American Politics from 2019 on

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JimC
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by JimC » Sun Mar 03, 2019 3:44 am

laklak wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:45 pm
Electric cars should pay the tax. Fuel taxes go to maintain and build highways, which electric cars use. It's either that or start taxing electricity.
Given the relatively high tax on fuel, which contributes to road maintenance funds, similar arguments have been made here, with some people pushing for a "tax per km" scheme, but most pundits think that would be unworkable. However, there are some counter arguments (which only really apply if the charging of most electric cars is done via renewable sources)
* the use of electric cars (with the caveat above) serves a common good of reducing CO2 emissions
* more directly, particularly in cities, their increasing use should reduce unhealthy smog via internal combustion engines...
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Jason » Sun Mar 03, 2019 3:47 am

Yes, serve the common good as they may, the roads still need to be maintained. Where is that money going to come from?

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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by JimC » Sun Mar 03, 2019 3:56 am

You could decrease fuel taxes a bit, and increase fees for vehicle registration (which of course apply to all...) in a revenue neutral way...

Also, health issues via air pollution from vehicles add to the health costs of communities - they should decrease...
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Jason » Sun Mar 03, 2019 4:11 am

It doesn't provide much of an incentive to upgrade existing vehicles to current owners though - they are hit by new registration fees when they could just enjoy the reduced fuel taxes and bank it.

I would have hoped that electric vehicles would be adopted more widely when cheap second hand units became available - but apparently replacing the battery packs is very expensive. So people with oil burners will be inclined to drive their old cars longer hoping to recoup value which they cannot do now due to the second-hand market of oil burners dropping out too. Basically the system of buying a car off-lease, reconditioned and with a new battery, will be the norm for the less well-to-do. This increases the cost of living for people who may not have much room in their budget. I fear it promotes the growth of dual new classes of drivers - the poor in their old oil burners, and the more well off with their new or reconditioned EVs.

It doesn't seem ideal.

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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Hermit » Sun Mar 03, 2019 4:47 am

Jason wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 3:47 am
Yes, serve the common good as they may, the roads still need to be maintained. Where is that money going to come from?
Oh, I don't know... Maybe reduce the difference between the notional corporate tax rate and the amount that is actually paid? Eliminate transfer pricing and tax havens? Stop the tradition of making corporate losses public debts?

Just because tax avoidance is perfectly legal, it does not mean it's a good thing. In Australia one company sold one of its subsidiaries for a significant capital gain and finished up with a tax credit as a result of the deal. The Australian Tax Office took the company to court over it - and lost the case. Similarly, it took Kerry Packer's media empire to court some years earlier, claiming back taxes in the vicinity of $230 million. It lost that case too.

It's not just the big, headline generating cases that reduce government revenue beyond the morally acceptable. Tens of thousands of medium and small businesses avail themselves to perfectly legal yet morally reprehensible loopholes.
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:05 am

Communist.
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by JimC » Sun Mar 03, 2019 8:03 pm

He is a founding member of PPLSA (the People's Party for the Liberation of South Australia) which broke away from the PFLSA (the Popular Front for the Liberation of South Australia) over doctrinal matters, essentially accusing them of being soft...

A splitter, definitely... :nono:
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Hermit » Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:11 pm

JimC wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 8:03 pm
He is a founding member of PPLSA (the People's Party for the Liberation of South Australia) which broke away from the PFLSA (the Popular Front for the Liberation of South Australia) over doctrinal matters, essentially accusing them of being soft...

A splitter, definitely... :nono:
You're not up to date, my reactionary Lumpenprolet. I've been deposed by a revisionist clique within the PPLSA and have created the PLPSA (People's Liberation Party for the of South Australia). Long live the revolution! Free pie floaters for all crow eaters and death to the Geelong Dogs!
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by JimC » Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:32 pm

:hehe:
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Tero » Mon Mar 04, 2019 11:50 pm

215780DE-1DF9-4E2C-B0EE-909B3C4337B3.jpeg
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com
http://esabirdsne.blogspot.com/
Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
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Our case for survival before it's too late

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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Tero » Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:00 am

elsewhere:
You do realise that in Europe your "left" would seem to be very centrist. You really don't have serious left wing politics in the USA. Even Bernie Sanders and AOC are only advocating for policies Western Europe has espoused for decades. That doesn't sound like outrage and anger to me. It seems like a political philosophy. Just because it is in competition with a political philosophy on the right which seems to be dominated now by an extreme faction like Trump Supporters, the remnants of the Tea Party, the Koch Brothers and their ilk, White Supremacists and Fundamental Christians doesn't make progressive positions extreme.
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com
http://esabirdsne.blogspot.com/
Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
And our hands they are many and we'd be of one voice
We've come all the way from Wigan to get up and state
Our case for survival before it's too late

Turn stone to bread, said Daemon Duncetan
Turn stone to bread right away...

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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Tero » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:23 pm

In the deep South, nothing changed in 25 years. All white families are Republicans.
Picture
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fbfcca2c ... d612a13b3f
Still happily married after 25 years, Sherman-Breland now believes many women pay the price – through abuse, rejection or public humiliation – for rejecting America’s rat’s nest of conservatism and racism that has exploded into full relief in Trump’s America.

“You understand as a young girl that your place is behind your man, not in front or beside him. You cannot have your own opinions. That’s the most prevalent way they keep you in check.”

Sherman-Breland gradually went against her family’s broader conservative political beliefs as she became concerned about the future of her biracial sons, but it took hearing people she knew calling President Obama “the devil”, and Donald Trump’s open bigotry and birtherism, to electrify her. She now calls herself a proud liberal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... tive-views
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com
http://esabirdsne.blogspot.com/
Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
And our hands they are many and we'd be of one voice
We've come all the way from Wigan to get up and state
Our case for survival before it's too late

Turn stone to bread, said Daemon Duncetan
Turn stone to bread right away...

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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Joe » Mon Mar 11, 2019 7:49 pm

Tero wrote:
Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:00 am
elsewhere:
You do realise that in Europe your "left" would seem to be very centrist. You really don't have serious left wing politics in the USA. Even Bernie Sanders and AOC are only advocating for policies Western Europe has espoused for decades. That doesn't sound like outrage and anger to me. It seems like a political philosophy. Just because it is in competition with a political philosophy on the right which seems to be dominated now by an extreme faction like Trump Supporters, the remnants of the Tea Party, the Koch Brothers and their ilk, White Supremacists and Fundamental Christians doesn't make progressive positions extreme.
I don't know that poster, but it's good to see Oystein is still around.
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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Tero » Mon Mar 11, 2019 8:17 pm

Huh. I thought you could not see any posts there unless you were logged in. Zilla was there a year or two after he left here, then he left there too.
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com
http://esabirdsne.blogspot.com/
Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
And our hands they are many and we'd be of one voice
We've come all the way from Wigan to get up and state
Our case for survival before it's too late

Turn stone to bread, said Daemon Duncetan
Turn stone to bread right away...

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Re: American Politics from 2019 on

Post by Seabass » Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:45 pm

Tero wrote:
Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:23 pm
In the deep South, nothing changed in 25 years. All white families are Republicans.
Picture
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fbfcca2c ... d612a13b3f
Still happily married after 25 years, Sherman-Breland now believes many women pay the price – through abuse, rejection or public humiliation – for rejecting America’s rat’s nest of conservatism and racism that has exploded into full relief in Trump’s America.

“You understand as a young girl that your place is behind your man, not in front or beside him. You cannot have your own opinions. That’s the most prevalent way they keep you in check.”

Sherman-Breland gradually went against her family’s broader conservative political beliefs as she became concerned about the future of her biracial sons, but it took hearing people she knew calling President Obama “the devil”, and Donald Trump’s open bigotry and birtherism, to electrify her. She now calls herself a proud liberal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... tive-views
Good article.
Young Schneider believed her elders when they said everything was equal between races, or that the south fought the civil war for honorable reasons and not over slavery. “I wasn’t exactly an examining person. I wasn’t taught real history,” she says, adding that her textbooks were filled with romantic myths about the Old South.
Reminds me of Forty "Racism is very unpopular in America" Two.
They find Trump better than the communist horrors many learned about at home and school.
Also reminds me of Forty "Democrats will turn the US into Venezuela" Two.
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