Thursday, February 7, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Rebuild every single building in the U.S."

This morning, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released an overview of her “Green New Deal” which threatens "a massive transformation of our society."
Below are the details of the proposal. Yes, this will clearly demonstrate the absence of education, wisdom and experience:

Rebuild every single building in the U.S.
“Upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.”
Will end all traditional forms of energy in the next ten years.
The Green New Deal is “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”
Plans to ban nuclear energy within 10 years if possible.
“It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.”
Build trains across oceans and end all air travel!
“Build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary”.
Don’t invest in new technology of Carbon Capture and Storage, just plant trees instead!
“We believe the right way to capture carbon is to plant trees and restore our natural ecosystems. CCUS technology to date has not proven effective.”
Mandates all new jobs be unionized.
“Ensure that all GND jobs are union jobs that pay prevailing wages and hire local.”
May include a carbon tax.
“We’re not ruling a carbon tax out, but a carbon tax would be a tiny part of a Green New Deal.”
May include cap and trade.
“…Cap and trade may be a tiny part of the larger Green New Deal plan.”
How much will it cost?
No estimate of the total cost of implementing the Green New deal is offered by Ocasio-Cortez.
However, as Ocasio-Cortez admits, “even if every billionaire and company came together and were willing to pour all the resources at their disposal into this investment, the aggregate value of the investments they could make would not be sufficient.”
She does provide one estimate that the cost to “repair and upgrade infrastructure U.S. infrastructure” alone will cost “$4.6 trillion at minimum.”
How will it be paid for? Don’t worry about that.
Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t provide any insight into how the trillions of dollars in spending will be paid for other than claiming, “The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit”.

Thank you for your comments below. God bless!

Friday, February 1, 2019

Bar Stool Economics

Bar Stool Economics
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. He said, "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80."
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men -- the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from every body's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay!
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to count up are their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!" "That's true!!"shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they
just may not show up any more. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Thank you for your comments below. God bless!

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