I make lots of compost for my own use. Composting is at best delaying carbon release. As soon as you stop recycling materials the carbon will be released to the atmosphere. In permaculture circles the goal is to close open loops of waste/resources. If you want to permanently lock carbon in your soil, and improve fertility, make biochar. Throwing charcoal in your compost is the easiest way to make it into biochar. It really works and is a permanent amendment.
If you wanted you could even weigh the raw charcoal to quantify the carbon you have sequestered.
None of the loops are open in the sense that it's all within the earth system as a whole. The issue is extracting carbon from geological deposits. Stuff about farming and methane is temporary and short term.
I don't mean to suggest we shouldn't compost or recycle things. Just that such measures are only indirectly related to carbon emissions.
We either stop extracting hydrocarbons from deep within the crust or else the problem will persist. (I guess technically we could industrially sequester the equivalent but that would almost certainly defeat the cost-benefit of extraction.)
I wonder if part of it is also that mining companies are generally allowed to just leave their tailings in a big pile near the mine rather than have to responsibly dispose of the majority of the ore that has no (or negative) commercial value.
Ethanol production was subsidized to consume excess corn that was only produced because it is susidized. I don't know if ethanol fuel requirements started before or after the ethanol subsidies but it all happened around the same time.
Nobody ever paid 90% taxes. There were tax rates that high but lots of ways to avoid it same as now.
If you want a fair tax that treats everybody equally you want a flat consumption tax. No tax to make money. Just taxed when you spend money. Rich people spend more money so they pay more taxes. It can't be avoided by taking a dollar salary or using assets as equity for loans that dont get taxed.
As an aside, billionaires pay the same taxes you do on income. Demanding a wealth tax on billionaires is foolish. Every tax ever devised was sold as a tax on the rich. Look where we are now, forced to give a third or more of our labor to an entity that half the country likes on a good year.
Any form of a flat tax hits harder the smaller your income. A proportional tax would be more appropriate, as it would have an equal impact.
For example, you buy a gadget that has a $25 consumption tax. If you make $30,000 a year, it has a measurable impact on your financial well-being. If you make $200,000 a year, the same $25 consumption tax would have a negligible impact on your financial well-being. For the consumption tax to have the same impact, it would have to be $166.
This is also why self-funded retirement accounts are a cruel joke for most people. It's relatively easy to save for retirement if you're earning $150,000 to $200,000. If you're making $40,000, it often comes down to choosing between rent, food, and "there's nothing left."
15% impacts everybody equally. You know as in equal under the law. Wealthy people spend more so they would pay more.
Which would you prefer? Uncle Sam takes 15% of everything you earn, or 15% of everything you spend? A consumption tax would allow people to save if they wanted instead of taking home 15% less?
Agreed that effective tax rates were much lower than the headline marginal rates because of deductions and avoidance strategies. My point was more about the policy environment and incentives of those periods, not that people literally paid 90% of their income in tax.
The broader conversation I’m interested in is how we realistically fund large public efforts today and what mix of taxation or spending people think is fair and sustainable.
I don't think an individual's tax burden should ever be more than 15%. I would prefer that people get to keep the fruits of their labor. The people created the government to serve and protect them not steal their wealth.
And I don't think an individual should ever have a billion dollars. I would prefer that people not starve in the streets.
I would also, without any hesitation, point out that mine is a very practical and humanistic concern, while yours is an abstract and philosophical one.
I believe we have a fundamental difference of opinion on the purpose of government. To me the intended purpose of the government as defined in the Constitution is to foster an environment for people to thrive. It is up to the people to do the work to thrive.
Every dollar that government takes is reducing the wealth of all people and concentrating it in the hands of a few. If you are against whatever power you perceive billionaires have with money they earned then I don't understand why you are not against the growth of an entity that is a multi-trillionaire by stealing from everybody else.
If you want to help people and make the world a better place focus on your town or city and make it better. No reason that you need to wait for big daddy government to do it with money they took from your pocket.
> Every dollar that government takes is reducing the wealth of all people and concentrating it in the hands of a few.
I mean...in the very short term, yes.
But governments then spend that money, and one of the big things governments spend money on is social welfare programs.
Which put that money in the hands of the many.
By contrast, when a billionaire gets money, they're likely to keep it. (Yes, technically they usually "invest" it—but that "investment" goes to other wealthy people or corporations, and the money remains locked away from the real economy of people using it to buy food, clothing, and shelter.)
> If you want to help people and make the world a better place focus on your town or city and make it better. No reason that you need to wait for big daddy government to do it with money they took from your pocket.
This is not an endeavor where individual action is effective. We need to work together to make the world better in meaningful ways. The primary way that we can do that is through governments.
Maintenance also informs builders on what can be improved next time. For example, we now know that rebar reinforced concrete will eventually need to be replaced due to spalling. If we reinforced with glass or basalt rebar that problem is solved. It might fail a different way but it won't be from spalling.
Over time we learn to build structures that last a long time and require less maintenance. Unfortunately, building codes are often very specific. Sometimes requiring specific materials. Using a different material requires proving it is a suitable replacement before construction. We have to allow builders to take risks. Sometimes we get a Tacoma Narrows bridge, sometimes we get a Hoover dam. But, the builders have to be able to try new things even if we get a few stinkers once and awhile.
I don't understand why gold-backing is required. I'm a novice.
My understanding is that a reserve currency requires fluid markets and a stable, reliable, metrics-based currency policy. It's why the Fed is so stubborn about its relatively simple policy goals: 2% inflation and low unemployment.
China appears to be attempting to reproduce what the USD was before it was free floating.
USD is currently backed by debt and nominally military might. If the US defaults then all of the US bonds held by foreign banks become worthless. That is an enormous risk which is why countries have been divesting from US bonds. If USD was still gold, as it was before 1913, if you hold your money it cannot be made worthless by a third party. After 1913 USD became gold backed bills with partial reserve. It is why USD became the global reserve currency. But, reserve requirements were reduced and more paper was produced. In 1971 Nixon removed the convertibility of paper bills to gold metal effectively stealing the gold of any nation that asked the US to hold it.
One of my favorite bits of currency trivia is that a $20 double gold eagle coin used in circulation prior to 1933 had a gold content of 0.9675 troy ounces. Twenty dollars in your hand was literally nearly an ounce of gold.
This simplistic explanation seems to elide the very point it makes ... a gold backed currency becoming a non-gold backed currency was done via a political decision making process, just as any decision to default on US national debt would be.
You seem to suggest that people should worry about a default claiming if we had still had a gold backed currency the risk would go away ... "if you hold your money it cannot be made worthless by a third party" ... but it can be made worthless by a government any time that government chooses.
The government (having defaulted on gold-backed debt) could simply refuse to convert the paper of the debt to gold (sure, that would be bad, but hey, they've already chosen to default, so not much worse ...)
Oh no! You have found the fatal flaw of using paper currency backed by anything. Before 1913 money was gold and silver. Not paper bills backed by those metals.
Many people doubt that returning to gold and silver coinage is possible. Going to gold backed currency is a step in the right direction.
A full reserve requirement might work for paper currency. But the only way the plebs that are stuck with paper can truly secure their wealth is to use metal the same as countries do.
1. old situation: currency backed by full (gold) reserve
2. actual political decision: currency no longer backed by full reserve
3. result: currency no longer backed by full reserve
1. possible political decision: return to currency backed by full (gold) reserve
2. possible political decision: currency no longer backed by full reserve
3. result: currency no longer backed by full reserve
To whatever extent government could return a full-reserve backed currency, government can move away from that again. Thus, there's no builtin security for anyone in a return to a full reserve backed currency.
If no government in the history of the world had ever done this, then arguing for a full-reserve backed currency might have a bit more weight. But they have, and it really has done.
Your first point is wrong. Before 1913 gold and silver coins were the money in peoples pockets. Government produced the coins of known weight and purity. After 1913 paper bills were produced with partial reserve. The US has never had a full reserve paper currency. Step one of going to gold backed paper always comes with printing more paper than there is gold. Wanting to spend more money than they have is the reason every time a government debases its money.
Regardless, I get your point that political decisions ruined it. It is clear that government cannot be trusted to maintain a constant unit of measure that money should be. So, would you agree to an amendment to separate economy and state? Require government to produce coins of known weight and purity and that is it. If they want more money to spend they will have to extract it as taxes.
> Pretty straightforward really. You combine Brazil's history of monetary stability, with Russia's respect for property rights, India's domestic tranquility, China's financial transparency, and South Africa's investment opportunities - and hey presto, you've got a new global money
Of course more countries may enrol in the system, but that dilutes the influence of the five namesake nations of BRICS.
But then you have to choose an actual currency(s) to do transactions in, so will you trust them to be stable? Or perhaps go with a 'theoretical' currency likes Keynes' bancor?
All reasons that a paper currency backed by gold has never lasted long. Going to paper currency is the first step to start cheating by fudging numbers. The only money that has ever lasted is actual coins/bars of metal, precious or otherwise.
> The only money that has ever lasted is actual coins/bars of metal, precious or otherwise.
1. most physical paper has a relatively short life, so one would not expect it to last as long as metal tokens
2. paper was only available in much of the world several thousand years after the first currencies began, so it's not suprising that we have little record of paper money from very old civilizations.
3. the idea that there was no cheating by fudging numbers before paper currency is completely ahistorical. The nature and ease of the fudging may have changed, but the fudging itself existed long, long before paper currencies became common.
The entire reason coinage was even a thing was exactly this! Turns out it's pretty hard to know if a coin is actually the amount of gold it represents, if the shopkeepers scales are accurate etc etc. etc
The entire concept of marking coins with trustworthy seals was exactly to basically invent fiat currency as risk mitigation: coins bearing the seal would be honored, and from that it was a short hop to "what if I just presented an IOU with the seal of the local gold merchant?"
A normal country? Like Iran that just slaughters or imprisons anybody that speaks or acts against the government. 2A is to stop that situation from ever happening. Is the government starts shooting we will shoot back. Before then we would prefer to resolve our grievances peacefully in court.
No, most countries are not like Iran. There are enough examples of governments deciding to slaughter unarmed people within their boarders that the majority in the US sees giving up private guns as a folly of the greatest order.
If a populace gives up their weapons they become ultimately powerless against armed aggressors. 2A first purpose is to make citizens the first line of defense against invasion. This is supposed to be in place of a standing army from a time that a town could be wiped off the map by invading forces before any military force could be dispatched.
Yes, a permanent standing army is unconstitutional (Article 1 Section 8).
The problem is that the people with guns also happen to be, by and large, the people who very much support what ICE is doing. Whereas those who oppose it have enthusiastically disarmed themselves.
Who is going to be doing that? The cops and other LEOs? Why would they take guns from their friends and neighbors on behalf of some liberal whom they hate?
> Legally buying guns in the US come with registration of serial numbers, names, and addresses.
It is illegal for the government to make a registry of gun owners. There is an electronic check to clear you as a legal gun owner but there is no registry.
It’s only theoretically non searchable, IIRC each submitted document has to be OCRed every time a search is ran on the documents, and this is enough of a legal fig leaf to qualify it as not a registry. A sizeable GPU farm would make this basically a moot point.
Oh I agree. It is very likely that the electronic checks are recorded and could be used as a non-official registry of gun owners. I removed my comment to that effect because it is speculation. But, electronic records are so easily recorded that I have little doubt that the electronic checks are in fact an illegal registry.
I could go on a whole tirade about how policing should not scale with technology, Katz v. USA was decided when surveillance had to be done with still images and film cameras, but the horse left the barn long ago and nobody really gives a shit about the constitution anymore.
Seven states have required gun registries. It is not illegal for a state to have a registry. It is illegal for the federal government to have a gun registry with exceptions for NFA controlled arms.
3D printed guns haven't been zip guns in a long time. That reads as willful ignorance. Only the receiver or frame are controlled. Every other part can be purchased online without any checks. Hoffman Tactical's Orca and a myriad of pistol frame can be used to produce weapons on par with commercial weapons. Many commercial pistols are polymer frames. A good 3d printed pistol frame is no different than a cast nylon polymer frame.
If you want to see what is possible with 3d printed guns now I recommend Hoffman Tactical and PSR on YouTube.
If you wanted you could even weigh the raw charcoal to quantify the carbon you have sequestered.
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