"proposal to abolish the Payroll (Social Security + Medicare) Tax and to replace it with an energy tax..."
While I have not seen the details of the energy tax proposal, I can see at least one problem with it: people now collecting Social Security would be taxed again through the energy tax on benefits they have already paid for. This would be double taxation. For this reason I believe the tax will not fly.
I had the unique experience of meeting Rainwater in person back in late 2004 at a speaker series by him and his wife, Darla Moore, at my business school, The Darla Moore School of Business. His entire speech basically hinged around the topic of limited resources and I and one of my advisers brought up peak oil questions, which Rainwater seemed to be expecting more of. I also had the chance to talk to him at the end for about five minutes and the man is bloody brilliant.
The saddening thing though, was the refusal by the majority of the audience (200+ International MBA students) to accept what he was saying about hitting a limit to raw materials in the coming years. In my discussion after the event, the most common responses were along the lines of "What a whackjob." I suppose students forking out hard earned cash don't want to be told the sky is falling and that that fancy degree won't be worth much when we don't need all their overpaid financial service positions when skyrocket oil kills the markets.
I also find it funny that T. Boone Pickens is mentioned along with Rainwater, when it was Rainwater that bought Mesa out from under him. He casually referred to him as Boone during the speech, but I imagine there's still some enmity there.
I also had the good luck of hearing from Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan/Renault about the future of the automotive industry and he seemed more tempered on the subject, but obvious about the fact that hybrids and alternate energy sources would be the future of the auto industry.
It's good to know that some of the most powerful men in the world realize what is going on, even if some of our leaders do not.
Nick, from greenr - energy, environment, global warming
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