Quote:
Originally Posted by markbot
You're forgetting about the cost and consumption of resources to actually manufacture the book, the contamination of water from paper mills, resources to transport it (energy, packaging waste, time, etc), cost to store it, and annoyance of dealing with the waste when it is tossed.
In conjunction with the tax, I'd propose that the government prevent the prevention of reselling and loaning ebooks. There should be a way to transfer the ebook like a pbook....if we are to get rid of pbooks.
Pollution of electronics is bad....but environmental impact of pbooks is probably worse overall. a lot of people read ebooks on tablets and computers where they already have a device and don't need to purchase a special device.
I also believe they should greatly increase US gasoline taxes to like $4 per gallon instead of having those CAFE standards. They can gradually institute the tax so people have time to change behavior. I can guarantee u that very few people will buy an SUV if there is a $4 gas tax. the UAW would make passing the tax extremely difficult though, if not impossible. the tax monies could go toward creation of solar power plants and such. the other added benefit is that in effect the tax would transfer wealth from OPEC to the home country as it means that the home country would be effectively collecting some of the oil price increase instead of OPEC. OPEC would not be able to raise the underlying price as high since the cost to the consumer has the added tax to stifle demand.
pbooks are laughably antiquated...the sooner they are minimized the better. imagine a world that instead of using telecommunications and email, you'd have to write a LETTER and send it via post, every time! HAHHAA, that is so pathetic. this is how I view pbooks.
but I agree, the 20% tax would create other problems we'd have to deal with.
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I'm not forgetting anything... why put your words/thoughts in my mouth... Overall, you're also assuming that the US is the world as is usual for a lot of you ex-colonials - quite a lot of the real world actually does tax petrol (gasoline to you) at substantial rates, doesn't stop SUVs or any other gas-guzzler (so there goes YOUR guarantee but I guess that's usual for you - worth the paper it's printed on
) but does increase general prices of goods overall.
Pathetic is as pathetic does... you don't like paper, well tough, it's going to be around a lot longer than you and as for a lot of people reading books on tablets and computers (or even eReaders), so what... a lot is still a tiny minority of the world's population, the majority of whom still don't have access to eReading in any form... oh and paper is bio-degradeable or can be used as bio-fuel, more than you can say for a good part of electronic devices which are still not close to being totally recyclable... and why do you wish to destroy most of of the books of the last few centuries as no-one is even close to digitising them for any e-format...