Convenient for them because it would have taken more work to add them in, or convenient because you believe those points would contradict their argument?

Your first point would have been a good point for them to add because that would make the tax on goods and the hidden price increase on goods that much more regressive. There is the reality that corporations are in a far more powerful position than consumers when it comes to passing the buck to the consumer. In some cases, the consumer has no choice, which is why we pay huge prices here for pharmaceuticals, or why the US doesn't tax many business like oil companies because those companies will just pass the price to the consumer. Unfortunately, this means the US needs to find ways of raising taxes from other places, and it means consumers often have a false idea about the true cost of products. For instance, we heavily subsidize farming industries, which for instance gives us cheaper corn. Cheap corn is used to cheaply fatten livestock or to make high fructose corn syrup, which is why the true cost of beef or a soda would be higher. I actually don't know by how much, but more. Interestingly, we have taxes on soda and subsidies for corn sugar lol But going back to the point, the corporations don't have an endless ability for most products to pass the buck to consumers. Eventually consumers would stop buying the product or find an alternative, so there would be a balance or bell curve maximum that we could impart on corporations, and it would be product specific.

Your second point is a good add-on to explain the situation, but it doesn't really change the fact that it is a regressive tax. Moreover, I can't pass my Social Security to just anyone when I die like how I could will my savings. Since income is proportional to life expectancy, where there is a 15 year difference in life expectancy between the top 1% and bottom 1%, those who are the poorest are least likely to pass on their wealth to their next generation and family. This is essentially a regressive wealth/inheritance/estate tax. Don't get me wrong; Social Security overall is better than having a system where people are not guaranteed an income when they retire.

I'm not really sure what your point is about medicare, but consider this: if the difference in life expectancy between the poorest 1% and the richest 1% is 15 years for men, and the average life expectancy is 72.6, and for most people collecting Medicare doesn't start until roughly 65, then doesn't it seem like the poor are paying into a program they may never use more often than those with more money, who are more likely to live longer to use the program? Isn't this also regressive?

A little of both, but more the former than the latter. It would have changed the final numbers a bit, but not enough to matter to those on either side of the fence. It's just inconsistent.

Not sure I agree its a regressive tax because it's technically not a tax but a "buy in" with an expected payment at the end based on how much you pay in over the years, but I agree with your other points, including I'm glad it's there as a safety net, although I do think it gives many a false sense of security and they don't plan appropriately because of it, even when that is an option.

No, at least not to me. It's a fixed percentage payroll tax. If you earn less, you pay less. If you earn more you pay more (in $ amount). There is no max as there is with Social Security. A person at the top of the income chain pays more for the same benefit, all else being equal. Of course, neither Medicare nor SS are a "prepaid" plan. People paying now are paying not for themselves but for people currently in the plan, it's all sort of moot.

The unity is gCO2e/MJ, which means lifecycle carbon intensity.

I really thibk that EV will be good in a short future, and will eventually buy one. I like how it drives (cannot mention the platforms).

PS: let me go back and find again the source. And it always changes based on the assumptions.

"If you earn less, you pay less" can still be regressive, depending on how you look at it.

In a progressive system, as income goes up people should have to pay a higher percentage, but the video illustrates that in our system, when accounting for all taxes, we have more of a flat taxation system. In a flat system, those with higher incomes and wealth still pay more, but not as a percentage, which is bad. In fact, when we account for other things, I wouldn't be surprised if our tax system is more regressive than flat.

When it comes to Medicare, we all pay the same percentage, which isn't progressive, so it is bad. If we all used the services the same then that would be a flat tax, but we don't. The more money someone makes, the longer their life expectancy is, so the more likely they are to use Medicare's services. They are more likely to get a heart transplant, a heart bypass, a stent or two, several colonoscopies, that breast cancer surgery, those hip replacements, etc. Yes, the rich pay more into the system, so it seems fine that they would get to use it more, but this isn't progressive.

When it comes to Social Security, the more you make, the more you get. It is based on how much a person contributed to their Social Security. Not everyone receives Social Security. If a person didn't work enough then they don't get anything. If someone worked a minimum of 11 years and contributed the smallest amount then they would be entitled to the minimum distribution of $41.90/month. If they worked 30 or more years then they get at least $872.50/month. The maximum distribution is $3,895/month, which is like saving $623,200 and cashing out the 7.5% in yearly interest/dividends. The regressive part of Social Security is that it is a flat tax (fixed percentage), but the ones who are receiving the highest percentage back are the ones who live the longest, which are the those who earn more.

That's an opinion not a fact. It depends on whether you believe everyone should pull their own weight, versus believing in wealth redistribution. Again, the portions that make it appear flat are the portions where, such as social security, the contribution is capped so the withdrawl can also be capped.

You keep harping on the "rich live longer, so they should pay more". Statistically, as a group, they do live longer but that is not necessarily because they outlive their less fortunate counterparts. Are you looking at life expectancy at the age of, say 50 or at the point where they start paying payroll taxes, or overall life expectancy? Life expectancy is skewed by, for example by infant mortality rates which may be where the real inequity lies.

As far as dollar amounts, yes Social Security is based on the amount of your contribution. Why shouldn't it be? That is also why the contribution is capped, so someone like a professional baseball player who had millions of dollars and would have contributed a huge amount of money to the program if there was no limit would now receive 100s of thousands of dollars a year as part of the benefit. (I use a baseball player because their earnings are through salary and not like someone like Musk or Gates where most of it is capital gains).

Well, as I said in another thread, income and wealth inequality isn't a problem under a certain set of conditions. I posted a video discussing the income and wealth inequality in the Netherlands, which is one of the highest on the index (in the world). The video does discuss how the index is slightly skewed due to how the Netherlands allows people to take out home loans at a greater value than the value of the home, so more of the country holds higher debt. But the Netherlands manage their income and wealth inequality by meeting a set of conditions. These conditions are the following:

--People need to have a certain standard of living that provides at minimum the basic needs such as food, water, shelter, healthcare, leisure, etc.
--Money can't be/influence politics.
--There has to be strong anti-trust laws, or said differently, money can't influence the market.
--There has to be good social mobility.

The US lacks all of these things. As such is the case, wealth begets wealth. People are exploited for labor, and we work some of the longest hours and highest number of weeks in a year with around the fewest amount of vacations in the modern world because we lack unions and other things. We lack universal healthcare here and suffer for it, including, a lower life expectancy, with over 30k dying from lack of access to healthcare, higher premiums/drug costs despite the life expectancy and lower health, etc. There are high levels of poverty. There are high levels of homelessness. Money is influencing all types of laws that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Money is manipulating the market, where we have poor anti-trust laws, and we have corporations destroying competition and manipulating the market. Corporate taxes are low, competition is low, oligopolies are everywhere, etc. The rich manipulate the market by shorting stocks. Small businesses get the short end of the stick. Social mobility is terrible here.

Going back to what you said, about it being my opinion. In some ways, it isn't a subjective opinion to say one way is better than another. We may not know or we may know, but even if we don't know, that doesn't mean it is subjective. There may be an objective "better" or an objective "bad/worse" that we just haven't uncovered. We have metrics from other countries that we can compare to the US, and these metrics don't paint a good picture for the US. Besides that fact, we inherently understand that we couldn't live in a world that is perfectly fair, right?

Say we lived in a world where corporations paid their workers a fair share of the profits, so the guy making $50k per year actually got a fair share of the profits. Instead of a CEO paying themselves $25 million, maybe the $50k workers took home $175k, and the CEO made $350k. We don't live in that world, but even if we did live in that world, lets say we still had those who accumulated more wealth and had high incomes. Say the government made tax flat--not a percentage--but an absolute flat amount. Say everyone had to pay the same amount, which would be fair. How much would that be? The US collected $2.8 trillion in income tax at the federal, state and local level. That is equivalent to every man, woman and child paying $8,500. That doesn't sound bad, but a family of five (husband, wife and three kids) would need to spend $42,700 just on income tax (maybe this would be a good population control method). Hopefully in this fair system, we would also have fair income like I mentioned above because that is equivalent to the household bringing in around $175k per year by today's progressive taxation system, but if not then that family of five who makes $75k now is probably living on the remaining $25k, and the really poor, well, they would be sucked dry from taxation, but it would be fair.

Huge amount of income and wealth inequality without protections from predatory behavior and exploitation inevitably results in social instability. We know this through history. It is bad. Having a strong progressive taxation system is a key component along with the conditions mentioned above.

By every metric, the rich live longer at every stage of life--yes, infancy too, but also, everywhere else. This just looked at 40+ without considering infant mortality:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866586/

I'm not saying a cap doesn't make sense. A cap makes sense because a rich person is far less likely to need Social Security. In fact, the Amish don't pay Social Security (unless they work for non-Amish) because it is against their customs and beliefs to not provide for elders. I'm saying the system claims to be progressive, but it isn't even flat; it is slightly regressive. As I stated above, there are objective measurements for a healthy society, and regressive taxation causes social instability.

https://www.nber.org/digest/may00/so...tribute-income

I thought this clip is weird. I found the lack of noise to be a little surreal.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwHu9xPsE3U

Yea, it gives the impression they are just taking a stroll down the runway rather than a quick race.

I would imagine it's similar to riding a LIM (linear induction motor) roller coaster. You go from a standing start to some huge speed very quickly with nearly no noise normally associated with a roller coaster.

Volcano (Kings Dominion, Virginia, now retired) was my favorite. You went from ground level, through two launch segments to get up to speed and did a straight vertical lift to over 200ft through a "volcano" to come out the top in an inverted position.

Volcano was amazing!



And reminds me of a weird story....


I was with a group of people and got paired with a random-to-me person to ride in the front row. We get up there and it turns out he's too big to fit on the ride. The harness that comes down wouldn't fit even with the belt extender they had... it was still fun riding the front alone but I felt bad for that dude for waiting for nothing.

Completely off-subject, but I worked a Kings Dominion in the early 80s, including a year on the construction crew for the Grizzly. One of my "claims to fame" is I bolted down all of the original wheel track. I was also the first person to ride in the rear seat (during a test run). They made us stop riding it when the entire crew decided to ride it standing up holding on to the lap bar using our safety straps.

Many years later I had the joy of taking my kids there so they could ride the ride Dad built.

At the end of the ride, just as you are about to go into the brake house, if you look up there is a silver circle on the outside front facia. That is a flattened throwaway ash tray with a star in the middle of it that came from the employee lunch room. I had tacked it up there near the end of the construction in 1983. It was still there the last time I went to the park in about 12 years ago. Don't know if its still there but I have spotted it in some YouTube videos of the ride posted since then.

My middle son (who is about 5'4" as an adult) had a similar experience at KD. He had just gotten tall enough for most rides. He was in line behind a guy who had to have been just shy of 7" tall and thin as a rail. They both got turned away, one for being one inch to short and the other for being several inches too tall for the ride.

Where was goldilocks when you need her LOL




I haven't been in a few years but now I want to go back just to see!

I've always had this image of some maintenance guy having to fabricate a replacement for it every few years because they think it's part of the ride design. There were a few others the crew scattered around the coaster, but most are in hidden places. I was never that subtle.