An easier way to have a progressive consumption tax than a VAT would be to have a progressive consumption (income minus savings and "good" consumption) tax at progressive rates. Let the VAT replace the wage taxes that (all too partially) fund the social insurance system.
Here's the complete note, organizing both quotes and your responses:
1. "I didn't give Fast, scalable, clean, and cheap enough the attention it deserved when it came out. To me, it was making an obvious point: solar and batteries are the best energy source for off-grid datacenters because they're much faster to build. Energy costs aren't a big factor for datacenters (~5% of costs) so it's okay that solar+batteries are a little more expensive than natural gas.
To be specific, a 90% renewable data center would have an energy cost of $109/MWh, while a gas plant would cost $86/MWh1. But they admit they didn't include many of the optimizations available to a renewable powered data center. These include using Erthos or PEG solar systems to lower capital costs, optimizing the datacenter to run on DC power, and reducing backup generator overcapacity. They estimate that even without redesigning for DC, costs would fall to $97/MWh for a 90% renewable data center."
Cool Shit.
2. FPGAs has some applications in AI but mostly in Edge AI applications. You don't have to rip your old machines in hundreds of devices that customers already own. Instead they can over-the-air updates if the AI algorithm changes.
3. "Risk & Progress has a nice piece on efficient tax systems such as VAT and DBCFT. VAT seems sensible and pretty efficient another reminder that we have tax policy basically figured out. But what if I want a more progressive system than the VAT? Lund mentions that you can offer a "prebate" or vouchers for common necessities like groceries. This is nice because it's better to make the payments system more progressive than force the tax system to be progressive. It also makes a VAT more politically feasible."
4. The voucher thing seems too complicated. Just increase the VAT to fund a NIT (negative income tax). This offsets the regressivity of VAT without creating a bureaucratic nightmare around what should be considered an essential good.
Who know which sets of technology will evolve in a taxation of net CO2 emissions world!
An easier way to have a progressive consumption tax than a VAT would be to have a progressive consumption (income minus savings and "good" consumption) tax at progressive rates. Let the VAT replace the wage taxes that (all too partially) fund the social insurance system.
Here's the complete note, organizing both quotes and your responses:
1. "I didn't give Fast, scalable, clean, and cheap enough the attention it deserved when it came out. To me, it was making an obvious point: solar and batteries are the best energy source for off-grid datacenters because they're much faster to build. Energy costs aren't a big factor for datacenters (~5% of costs) so it's okay that solar+batteries are a little more expensive than natural gas.
To be specific, a 90% renewable data center would have an energy cost of $109/MWh, while a gas plant would cost $86/MWh1. But they admit they didn't include many of the optimizations available to a renewable powered data center. These include using Erthos or PEG solar systems to lower capital costs, optimizing the datacenter to run on DC power, and reducing backup generator overcapacity. They estimate that even without redesigning for DC, costs would fall to $97/MWh for a 90% renewable data center."
Cool Shit.
2. FPGAs has some applications in AI but mostly in Edge AI applications. You don't have to rip your old machines in hundreds of devices that customers already own. Instead they can over-the-air updates if the AI algorithm changes.
3. "Risk & Progress has a nice piece on efficient tax systems such as VAT and DBCFT. VAT seems sensible and pretty efficient another reminder that we have tax policy basically figured out. But what if I want a more progressive system than the VAT? Lund mentions that you can offer a "prebate" or vouchers for common necessities like groceries. This is nice because it's better to make the payments system more progressive than force the tax system to be progressive. It also makes a VAT more politically feasible."
4. The voucher thing seems too complicated. Just increase the VAT to fund a NIT (negative income tax). This offsets the regressivity of VAT without creating a bureaucratic nightmare around what should be considered an essential good.