they get their airspeed, namely by burning fossil fuel. Also those prices are insulting. There is no jet fuel tax in the EU. This gimmick tax is less than what people driving cars pay in taxes on their fuel for a tank of gas. Governments want to increase tax on car fuels (hence the yellow jacket movement) but still…
Sadly at the current time there is no distinction between the two.
I think there is this thing called the train.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this one from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20392902.
Finally. It's really frustrating to see how heavily subsidized airlines, plane fuel and airports are and how big of a tax breaks they get when they come to a city. At the same time people are shamed for buying salad in a plastic bag when the big lever is somewhere completely different. Had the same thought yesterday when I saw: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1148317244893597696
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individuals and government. Corporations don't exist in a vacuum.
It is weird how people pretend that corporations and governments are some type of weird entities with minds of their own instead of just a group of individuals. Individuals changing priorities will directly result in corporations and governments changing priorities.
Societal changes are always about some group reaching a consensus on a topic and collectively acting on their decision. Governments and Corporations can sometimes be easier to deal with than 300+ million individuals when it comes to driving that consensus.
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Related: I was surprised to learn recently that short-distance trips by plane actually have lower CO2-emissions than long-distance ones, because the plane does not need to carry so much fuel just for later use.
People with also tell you that take-off burns most of the fuel. I think I read that the sweet-spot in terms of miles per unit fuel is about four hours. (Freight seems to go in roughly four-hour hops, I believe partly for that reason).
Of course, it comes with its share of drawbacks as well. But if it was to allow lighter planes, and less fuel expenses/burnt, it could well be worth it.
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If consumer drove business decisions, we‘d still have no seat belts and the ozone layer would not exist anymore because of CFC. In some ways, consumers can make a difference, but only to serve as a trigger for political decisions (if we get lucky). Also in your example, what comes first – the consumer’s choice or the carbon tax?
Wheren't both those examples driven by government regulations?