Yep. Come up with something good and the first thing people want to do is tax it.
Once you start down that road you create an elite who can afford the good stuff and a proletariat that can't.
I'm not sure what we should tax. I can tell you that energy use isn't on my list.
Income seems like the best idea. That way you can let the profits ride and grow. More profit = more innovation.
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Re: Thank you Dr Bussard
And I have absolutely no problem with that. These things are all side effects of cheap energy, which is why we want to build controlled terrestrial fusion machines.Helius wrote: On the downside, energy is misused as it is; We've got folks driving to work downtown and to the local office parks in huge SUVs and Pickup trucks; Fat 13 year old kids racing down local bike trails in ATVs, and Speedboats that runover folks engaged in more quiet or human centric activities.
Making value judgments about people's use of energy is to me a waste of time. I would support your proposal on a general energy tax, though, and for one reason only: it would make the federal government a lot less intrusive. The income tax has turned the feds into a bunch of snoops, exactly what the founders didn't want and why they explicitly forbade an income tax in the original constitution.If our optomism pans out with the polywell, I would favor dropping all taxes now levied on productive human behavior, no income tax, no capital gains tax, and transferring all revenue sources to come from energy. It'd be a joule tax, levied on energy from any source. It could free prouductive human behavior, and discourage some of the nonsense we seem to encourage by taxing the good stuff and letting the bad behavior go undiscouraged.
I'm saying *don't* tax income... We want to encourage income generation. Taxes discourage a behavior, not encourage it.
We never want energy so cheap that folks drive to work in personal vehicles that approach the size of Locomotives. Let there be no mistake... Without any restraint, that's where we'd end up. Taxes cause restraint. We want restraint on energy consumption, not income generation.
At this point, however, I'm not too worried. Just somewhat hopeful.
We never want energy so cheap that folks drive to work in personal vehicles that approach the size of Locomotives. Let there be no mistake... Without any restraint, that's where we'd end up. Taxes cause restraint. We want restraint on energy consumption, not income generation.
At this point, however, I'm not too worried. Just somewhat hopeful.
It would need to be exclusive.
Scareduck;
Exactly... Unless the energy tax was exclusive, where all other taxes were null, I'd not favor it.
Exactly... Unless the energy tax was exclusive, where all other taxes were null, I'd not favor it.
I've always said it has a 1 in 3 chance of producing power commercially. That's still about where I stand.We should temper our optimism.... Dr. Bussard put IEC back on the map, but it is by no means guaranteed soon;
An energy tax would, therefore, discourage the production of energy. Not good. Every productive acticity needs energy.Helius wrote:I'm saying *don't* tax income... We want to encourage income generation. Taxes discourage a behavior, not encourage it.
An income tax is necessary because people will generate income regardless, because they want income, and the sources of that income are generally trackable and controllable. It does discourage income production, but consumption taxes discourage the means by which we obtain income from others, which is worse and less trackable/controllable.
As it is, those below the median income pay little or no income tax. Eventually, cheap energy and productive machines will make taxes something only the richest 10% of us have to worry about -- the way it was before WW II.