h a l f b a k e r yI like this idea, only I think it should be run by the government.
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When wealthy people die, much of their money gets
taxed.
It is called the estate tax, by those who like the tax and
the death tax by those who want to make the tax sound
morbid. In nations that have the estate tax, rich people
who spend their money on solar panels or wind turbines
could avoid
it, with all the money that they use for that
equipment.
This would stimulate the market for this equipment.
Billions of dollars would get invested in this wind
turbines
and solar panels. And we wouldn't be going around the
estate tax really, because when you die you are not
transferring money, or houses. You give your kids a pile
of
solar panels or wind turbines. The "value" of these items
do not get taxed.
So instead of Paris Hilton getting access to offshore
bank
accounts when her father dies, she would get millions of
dollars of solar equipment that her dad bought in 2010,
that helped stimulate the economy, and that she can use
to produce clean energy.
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Welcome back [myclob]! I like the idea a lot - tax breaks for investments in sustainable energy sources is very likely something we'll be seeing in the near future (there are already some tax-based incentives geared towards this sort of thing here in the UK) and that's probably, on balance, a good thing.* |
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The danger with this kind of subsidisation is that it can make less efficient, lower quality solutions viable, and (potentially) stifle development of better alternatives. |
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* On the estate/death tax loophole thing, forestry is an existing example here in the UK, where managed forests are exempt from estate/death/income(?) tax calculations and as such used as a method of inter-generational wealth storage. I presume the idea there was a similar one, with the government needing to keep a percentage of the country forested, and having to shape the tax system so as to make it economically viable for individuals to do so. |
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Thanks for welcoming me back. I didn't post
anything, because I didn't have any more ideas...
Good points... I need to refine the idea so I'm
more specific... I said panels and turbines, but
what about the batteries? Or, as you say, maybe I
should be less specific. We don't want to
encourage bad technology. What about other
forms of green energy... I had no idea the already
had other estate tax loop holes... I like this one,
because it encourages people to buy stuff, which
will drive the cost for that stuff down, so other
people can buy more of that stuff. |
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Admirable as this is in intent, isn't it [marked-for-deletion] advocacy ("tax relief for people who do x")? |
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There are two problems, depending on how you envisage the implementation of this idea. |
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1) Rich people invest in supplying energy to everyone. So that future progeny retain income from the populace. Baked! And none too green, or cheap, I tells ya! |
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2) Rich people invest in intellectual property and or infrastructure which the government or state needs to supply energy (or even a service). Google "T. Boone Pickens". (I know, its sounds like a NSFW trap, but it isn't). |
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Now, onto other things. The *really* rich have a plethora of mechanisms for passing on wealth to progeny and circumventing "estate duty". Besides the obvious one of ownership of some portion of the assets of a "central reserve" (which earn tax free dividends anually, without eroding capital or profit), there are the funds sitting in charitable "foundations" or trusts. |
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Your best bet at preserving wealth through generations, with the exception of owning a portion of a central banks assets, is a good old foundation or trust devoted to a philanthropic cause. The longer *Man* takes to find a resolution to this "cause" the better. Malaria, is quite a safe bet in this instance. It is not quite viral, no chance of an immunisation. And it is not quite bacterial, no chance of an antibiotic. Most agents that eradicate the vector of distribution (anopheles) are banned. Well done Bill and Melinda... |
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+ I actually have plans to do this and was surprised to see it written up.
I'm not what many would consider rich, though. |
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Maintaining a solar farm is not exactly just a pile of cash, though. Panels and other equipment would have to be replaced in order to assure positive cash inflow over time and the farm probably would have have upwards of 200 panels - no small cash outlay.
My thought was to re-invest electricity generation "profits" into more panels until there were enough to provide an income above what the replacement / maintenance costs would be. |
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I also thought about spacing them out far enough apart on tracking motors in order to still be able to have a greenhouse / fish farm underneath for dual use of the property. |
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The stupid recession brought these plans to a screaching halt, though - I was just about to begin putting panels on my house roof as phase 1 of this idea. |
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Depending upon where you live, the break even point is probably 20 years + as well. |
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4Whom, what you say about malaria doesn't make sense. The parasite which causes malaria is not at all a virus and not at all a bacteria. It's like saying that you're not quite a mushroom, and not quite a rock.
Malaria is actually caused by a microscopic eukaryotic organism. |
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Plus, vaccination against bacteria is possible (examples: vaccines to prevent Anthrax, Tetanus, Tuberculosis), as are antibiotics against viruses (strictly speaking, they're called antivirals; examples: HIV combination therapy, Tamiflu). |
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Finally, people are working on vaccines against malaria, so I wouldn't say there was no chance of an effective one being developed. |
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Incidentally - this isn't pedantry; you're just utterly wrong. I'll admit it was a bit off-topic though. |
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[Loris] wooah, wooah. Hold up there son. I said it was not a virus, I said it was not a bacterium. I know it is a eukaryotic organism, that was not a "fluke". |
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What I was trying to say is that after about 100 000 years of living with this organism we have not got rid of it. Sounds good to bury loads of your money and other's money in a foundation that operates (with suitable operating costs), in perpituity, to eradicate something we have not eradicated. Play the man, not the ball, dude (or is that the other way round?)... |
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I thought it was a particularly astute point about Bill and Melinda - that was a nuance that had slipped my mind (till now, I was all "Ahhh, that's nice...") |
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Another example of this kind of structure might be the "charitable foundation" thing that Don Corleone leaves to his daughter in "Godfather Part III" - although in that film, I think it's supposed to represent the going straightedness and all-round legitness of New York's most reasonable man, rather than as an inheritance tax 'structure'. |
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Oh, and sadly yes - what [pertinax] said. |
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You actually said:
//...It is not quite viral, ... And it is not quite bacterial,...//
Which strongly suggests that it's very close to both those things.
Okay, nevermind.
(Heh, fluke.) |
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I've not looked in to the B&M Gates foundation; is it possible for it to pay money back to them/their descendants?
I think they've still got more money than they could ever sensibly spend in any case. Besides making them feel better about the dubious business practices which made their fortune in the first place, I remember reading about how they were worried about their descendants becoming playboys. If they could take money back then that wouldn't work. |
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//Plus, vaccination against bacteria is possible (examples: vaccines to prevent Anthrax, Tetanus, Tuberculosis), as are antibiotics against viruses (strictly speaking, they're called antivirals; examples: HIV combination therapy, Tamiflu).// |
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I will give you the ability of the immune system to prepare itself for *specific* bacterial infection, by way of diluted infection, AKA vaccination (and that is a pretty big consolation, because TB has RTB and XRTB for which nothing pre-emptive can be done). But you can go and shove an antibiotic up your arse if you think it will combat anything other than secondary infections in terms of viruses. Recent information on the HIV/AIDS notwithstanding. There are possibilities to piggy back off certain bacteria, and related antibiotic agents, to deliver anti-viral agents. To even suggest that this is an action of an antibiotic on a virus , other than a method of introduction of antiviral mechanisms to an environment, is plain madness. |
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I'm not even sure I understand that. |
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Vaccinations are not just a 'diluted' infection. They generally need to be safer than that! They can involve inactivated (killed) organism, attenuated organism (a non-infectious strain), inactivated toxin, subunit (a immunologically visible part of the microorganism) or other approaches. |
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Antivirals attempt to block the viral lifecycle somewhere. For example, HIV is an RNA retrovirus, so it needs to convert its genome to DNA when it infects a cell. This is not a process used by uninfected human cells, so it's an obvious target for antiviral drugs. The reverse-transcription process fails, or the produced DNA sequence is corrupted, 'killing' or mutating the virus. |
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[Loris] I doubt whether you could take unaccountable funds out of the "foundation", they were, after all, tax free "donations". However the definitions of accountable, or even reasonable, are malleable. |
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I, personally, would like to be responsible for a fund that pays for several trustee's/director's lifestyles, whilst trying to solve, but not solving, a problem that has not been solved for millenia. |
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//I've not looked in to the B&M Gates foundation; is it possible for it to pay money back to them/their descendants?// Oh yes, a foundation/trust/company is easy to set up, such that officers can be appointed, who, since they can be regarded as 'employees' are be able to draw a salary, perhaps even live on-site in the foundation's official office/mansion, drive the foundation's helicopter, speedboat, jet-car etc - it's all very Batman. |
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You seem to be making a big thing about how long malaria has been a human disease. To be fair, though, it's only within the last hundred years or so that there's been the potential to do so. Admittedly it does look like one of the hardest diseases to eradicate. |
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It wouldn't be an issue for the B&M Gates foundation if they did eradicate malaria. There's plenty of other things to spend money on. |
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I do take your point though about control of a foundation. |
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//You seem to be making a big thing about how long malaria has been a human disease. // Only after you attacked me. I could have said the same thing about the cancers. The point being, it is not the problem, but the fact that the problem cannot (or rather has a low probability of) be/ing solved. |
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This is where you can hide, not only your money, but other peoples' money too. |
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To the fact that innoculations and vaccinations are not diluted infection, or the definition of diluted infection, and the role of antibiotics in retrovirus control, well, we will save that for later :-). |
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//1) Rich people invest in supplying energy to everyone. So that future progeny retain income from the populace. Baked! And none too green, or cheap, I tells ya!// |
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Surely it is greener and generally better for them to invest in green energy and live at our expense than to invest in most other things to live at our expense? Especially fossil fuel based energy. |
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I suppose if the ice caps stop melting, then the poor folk who live at just above sea level are going to be really, really, bitter if rich folk are making money from solar power are they? |
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//2) Rich people invest in intellectual property and or infrastructure which the government or state needs to supply energy (or even a service). Google "T. Boone Pickens". (I know, its sounds like a NSFW trap, but it isn't).// |
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Once again, it's not 'fair', but it's no less fair than existing technology markets. It is greener though. |
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However the modern tendency is for each firm in the market to accumulate tens of thousands of patents. At this point their competitors have no alternative but to sign cross license agreements without even looking at the actual patents. The result is that patents mean very little to modern tech firms, except as a way of excluding small competitors. But many firms, such as energy companies, must be large anyway. |
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I do agree with [myclob] though that it would encourage solar and wind power to the exclusion of other practical ideas like ocean current turbines, geothermal power, hydroelectric, biofuels etc. You could include them but many are controversial among environmentalists. Nuclear power is carbon free but produces nasty waste. Hydroelectric dams involve flooding the surrounding countryside. Biofuels have been grown at greater energy cost than they provide thanks to badly thought out subsidies. |
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It also seems unlikely that there will be any provision for making things more efficient either. Maybe we would save an awful lot of energy if we moved things around with canals. |
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We need to use better marketing to get people to
consider purchasing green energy. SUV salesmen
use the 4rth of July to sell us cars that put money
in the hands of those who threaten would destroy
America. |
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However, even people that love their country
often hate paying taxes. In fact people make a
hobby out of combing the tax code for loopholes,
and will hours of their own time, and often $200 of
their own money, just so they don’t have to give
$100 dollars to the government. |
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Many state, local, and federal governments are
taxing people and using this money to invest in
green energy. However the promise of the green
economy was that we would all be self sufficient
individuals living “off the grid”. We don’t need the
government to take our money and invest in green
energy for us, when we can do it ourselves.
Many people would rather have their own green
energy equipment, than be taxed by the
government with the assurance that the
government will take care of them, but financing
can be a problem. Green energy often takes 20+
years to start paying you back. Most people don't
have enough money when they are young to buy
green energy. This means that by the time people
are 50 years old, and have enough money, they
won't be able to break even until they are 70. And
when you die, your belongings are sold off, and if
you are wealthy a significant portion of your
“estate” gets taxed. |
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It is sad that a 20 year payback is too long to
invest in something. The federal government of
the united states has been around for 233 years.
The Catholic Church has been around, so they say,
for 2009 years. All our families go back to the same
place: Adam or the apes (depending on which
symbols is on the back of your car). The company I
work for is over 100 years old. It would have been
wise for all these organizations, and all of our
ancestors to have invested in things that have a
payback of more than less than 20 years. As
resources become more scarce, the payback of
fossil fuel may shrink. |
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If you are company, a government, or a parent,
that plans on having part of your organization or
family around for more than 20 years in the future,
you could buy savings bonds, but what if you could
also purchase green energy equipment, with the
reassurance that their value would not be sold,
and taxed when you died, but the equipment
could be passed directly to your future
generations? |
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A percentage of solar panels will last 100 years.
The wire, the panels, the conduit, the supports
will last much longer.
The goal isn't to avoid the estate tax. The goal is
to reward people for making good long term
investments. |
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I just believe that there should be small loopholes
that make sense. In nations that have the estate
tax, rich people who spend their money on
renewable energy equipment could avoid this tax
it, with all, or some, of the money that they use
for that equipment. This would stimulate the
market for this equipment. Billions of dollars would
get invested in this green energy. And we
wouldn't be going around the estate tax really,
because when you die you are not transferring
money, or houses. You give your kids a pile of solar
panels or wind turbines. The "value" of these
items do not get taxed. Your SUV gets sold, and a
portion goes to the government, but all the green
energy equipment gets passed on tax free. This
lets people who care about their kids, also help
the planet. So instead of Paris Hilton getting easy
access to offshore bank accounts when her father
dies, she would get millions of dollars of solar
equipment that her dad bought in 2010, that
helped stimulate the economy, and that she can
use to produce clean energy. |
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Last time I went to Africa I had a Malaria vaccination rather than the pesky tablets I used to take, so I think your assumptions about Malaria being a sound investment may be rather inaccurate. There is however no permanent vaccination, no vaccination cheap enough that you could vaccinate an entire population on a regular basis and no cure for those infected. Those are the problems. |
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Buying renewable energy technology may entitle you to tax breaks, but does the transfer or sale of assets still incur tax? You usually only get a break on either buy or sell. |
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// //You seem to be making a big thing about how long malaria has been a human disease. // //
//Only after you attacked me.// |
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Did I attack you 4whom? I don't think I did. I might have disagreed with your statements a bit.
No offense was intended. |
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[Loris], wow, that Creeping Paranoia Prank Programme really works... |
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