[Taxacom] Conservation taxes

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,
       Given that a large majority of humans are either poorly educated
and/or don't really give much of a damn about their impact (as long as
they get subsidized prices for their so-called entertainment), paying
the real costs of such folly through taxation is the only real solution.
I'll give you just a few suggestions.      
       As a minor example, since business and science can increasingly
be conducted online, such travel is really increasingly unnecessary.
But tourism is even more wasteful in that it wastes energy and often
spreads diseases.  Tourists should pay the real costs of their
entertainment at every turn (taxation on transport, hotels, and so on).
We will never truly eradicate diseases just by innoculation if
unnecessary travel is not curbed (just because the tourism industry
might object).           
        But even MORE important is taxation on the follies of the
excessively "Rich and Famous".  There should probably be a federal sales
tax (in ALL countries) of AT LEAST 50% on any sale of luxuries
(expensive art, yachts, second homes, expensive jewelry, or any other
item that is priced in the millions of dollars).  Use much of that money
for conservation of species that ultimately pays back the real price
that such excessive human life-styles (of a tiny minority) cost the
ecosystems and non-human species of the world.            
       Frankly, I think many billionaires could care less.  And EVEN
those caring billionaires who plan to donate much of their fortunes to
charities do not look far enough into the future to achieve the best
results.  If your billions only focus on hunger or disease in the short
term, it can just continue to expand the human population that will
continue to expand human suffering ten or twenty years from now.  It
makes them feel good in the present, but in the long run it is really
just expanding the scope of future human misery (as well as increasing
biodiversity destruction) into the future.  How many of them really
understand population biology and the warnings of Malthus?  It you are
truly a billionaire do-goer, then look at the long-term implications of
your actions, not just the short-term that makes you feel good in the
present.               
      For those who fail to do so, or even more  the excessively rich
who don't really care, high rates of taxation on your transactions
should be highly taxed.  And if you think I am talking about raising
income taxes on your excessive income from 36% to 39%, you've seen
nothing compared to Obama's proposal to let your tax-breaks expire.          
        As Warren Buffet has pointed out, it is ludicrous that people of
his wealth are taxed at a far lower rates than the people who work for
him.  We're not talking about Communism here, just that all of the
inordinately rich finally paying a really FAIR price for their excesses
and stop profitting off of millions of people to pay for those
undeserved excesses.  Warren Buffet seems like a nice enough guy, but he
is probably not typical of the super rich, and if the good-doers like
the Buffets and Gates end up OVERLY donating to causes that increase
human population growth even further, it only feels good in the short
term, and can just postpone the inevitablily of future misery.  Human
population control should be a major part of this equation if one is
really serious about human happiness in the long run, not to mention
global diversity issues.    
          -------Ken Kinman