Incredible news. Battery advancements can help a wave of innovation take off. This is a giant step in the right direction coming from one of the world’s premier manufacturers.
I can’t wait to see what energy storage advances we make in the coming decades. It’s going to continue to grow as one of the world’s largest needs in our effort to get away from fossil fuels.
The wealthy aren’t paying their fair share and that is something that needs to be corrected. The arguments in favor of progressive tax systems are countless.
It’s important to note that taxing wealth isn’t the same as taxing income. But you can do both and the US has a very well established system for doing so: income when earned and wealth when transferred to the next generation. Unfortunately, both of these systems have been gutted.
I’d love to see these both get their teeth back. Pretty simple really: (1) make progressive income tax rates apply to all income sources and decrease income exclusions/deductions and (2) lower the wealth tax exemptions and clamp down on tactics used to skirt around the exclusion amount (primarily family partnerships). This is basically just returning to policies the US had from about 1950 to 1970, which also was a time of exceptional middle class growth. It’s really not breaking new ground and it’s a proven, sound way to generate widespread economic success while also battling greed and inequality.
We could go a step beyond and do a value-added tax system too, which effectively taxes consumption, but that’s another topic entirely.
There are a lot of great reasons for places like this to exist, but one that should convince even the most fiscally conservative groups is the spending difference:
“The cost breaks down to $18,800 per person, per year — far less than the estimated $45,900 in taxpayer spending on a person who is homeless and using shelters, detox centers and hospital emergency departments.”
On top of that, people are much more likely in the long run to rejoin the workforce, generating income for themselves and the businesses they work for. They can also consume (buy) stuff. The long term economic impact is overwhelmingly positive.
That’s without even mentioning the moral/ethical obligations. But the fact is that a society with this sort of wealth shouldn’t allow people to suffer on the streets. I can’t comprehend how some US billionaires sleep at night knowing others don’t have a bed. Sleep knowing some of their own workers can’t afford basic needs. Sociopathic behavior that should be addressed and fixed through taxes and regulations.
This is the result of decades of growing income inequality, which is now well developed into tremendously higher wealth inequality. You can thank lax tax policy, stagnant wages, and investment-return focused society.
The economy has grown. The pie is bigger, but the growing pie is not being distributed properly. And the existing one is being redistributed toward the wealthy.
Widespread belief that government institutions are dysfunctional is a desired target and result for some people. If you want to lower taxes and gut regulations, getting people to think the government is useless is an incredibly effective way to grow support.
The sad part is that many of the people that fall for this are the ones that need to support it the most.
Low-income workers that are abused and put their health at risk don’t want workplace regulations. People in poverty have been convinced that increasing taxes on the ultra-wealthy will hurt them. People without the ability to pay for healthcare don’t support public assistance for it. The list goes on and on, covering most of the critical topics that government can and should be helping with.
When you convince all of these groups that “government bad” then you can wipe these concerns off the table.
I understand there are many problems with buying your way toward fixing pollution instead of actually eliminating or reducing it. Especially when there’s limited oversight on the paid organizations. This is not solving the problem and is not a long term solution. The greenwashing aspect is real.
But is this not a step in the right direction? It’s taking some profits and turning the funds toward environmental cleanup. It’s a company taking some level of responsibility over the harm caused AND actually putting resources toward it.
It seems logical that the next step is to avoid this expense, which could potential lead to actually curbing plastic waste or carbon emissions. By including this damage as a true cost to the business, it then incentivizes taking action to prevent the expense itself.
For sure. This is basically the incentives and kick starting. Sustainable energy and utility production are already massively profitable. This is just a basic usage of the tax system to prioritize and incentivize specific actions for the systems/places that likely need it most.
A ton of private capital will be flowing and it’s likely that many investors and private business owners will get very wealthy from these programs. Not to mention that many others will gain valuable employment.
Will it be completely perfect? Nope. But it’s exactly what developed nations do to create a nice place to live with reliable, advanced infrastructure. And they’ll create many economic windfalls while doing so.
“OSHA regulations take an average of seven years to be finalized. In July, Democratic representatives introduced a bill that would force OSHA to speed up this process. It was their third attempt. They have failed to secure enough votes every time.”
That is insane. Not only do private interest groups “lobby” (bribe) our leaders to avoid regulation, even if it something miraculously goes through legislation, OSHA takes another 7 fucking YEARS to finalize it. That’s downright pathetic.
That’s a good point, but for Sweden, it is indeed 480 paid days. It’s a government calculation related to your income and there is a point (after 390 days) where it drops to the minimum payout, but it is still paid leave.
There are also government-mandated options in Sweden to receive a slightly lower pay in exchange for working fewer hours. I don’t have the exact details here, but it’s something like 75% pay for 75% hours.
Pretty incredible coverage for new parents in that specific country.
This article has a great summary for a lot of European countries’ parental leave laws. And yeah, quite a few are less than a year of paid leave:
One of the most important characteristics to RICO charges is that you usually have to establish evidence of a criminal enterprise. So these charges against related persons that result in guilty pleas or convictions are then used as evidence in the RICO case against others.
Under the RICO charge, the prosecution can use the related convictions against others to establish wrongdoing by another actor/defendant. So even if there is not a lot of direct evidence against someone, all of the charges from the people they’re connected to are used as evidence in a RICO charge prosecution.
It’s basically to make sure that a mob boss can’t get away free because they never actually held the gun or were at the crime scene. If they’re deeply intertwined with tons of criminal acts, RICO laws make sure they can be held accountable even without being at the scene or personally doing anything.
It doesn’t necessarily force the prosecutors to charge everyone with the same crimes. It’s just a useful tool to use against those who do a decent job at avoiding direct evidence against themselves.
The more guilty pleas and convictions of the charges related to the RICO charge, the better. No doubt this strengthens it since it does include guilty pleas. It’s not a dismissal of the charges.
This is a pretty good synopsis of the implications of this deal (abovethelaw.com is a pretty well-respected legal blog if you ever want more legal-specific coverage):
I can see where this article is coming from - a lot of transparent support for the eyes of his followers. But I seriously doubt the same thing is happening behind closed doors with the prosecutors.
These types of people have no problems representing themselves one way and doing the exact opposite when out of sight. I think this is just another example of that.
Is it great that she continues this? Nope. Pretty ridiculous to plead guilty to crimes and still have this shit up publicly.
But if she provides key evidence or testimony about the crimes which could hold her leader accountable, that’s significantly more important.