81–90 of 317 posts
It sounds like the bill is proposing significant tax increases and the companies are fighting the tax increases. If I put a bill forward to lower taxes and execute baby seals, corporations would vote for it.
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Are you sure? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_mig... I see Austria, Belgium, UK, Germany, Denmark, Italy accepting more immigrants per capita than the US. In many of those countries, the "huge welfare states" have prerequisites ( for instance you can't just come in as an economic migrant and ask for unemployment benefits). Furthermore, i thought the US was the richest country - it certainly h…
None of those countries offer birthright citizenship: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-who-offer-birt... That changes the political and migration dynamics significantly.
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Yes, but is a benevolent dictator the solution?
Here's what I propose, to lessen the effect of populism: The elections are held in a tournament format. People are divided into randomised brackets. People then in that bracket decide who amongst them is most fit to be a leader. This is then repeated recursively until enough politicians are selected.
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Because the rest of us are subsidizing the externality of the destruction your petrol car is wreaking on the environment. ...also, given that you're calling it a "petrol" car - a Briticism - do you even live in the US? If not, you won't be the one subsidizing it in case this bill comes to pass anyway.
I don't even have a car, why should I subsizide someone elses? They should just not have a car, like me. If that doesn't work where they live, the move to somewhere where it works, and pay absurd rents, like I do. I'm not strictly against the subsizidies, but they have sever social justice implications.
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> Where’s the inconvenience? I don't want to buy a new electric car. I have a perfectly working petrol car. Why should I subsidize some rich guy's fancy new electric toy?
Because the rest of us are subsidizing the externality of the destruction your petrol car is wreaking on the environment. ...also, given that you're calling it a "petrol" car - a Briticism - do you even live in the US? If not, you won't be the one subsidizing it in case this bill comes to pass anyway.
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Americans (and Australians) will never accept any changes that negatively impact their lives or wallets. Especially when the consequences of climate change are not clear and present. As democracies, we will simply vote out any government that asks us to change our ways. I think Covid19 demonstrates how resistant people are to change, and that they are not willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. Nearly 700,00…
And there lies the difference that made my grandparents generation, albeit on the Allied side of WW2, the greatest generation. Not the willingness to go to war, that was enforced by drafts all over the globe back then. It was rather the total revamping of the economy, industry and society to support the war against the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. The UK went to rationing, and still people carried on in global strugg…
Hopefully, we could have a very big energy crisis. Unlike COVID, energy price rise affects everyone directly, it's not like "I know somebody who..." (unfortunately, the poorer are hit harder). This would affect everyone and would lead to some social unrest. Not that I wish social unrest, but that is a signal that can't be ignored, even though it is a very slippy slope.
Interestingly, the current spike in gas prices down here puts a lot of politicians in panic mode. Gas price, unlike covid, is the result of human negotiator; you can't invoke "bad luck" or "nature's revenge" or whatever....
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> Opposing it means you oppose ... If life were so simple. Of course, the reality is this bill covers everything from child tax credits, paid leaves, to god knows what else.
Oh no, god forbid we try to drag ourselves into the 21st century, and get somewhere close to what every other modern democracy has offered for decades.
Yes, just come closer to the clusterfuck the rest of us have. In every country most people say “healthcare in this country is a mess”, and yet, my best experiences with healthcare have been in the US.
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The proposed changes include a $12,000 tax rebate on buying a new electric car, weatherization incentives for homes, and will probably include sweet deals on solar panels. Where’s the inconvenience?
Only if the vehicle is built in a union shop, which the leading EV manufacturer is not. The credit is significantly reduced otherwise. Also, gas burning PHEVs (Prius) count as EVs which is such a limp handout to legacy auto and does little to push R&D forward.
If software was developed the way politicians pass laws, Linux would get one master commit every few years with thousands of unrelated things in it, from typo fixes to sketchy telemetry, with a 1500 pages long description, and the commit would be branded as "build security better". The review would be a months long show where maintainers of all factions with their own agendas would try to negotiate behind the closed…