Billionaire Tech Wet Dreams

[RE]

Leave it to Italian designers to come up with yachts and flying carz that make Bezos' current floating conspicuous energy consumption floating party boat look like a cheap roto molded kayak on sale at Walmart for $399 at the end of fishing season.  In the grand tradition of Leonardo Da Vinci, the designers at Lazzarini have drawn up a $1B  behemoth you need a golf cart to get around with the appropriate nickname of Outrageous!  As of yet said yacht has not been contracted to be built AFAIK, and the article does not specify whether it is a Green boat powered by a micronuke or an old fashioned clunker running on Bunker Fuel.



On the Flight Deck, instead of the traditional Sikorsky Chopper, you can land your Lazzarini designed Flying Car powered by 4 Rolls Royce Jet Engines which has a top speed around 450 mph, which will get you across the Atlantic in about the same time as a Boeing 737, and maybe the windows won't blow out.  Seriously, I doubt it has the range for a trans-Atlantic flight, but you probably can make it from the marina in Monte Carlo to your lunch meeting in Davos and be back in time to enter the baccarat tournament starting after dinner.



I don't think Rolls Royce jet engines have been reconfigured to run on Green Hydrogen yet, so you will need to purchase some carbon creditss to cover your CO₂ output for the flight.  No idea what the sticker price is for one of these jaunty little sports carz, but I'm sure if you buy the yacht they'll throw one in at cost.

https://supercarblondie.com/shark-inspired-superyacht/

https://supercarblondie.com/the-air-car-is-a-flying-car-with-four-rotatable-rolls-royce-jet-engines/

RE

[K-Dog]

so you will need to purchase some carbon credits to cover your CO2 output for the flight.

No, carbon credits only give the status-quo permission to keep doing what they are doing.  I pay my carbon credits so I can do whatever I want they will say.  What else do carbon credits do.  Rich people get tax money and tax breaks.  Carbon credits are an invitation to corruption.  They will be gamed.

The billionaire pays like everyone else. Carbon credits are elitist so the billionaire pays a carbon fee and dividend payment.  The same as everyone else, no more no less.  We shot the carbon credit guy last week.  Good riddance to that capitalist worm.  He had a plan to give yacht owners their carbon credits back, plus fifty percent.  It seems growth in the private yacht industry needs help.  Sales have been slow.  We have to do some stimulating, all the billionaire butt says.

You look out the window and see a human drone car fly past as you sip  your libation of choice.  You pull out your UBI card with your fee and dividend payments on it.  You order another. 

You get your receipt from the credit card machine.  You smile, there must be a lot of billionaires flying drone cars this month.  The receipt shows your daily payout.  Your balance is now higher than it was when you started drinking.  The daily payment was $17.58.  Higher than average.  Since you arranged your lifestyle to be car free and you have moved where you can get around on a skateboard you do not buy gas.  You have earned $2184.32 in six months by not driving.

The carbon credit guy was going to give all the money back to the billionaires in too-big-to-fail payments.  They have a card for that.  The economy had to be stimulated 'don't you know'.  The carbon credit guy had everything set up to give their carbon credit money back.  Now his 'DAVOS cards' won't be used.  They will have zero balances for eternity.

Payments to the people.  Payments to the people right on!


Seriously think about it.  Money paid to a carbon credit. does not go to a particular place.  The money can be diverted to a general fund where it will be used like any other tax.  Being as corporations have to pay more for fuel, their lobbyists will see to it that corporate income tax is lowered to compensate.  Carbon credits then become worthless.

Carbon fee and dividend has a double benefit.  The money paid in changes consumption patterns, but so does the money paid out.  Hugely.  A big difference.  When carbon credit money is paid out it does not do a damn thing.  What do you do with carbon credit money.  Build roads?  Maybe a bridge to nowhere or two?  And you have ruined the economy because the average Joe is going broke from paying for carbon credits.

Money from fee and dividend is different.  This money stimulates the economy because average Joe gets the money.  Enough to drive because average Joe has $2 to offset the $7 gasoline which would have been only $5 without carbon fee and dividend.  Average Joe can still get to work and he still wants to.  But all carbon credits did was charge $2 more for the gas.  In the carbon credit system Joe puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger because he can't make his life work on $7 gas.  Not without the extra two bucks.

Carbon Fee and Dividend is night and day different from a carbon credit.

[RE]

As I recall, the last time we went over this, the math didn't work out.  Not going over that again.  When I start getting rich collecting credits since I don't fly or drive, I will let you know.

RE

[K-Dog]

As I recall, the last time we went over this, the math didn't work out.  Not going over that again.  When I start getting rich collecting credits since I don't fly or drive, I will let you know.

RE

You have issues with math.  What do you mean you don't get it.  Oil comes out of the ground and people get the payments.  There is very little to understand.  Your comment tells me you do not understand the concept and have not had the ahh-ha moment yet.  Perhaps this will help.  I will take the fee to an absurd level so you see what would happen.  It is about the math.

Thought experiment.

We put a fee and dividend so high that $5 gas now costs $105 a gallon.  You, Mr. Average Joe have to get to work and your tank is on empty.  You are running on fumes.  Can you roll down the hill to the gas station and fill up?  (I have done this.) You look at your UBI card where digital ink shows you have $2063.14 on your account.  It was updated the last time you used your card.

No problemo.  You Mr. Average Joe can pay for $105 dollar gas because the money is on your card.  But with only $2083.14 on your card you better not buy more than 19 gallons or you are going to have to come up with the extra cash.  Come up with the extra cash just like a billionaire flying his hover car has to do.  Not to worry though, the pump stops when the card limit is reached.  If you want more gas you have to transfer some of your own funds onto the card.  Or use another card.  By the time you need more gas, more money will be posted on your UBI card.  Note this, at an absurd level Fee and Dividend actually works, but everything is wonky.

At $105 a gallon you will not be transferring money onto your card.  But use less gas than average and there will soon be enough money on your card to take a road trip to Vegas from Anchorage if that trips your trigger.  All you have to do is use less gas than average for a few months.

Being as you are an average joe working in fast food, you will not be using more than an average amount of gas because you don't have the money.  Unless your lotto number comes in you will not be adding money to your own card.  As you do not drive much, nothing in your lifestyle has to change.  You can forget that if you use a park and ride you will be building a balance on your card and not simply saving money on gas.  You can forget that if you use a gallon less a week you can put $100 in your pocket besides keeping the $5 you did not spend.  Forget all about the free money.  Don't think of it.

About that night and day difference.  With carbon credits you don't even get a card.  Nuff said.

If you want to make it totally personal, you live in assisted living and do not need to drive at all.  With a Fee and Dividend set absurdly high you would rapidly move into a six or seven figure asset range.  Consider what it would do to Mr.  Average Joe.  But as you do not drive now, you do not have to do jack to put yourself in the sweet spot.  The rest of us have to think on it.  All you do is transfer your card balance into your bank account once a month while the rest of us figure out how to get on the same page.


Sleep on it tonight, in the morning you will begin to see the light.

* An instant absurd level of Fee and Dividend would change the game so quickly that rich people of all stripes would shut Fee and Dividend down.  Like yesterday they would.  But the absurd level lets you see how it works.

** In reality a citizens assembly starts things out with fifty dollars on a ton equivalent of carbon.  As society adapts, Fee and Dividend moves to a level that makes the adaptation comfortable for everyone but kings and billionaires, who must now content themselves with only having the best of everything.  A citizens assembly controls the program, not politicians.

*** If you already have a low carbon lifestyle you will make bank while everyone else catches up.  When they do catch up, then we are all living in the world we want to live in.  How much would that suck?

[RE]

My reply was already made.

https://chasingthesquirrel.com/doomstead/index.php?msg=2135

Well, I get the concept there to make it antiregressive and transfer money from the rich to the poor, but I would have to see the way the money distributes out, and my sense is that the extra cost will not affect Bill Gates at all, obviously he can pay anything you could charge.

For the really poor who make less than $50K year, an extra $5K will be a nice bonus if they drive 0 miles, and don't take public transport, but few are that low in carbon footprint.

The average person with average income driving average miles will end up even at zero.

As you move outward on the curve away from the median, above average consumers would pay more and get back less on a scale going from 0--->$5500  Below average $5500-->0.  Basically it would be a reversion to the mean with some above average income people spending less, but past a certain income they don't give a shit.  Lower income people would get a bonus, but would probably use the money to take a vacation or burn carbon in some other way.

So, bottom line I still don't see it reducing consumption all that much.

RE

[K-Dog]

So, bottom line I still don't see it reducing consumption all that much.

RE [/color][/i]

You don't get it for whatever reason.  It is not for me to understand your recalcitrance.

The average guy would start riding a bicycle to work if Fee and Dividend goes high enough.  Breaking even will not be good enough for him, and he won't be breaking even when everyone else does it anyway.  Believe it or not, billionaires actually do watch their money.  As I have know a few you can take my word on it.  At $105 dollar a gallon gas, bunker fuel will cost so much motor yacht use will vanish because nobody will want a smaller yacht, and billionaires will actually not be able to use the ones they have now so much.  Not at an absurd price where bunker fuel is twenty times what it is now. 

Billionaires have most of their wealth in assets, but you act like they can spend their billions any way they wish.  A man with a hundred million and a man with a billion.  The man with the hundred million could easily have more ready cash.

I am not going to argue that changing the price of fossil fuels will change behavior.  The idea that it would not makes no sense at all.

Everyone's behavior would change.  And the only losers are billionaires and doomers who have become so sour they can't believe there actually could be a solution to the clusterfuck.

Doom is only a rest stop between paradise or oblivion.

[RE]

You don't get it for whatever reason.  It is not for me to understand your recalcitrance.

I get the idea of it, I just need to see it actually implemented and what the price of gas, diesel and jet fuel are at the pump and finally how big my check is every month since I use zero gas or jet fuel.  I don't even take public transportation.  So if anybody will get rich on this scheme it's me, and I'd be very happy if it works like you think it will.

Now, is there a snowball's chance in hell they will try it out before I kick the bucket so we can find out who was right and who was wrong?  There's no other way to do it besides actually running the program.  A computer simulation would not be enough, even if you had AI simulating human behavior.

RE

[K-Dog]

You don't get it for whatever reason.  It is not for me to understand your recalcitrance.

I get the idea of it, I just need to see it actually implemented and what the price of gas, diesel and jet fuel are at the pump and finally how big my check is every month since I use zero gas or jet fuel.  I don't even take public transportation.  So if anybody will get rich on this scheme it's me, and I'd be very happy if it works like you think it will.

Now, is there a snowball's chance in hell they will try it out before I kick the bucket so we can find out who was right and who was wrong?  There's no other way to do it besides actually running the program.  A computer simulation would not be enough, even if you had AI simulating human behavior.

RE

You should be on the citizens assembly that sets the rate.  Don't be late.

[RE]

You should be on the citizens assembly that sets the rate.  Don't be late.

As long as I don't need to fly or drive.

What's the proposed rate?  What would gas cost at the pump today?

RE

[K-Dog]

You should be on the citizens assembly that sets the rate.  Don't be late.

As long as I don't need to fly or drive.

What's the proposed rate?  What would gas cost at the pump today?

RE

There is no answer for that because as time goes by the rate increases.  This is why a citizens assembly must control the pain.  The Citizens' Climate Lobby proposes starting at $15 per ton of CO2 and increasing by $10 per ton each year. This gradual increase is intended to give businesses and consumers time to adjust and to provide a clear signal to invest in cleaner technologies.

I struck out the bullshit.  If you made the rate high initially there would be enormous disruption.  Cleaner tech has nothing to do with it.  That is a lie.  The truth is money piles are threatened and the author of the above was not honest enough to state an uncomfortable truth.  The program changes human behavior by modifying the choices people can make and has nothing to do with tech.  Time to adjust means keep disruption within reasonable limits.  Changing people's choices is a threat to the established and well off. 

Consider two McMansions one in the city, and one thirty miles out in the burbs.  They are worth the same now. The mcMansion in the burbs is bigger and nicer if they are worth the same, because the land in the city is worth more.  Now double the price of gas overnight.  The property value of the suburban lot crashes.  The burb McMansion essentially becomes worthless.  This is the actual reason Carbon Fee and Dividend has to start slow.  The pain of too high a rate would cause a conservative counter-revolution.  There would be too many people who's lives would suddenly not work.

As people enjoy payments (in a program done right), the program becomes more popular and the rate ratchets up.  After a few years raising the rate causes less pain.  There are no more housing starts in the deep burbs now, and the dense city planning urban planners want is well under way.  People have adjusted, and as the rate ratchets up there is less pain.

$15 per ton of CO2 increased by $10 per ton each year will increase the cost of a gallon of gas by about $1.40 after ten years.  Average consumption of 23 gallons a week provides a weekly deposit of $32.20 per person. 

Ten years to get that far is way too long.  That said I'd be fine with a low initial rate which does not do much.  Not much is not the same thing as nothing, and as climate shocks wake up the general population there will be pressure to set the rate higher.  With the system is already in place, no problemo.

Once Fee and Dividend is in place society will change as fast as it wants to.  The way to fuck it up is to let politicians get in charge of Fee and Dividend and they will try, and this being America the sheep will probably let them.

I can already hear 'them' screaming 'this is how we do it in America'.  But as soon as politicians are in charge, special interests will game the system. 

Getting the system in place is more important than fighting capitalist nimrods who want to have the system their way and put politicians in charge right now.  We fight nimrods later.  By any means necessary.  The theft of the commons must stop.

Citizens climate lobby came up with this.

I think we can assume that the rate structure described earlier generated the graph.  I do not think it means anything without more info.  Citizens Climate lobby spins the proposal along capitalist lines.  Not exactly what I want and 'experts' absolutely should not be running things behind closed doors.

What the fuck is up with this graph going to zero.  The citizens assembly should structure things for a flat line set at a thousand a year or so at the end.  the graph is a wank IMHO.  The actual fact is an average consumer should always get a dividend.  The reason is corporations also buy fossil fuel and they do not get the kickback.  Their prices are higher because of their added fossil fuel costs.  The consumer deserves the kickback to offset the higher prices corporations will pass on.  Just having a graph does not mean smarts are involved.

I have to accept that an actual American system won't be perfect to start with.  If a movement for Fee and Dividend gets traction I'll be writing about how to do it right.  That is all I can do.  Try.

Fee and Dividend is fundamentally different from a tax because government does NOT get the money.  But after that distinction is made, there are a range of variants to the proposals.  Meaning your question about how much you would get has no answer at this time.

[RE]

There are no more housing starts in the deep burbs and the dense city planning urban planners want is well under way.

So, in cities where we already don't have enough affordable housing, all the MaMansion dwellers are going to try and move back in so they have to drive less?  Where are all these new homes going to be built?  Urban density in NYC is already packed like sardines.  All the Bridge & Tunnel people from Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey are going to squeeze in also?

RE

[K-Dog]

There are no more housing starts in the deep burbs and the dense city planning urban planners want is well under way.

So, in cities where we already don't have enough affordable housing, all the MaMansion dwellers are going to try and move back in so they have to drive less?  Where are all these new homes going to be built?  Urban density in NYC is already packed like sardines.  All the Bridge & Tunnel people from Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey are going to squeeze in also?

RE

The housing has to be made affordable.  You are giving the exact reason why the initial rate has to start low and be under the control of a citizens assembly.

So, in cities where we already don't have enough affordable housing, all the MaMansion dwellers are going to try and move back in so they have to drive less?

Lack of planning made the existing system.  Replacing chaos with something that makes sense will not happen without pain.  Cities with not enough affordable housing die.  As it should be.

Cities which take care of their housing issues will own the future.  As it should be.

But your fear is unfounded.   Carbon Fee and Dividend is a sea change in attitude and behavior.  With Fee and Dividend all sorts of programs to fix housing issues now become required, and not simply desired or farts of wishful thinking. 

Fee and dividend will not happen in isolation.  If you want affordable housing solved, adopt Fee and Dividend.  People will be forced to solve housing issues.  They will have no choice.  Currently the choice is to do nothing, so I would not worry about something coming along and disrupting current efforts to rectify the situation because there are no such efforts that amount to beans.

Once upon a time necessity was the mother of invention.  It can be again.

[RE]

I think we need to build the affordable housing first so when the fuel prices start to rise people have a place to move to.  Otherwise we'll end up with even more people living in their cars than we have now.

RE

[K-Dog]

I think we need to build the affordable housing first so when the fuel prices start to rise people have a place to move to.  Otherwise we'll end up with even more people living in their cars than we have now.

RE

You are not going to get affordable housing without a revolution.  The profit motive took over and extraordinary measures must be taken to put that genie back in the bottle.  That being the case 'waiting for it first' is counterproductive. 

Without a party to demand change, there will be no change.  A social justice party built around carbon dividends will give you a base with which to demand affordable housing.  Without a base to make demands you simply are not going to get affordable housing or anything else. 

Humpty Dumpty fell off the housing wall long ago.  Greed was good in the 1980's.  It was as American as apple pie and the myth of greed is good is still pushed by our upper class.  Greed of course did not start in the 1980's.  But that was when Social Darwinism was rechristened with that catchy phrase.  Now forty years later, greed pushed prices so high affordable housing is out of sight.  Membership in the church of greed is as high as ever.  The century of the self is not over.

If you want affordable housing you have to change a lot of social programming first.  The way things are now, very few people have a problem with housing.  Anger at being locked out because prices are high is not the same thing as having issues with the arrangements.  Many people benefit from current arrangements, and these people are highly motivated to keep things exactly as they are.  Most of the rest are class traitor wanna-bees who support current property ownership arrangements even though they have no pot to piss in. 

I am the only person I know who actually does not like seeing their house increase in value.  Home ownership was never about making money for me.  Home ownership is a value to me because I remember my grandmother and her brothers talking about people being 'put out' of their homes in the 1930s.  Good people.  Owning a home I do not consider to be an 'investment', and I never have.  Ideally an average home should cost about five times an average annual wage.  That gives normal working people the ability to own one.  That would make my home worth a third to a half of what greed says it is worth now.  Maybe.  If I could buy an equivalent home with that lowered amount I would be fine with it.   

Try and find someone who thinks like I do.  Good luck.  You are going to implement affordable housing how?  You have no foundation on which to build it.

[RE]

Well, you have a chicken-egg problem.  With so many people who live out in suburbia who are forced to use their cars every day, they will not support the carbon dividend, they will be the people losing the most money.  If there isn't anywhere for them to move to because the housing hasn't been built yet, they're stuck.  You'll get your revolution, but not the one you want.  They'll revolt against the dividend.

RE