You are Funny girl.
It was a great Northern victory, but it was not realised at the time.
Atlanta is all that mattered, so the action at Mobile was overlooked at the time
Taxes
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The good thing about taxing resource extraction is that it can help correct market distortions where the business is not paying the full cost of extraction, eg. all the externalities such as pollution, depletion of non-renewable resources, use of public infrastructure (trucking etc. w/ wear on highways). When people and/or businesses have to pay the true full cost of something they tend to be more conservative with it.
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That can all be covered in fines and in the government charging the right amount for the land being sold and then sharing the proceeds with those people who would have to pay the price. Kinda like what we are demanding Iraq do with it’s oil. Why we can’t seem to do it here I’ll never know.
If you sell logging rights in CNNF, then why not give the people of Wisconsin a share in the profits from the land sale of CNNF? If you allow someone to build an oil refinery in Waco, TX, why not give everyone that lives in Waco a share of the proceeds from the sale of the land in Waco?
We don’t need to tax business, we do need to fine business and force businesses that use communal property for personal gain to redistribute that wealth back to the community, at least in part. (Remember, they still have to find the labor and pay for the labor to make the money, so they need to make a profit.)
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I assume you are talking about only the sale of PUBLICLY (i.e. GOVERNMENT) owned lands.
I doubt that you are advocating that a PRIVATE land owner distribute a portion of the selling price to their neighbors…
Also, I think someone my have misunderstood about the fair tax based on an earlier reply. There is NO tax on a product used to make another product.
Using GOB’s game example, the paper he would buy would be tax exempt under the Fair Tax because it is not a final product, nor would the inks, etc. ONLY THE GAME HE PRODUCED would be taxed, with an inclusive tax rate of 23% (If the game cost $100, $77 would be the game, and $23 would be tax, and inclusive tax is the way that our current income taxes are figured).
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Correct, I am referring to the sale of public land by the government for private interest.
For instance, the sale of logging rights in CNNF. The sale of mining rights in the Rocky Mountains. Quarry rights. Etc.
This is the use and exploitation of the resources owned by all individual citizens in this country, thus, the local citizens should be reimbursed in part for the loss of these resources. Much like the citizens of Iraq should be reimbursed for the oil being drilled in their nation. If it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander.
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Sorry, but I think “good for the goose, good for the gander” is IMHO a very poor principle. If you are in business, would you apply that to all your clients? To all your children? Does it apply to cows and bulls? Jennifer, you can milk the bulls, thank you very much!
All I know is that if my doctor ever tries to send me for a mammogram or a pap smear, I’m switching physicians…
But I agree that Iraqis should benefit from the oil wealth of their country.
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If we were talking bulls and cows, I’d agree. But we are talking a democratically elected government selling the mineral resources of a nation being required by the international community to share that wealth with it’s people (Iraq) and a democratically elected government selling the mineral and natural resources of a nation who is NOT sharing the wealth of those resources with it’s people (USA.)
And honestly, I see no problem with the US Government sharing the proceeds of publically held land and resources with the people. We are not talking a business who farms cows and owns the land that has been privately traded and is owned by private hands. We are talking about the land that is owned by the Government and that government selling privileges to a private firm to use that land. They are not buying the land, they are just using it, stripping it of resources and then going away leaving the people to clean up the mess and restore the land.
It took over 100 years to fix the CNNF last time the government allowed logging. Who should pay for that? The people who barely got paid enough during the logging process to house their families and feed them? Or the governments who made a ton of money on the leasing of the land, the taxes on the business and the taxes on the people?
In Alaska, they share the proceeds of the sale of oil with the people. So this is not an unheard of situation in the United States. I just want to expand it from the state level to the national level.
The eventual hope is that big business will cease doing massive damage for little gain if that damage comes out of their pocket book in the end. How will it come out? Well, they may have to pay higher fines for increased damage to the land (ie if they built temporary roads and bulldozed acres of trees to get to old growth, ie if they failed to build an EPA sanctioned and approved landfill, etc) while businesses that keep the land as clean as possible would pay no fines and thus the people would lose less of their resources.
Remember, the US Government does not own anything. The PEOPLE own things. The US Government is just entrusted with it’s care, maintenance and protection, which is why the Government has the power to allow logging, mining, drilling, etc. But the manager should not reap all the rewards while the employees (the citizens) pay all the prices. What does some fat cat senator care if the river in my neighborhood is so polluted that we have 3 eyed fish like in the Simpsons? Especially if I am not his constituent! However, everyone who lives on that river cares! We should be reimbursed for having to deal with a polluted river by the organization that approved the dumping of chemicals into said river and failed to monitor the dumping of chemicals into said river.
Or the villages by CNNF (a huge national forest in Wisconsin.) If the government allows logging in there, and the loggers come in with bulldozers, smashing everything not worth harvesting and then cut the rest down leaving a barren wasteland, who should have to pay to repair the damage? Should it be the company who was give the authority and leeway to do what they did, or the government that gave them permission? Or should it be like the LAST time they did that, the individual people planting one tree at a time and nurturing what wasn’t destroyed for 100 years?
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But the manager should not reap all the rewards while the employees (the citizens) pay all the prices.
Whoa, is that Karl Marx or Jennifer writing?
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But the manager should not reap all the rewards while the employees (the citizens) pay all the prices.
Whoa, is that Karl Marx or Jennifer writing?
It’s Jennifer. I’m not a moderate, I have very Communist and very Capitalist/Conservative leanings. :P
The US Government is here to protect the citizenry from foreign governments, state governments and other citizens. Not to sell our resources to big business and force us to pay the price for those sales. IMHO.
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So what is the tax system you would prefer?
I prefer the tax system that has people paying the taxes to me.
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I wouldn’t mind not paying taxes, because I am basically paying my own salary. :-P
But thankfully i don’t gotta pay in a combat zone, and I get combat pay. :mrgreen:
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