Comment Re:Tax (Score 1) 217
A wealthy person will have greater means to lower their CO2 emissions. If prices for natural gas goes up then they buy a heat pump. If gasoline prices go up then they buy an electric car. The middle class will see heat and transportation prices go up, so they cut back on vacations and lower the thermostat in winter.
This is true, but by simple nature of the wealthy consuming more the wealthy will pay a higher share of the carbon taxes. Maybe upper middle class will be least affected by being able to afford higher efficiency devices but not having so much money that they have excess consumption.
Unless this is micromanaged on the individual level it cannot be revenue neutral to the person.
I never said that it would be. In fact, I said the opposite, that it would be a progressive tax (you're arguing the opposite, that it is regressive). The term revenue neutral means just that - it is revenue neutral at the level of the government. It does not mean tax neutral at the individual level.
If on a more careful analysis (and not our armchair assertions) you are correct that the working class are more affected by this, then yes the carbon tax refund could be administered non-uniformly, i.e. a greater refund amount to those of lower income. Basically if I'm right there's no problem (as long as you're okay with higher taxes on the rich). If you're right there's a simple solution.
Re: regulatory burden. Basically you are saying that government should be more efficient. Yes, that would be great. It's an imperfect world that we live in however, govt is inefficient, as is private industry, because they're all made up of imperfect humans. Simplifying tax code like you ask for would be nice, but there were problem byzantine negotiations between various private stakeholders and legislators that led to the current tax code. Better enforcement of consumer protection law (such as lead paint as you say) would be great, but Republicans don't like spending money on enforcement.
The simple matter is...
THEY DID NOT KNOW.
It was actually quite well established that people in Boeing knew there was a risk. And the FAA realized there was a risk but did not immediately ground the aircraft, though I haven't looked deeper into why the FAA did not act until after a disaster. Boeing was being run by the MBAs and they created incentive structures such that the problem was not properly reported up the pipeline. Those who put these incentive structures in place should have known better, this is textbook for similar engineering disasters, and the 737 Max disaster will certainly be a prominent new case study in textbooks of engineering and business ethics, and organizational management.
So yes you're correct that upper management did not specifically know that they had a disaster in the waiting, but they had created an environment where corners would be cut to save costs in the short term, boosting shareholder value and executive bonuses. As it's very hard to prove a criminal case there is very little risk to doing this, and lots of potential reward for the executives.