The Future of Consumption: The Solution

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To: consumerforum@motherjones.com
From: max_sawicky
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Money spent by businesses for advertising reduces their net income. It is a cost of doing business and therefore should remain a deduction. Income received by those in the advertising business is and will remain taxable as income.

It is possible to construct a progressive consumption tax. This would be accomplished by allowing a deduction for net savings on a personal income tax form that would resemble the present one. The corporate income tax would be replaced with a value-added tax. There could be graduated rates, a generous standard deduction, and full taxation of inheritances. The interested reader is referred to recent books by Lawrence Seidman and David Bradford.

There is also a place to talk about environmentally motivated taxes (EMTs). In fact, these go more to the interests that spurred this discussion in the first place than taxes on consumption in general. As with consumption taxes, EMTs can be regressive and raise legitimate issues of fairness.

As I noted in a previous post, taxing or otherwise discouraging consumption doesn’t necessarily solve any problem we’ve discussed, since the money saved by forgoing consumption could spur spending by businesses on plant and equipment, leading to faster economic growth and more consumption down the line.

In closing, I would reiterate that the right focus, politically and on the merits, is on how to direct growth into socially beneficial directions, not on how to hold it back.

Happy holidays,
Max Sawicky

To: consumerforum@motherjones.com
From: bill_mckibben
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I’d just bow out with the simple observation that living a little more lightly on the earth does not detract from doing any of the other necessary things that need to be done—from fighting global warming to taking on poverty to…whatever. In my experience, it just makes you a little lighter and more fit for those fights, and fills your own life with a bit more joy. If that’s selfish, so be it. Happy holidays, all.

Bill

The Forum Part II: Searching for Solutions 1 2 3 4

The Forum Part I: Defining the Problem

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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