Notre Dame Cathedral is burning

[Populuxe]

Good luck with that. They’ll just leave the country and make the middle class foot the tax bill.

The wealthy refuse to pay their fair share in taxes so it's the middle class who are already footing the bill, to the point that the middle class is rapidly disappearing, leaving a small handful of extraordinarily wealthy people and a whole lot of working poor.

A church roof burned itself to cinders.

A world famous national monument was in real danger of being destroyed. We can both be thankful it wasn't as bad as we all originally feared.

Any government that has to rely on the generosity of the super-wealthy to help it in it's time of need is not doing it's job.

 

[McLaren]

The wealthy refuse to pay their fair share in taxes so it's the middle class who are already footing the bill, to the point that the middle class is rapidly disappearing, leaving a small handful of extraordinarily wealthy people and a whole lot of working poor.

Pretty sure there’s statistics out there that show the wealthy do pay a large percentage of taxes.

But that still doesn’t matter. You can not attempt to force higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for disasters or the poor. They will up and leave bc they have the money to do so easily.

Any government that has to rely on the generosity of the super-wealthy to help it in it's time of need is not doing it's job.

Asinine.

We shouldn’t rely on people’s charity. So let’s force them instead.

 

[Populuxe]

Pretty sure there’s statistics out there that show the wealthy do pay a large percentage of taxes.

But that still doesn’t matter. You can not attempt to force higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for disasters or the poor. They will up and leave bc they have the money to do so easily.

Top marginal tax rate is 37% this year. Top marginal tax rate in the 1950s was 91%. Were the wealthy leaving the US back then? No they weren't.

Asinine.

Please keep this civil. I'm disagreeing with you. I'm not insulting you.

 

[Famine]

A world famous national monument was in real danger of being destroyed.

That's a shame, rather than a disaster.

Tohoku was a disaster. The Boxing Day tsunami was a disaster. This is a building fire which burned a roof, and will be fixed in five years, with no loss of life or property beyond the small portion of the building itself.

 

[Populuxe]

That's a shame, rather than a disaster.

Tohoku was a disaster. The Boxing Day tsunami was a disaster. This is a building fire which burned a roof, and will be fixed in five years, with no loss of life or property beyond the small portion of the building itself.

I agree.

 

[Milouse]

I wonder if they will rebuild the roof sub-structure out of wood, duplicating the historical construction methods ... or out of modern fire-retardant materials? This would seem to be a crucial decision & no doubt will become the subject of much discussion & disagreement.

The Reims cathedral (detroyed by germans during WWI) has been rebuilt without the wooden frame, and nobody notice. Since it's not visible, destroyed, and is archived by books, photos and video, my view is i don't really see the point of rebuilding it like original.
Discussion and disagreement already started indeed, with a clear conservatives/progressives battle looming.
I hope a touch of modernity, embracing the idea that this civilization is living, will be added. As it has been in the past, and as these two architects imagined with a Notre-Dame glass roof.

The Eiffel Tower, then seen as an horror by many Parisians, has almost been dismantled shortly after construction.

The Louvre glass pyramid (1988) raised a heated debate too, but a few decades later, it's just a natural part of it.

Pretty sure there’s statistics out there that show the wealthy do pay a large percentage of taxes.

There is data about tax evasion too. It's estimated to at least 25 billions euros / year.

This is a building fire which burned a roof, and will be fixed in five years, with no loss of life or property beyond the small portion of the building itself.

Not to arg about your point, but i'm afraid there's a bit more work than that: the stone used in the building structure (Pierre de Paris) is made of limestone, which is internally affected by both heat and water. Urgent work has been done in the last two days to prevent walls from collapsing at first windy condition - luck here was the excellent weather (no kidding, at the second i'm writing this, i'm hearing thunder). And there are three big holes in the stone arches. Some tainted glass are missing. 300 tons of lead melted and may have made the site toxic.

NB: Indeed, "sad" weather forecast on TV

 

[Famine]

Not to arg about your point, but i'm afraid there's a bit more work than that: the stone used in the building structure (Pierre de Paris) is made of limestone, which is internally affected by both heat and water. Urgent work has been done in the last two days to prevent walls from collapsing at first windy condition - luck here was the excellent weather (no kidding, at the second i'm writing this, i'm hearing thunder). And there are three big holes in the stone arches. Some tainted glass are missing. 300 tons of lead melted and may have made the site toxic.

Eh, that stone was already messed up

 

[TenEightyOne]

I wonder if they will rebuild the roof sub-structure out of wood, duplicating the historical construction methods ... or out of modern fire-retardant materials?

There's a lot of discussion about that. The large oaks are hard to come by - the days of a Henry granting you 12 from his park are long gone. However, several historic parks around Europe have offered to make some available but they're a valuable resource that might be avoided if other (ultimately invisible) options are available. There are some suggestions that a titanium substructure might be used, but whatever the solution it's likely that the opportunity will be taken to add a flame suppression system of water and air fans.

 

[McLaren]

There is data about tax evasion too. It's estimated to at least 25 billions euros / year.

I wasn't aware only the wealthy commit tax evasion.

Top marginal tax rate is 37% this year. Top marginal tax rate in the 1950s was 91%. Were the wealthy leaving the US back then? No they weren't.

This isn't the 1950s. Come forward about 70 years. Society has changed.

Please keep this civil. I'm disagreeing with you. I'm not insulting you.

You weren't insulted.

Your idea was; to believe instead of relying on a wealthy person to donate, you'll forcibly take their money through taxing them instead was anything but asinine. You have no idea if that money would go to relief funds or be thrown into a military budget for new weapons, and the rest of society's taxed income would continue to go to future disaster piggy banks.

People aren't stupid, the real reason behind such an argument is to cull the wealthy because some people think everyone else should have a hard cap on monetary possession. Your plan wounds any sort of drive to be successful in life if someone is going to tell you later on that you make too much and you'll need to be taxed more than others to pay your "fair share".

 

[Populuxe]

This is just going to go back and forth and it's getting increasingly off topic. I'll just say these two things: It's a shame you can't see how allowing uncontrolled wealth accumulation by a few people is a danger to society. And successful people will always be driven to succeed, regardless of the tax code.

 

[Tornado]

It was never on topic to begin with, unless rich people in the US are supposed to pay for Notre Dame?

 

[McLaren]

This is just going to go back and forth and it's getting increasingly off topic. I'll just say these two things: It's a shame you can't see how allowing uncontrolled wealth accumulation by a few people is a danger to society. And successful people will always be driven to succeed, regardless of the tax code.

The same way it’s a shame you think a wealthy person should be forced to give money to rebuild a cathedral. Yeah, that’s not a danger to society either.

And no, wrong on that as well.
“Hey, once you make $10 million, we’re gonna take 70 cents out of every dollar more.” Yes, real drive to succeed with that kind of proposed tax.

Stick to being happy people decided to actually donate such huge sums to begin with.

 

[Swagger897]

Give governments your money and they will for sure find a way on how to spend it. They're not going to be saving it in a checking account for the future... Go ahead and kiss it goodbye.

 

[Dotini]

The yellow vest people, persistent in protest, are hopping mad over the elites opening their wallets for the cathedral, but overlooking the inability of the campesinos to make ends meet at the end of the month.

Edit:
Have seen reports of of upwards of a dozen churches in France torched or desecrated by Muslim immigrants in recent weeks. It's very possible, maybe even quite likely, that the Notre Dame cathedral fire was arson/terrorism. Naturally, the government will want to keep this secret in an effort to preserve order, stability and economic activity and whatever else is on its agenda.

 

[TexRex]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway*...

I like the idea that the structure is a living thing and that the fire be remembered as part of the rebuild, perhaps by leaving selected area(s) unrestored provided doing so doesn't compromise the structure itself.

*That's 100 consecutive a's, or, to put it into perspective, one for every 73 crinkles in a certain someone's tinfoil hat.

 

[Blitz24]

It was never on topic to begin with, unless rich people in the US are supposed to pay for Notre Dame?

I can imagine how well that's going to go, considering how many taxes we already have to try and support our crumbling everything.

 

[Swagger897]

I can imagine how well that's going to go, considering how many taxes we already have to try and support our crumbling everything.

International pitty tax

 

[TexRex]

International pitty tax

Should that not be "piety"?

 

[Blitz24]

International pitty tax

They won't help us with our roads though.