From: ehrbar (ehrbar@LISTS.ECON.UTAH.EDU)
Date: Mon Dec 04 2006 - 15:38:26 EST
Paul, I would turn the argumentation around, put your point 3 as point 1, as follows: The major goal must be to switch to a carbon-free economy which uses only 30 percent of the energy presently used, and which makes wise use of the earth's limited resources. This must be done in such a way that the quality of life, although changed, will not be decreased. I would put this into the center of the program, because more and more people are becoming aware of this. I would argue that we have to eliminate exploitation and go over to a socialist system because otherwise we won't be able to do this and save the planet for future generations. Your tradable voucher system is one element of this switch. Another element must be to remove all the subsidies to the environmentally damaging practices which are in place now. You do have to advocate an increase of taxes on gasoline until a gallon of gas is about $15, which is in the ballpark of the real cost of gasoline. These taxes should be phased in over time, just like the the national target for carbon emissions must be phased in over time. The tax revenues must be used for building or subsidizing energy efficient buildings, windmills, mass transportation, a bicyle path network which is intersection-free with streets for cars but uses bridges and tunnels, etc. A third element must then be phasing in an increasing minimum wage, in order to enable the working population to make the adjustments and bear the sacrifices necessary to make the switch to a localized low-carbon economy. Perhaps the minimum wage must be gradually raised to about 75 percent of the value created by hour. If you are unemployed, you should be able to earn a living wage just by going to school and retraining yourself for the different demands of tomorrow. Also the workday must be shortened, everything above 6 hours a day will get time and half overtime pay, and people should have the option to work only 6 hours if they wish. Fourth, all businesses which go bankrupt in this process will be nationalized and will be integrated into a socialist network which uses your computerized means to allocate resources. Fifth, a confiscatory estate tax for all estates over 2 million pounds. Reason: if we don't do something now, then there will be no future generations. Just brainstorming, Hans.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Dec 31 2006 - 00:00:04 EST