"Including the more able entrepreneurs who have to shoulder a bigger portion of the tax burden to achieve this."

The brain doesn't always work too well, but I seem to remember a recent radio story that said that in Europe, the heaviest tax burden is actually on the middle class. It's only in America that we think the rich should shoulder most of the burden.

Might have been an opinion piece though. FWIW.

Douglas, this is generally true, because the richest entrpreneurs can afford the cleverest accountants and lawyers to assist them in avoiding/evading the taxes they ought to pay.

"in Europe, the heaviest tax burden is actually on the middle class. It's only in America that we think the rich should shoulder most of the burden."

This is generally true in most parts of the world. Those with wealth a) hold more power over politicians who make these tax decisions, and b) are able to bury their wealth in their businesses rather than as individuals. I have no issues with the second scenario, as this is what allows businesses to grow. The first case is a real worry for the middle class majority. I have absolutely nothing against business, or business owners. I just think that all of us should contribute to investment in social services as we are able. Just think Nick, back in your youth before you made you wealth, what would have happened to you if any number of accidents or illnesses had taken away your ability to work productively? Car crash, stroke, brain damage, broken neck etc...wouldn't you have wanted someone to look after you? The plain fact is that not everyone CAN work, while many others, due to misfortunes of upbringing or otherwise, can't get work that pays enough to afford education and health care. It's not an issue which is going to go away unless society as a whole rises up and says "let them rot and die...they are useless to us and not worth supporting". There is a woman who is working in our lab, part time, who suffered a high neck injury which has left her with minimal use of her arms. She is working towards her Master of Science. Her efforts are Herculian IMHO, but she would not have been able to pursue this goal without a tremendous amount of support from society-free tuition, health care, home care, taxis, living expenses etc...she can and wants to work, and has much to contribute intellectually, but can't possibly do it on her own. Would you really have the heart to tell her to just go to charity? I wouldn't, and maybe that's just a fundamental difference between you and I which no amount of words will ever resolve. I am more than happy to be taxed to support those who need help, but like everyone I don't wish to pay taxes to support lazy greedy people.

"The point is that there are more opportunities for Americans to be successful than in any other time in history. Technology keeps opening more doors every day."

Many of those jobs require a good education, the kind that people would have to pay for on their own from kindergarten on up in your ideal state. I doubt that very many would be able to walk through that open door. In the real world, our education system is a mess, no doubt about it, and produces insufficient numbers of people qualified for those plum jobs that do stay in this country; hence H1-B visas and Indian insourcing companies operating here that import qualified Indians to fill empty positions.
Many others are outsourced, so even qualified US citizens don't have access to them. Also, to the degree that technology increases the productivity of individual workers, it reduces the need for same and, therefore, closes many doors. Where we do agree is that the education system needs to be totally reworked. Where we disagree is in who controls that effort and who pays for it.

"So what if all these businessmen went on strike, instead of the workers who have historically gone on strike? What if the businessmen said, okay we are tired of you taking advantage of us."

Hunger is the ultimate strikebreaker. ;)

"Point here is that the founders of Microsoft created the those jobs... not the employees. Americans need businessmen to create jobs."

And Americans need to have affordable access to a decent education to prepare them for those jobs, along with controls on outsourcing in order to make sure that it is Americans who fill those jobs your businessmen create. As long as they can outsource to a country where equally qualified workers can be found who will work for half the wages necessary to have a decent standard of living here, it doesn't much matter if an American is qualified or not. The job will be overseas. Since you mention Microsoft, it is worth noting that it is establishing its major new research centers in India and China, not here, and roughly 40% of Microsoft's US employees hail from India and China, particularly India, due to the general proficiency of Indians in English. IBM is following the same strategy, and currently has 75,000 employees in India while having cut 30,000 jobs here in the US.
BTW, I am not anti businessman. As you have clearly explained, they are the driving force behind the creation of many jobs. I also agree that there is nothing wrong in acting in their own perceived self interest and enjoying the fruits of their efforts, up to a point. Where I take issue with your premise is where the principle of acting in one's own self interest becomes a destructive force in society. There are many, many examples from history, including slave labor, child labor, dangerous working conditions, colluding with the authorities to deny workers the right to organize for better wages and working conditions, monopolies/anti competitive practices, and pollution, all of which have required government intervention to mitigate. Many of these practices continue to this day, aided and assisted by legions of corporate and small business lawyers and lobbyists. Self interest, unrestrained by an outside countervailing force can all to easily become a force for evil. IMO, that is beyond dispute.

Edited by ouzel on 10/19/2010 17:03:20 MDT.

Was catching up and looking up a statistics and saw an article about Joey Mazzarino, the head writer of Sesame Street, is also a Muppeteer. He wrote a song for his daughter. Mazzarino is Italian. He and his wife adopted their 5-year-old daughter, Segi, from Ethiopia when she was a year old.

I Love My Hair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enpFde5rgmw

Vivid example of the world's harshness, but also of our capability to use technology and creativity to attempt to make a difference.

"To me, this whole thread is about the need to recognize the importance the intellect and the role intellectuals play in our world. We cannot exist without an ongoing dialogue of ideas and independent minds that come up with original ideas."

Original ideas - exactly, like the insight that rising levels of atmospheric carbon might be causing climate change.

"And alert minds challenge ideas where appropriate, they do not just accept the flowery-phrased rhetoric of so called experts who have their own hidden agendas."

Experts like the people who deny global warming who just happen to be funded by the petrochemical industry?

Like I've said a dozen times already: I've worked professionally around climate change for two decades and it's only recently that the paranoia industry got going: prior to that it was just science and climate scientists weren't being called communist conspirators. Who started the anti-CO2 movement?

I actually studied meterology way back in 1983 and even then our lecturer was pointing out the science of global warming. He was also big on pointing out how meteorological events had contributed to a lot of history's pivotal events, for example the French Revolution. The message was pretty clear: deal with the world as it is rather than how you would like it to be - or suffer the consequences.

"To [sic] many folks accept the mumblings of experts, akin to the declarations of the witch doctor in some primitive tribe."

Frankly that's idiotic. Professional climate scientists' reports are the result of scientific research, peer review and are heavily qualified - nothing I have read from the CSIRO for example could be considered "mumblings": but if you want to read senseless, incomprehensible twaddle then check out blogs like "whats up with that". Plenty of mumbling there.

And, for the record, characterisations of non-European societies as "primitive" were recognised as racist decades ago. Actually, make that generations ago.

"The Carbon Flame War is not going to be won or resolved by politicians. It is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of science. Science can resolve it with the "scientific method," not a scientific political agenda."

That could not be more ironic coming from the people who did politicise climate science, do have a political agenda and continually reject and vilify the science and scientists who apolitically drew scientific conclusions that were not to their taste. The point is that science and the scientific method have in fact come to a conclusion - but for whatever reason yourself, Rog and others don't like what you're hearing.

By the way I posted photos of my new bike over on the bike threads. Also did 230 ks on it on Sunday in Around the Bay in a Day.

Just doing my bit to reduce CO2 levels.

Arapiles says:
for whatever reason yourself, Rog and others don't like what you're hearing.

It's more that we don't like what we've been discovering about the things we don't hear about.

*Temperature records tampered with by 'climate professionals', then "lost" when required under freedom of information law.
*Gaming of the peer review system through group manipulation and threats against journal editors.
*Ignorance of the basic laws of physics and cause and effect.
*Ludicrous estimations of climate sensitivity derived from models falsified by the real world empirical data.
*Pressure on graduates to conform to the 'consensus'.
*"Using Mikes 'Nature' trick to hide the decline." - Phil Jones UEA - Leaked Cru emails.
*Inability to admit to uncertainty levels in public - "We can't explain the lack of warming at the moment, and it's a travesty that we can't" - Kevin Trenberth - Leaked Cru emails.
*Hiding of data so replication can't be done. - Keith Briffa and the cherry picked outliers from the Yamal series of treering chronologies - hidden for nearly 10 years.
*"No statistically significant warming since 1995." - Phil Jones - UEA CRU

Etc Etc Etc...

We keep telling you these reasons, but you seem to feign ignorance of them on a regular basis, and then accuse us of not liking what we hear. Lol.

Arapiles says:
Just doing my bit to reduce CO2 levels.

I hope you held your breath while you were cycling those unnecessary 230km's. If not, the carbon police will be around with a surfeit emissions bill soon. They have to generate cash to cover the $2,000,000 awarded to Michael Mann to study 'mosquito vectors' somehow you know. ;-)

Edited by tallbloke on 10/19/2010 07:06:12 MDT.

"*Temperature records tampered with by 'climate professionals', then "lost" when required under freedom of information law."

"Climategate" was investigated by, what 3 separate enquiries? And all said the same thing - there'd been no systematic rorting of data. The worst there had been was some injudicious language? But you don't accept the results of those enquiries? What was that about not liking what you were hearing?

"Falsification of real world empirical data" - you mean the retired school principals running around trying to find badly placed weather observation stations?

Seriously - if the science was so weak then the only explanation for the consensus amongst real climate scientist would be some incredible, global conspiracy. Oh, that's right - that's what's happening. ROFL ROFL

Arapiles says:
But you don't accept the results of those enquiries?(sic)

Let's see now, there's the Inquiry into Phil Jones where the the person invited by the Inquiry to decide which of Jone's papers would be investigated was... Phil Jones!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/19/breaking-phil-jones-got-to-endorse-papers-for-oxburgh-inquiry/

That was the Inquiry which was chaired by the man (Lord Oxburgh) who has a paid position on the climate advisory panel of Deutsche Bank which stood to lose $billions in carbon scrip if an adverse result was given.

The other U.K based Inquiry was the commons select committee enquiry which was specifically instructed that assessing the science was not in it's terms of reference. (!!)

Oh, and then there's the Inquiry into Michael Mann's CRU emails which interviewed two people, a compliant journal editor and a man who has defended Mann before, who didn't know anything about anything.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/16/michael-mann-and-donald-kennedy/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/19/exonerated-not/

And you think I should take these 'Inquiries' as a vindication of the activities of a clique of 'climate professionals' at the centre of a young discipline called 'climatology' which has successfully leveraged hundreds of millions in research funding from the public purse using a scare story? Against which scare story there is a mountain of peer reviewed evidence which proves it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny and whose promoters have flushed the scientific method down the toilet for a fistful of dollars. Are you having a giraffe? Have you joined the circus with Ramblin' Rick Dreher the vuvuzela player and become a climate clown?

Arapiles says:
the only explanation for the consensus amongst real climate scientist would be some incredible, global conspiracy. Oh, that's right - that's what's happening. ROFL ROFL

OK Coco, here are a couple more facts for the BPL readership to consider when deciding how tightly knit the climate scare mongers might be at the highest levels...

"The chair of the Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) that re-endorsed the 2007 APS Statement on Climate Change sits on the science advisory board of a large international bank http://annualreport.deutsche-bank.com/2009/ar/supplementaryinformation/advisoryboards.html The bank has a $60+ billion Green portfolio, which it wishes to assure investors is safe…not to mention their income from carbon trading. Other members of this board include current IPCC chief Pachauri and Lord Oxburgh, of Climategate exoneration fame. The viability of these banks activities depends on continued concern over CO2 emissions."

"Then there is the member of the Kleppner Committee (that reviewed the APS 2007 Statement prior to POPA) who served on that committee while under consideration for the position of Chief Scientist at BP. The position had been vacated when Steve Koonin left to take a post in the administration at DOE. Soon after the Kleppner Committee report in late 2009, this committee member took the BP job. BP had previously funded the new Energy Laboratory at Berkeley, which was headed by current Energy Secretary Steve Chu."

I wonder if you'll try to dispute any of these inconvenient truths Arapiles, or will you just block your ears and give me the usual "Lah Lah Lah conspiracy theory Blah"?

Edited by tallbloke on 10/19/2010 14:19:46 MDT.

If you can't take it back guys, then don't dish it out.

"If you can't take it back guys, then don't dish it out."

Non-sequitor! Cannot parse.

Let me spell it out for you Lynn.

Rick Dreher calls me a liar for describing Joe Romm as a paid propagandist and invites me to substantiate my claim, which I do, in detail, and invite him to apologise for calling me a liar.

tumbleweeds and crickets.

Then Arapiles insinuates that I'm a conspiracy theorist. So I provide strong evidence that the Krypto Klimate Kleptocracy is up to no good and invite a reply.

More tumbleweeds and crickets.

Get it now?

Remember what you said about not liking paying taxes to undeserving people? The UK domestic energy bill is now about 15% higher because of this crap. And that's not including the huge price hikes since last year, just the new "Green Tarriff".

Pensioners have been found burning second hand books to keep warm in the recent freezing winters these jokers told us were a thing of the past.

Edited by tallbloke on 10/19/2010 15:25:13 MDT.

Well, I don't get it, mainly the reference to tumbleweeds and crickets.

Yeah, there's been some dodgey science on both sides of the fence. Neither side has *proven* their position. Doesn't mean anthropogenic climate warming is, or is not, happening. I am still in the true skeptic camp in that I am skeptical of both arguments, but still keeping an open mind. It doesn't affect my actions, as reducing CO2 emissions is important to me for many environmental reasons, climate change aside.

Rog, now it's my turn to insist on accuracy, and you're not going to "win" on this one with me.

That's not a cricket. It's a species of katydid (I'm writing from my iPhone and can't determine which sub-species yet). The photograph doesn't even show it in its natural habitat niche, which in this case would be tall grasses, not directly on the ground and not treetop canopy, where true katydids inhabit. It's not a grasshopper, either, because its hind legs are too long and the body too short and humped. This species doesn't chirp, but "zithers", quite a different sound. This one, because of the bulge of its abdomen and short wings, is probably a female, though i'm not sure because I can't see the egg prong.

It is also not a tumbleweed. ;-P

The science is inconclusive for both sides but only one side of the argument has a vested interest in changing public policy.

It's starting to seem that to a large extent "global warming" (the political movement that holds mankind responsible for unproven radical acceleration of the planets heating) has become a religion for those who have rejected traditional religion. It fulfills a basic need to "belong" and to "absolve oneself of guilt" and the need "to believe in something larger than ones self" many other strange idiosyncrasies of being human. It is, for the most part, a harmless delusion. As long as it is not used as a basis for public policy we should be o.k.

As a basis for public policy it will probably lead to a lot of needless suffering.

Of course "global warming" is worth thinking about (so are ice ages)because both will happen regardless of what we do

And it is worth continuing to study and monitor earths climate

It's just that royal proclamations about the subject are a bit premature.

Obamas "this is the day the earth will begin to heal" speech in front of the fake roman columns is already pretty funny. Just imagine watching it in ten years.


Time will tell and history shall record.

Besides there are a lot of possible threats that could skew the whole argument sideways. Consider a nuclear Iran and potential nuke war in the middle east for example. It is a much more serious and much more likely game changer.

The problem is that it is a lot scarier and a lot harder to fix by changing lightbulbs and so it's just not as appealing as a political tool.

Besides which it lacks a convenient tear jerking "poster child" like a sweating polar bear straddling his last ice cube.

Ah well, best get back outdoors before the mountain tops get buried under salt water.

jeff,

good post and "Ah well, best get back outdoors" is some of the best advice we can follow.

Water might be a game changer, too.

Eventually terrorists will strike with a nuke in a major city - most likely Europe or US - the could change focus.

Deflation.

Pandemic.

The Church of Global Warming will morph into something else is my guess.

Meanwhile, work, buy gear, go backpack - because no one knows the future.

Let's see... a cricket connection to liar.

If Rog's nose is getting longer then he is a liar.

Let's use science... Rog please post your nose for all to see.

Arapiles: I actually studied meterology way back in 1983 and even then our lecturer was pointing out the science of global warming. He was also big on pointing out how meteorological events had contributed to a lot of history's pivotal events, for example the French Revolution. The message was pretty clear: deal with the world as it is rather than how you would like it to be - or suffer the consequences.
====

Interesting. During late seventies I took two geology classes. Both professors were passionate about two inevitable events: global cooling and running out of oil. I believed them. I'd waited in my car in long gas lines and spent time on an aircraft carrier in the Med - the oil politics helped the scientific arguments.

There were record breaking winters and snowfall. What more did anyone need?

I look back and wonder when did it all fade away. Gas got cheaper and bountiful. Winter became calmer. I don't remember thinking much about it. In about five years, the carbon flame war will fade away, too.

Maybe we will follow Rog and each plant 100,000 trees. Or feed 100,000 people.