Windfall Profit Tax

So I hear this morning that Hillary wont put her lot in with economists. This ironic on so many levels. First she's purporting that her intuition about the economy is better than those who actually study it. Second it shows how socialists err democrats really feel about economics.
She made these remarks in regards to her stance that we should have a windfall profit tax on oil companies. Who would be the losers of this tax. Its not Exxon. Exxon doesn't have feelings. It doesn't care what you, I, or Hillary thinks. The real losers are Exxons shareholders many of which I assume are large mutual funds of which hold millions of people retirement accounts.
The shareholders will be the losers because share prices are largely based on expected future cash flow. This cash flow is obviously largely affected by tax rates (in the US corporations are already taxed at 35 of net income plus the 15% capital gain that investors pay when they sale their stock). So if we increase the tax rate Exxon has less money to pay out to investors decreasing what the stock should be worth. But heh thats all economic jargon that Hillary doesn't believe.
This also assumes that the money is better in the hands of the government rather than wise investors that invested in Exxon.

Climate and Jobs

It drives me crazy hearing the candidates talk about "green" jobs as such a wonderful thing. The fact is there are some jobs that are only necessary because of the government. These jobs don't actually produce anything. In this category is an IRS auditor. They are necessary to make sure that people are compliant with the governments various tax laws but they don't actually produce anything in a sense that they create wealth. Green jobs would be very similar. Most of them would probably be cushy government jobs where when they get bored they go out and hassle someone who is creating wealth because in the process of creating that wealth they didn't completely separate their garbage into the appropriate bins.

Climate Change: The Path to Socialism

Here is an excerpt from a site called socialist unity. Ive added my own interpretations.

While it may be urgent that we create a red green alliance to strengthen radical social action to stop climate change, our collective problem is how are we going to do that?

The Climate Change Social Change Conference held in Sydney Australia during April tried to tackle that challenge.This was a bold attempt to bring together left and green activists in order to locate a shared perspective around which we could begin more consciously organize. While this was an Australian event organised by the newspaper, Green Left Weekly, the conference also heard from the Cuban permaculturalist Roberto Perez; the editor of Monthly Review John Bellamy Foster (author of Marx’s Ecology); and Patrick Bond director of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; editor of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society.

According to dictionary.com a permaculturist is:

per·ma·cul·ture /ˈpɜrməˌkʌltʃər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pur-muh-kuhl-cher] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Also note the author of Marx's Ecology how exciting!

Foster and Perez urged the conference’s participants to consider socialism as the only viable solution to the climate emergency. This was a persistent theme discussed throughout the three day event as speakers were drawn from a range of environment movements and organisations (such as the Australian Greens and Friends of the Earth) as well as academic specialists — who preferred solution packages which were not consciously committed to a socialist transformation of society.

Hmm, so socialism is the only way to stop climate change. Kind of like a gateway drug.

Nonetheless, the plenaries and workshops teased out a lot of agreement over what can concretely be done today.

The final Conference statement tried to articulate that shared perspective. It argued that climate sustainability can be built on five basic elements:

1. properly resourced public agencies to drive the sustainability effort,
2. an international framework where the First World pays the vast bulk of the price of reversing global warming,
3. an end to rampant consumerism,
4. vastly strengthened campaigns for climate sustainability, and
5. building a powerful political alliance for climate sustainability with social justice.

Or we could say:

1. Give the government more police power
2. Transfer the wealth of America and Western Europe to China so they can have clean air and water.
3. Poverty is better than consuming too much. By the way who decides how much is too much.
4. Four and five are mostly the same thing. It means these climate alarmist groups will take contributions and instead of doing something productive they will lobby the government to tax the rest of us and in turn use these tax dollars to do what they want.
5. See #4 for the first half. For the second half, social justice. How does that factor in to this? I really don't think anyone knows but it sure does sound catchy doesn't it.
   

To summarize their hopes. Socialism causes poverty, poverty makes less pollution. Brilliant we have all found the answer to global warming.

Hat tip coyote blog.

A Qwest Not a Sprint

My contract finally ran out with Qwest so I have been switching my phone and internet to other providers. This is because a long time ago I was charged roaming for making a call from SLC to SLC and had a little disagreement with the phone rep. Now I get my last bill for a whole $2 and it wont let me pay it online because it is to small. I called support but, of course, their office hours are from 8 to 6. Who actually has time between 8 and 6 to call, work their way though the idiot robot, and argue with a live rep about how to pay their $2 bill. Reason 1,001 why I have switched.