Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Doesn't anybody remember what happens in Atlas Shrugged?

"The plan would temporarily remove the tax drivers pay on gas for the summer, and shift that burden to oil companies that earn “enormous” profits. An average profit would be calculated for the oil companies, and anything over 10 percent higher than that average would be taxed 50 percent." (article here)

That's Clinton's idea, which anyone with a brain realizes discourages oil companies from being productive, i.e. from being able to keep the cost of gas from going up. What a fucking moron.

5 comments:

mrdarius said...

i just started re-trying to read that. i'm on page 3. i need to get over the hump. i said hump.

that tax plan reminds me of the Lithuanian maternity/paternity leave act in that it totally discourages productivity.

Trashcan said...

Democrats having been talking about putting massive taxes on gas companies for a while. Although until now the plan always involved taking the proceeds from those taxes and using them to fund alternative energy in an attempt to crush oil companies. What an incentive to make money and hand it all over to the government.

Maybe it is you who forgot what happened in atlas shrugged. It was easy and popular to impose taxes and regulations on corporations so the government continued to do it, and nobody saw the errors of the system until it was too late. Why would you expect anything different in real life?

Aras said...

well dariau, there's a much bigger problem in lithuania that lack of productivity: it's the lack of lithuanians being born. it's a big problem. most industrialized countries are following lithuania's lead by lengthening maternity leave.

i expect something different in real life loky because we have a several books by ayn rand in real life, which, as i recall, none of the characters in atlas shrugged read or quoted with any regularity.

mrdarius said...

funny, i think the only characters who quote anything in ayn rand novels are typically vain idiots.

why does lithuania want to increase the birth rate at the expense of industry/efficiency. there's a cycle here. lithuania decreases productivity by encouraging birth. if they're successful in increasing the birth rate, it'll just mean there's more people around to leave lithuania for a better economy. shouldn't they focus on making the country a better place to live and work and make babies? could a policy aimed at increasing the number of children in a country be as damaging as one aimed at decreasing it is beneficial?

Aras said...

1. do mean vain as in excessively proud of own appearance, qualities, and achievements? or as in without real significance, value, or importance?

2. are you calling me an idiot?

3. dude, the more lithuanians in the world, the better. what harm do you think this does to industry? what percentage of women do you think are on maternity leave at any given moment? since the birthrate as of 2004 was 8.8 per thousand, and maternity leave is now two years with pay, that means 1.76% of women are eligible for maternity leave (but of course you have to subtract all the women who got pregnant without being employed at the same place for six months, so 1.5% would be a liberal guess). then cut that in half, because only one parent goes on maternity leave (i'm estimating the workforce to be half and half). so you're talking about less than 1% of the population not working who could otherwise be working. i think welfare benefits in the states, sweden, and denmark far exceed that in keeping people unproductive (for no reason, instead of a good reason).

4. cutting off breast feeding after a few months leads to babies of poor health and mothers with higher rates of breast cancer. don't you know that? or don't you think that's as important as efficiency?

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