Comments by "Archangel17" (@MDP1702) on "PragerU"
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William sutton
they've clearly stated that Tom Dick and Harry are all equal in intelligence, job, skills and all.
But then this isn't the case in real life, is it? There is a wide variety in intelligence, jobs, skills, ... Do people really need to be punished because they are born with a lower intellect than someone else?
I am not saying they should receive the same job, but a difference of sometimes hundred times is enormous.
In the example of the video I do agree that they each should pay the same amount of money. Afterall, here they are paying for only their street and they are equal in every way except how much they work. But this is never the situation.
If somehow people can assure everyone has the same equal opportunities and everything depends on how much someone works, I can understand why progressve income tax is unfair, but unfortunately, you never can create equal opportunities: you can't make people equally smart, you can't make sure they have the same parents and upbringing, you can't make sure their schools are of the same quality (not even if you really try, you will always have bad teachers, worse of schools, ..), ....
This is the real problem people talk about equal opportunities that don't exist. I am very certain that there are people who have intelligence, the work mentality, etc. necessary to do the better payed jobs, but for example didn't got the chance to get the required degree.
What could also be done is really increase the minimum wage by 3 or 4 times, so everyone that works enough hours will be certain to make enough money to survive. The problem with this? Prices will go up, because the production, sales, maintainance, ... of everything will become a lot more expensive too. And then I am not even talking about the corporations/firms that will not like this. In the end firms/shops/corporations (and their managers ofcourse) will like the progressive tax much more than a higher minimum salary.
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@I'm actually a phospholipid bilayer
If Tom pays 3000 dollars on taxes, it hurts him no more than it hurts Harry to pay 18,000 on taxes, because the proportion is the same.
No, it doesn't hurt the same. Let's say you need 15k yearly just to survive (house, food, water, electricity, ..., this doesn't even need to include healthcare costs) and Tom works the same hours as Harry.
Tom earns 15.080k, because his jobs earns him the minimum salary. Harry's job makes him 125k.
20% flat tax rate:
Tom pays 3k taxes and keeps 12k => 12k-15k = -3k
Harry pays 25k taxes and keeps 100k => 100k - 15k = 85k
Tom needs 3k more a year, just to pay for the necessities to life a "decent" life.
Harry has 85k left he can spend on luxury products, save, invest, ...
Now who do you think will hurt the most? The person who literally needs 3k more to just keep a roof etc above his head, or the person who has 85k left to do with what he wants?
This is the entire point, someone who just has to buy a little less luxury will not really feel it, someone who actually needs it to just survive, will be really hurting, despite the fact that they pay the same proportionally, they definitely aren't hurting the same.
But now, let's see at a good/decent progressive tax system with the same parameters:
The first 15k earnings (the amount you need to have a "decent" life) are free of tax, the money between 15k and 30k taxed 10%, between 30k and 50k taxed 15%, between 50k and 100k taxed 20%, 100k and 200k taxed 25% and 200k+ taxed 35%
Tom:
0k taxes on his first 15k
He pays 10% taxes on the money he earns between 15k and 30k => 80*0.10 = 8 dollar in taxes.
He doesn't earn anything more, so higher tax brackets are irrelevant to him and in the end he has 15 072 dollar left and pays 8 dollar taxes
Harry:
0k taxes on his first 15k
he makes 15k dollar between 15k and 30k => 15k*0.10 = 1.5k taxes
he makes 20k between 30k and 50k => 20k*0.15 = 3k taxes
he makes 50k between 50k and 100k => 50k*0.20 = 10k taxes
he makes 25k between 100k and 200k => 25k*0.25 = 6.25k taxes
He doesn't earn anything more, so higher tax brackets are irrelevant to him and in the end he has 104 250 dollar left and pays 20 750 dollar taxes
You can say, but you see that is not fair, Tom pays literally no tax and Harry pays 20k taxes. however, we still need to retract the necessities:
Tom has 15 072 left, 15 072 - 15k = 72 dollars
harry has 104 250 left, 104 250 - 15k = 89 250 dollars
So after everything, Tom after working the same hours has 72 dollars left for "luxury" products (this includes everything not needed to survive in a decent way: cellphone, car, tv even healthcare may be counted among the uxury products). He will not be able to save or invest money, he will not be able to send his kids to a university or college, and they too will likely end in low paying jobs like his, despite some of them maybe intelligent enough to do a ceo's work, but just not having the necessary education.
Harry on the other hand still has 89 250 dollars left to spend on these "luxury" items, he can save and invest money, he can send his children to college or university, they can end up in the higher paying jobs like their father's.
I used arbitrary numbers for the example and even Harry was in this case better of with the progressive tax than the flat rate tax. This isn't necessarily the case. The actual numbers of the tax brackets should be chosen based on research (for example the tax free amount of money was the minimum required money to survive and basically should be the same as the minimum wage)
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What a bunch of bull in this video, clearly just meant as a hitpiece, not e genuine attempt to inform people.
Efficiency: there already are high tech solar panels with over 40% efficiency, though these are very unlikely to go into the mainstream. Any predicted improvement regarding solar panels is mostly in costs, material use and easy of installing. Regarding wind, it isn't about the physical efficiency of catching the wind, it is about how much power a turbine can produce, there are ways to increase this without a need to change the efficiency of capturing the wind.
Gridstorage is unlikely to use things like Li-ion batteries for anything but fast action ie. as a means to immediately provide power in ms while other gridstorage options ramp up their output (seconds to several minutes). Anything long term storage is going to use other storage means currently being tested or being rolled out.
Less than 3% of the worlds energy need after billions in subsidies and 20 years, except in 2020 it was already around 4% (so when this video was posted here) and nuclear for example makes up a similar amount of the primary energy generation while having several decades more to develop and roll out and also receiving massive amounts of subsidies overtime. And then we don't even go into the public and hidden extremely large subsidies and tax cuts oil firms rack up.
Non-renewable materials, except we can recycle solar panels and Li-ion batteries with efficiencies above 97% and except for the blades wind turbines are built out of components that are also recyclable. And the problem of wind blades recycling is being worked on currently and is likely not going to be a problem in the future.
The numbers stated in this video mean nothing without some comparison and are just meant to overwhelm people.
The lifetime of modern wind turbines and solar panels is around 25-30 years, these days closer to the latter. Battery life depends on how it is used and managed. Gas turbines get a lot of maintenance and refurbishment over their lifetime and are quite expensive machinery, around the same as a similarly sized windturbine. And you ofcourse still niet to pay for the gas.
Yes, solar panels waste will be high in the future, but they can be recycled (mandatory in the EU). Irena and similar institutions usually talk about disposal numbers as a warning, to not wait too long putting plans in place to deal with the waste, like a mandatory recycling program and creating recycling facilities.
Almost inexhaustable source of hydrocarbons? This alone is already a clear indication this guy is a fossil fuel company shill. At current rate we are expected to run out of oil in around 200 years, even if we find some more reserves (which will be more difficult to access and thus more expensive) we'd just be delaying the end a bit. Gas is a similar thing, a few couple hundred years and we run out. Coal can last us much longer (more than a thousand years), but ofcourse by using a lot of destructive mining and increasing pollution a lot.
Regarding the comparison of the oil well and the wind turbine, oil has a lot of energy, but we can't efficiently extract it. Efficiency of oil use is around 25-30% vs the +-90% of electricity, meaning in the end it is more like 3-4 barrels of oil equivalent energy for the well vs wind turbine. And then we aren't even talking about everything between extraction and use.
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