Obama’s inability to deal effectively with the crooks on Wall Street from the first “payout” to save them was the beginning of the end for tax reform. What would Soros say were he to hit this group or the remainder of the 1% with heavy taxes?
It is not just the Republicans who have slowed progress to effective tax reform. There are few who do not want it. Republicans are absolutely maniacal about reducing the deficit and would, if push came to shove, eliminate loop holes in the current code that would make sense. Understandably they support job creation from the perspective of those with money to create them. Tax reform that, therefore, rewarded job creation permanently rather than in the short-term might convince Democrats that some kind of a hat tip to corporations and small businesses may be justified if locked in this way.
All that is certain is that no matter who you blame for the delay in producing effective and agreed upon tax reform, the delay has given ample time to the top 1% income people to move their assets off-shore. The US cannot tolerate any more “outsourcing.” That is money lost for jobs.
James Crawford
December 10, 2011
If the rich are moving their money off shore, then it is driven by the fear of confiscatory, punitive and vindictive taxation. Obama has already done massive damage to the US and global economy with his participation in the conspiracy to extort affirmative action mortgages from the banks. A small cadre of “the rich” including Warren Buffet who got Billions in TARP money were complicit in this fraud, but the vast majority of the “one per centers” are innocent.
If we want the economy to recover, we need tax policies that encourage corporations and “the evil rich” to bring their money back to America and invest it in factories here rather than in China. However; factories consume energy so we will need sane energy policy to develop America’s natural resources rather than “investing in green energy” to reward the kleptocrats who bankrolled Obama’s election.
Only one regrettably non candidate for President has a solid record of supporting a sane energy policy.
samhenry
December 10, 2011
Hold the phone of natural resources. Hydraulic Fracturing is coming to my area. 77,000 wells and a major threat to potable water with it. Greed rides again. And Haliburton… Remember, I sit on the shores of the world’s largest source of fresh water.
James Crawford
December 11, 2011
I presume you live on the shores of Lake Superior? That source of fresh water is dwarfed by the Antarctic and Greenland Ice caps.
We want to hold oil companies responsible, even Haliburton (whose trucks were supporting the USMC by actually bringing fuel to the front lines rather than. Forward depots during the Iraq invasion). However; the track record for safety with fracking is excellent. The fact that the gas is even there demonstrates that the geological structures thousands of feet thick are impermeable, thus protecting the water table and surface waters. Just don’t allow Obama’s henchmen at the Minerals Management Service to give BP approval for an obviously insane drilling plan.
The debate over franking reminds me of the debate over LNG. There were plans to put a natural gas pipeline in near where I live to transport natural gas from an LNG terminal. Some activists who were good friends of Al Gore’s were telling the locals horror stories about the potential, unique risks of LNG. They did not appreciate me standing up to point out that the pipeline carries Natural Gas in the Gas phase, not Liqified Natural Gas. They also didn’t appreciate me putting the risk in perspective by pointing out that each mile of pipeline contains the energy equivalent of a tanker truck load of gasoline. Gasoline tankers get in wrecks frequently and their 1/8 inch Aluminum tanks rupture far more readily than the one inch thick steel pipeline that is buried at least three feet deep.
We have a lot of useless idiots running around frightening people with myths about various energy sources. They pretty well assassinated Nuclear power with the myth that nuclear wastes are highly radioactive and have a long half-life. Anyone who can understand the equations for radioactive decay realizes that this ISA semantic contradiction, but the myth dictated the idiotic policy of attempting to sequester nuclear wastes for millions of years rather than simply recycling them.
Finally, as to tax policy, we can actually lure the rich and their wealth to the country given the right tax and immigration policies.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016987542_investorvisa11m.html
samhenry
December 11, 2011
JC -J I live on the shores of Lake Ontario – part of the chain of Great Lakes that make up the largest source for fresh water. Polar ice caps are Ice and we don’t want to melt them do we?
From Bloomberg.
A federal report linking hydraulic fracturing with water contamination is providing fresh ammunition to opponents of the oil and gas production technology, but advocates are showing no signs of giving ground.
In a draft report released Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency said its studies of a hydraulic fracturing site in Pavillion, Wyo., found hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals associated with gas production in deep water wells.
Hydraulic fracturing involves blasting a mix of water, sand and chemicals deep underground and at high pressure to break up dense shale rock and extract oil and natural gas.
The industry says the process is safe, but it’s drawn strong opposition from environmentalists.
Well before Thursday’s report, state and federal regulators were developing new standards on water use at fracturing sites, well design and disclosure of chemicals used in the process.
The Interior Department and its Bureau of Land Management are preparing a proposal that would expand existing standards governing the integrity of wells drilled on 700 million acres of public lands.
Separately, the EPA is writing new standards for how energy companies dispose of waste water from natural gas drilling sites, and what they must do before injecting diesel into the ground as part of hydraulic fracturing operations.
The new report “gives the EPA and the environmentalists a hook to hang on to,” said Dave Pursell, an analyst with the Houston-based investment bank Tudor, Pickering and Holt. “This really pushes this whole notion of best practice on well design.”
The new report is stoking calls for tighter controls — or outright bans — on fracturing in some areas.
And it provides fodder for an argument that the U.S. should adopt a nationwide standard for casing in wells that will be fractured, said Kevin Book, an analyst with ClearView Energy Partners in Washington.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/New-study-on-fracturing-isn-t-changing-many-minds-2394889.php#ixzz1gFaFTxxv
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An opposing view is in the article that can be found here.
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/New-study-on-fracturing-isn-t-changing-many-minds-2394889.php
The only known thing is that it is controversial and unproved. We need to slow down on this one. They need to reveal their chemicals. Shades of the BP cleanup.