“You know, we can’t keep talking about our dependence on foreign oil and the need to deal with global warming and the challenge that it poses to our climate — and to God’s creation — and just let business as usual go on. That means something has to be taken away from some people.”
-Hillary Clinton, June 4th, 2007
Bet you can’t wait to vote her in office, huh? Once again, I’m calling for a moratorium on Hillary.
The Moratorium Site 
June 6, 2007 at 10:09 pm |
I can understand removing tax-funded subsidies, until the industry puts a greater percentage of their profit into R&D. But I don’t think taking profits in a capitalism is smart (or ethical).
Infrastructure is monopolable (i think I made up a word), meaning any schmuck can’t go out and start drilling, refining, and selling oil/gas. In that regard, I can understand tightening the belt (removing tax payer subsidies), but cutting off our supply of help is different than stealing from Big Oil and giving back to Joe Public. And trust me, the government isn’t Robin Hood.
June 6, 2007 at 10:57 pm |
hey, i just wanted to let you know that i had to change my blog, so the new one is http://chereemoore.blogspot.com/. it is not as pretty as the other one, but i own all of my own intellectual property.
June 11, 2007 at 12:27 pm |
Hillary is a socialist, and we all know where that leads. I’m scared to death about what is going to happen to the economy if she gets elected.
However, I’m all for getting rid of corporate welfare. its just the same as regular welfare, it creates dependency on the government, and it keeps bad companies afloat. Get rid of regular welfare, get rid of corporate welfare.
June 15, 2007 at 12:36 pm |
Hi Roland, sorry I haven’t been around in a while. Before you declare your moratorium on Hillary, drop by my blog and give me some good, concrete reasons why I shouldn’t vote for her. All I really have is my women’s intuition.
June 15, 2007 at 5:37 pm |
Roland, good comment on my blog! Read my response.
June 21, 2007 at 4:32 pm |
Quotes like this are exactly why I might even vote for Hillary (only if she beats Obama in the primaries of course).. Sounds like she’s putting a moratorium on the right things… Cheers!
June 21, 2007 at 5:17 pm |
So, globalizati, if Hillary didn’t think families needed two cars and she ordered Govco to seize your car, that would be ok with you? On your blog you state you believe in freedom and justice. Would that be freedom?
June 25, 2007 at 2:17 am |
Your analogy is so pitifully vacuous that it hardly deserves a response. But, I’m a nice guy. Adding reasonable taxes to the profits made by companies off of a good that has negative externalities seems perfectly reasonable–she’s not advocating taking cars away from people. Rather, by redirecting some money we can develop better solutions to several problems that face our society.
We can find those funds to redirect from the companies which make billions on the sale of polluting energy. This is not the same as destroying the companies either legally or financially, but would instead leave substantial profit incentives for better sales in place, even after the taxes. Keeping market principles in place is key, but when short term economic decisions lead people and companies to make decisions which are damaging to each other and our long term situation, tweaking of the market may be required. It seems that higher gas prices would be a net gain for America in the long term, as they would direct consumers interests to options that would be much less damaging to the environment.
I think developing long-term solutions to serious problems–pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels and the ultimately limited supply of them, not to mention our foreign policy which is strongly influenced by controlling access to vital resources–is central to the notion of justice and freedom, lest those problems lead to ultimate reductions in either. Maybe our definitions of freedom and justice are a bit disparate?
June 25, 2007 at 10:00 am |
Once again, what right does she have to simply take profits from a company and use it as she wishes? You say she will not take cars but who is to say?
Also, people so often like to quote “profits, profits, profits” but never really take a look at the profit margin or the net profits of something. If Hillary “takes profits” gas prices will soar as the companies will simply charge more.
That is what is so wrong with Socialists like Hillary. They hate capitalism and don’t think companies should make any profits.
June 25, 2007 at 1:38 pm |
What “right” does she have? The same right that any government has to tax anyone on anything. If you think that right doesn’t exist (ie, all taxes are evil), then there’s an ideological discussion needing to be had. However, if you agree that some level of taxes are necessary for a functioning government and society, then the debate simply becomes one over what to tax, and at what rate. And again, “Socialists like Hillary” (ooo, the S word) are surprisingly fond of capitalism–she was on the board of freaking Walmart–and obviously want companies to make profits (her political livelihood depends on that as much as garnering votes). A more reasonable rewording of your last sentence would be to say that she doesn’t think companies should make unlimited profits regardless of the impact of how what they’re selling detrimentally effects the public. Ultimately, that public outrage is what would allow her (as a democratically-elected representative of the people in a democracy) to fight for a tax on a specific thing.
As I already noted, higher gas prices aren’t necessarily the worst possible options. Pigouvian taxes (taxes on goods with high negative externalities, such as carbon products) are an excellent way to adjust the market to reflect real world effects of that spending that would not otherwise be considered in the decisions of consumers. Pigouvian taxes’ strongest advocates are a few conservative economists, such as Greg Mankiw.
June 25, 2007 at 4:22 pm |
When did I say that Govco has no right to tax?
Hillary does want profits…but only as much as SHE is willing to grant. How much does it cost to make an Ipod? Probably not much but they sell those things for $300!! For someone like Hillary to come in and arbitrarily dictate that Apple can only make X amount on the sale of each Ipod is simply wrong and totally against the concept of capitalism. It goes against the feedom that we should be able to enjoy without the intervention of Govco.
Speaking of Wal-mart, isn’t it quite interesting that Hillary is so anti-walmart yet served on their board?
Public outrage? Yes, that outrage is working with the amnesty bill ain’t it?
June 26, 2007 at 4:00 am |
Sorry, a general aversion to taxes seemed to underlie your comments–I wanted to be sure that there wasn’t a blanket ideological fatwa against taxes behind your views. That said, if some taxes are acceptable and some are not, where is the line? Do you agree that people should pay a tax on gas that goes toward maintaining the roads and such? That’s exactly what we already do, because consumption of gasoline is directly related to wear and tear on the roads, pollution, etc. Is that a violation of freedom? Taxing the gas companies themselves is simply another way of doing this, one that will allow for increased investment in alternative fuels. What part of that crosses the line to being “simply wrong”? Saying something is wrong repeatedly doesn’t really make a strong argument.
And of course, Hillary isn’t arbitrarily deciding by herself how much to tax gas companies. If she goes too far, her constituents will dislike it and rein her in, or not re-elect her. And she has to find the support of many other elected officials to get anything into law.
The public outrage is exactly why the “amnesty bill” you mention has been festering for years with little action. Congressmen are scared to act because they know the feelings go strongly both ways, and our government is strongly divided on this one, since it represents the people who are themselves strongly divided.
June 26, 2007 at 10:00 am |
Did Hillary say her “taking” was going to be in the form of taxes?
June 26, 2007 at 2:39 pm |
That was the rather obvious implication. Did you think she was going to ask for a personal check?
June 26, 2007 at 3:05 pm |
Oh wait, you probably did.
June 26, 2007 at 10:22 pm |
With her, who knows?
November 5, 2009 at 3:51 pm |
Even letting the debate continue, when our species may hang in the balance, says something about us. I argue that there is a certain presumptuousness surrounding our approach to how we are addressing global warming that goes well beyond simply having a short-term perspective. What if the cockroach has a more sustainable position? I recommend the following post: http://euandus3.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/climatic-presumption-what-is-the-forecast/