Posts by John Robson 5250 publicly visible posts • joined 19 May 2008
"With enough influence, everything is fungible."
And that's what needs to be stopped - Do I see an easy and obvious solution? No, but then I am neither a tax accountant, nor and economist.
Do I think that a solution exists? I am convinced of it.
Do I think said solution would be implemented? I am convinced it would not, the obscenely wealthy pay for election campaigns in return for these loopholes (and direct contracts nowadays).
Or more importantly a form of government that doesn't rely on backhanders through elaborate tax loopholes.
If tax systems were written sensibly I am convinced that:
- More people in, or close to, poverty would be on zero (or better still a negative) tax rate
- Most of the people "in the middle" wouldn't see a significant effect
- Those who rake in more money than any person can possibly spend would pay more, still leaving them with more money than any person can possibly spend
- The treasury would gather more income
Simple might not be adaptable - but in terms of "You saw this much income this year, so we are taxing it at this rate..." that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"I would go for a flatter % tax "
So basically you don't think poor people should be able to eat.
The difference between getting ten grand on top of a hundred others is negligible in terms of spending power (and here I'm talking about being able to afford food, clothes and a roof (not necessarily a six bed mansion, but a roof).
The difference in getting ten grand on just another ten grand is huge.
It is absolutely right that as a wealthy member of society I should pay more tax (proportionately) than those less well off than me.
What is not right is that as you go further and further up that scale the tax paid goes back down.
I am all for making a simpler tax system, but it must remain progressive.
"Instead of 'he has more so rob him' surely we should look at how much is being taken off us to be squandered by people who think they can spend it better than us."
So you're advocating for flat taxation?
There are ~30 million people employed in the UK, and the government pulls in about £195 billion in income tax with a further £143 billion in NI.
So that's a flat rate of £11k each.
You can afford that, I can afford that... but for anyone who works part time (ONS median wage £11,234 ) that would leave them with a couple of hundred quid a year.
The concept of progressive taxation is very well established, but is being deliberately bypassed by these individuals, and their individual contributions should be an actually significant chunk of change for the treasury.
And your claim that you could spend the money better is rather laughable. How much of the road network are you going to pay for? how much health service, fire service, police,...
Yes, I'm sure there are parts of the government budget we would all think can and should be trimmed, but that's a completely different question to that of how they raise money to spend on society.
Noone is proposing a wealth tax that would require people to liquidate their primary residence - but when your wealth increase is measured in millions of pounds a year then some proportion of that really ought to be recognised as taxable.
Note that there is already a tax free income band - and the same would likely apply to any tax on gains in wealth, though given the way wealth is accumulated there is a good chance that the vast majority of people would end up in this band.
I am sure if the secretary had to pay $23.7m (s)he wouldnt consider it less (I am guessing). But this is probably why he hired a secretary, has (s)he?
I suspect that the 19% was less than the secretary paid, not the absolute value.
But you knew that, you were just being deliberately obtuse.
When I was self employed I used to put 50% of my invoice value into an account specifically to pay tax - and that was about right (I got a small bonus each year when my tax bill was confirmed).
I'm now employed, and so my income has already been taxed before I see it, but I still pay >30% on what I see - and I see a lot less income than the zillionaires mentioned, and don't have a large "wealth increase" to use as collateral either.
"The embarrasing thing is that we were an oil company, and we were supposed to know about such things!"
Brilliant - I've only been at one company that did DR processes well, and it doesn't come cheap (but it does come with great reliability, which is correctly more important in certain sectors).
The closest I've come to the failed diesel generator is working next door to a company that, supposedly, had it happen.
Given the number of people here who have claimed to have had it actually happen to them... I am more inclined to believe the reports.
Yeah - that saving figure doesn't apply to you...
That saving figure applies to larger companies.
You might even be best off doing self hosting and just accepting downtime and complete loss of weekend when it occurs.
But when an organisation is significantly larger... then having someone else manage the hardware can be a price worth paying - of course you *could* do it cheaper... but you are paying for them to take the risk of overtime and failed hardware, for them to source and maintain UPS, generators, diverse power and data feeds. For them to maintain the building all these things are housed in... the list goes on.
Nothing to do with the ultrasonics, but the advent of voice based assistants has been massive for many - to write them off in the way you did is seriously detrimental to those for whom they make a serious difference.
For most, I agree, they are a luxury - but you can't help throwing the baby out with the bathwater with such sweeping damnation of the devices.
"I don't possess, and will never allow into my home, networked devices with microphones I cannot mechanically detach."
Really?
No mobile phone of any description, no laptop of any description.
Just be grateful that you live in a bubble where the concept of accessibility either doesn't occur to you, or doesn't make it beyond a ramp into certain buildings.
For many people these devices enable independence.
For very many people they are merely a convenience, but that says more about the fact that making things accessible very rarely excludes anyone.
"Sure, legalise all drugs. See what that does to people's driving. Then let the cops focus on motoring offences rather than real crime."
On the basis that motoring offences generally affect more people than what you consider to be "real" crime... I think you might have your priorities mixed.
"Why don't I use the cloud? Because the moment my data is in the hands of a third party, it's no longer my data."
So you build your own connections to every single user rather than relying on existing infrastructure? Wow, that must cost a pretty penny.
Pretty sure that for most users of these services it is much cheaper, and probably better, than rolling their own. Building a CDN is hard, and having to do so for just one site is prohibitive.
It means that a failure becomes really visible, but it probably makes those failures less likely than a whole bunch of disparate CDNs which aren't learning from each other's mistakes.
It'll probably be 1:r^1.2 ish, because there will be some out of plane dispersion making it not a pure 1/r, but you are right that it also isn't 1/r^2.
That actually makes the situation better though - since the power at the transmitter doesn't need to be as high to provide useful signal at the target locations.
And that of course is *why* they use non omnidirectional kit - lower power needed, lower cost.
Have you never had a food delivery?
They have things called refrigerated vans.
Whole sections of the van that use the forced evaporation and condensation of a carefully chosen gas called a refrigerant to transport heat energy out of that section, keeping your ice cream frozen until it's outside your door (which is alot further than it remains frozen if you walk to the supermarket).
Only an idiot wouldn't *think* about it...
Let's look at some numbers and then consider the decision:
400k miles at 30mpg is >13,000 gallons of fuel
Google suggests that US gasoline costs ~$3/gallon - that's ~$40k of fuel costs (assuming it's all efficient motorway miles of course)
US electricity (again looking at residential prices) is ~13¢/kWh.
400k miles at 4m/kWh is ~$13k of fuel costs, a $27,000 saving.
Maintenance is, as you point out going to be pretty marginal in comparison.
There is a strong likelihood that there were no reasonable choices in terms of EVs when you first had the vehicle. But there is a significant saving to be made in fuel costs alone which could easily justify a change to an EV when you look at replacing it.
If you put any value on sustainable behaviour (which we already know you don't) then that balance is pretty easy to swing to a genuine swap out, rather than just a lifetime replacement.
Given that much usage on just one vehicle and the amount of land you have (particularly in the southern US) you might do even better to put an amount of that $13k expected cost, or even more, into a serious solar array, then you'd basically never pay for fuel, and your electric bill would be reduced (potentially going negative) as well.
It's not cut and dried in either direction - you happen not to value the planet, other people do.
If it's not all that much to worry about, presumably you are offering free charging services for all and sundry at your home, right?
In terms of a personal budget it's more significant than in terms of a company budget, where the goodwill generated can result in the (fairly small) cost being written off as advertising / brand awareness.
Even a 7kW charger (the highest speed "slow" charger) only costs ~£1/hour (assuming a UK average of 15p/kWh), and is going to have some duty cycle (i.e. it won't be used 24/7/52)
For a law firm that's less than an email a day from a paralegal, let alone a solicitor.
By the time you are towing four horses (who have legs of their own) that's no longer a truck - it's an HGV.
So that's one (particularly ridiculous) trip that a current ev wouldn't serve. I can't imagine that there are many people who want to tow four horses all day rather than riding them.
I've driven round the west coast a reasonable amount - had a flying tour of the south west four states over ~6 weeks several years ago to coincide with a friends wedding.
But long distances aren't what the *vast* majority of journeys entail.
An average journey in the US is under ten miles, on average your vehicles do less than 14k/year. There will be places (like the midwest) where the average is higher, because there is a vast amount of empty space, but on the basis that some will do much more than the average, but you can't do all that much less - the typical (private) vehicle will do substantially less than that.
You are sufficiently rich that you have a large family, and a significant string of horses, and you want to ride them in a different state for some unspecified reason... You are therefore very much not a typical vehicle user, even in your neck of the woods.
To an extent seatbelts (and other driver aids) have only made car occupants safer, which has resulted in worse outcomes for other road users; because motorists are so cocooned in their safety cell they do things that they wouldn't do if they had any personal risk attached.
But I still wouldn't remove them.
We don't have anything approaching sensible enforcement in this country - partly because wailing about needing a car gives the courts the flimsy excuse they need to not remove your license.
If licenses could be downgraded then there are options available between removing an offenders car completely and leaving them on the road behaving like the idiot they are.
There are nearly ten thousand motorists driving around with more than 12 points... with some driving around with over 60 points.
There is no excuse for *accumulating* that many points - and there should be no concept of mitigating circumstances, of "exceptional hardship".
Having to take a taxi is less "exceptional hardship" than having to arrange the funeral of a family member.
"I think part of the problem is that we get used to convenience... "
And we get used to specific inconvenience.
The concentration and drudgery of a motorway drive are fast forgotten in the face of the ridiculous cost of rail travel in the UK.
"Not got money? You're stuck in the low-powered cars whatever your needs might be."
Ah yes, because all those people without money are those who are usually driving around in powerful cars.
Licenses should be relatively short (five years) with retests rather than just rubber stamping a paper application. They should also be a mechanism to actually deter people from breaking the law.
I don't see much need to increase the *cost* of the test/license for more powerful vehicles. The motorbike model is not the worst place to start.
Full autonomy is a way off.
Motorway/highway autonomy is pretty close (and will be extremely valuable, imagine only having to do the driving at the two ends, both approached by a completely fresh motorist, not someone who has spent the last several hours staring down a lane). For me this would actually allow me to drive to my parents, not something I can do currently - it's just too far.
Driverless taxis are significantly further away - though I can see China stealing a march there.
"I think you will find we are now mostly into the marginal gains era of saving lives..."
Only because driving isn't properly licensed... With licenses that are removed/reduced when laws are broken (i.e. pretty much constantly by most people).
Get rid of the nut behind the wheel and we'll all be much safer.
Ah another person who is the perfect driver with no disabilities at all.
Lucky to be you.
I rely on some of those "fripperies" such as driver aids.
But by your own logic ABS is just there as a crutch for those who can't cadence brake properly, or indeed spot a situation developing so as not to require it.
ABS has very nearly landed me in a collision - snow on the road...
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